The Portuguese Miracle of the Sun: A Modern Miracle?

Article by Josephine Vincent. Edited and researched by Hayley Arnold.

It is extremely rare for an event to occur which defies all reason and rational explanation, which ignores all scientific limitations and constitutes a miracle. The Portuguese ‘Miracle of the Sun,’ which occurred on October 13th, 1917 has divided witnesses and commentators as much as it has astounded them. The event was one of enormous significance to the Christian world, as it seemingly proved in many religious believers’ minds the existence of God. Moreover, the ‘Sun Miracle’ also shook the secular world to its core, as sceptics struggled to find a rational explanation to what appeared to defy all conventional scientific laws. 

Up to 100,000 people may have witnessed the event on October 13th, so it is impossible to construct an entirely monolithic narrative of what occurred on the day. However, the vast majority of witness testaments collected on the day have depicted 30-100,000 people gathering in a field near Fatima, Portugal called the Cova da Iria, after three shepherd children predicted that at high noon that day the Virgin Mary would appear. These predictions were based on previous visions the three children had had in which Mary promised them that she would provide a miracle so that “all may believe.” Word spread quickly around Fatima that visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary would appear that day to bless them. 

After a long period of torrential rain, the dark clouds surrounding the field suddenly broke, with the sun appearing as an opaque spinning disk in the sky. It was said to be significantly duller than normal, casting multi-coloured lights across the landscape. If that wasn’t frightening enough, the sun was then widely purported to have careered towards the earth in a zig zag pattern, terrifying many crowd members who thought it was signalling the end of the world. The event is reported to have only lasted a maximum of ten minutes, with widespread claims during this period that their previously drenched clothes miraculously became completely dry, as did the surrounding muddy ground. 

The most in-depth analysis of the witnesses of the Miracle of the Sun was conducted by Italian Catholic Priest John de Marchi, who dedicated seven years of his life (1943-1950) to the events at Fatima, interviewing various witnesses, which he compiled into a book The Immaculate Heart, published in 1952. Overall, despite variations in eyewitness testimony, they all provide evidence of how many witnesses genuinely believed they were witnessing a divine miracle. 

A contemporary reported for the Lisbon newspaper O Dia provides evidence of the crowd’s reaction to the sun bringing about a mood of religious euphoria: “the light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands… people wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the presence of the miracle they had awaited.” These eyewitnesses proclaimed the event a miracle, as it defied all scientific and logical explanation. De Marchi capitalised on this, by exclaiming that the engineers who studied the case reckoned that an astronomical amount of energy would have been necessary to dry the rain-soaked field. 

As it is evidenced, the majority of the Portuguese public, an overwhelmingly devout Catholic nation, believed the events of October 13th to be a religious miracle. The three shepherd children were exonerated as saints. According to the children, upon the Virgin Mary’s visitations she divulged that two of them were soon to die. Eerily enough, 10 years after the event the second youngest child, Francisco, died of influenza, followed a year later by the youngest child Jacinta, and aged only 10. Moreover, upon discovery of Jacinta’s body in 1951, her corpse was found to be incorrupt, her body had undergone no decomposition. Could this be evidence that these three children truly were chosen by God to spread the word of the miracle that occurred on October 13th 1917?

Nevertheless, the event has been criticised as much as it has been proclaimed a divine miracle by both contemporary and modern-day sceptics. A wide variety of scientific hypotheses have been presented by critics as an alternative explanation for what occurred. For example, Joe Nickell has noted that numerous other ‘sun miracles’ have been reported in the wake of 1917, such as in Lubbock, Texas in 1989. Nickel believes that this is due to the optical effects of staring at the sun for such a long period producing temporary retinal distortion, which may explain the dancing effects reported at such sightings. Furthermore, Massen substantiates this claim by reporting that sun miracles are often witnessed in places where religious pilgrims are ordered to stare at the sun. Kevin McClure has recently hypothesised that maybe it was the power of suggestion which brought about the mass hallucinations. The crowds were expecting to see a miracle, so they simply saw what they wanted to see. Could it be that the crowds gathered at Fatima in October 1917 truly were the first-hand witnesses to a miracle? Or was it simply the outcome of retinal distortion and the power of suggestion? Opinions on the Miracle of the Sun are utterly polarized, with different opinions largely being based on individual attitudes towards religion. Nevertheless, regardless of whether or not it was truly an authentic miracle, October 13th 1917 was undoubtedly a day that shocked the world. 

• A parhelion or Sun Dog is a phenomenon which creates bright spots of light in the sky, often creating a halo-like ring on either side of the sun. Parhelion can also appear as coloured patches of light to either side of the sun and can appear in any country during any season but they are most common when the sun is low in the sky. 

• The witnessing of a parhelion by Rene Descartes in 1629 led to him abandoning his metaphysical works and turning to the study of natural philosophy. 

• Visions of Christ and the Virgin Mary are relatively common amongst Roman Catholics and they are taken very seriously. The Vatican has a detailed set of steps for ‘Judging Alleged Apparitions and Revelations’ that claim supernatural origin, which have been published. Following these criteria can declare a vision as invalid, or they can allow Catholics to follow a devotion to the vision, but these visions are not endorsed by the Vatican. 

• In 2009 the film The 13th Day was released and is a dramatization of the ‘Miracle of the Sun’ at Fatima based on the writings of Sister Lúcia dos Santos. 

• Lúcia dos Santos died on February 13th 2005 and on the third anniversary of her death

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