PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF THE

MARIAN APARITION
EXPERIENCES IN FTIMA, 1917
- PRELIMINARY SYSTEMATIZATION AND MODELLING

Joaquim Fernandes

The present text intends to systematize a number of physical

sensations and reactions, reported by several witnesses at the time
of the classic religious events which took place at Cova da Iria in
1917. It is proposed that during the apparition experiences
there may have taken place a series of phenomena, linked by
causal nexus and by an economy of hypothesis, which are today
plausible and identifiable through the accumulated scientific
knowledge and by the effort of various researchers. It is assumed
that the reports could not anticipate similar effects, later to be
recognized in different cultural contexts and exceptional
phenomenological syndromes. Some theoretical models are
projected from literature and information which was directly given
to the author. There is an enumeration of recent models and
laboratorial experiments coming from convergent and
multidisciplinary areas which are susceptible to open new
perspectives on the psychophysical processes which take part of
apparitional manifestations in general. Eventual new acquisitions
are also drawn on the domains of anthropology and noetic
sciences (of the spirit).

Introduction

The impregnation of the well known Ftima apparitions of 1917 in the

Portuguese mythical and cultural fabric must be perceived in the gnoseological quadrants
of the marian tradition of popular Catholicism, fuelled by sediments of Neolithic
matriarchal cults. During the course of its 80 years of history, the mental complex of
Ftimas phenomena installed itself and flourished in the Portuguese society with no
discussion or alternatives, within the narrow bounds of a dichotomy of acceptance and
refusal. The systems of belief generate self-defence mechanisms, gathering strength in
the clarity of what is immediate and comfortable against what is indeterminate and
unreachable, and determine the way in which we perceive and reconstruct reality as a
collective in accordance to sensorial and cultural grids, and within boundaries which
are recognized and identified. 1
Recently, there has been a growing interest and curiosity on the behalf of
researchers and scientists from physical to human and social sciences about the public
and notorious episodes of 1917. This convergence of a concrete and passionless approach
to phenomena reputed as extraordinary, even miraculous by many, should not and does
not intend to collide with the status of religious and devotional object which was granted
by the dominant system of belief to the events of Cova da Iria in 1917. Nevertheless, this
surge of interest and investment by the national and international scientific community
comes to counteract an alleged impossibility and inaptitude of these phenomena deducted
from the Ftima reports to be framed in an objective analysis.
Scientific research should not excuse itself from the affirmation of its autonomy,
and must be given the possibility of questioning in all its plenitude with no coercive
boundaries which presume supposed unapproachable territories, by a circumstantial
convenience of several religious and temporal powers. Most of all, it is paramount to
overcome the classic dichotomy between belief and disbelief, faith and reason in a time
when those mental self-sufficiencies are poised for rectification by unmistakeable
signs.
None of this has anything to do with elitist and positivist presumptions, which are
a recurring excuse for those who are not interested in being exposed and confronted with
new data and perspectives which the march of historical time has made viable. The
integration of new portions of the Real in the outskirts of Knowledge comes from the
ability of human curiosity to erase successive impossibilities, as it is naturally supposed
to.

The first signs of a different, non-conformist and plural reading of the marian
religious phenomena, should be reminded from the publication, in the 1980s, of works
with an historical background, documented by the research of the author in cooperation
with the historian Fina dArmada. 2
It is within this legitimacy, assumed by the authority of universal knowledge that
we set out for a review of the phenomenology of the marian apparitions in Ftima.
Gradually, we realized that our correlations and suppositions were gaining momentum
and a worthy allegiance as far as scientific collaboration is concerned. From these
collaborations, which are from various origins, we must point out the continuing and
fruitful dialogue we have been keeping since the beginning of the 80s with Auguste
Meessen, theoretical physicist in the University of Louvaine. This researcher combines
his condition as an indefectible catholic with an exemplary feeling of not feeling
imprisoned by dogma and believing that our duty will always be that of searching for the
truth. 3

Materials and methods

Our sources are built upon the original interrogations of the three SEERS as well
as from first hand reports, dated and selected according to their informative wealth. With
this documental base approximately one hundred testimonies we have elaborated an
information support which, in its variety and subjectivity, presents the possible,
nevertheless historically verifiable, portrait of the 1917 events which took place on that
wasteland of the Portuguese countryside.
This material, due to its intrinsic wealth, was thoroughly and systematically
compared to a variety of effects and characteristics demonstrated in close proximity
experiences of non-identified aerial phenomena, and to symptomatic frameworks of
communication and contact in lay mans terms, registered in the course of the last 50
years.
One of the most curious and intriguing pieces of conviction comes from Lcias
original description when, in the Parrish Inquiry of 1917, she speaks of a very
luminous lady () who held a glowing ball in her hands and turned her back on the seers
when she went away. 4
The careful evaluation of the seers descriptions allow us to suppose the means of
locomotion of the luminous lady, how she appeared at the top of the tree and how
she was removed from it: through the gradual manifestation of a cone-shaped luminous
beam which was retractable and came from up high a supposed cloud which had
peculiar moving patterns since it moved against the wind and which enveloped the
feminine figure in its central section. There are examples, in the available literature,
coherent with this kind of luminous beams which some authors designate as solid light.
5

Another determining factor was the search of an eventual distribution of the

sightings of the so-called sun miracle, on October 13th 1917, and selected as possible
sources of information. We were able to verify, by direct localization or by probable and
indirect extrapolation, that most of the witnesses was distributed on the grounds of Cova
da Iria, along a 70 meter wide strip, roughly oriented in a north-south axis. All the known
testimonies in which people alleged physical and physiological reactions and effects
during the 10 minute time frame in which the solar object apparently came closer to the
crowd are placed within that strip of land. The sensations described during that
phenomenon were:

1. A sudden and intense heat;

2. The immediate drying of rain soaked clothes and soil;
3. Instant physiological effects (miraculous cures)

All of these reactions were consecutive to the apparent descent of the solar object
over the crowd gathered there. The described triple effect seems to suggest the hypothesis
of a manifestation of great thermal amplitude coming from a source outside the
witnesses. The anomalous movements of the object which supposedly imitated the
sun together with the simultaneity of its physical consequences, bring some obstacles for
the different explanation models regarding the hallucinatory nature of such events.
Within this context, we remind the discussion, which is still open, about proposals of
image projections which are typical of the several hypnotic states. 6

Results

We are therefore, in the position to promote the necessary evaluation, as much

objective as possible, of the results which allow to go beyond the emotional adhesion to
the Cova da Iria events in the sociological and anthropological specificity of the formats
of popular religiosity.
Among the aforementioned documented material elements, we must underline a
set of references produced by the little seers and/or simple circumstantial witnesses of the
apparitions in which they claim to have heard some kind of noise, defined in the original
documents of the time as a buzzing like a bee inside a jug which was heard every time
the Lady spoke to the seers WITHOUT MOVING HER LIPS. 7
Until not long ago, such analogies would have no other expression or meaning
besides that of picturesque details, common to the language and folklore which
characterize the region of Serra de Aire, in the more or less nave testimonies of
believers who experienced the cyclical episodes around the small tree.
But it so happens that this buzzing phenomenon, repeated here and there in the
planetary space and time, within different cultural sceneries could represent a coherent
nexus if inserted within the context of a global physical model. The hearing of a noise
such as this could relate to a source which is responsible for the remaining physical
evidence reported in Ftima: the first association or correlation that comes up is a
manifestation of electromagnetic radiation within the microwave spectrum whose
physical and biological effects have been established and verified since the 1950s by
scientific teams in French, Canadian and U.S. laboratories. 8
This single sign, totally diluted in the pious expressions of believers and ignored
both by devotional dogmatism and innocuous positivism, could reveal itself as an
exploitable starting point for the elaboration of a coherent hypothesis which justifies the
triple simultaneous phenomenological process which took place within the
aforementioned solar episode in October 13 1917 and its simultaneous effects: intense
heat, the drying of clothes and soil; physiological effects.
This fundamental cause-effect relationship had initially been forwarded by the
U.S. nuclear physicist James McCampbell who, aware of our evaluations, strengthened
the pertinence of this hypothesis in his deductions about the effects produced by an E.M.
source of that magnitude on living beings and the environment. 9
Although subjected to future verification, this E.M. radiation hypothesis would
offer the possibility of having served as a communication channel between the
luminous lady and the seer Lcia, as the already mentioned experiences corroborate. 10
In fact, since McCampbell, laboratorial initiatives have produced noteworthy
signs for this model if we take it as a fact that the witnesses of the Ftima apparitions
heard a noise like a buzzing bee. Among these additional supports are the experiments,
run by elements of the Canadian Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and
privately by James C. Linn, Sergio Sales-Cunha, Joseph Battocletti and Anthony Sances,
which produced what is known as Microwave Auditive Phenomenon. 11
The MAP the phenomenons acronym could help us to identify the kind of
communication involved in the apparitional experiences of 1917 and other exceptional
lay experiences, both marked by altered states of consciousness. Whether in its religious
matrix - like the example of Ftima among others or lay, both contact experiences are
characterized by the reception of a message by the chosen ones, made receivers and
keepers of it. 12
Cultural variations of an identical process, imply a contacted syndrome which
by itself takes an ontogenetic path, which varies, generally culminated by a vector of
transformation (in the lay perception) or metanoic (in the religious or mystical facet).
Resuming the Canadian experiments, it is worthy of note that these have
determined the acquisition of noises reverberated in the skull of tested subjects from short
discharges of microwave radiation. The degree of obtained perception consisted on a
combination of audible sounds: the subjects head was placed in line with a cone shaped
antenna, inside an appropriate and isolated compartment.
These studies have shown that the individuals who were subjected to these
experiments perceived buzzing noises, among others, inside their heads when exposed
to microwave radiation between 200 and 3000MHz, with an average strength between 0.4
to 2mW/cm2. The modulated frequencies varied between 200 and 400Hz. In general, the
sounds were perceived inside the head mostly in the occipital area.
On the subject of this hearing sensation we must remind the statement of a fourth
and ignored seer of the 1917 phenomena, Carolina Carrreira one of the most suggestive
discoveries in the original archives kept in the sanctuary of Ftima. The almost ignored
witness described to us personally the reception of some kind of commands inside the
head, when she observed an angel, of small stature and blond hair, in the vicinity of the
holm tree that cradled the descent of the luminous lady. Those commands were
repetitive Come here and pray three Hail Maries; come here and pray three Hail
Maries . 13
To this suggestive framework of experiences are added new scientific approaches,
which were personally transmitted to us by Jean Pierre Petit, a CNRS astrophysicist. This
scientist referred experiments run in 1979, in the CNES of Toulouse, invoking the
testimony of professor Thourel, director of the DERMO, who personally confirmed the
reception of that kind of sensations through a non-hearing path, when he accidentally
exposed himself to a modulated emission of the previously mentioned E.M. frequency. 14
It seems obvious that the described situations open the way for inevitable
comparisons: between the Canadian lab and Cova da Iria there may have occurred
something in common. Whatever may be the implicit agent, it is effortless to recognize
that the reporting of these hearing sensations was made by the seers and by others in
close proximity, which prefigures the hypothesis of a radiant, energetic, external and
non subjective source in some way serving as a channel for a kind of non vernal
communication between the luminous entity and Lcia dos Santos.

Discussion

The experimental stages achieve by scientific and laboratorial research in the

areas of the so called mind control are very well illustrated in available literature,
although not all information on this matter has been totally disclosed. 15
Meanwhile, the discussion of verifiable hypothesis and explanation models which
can confirm the physical cause-effect nexus here considered has been fuelled by the
growing recognition of whos who in several areas of scientific borderline exploration.
As an example, the Swiss biologist Claude Rifat, having considered the narratives
and representations of the contents of the apparitional experiences, suggests that we
should pay attention to the Locus Coeruleus, an important region of the mammal brain
which could play a part on these unreal situations. This author suggests that the source
of radiation X from the luminous entity, etc. would interfere with the normal functions of
that brain region. Therefore, there is the possibility of the creation of inducted images,
adapted in consonance with the cultural contents of the messages transmitted by the
protagonists of those singular events which shatter our subjective normalcy. 16
 In the same way, we ask your attention to the emergence and development of a
new scope of analysis, inspired in the new advances of neurosciences, which intends to
approach in a particularly original way, the global interdependencies and relations
between the brain and the effects of religious and transcendent experiences: it is
Neurotheology which is starting to affirm itself by several contributes such as the work of
pioneers in partnership as psychiatrist Eugen dAquili and neurologist Andrew Newberg,
researchers in the University of Pennsylvania. In particular, their long term analysis has
approached the behaviour of brain functions and brain blood-flow during the practice of
meditation by Tibetan Buddhist monks. 17
On the other hand, there are new signs which reinforce an eventual clue on the
interference of the E.M. spectrum, recently obtained on account of the so-called crop
circles by a team led by U.S. biophysicist C. Levengood of the BLT Research Team of
Michigan. By investigating the inner areas of these crop circles it was possible to
observe, in laboratory, that the physiological alterations of these plants drying,
dehydration, withering, etc. were identical to the ones produced by an emission of
microwave electromagnetic radiation and would correspond to different levels of
absorption of this radiation by the plants. 18 This verification will reveal itself
undoubtedly instructive in the case of the triple effects observed during the miracle of
the sun on October 13th 1917.
Not all is linear or within reach when we set out to establish models and
hypothesis based on subjective testimonies, deficiently informative and precise, affected
by a universe of constraints both in space and time. However, the minimum selection that
we brought to this forum puts together some of the vital signs with which we can draw a
notion of coherence and objectivity. Precisely because they anticipated parallel situations,
as impossible as the ones presently taking place before our very eyes.
The great methodological problem facing evanescent, uncontrollable and hardly
replicable phenomena is achieving to determine, as consistently as possible, their internal
coherence, backed by a comfortable number of independent observations. In complex
frameworks such as these, it is very important, as supported by Auguste Meessen, to
consider 1) the reliability of particular information, 2) the number of similar cases, 3) the
scientific analysis of the physical effects at stake. 19

The sequence of physical aspects, which will eventually become a model due to
further investigations, cant be put aside or minimized only by whims of chance,
coincidences or collective hysteria/imitation. Laboratories dont sympathize with
subjectivity. In the same sense, the exploration of these nexus, at the neurological level,
has the potential to become an open road for the analysis of the formation of the
messages elaborated by the contacted, ancient and modern, religious or lay, in
different cultural times and spaces. Of special interest are the implications for the
formulation of a model of non-verbal communication, extensive to contact experiences
both lay and religious, transcultural and timeless, and the emergence of a new
transdisciplinary area: the neurotheology or neurobiology of religion.
As will certainly be verified, the future of science as told by its past history
promises new and stimulating readings of the temporarily unexplainable which runs
along the margins of current knowledge and systems of beliefs.
References
1
Cf. Morin, Edgar. O Mtodo III. O conhecimento do conhecimento/1, Mem Martins, Publicaes
Europa-Amrica, 1987.
2 Cf. Armada, Fina d, O que se passou em Ftima em 1917, Amadora, Livraria Bertrand, 1980;
Armada, Fina d; Fernandes, Joaquim. Interveno Extraterrestre em Ftima as aparies e o
fenmeno OVNI, Amadora, Livraria Bertrand, 1982; Armada, Fina d; Fernandes, Joaquim. As
aparies de Ftima e o fenmeno OVNI, Lisboa, Estampa, 1995; Armada, Fina d; Fernandes,
Joaquim. Ftima nos bastidores do segredo, Lisboa, ncora Editora, 2002; in English, see The
Fatima Trilogy, ed. Anomalist Books, 2007 and 2008: Fatima Revisited. The Apparition
Phenomenon in Ufology, Psychology, and Science. Compiled by Fernando Fernandes, Joaquim
Fernandes & Raul Berenguel. Translated from the Portuguese & Edited by Andrew D.
Basiago & Eva M. Thompson. Foreword by William J. Birnes. Anomalist Books, 2008;
Fernandes, Joaquim& Fina dArmada, Celestial Secrets. Anomalist Books, 2007; idem, Heavenly
Lights, Anomalist Books, 2007.
3 Personal communication, 7/12/1980.
4 Armada, Fina d; Fernandes, Joaquim. Interveno Extraterrestre em Ftima as aparies e o
fenmeno OVNI, Amadora, Livraria Bertrand, 1982, p.33.
5 Heering, Jan. A Comparative Analysis of 62 Solid Light Beam Cases, in UFO
Phenomena, Bolonha, vol.2, 1977; Cf. tambm Meessen, Auguste, in Inforespace, Bruxelas,
Maio/Setembro, 1978; Cf. Also for an exposition of physical and physiological results,
Niemtzov, R.C.. Physiological and Radiation Effects from Intense Luminous Unidentified
Objects, in UPIAR Research in Progress, Bolonha, vol.II, ns 2/3, 1984.
6 Olmos, Vicente-Juan Ballester, Guasp, Miguel. Los Ovnis y la ciencia, Madrid, Plaza Y Janes,
1981, cap. XI., p.314 e segs. Cf. also Persinger, Michael A. et. al. Issues Forum: Tectonic
Stress Theory, in Journal of UFO Studies, Chicago, 1990, vol. 2, pp. 99-176; Lawson, A.H.,
Hypnosis of imaginary UFO abductees, in UFO Phenomena, Bolonha, 1978/1979, vol.III,
n1, pp. 219-258.
7 Armada, Fina d; Fernandes, Joaquim, ob.cit., supra, pp.64-70.
8 Cf. The paper presented in this same volume by researcher Raul Berenguel.
9 McCampbell, James. Ufology, Belmont, Jaymac Company, 1973.
10 Cf. footnote 8 above.
11 Cf. Procedings of the IEEE, vol. 68, n1, Janeiro, 1980.
12 Cf. For the lay cases studied from the view point of psychotherapy, Mack, John. Sequestro.
Lisboa, Planeta, 1994, and more recently, by the same author, Passaport to the Cosmos. Human
transformation and alien encounters, New York, Crown Publishers, 1999.
13 Armada, Fina d; Fernandes, Joaquim. ob.cit, nota 4, pp. 361-372.
14 Personal communication, 3 de Dezembro 1983.
15 Cf. Raul Berenguel paper and the historical body of research in a military and defense
framework of USA and former USSR.
16 Rifat, Claude. A Theoretical Frame Working for the problem on Non-Contact between
an Advanced Extraterrestrial Civilization and Mankind: Symbolic Sequential Communication
versus Symbolic Non-Sequential Communication, in UFO Phenomena, Bolonha, vol. 3,
1978/9, pp. 273-288; Cf. also by the same author, Is the Locus Coeruleus, an important
anatomical center of the brain, involved in the most bizarre aspects of UFO reports? The
induced dream hypothesis, in UFO Phenomena, Bolonha, vol.II, n 1, 1977.
17 Newberg, Andrew B.; dAquili, Eugene G.. The Neuropsychology of Religious and
Spiritual Experience, in Andresen, Jensine; Forman, Robert K.C. (eds.), Cognitive Models and
Spiritual Maps, Thorverton, Imprint Academic, 2000, pp. 251-266.
18 Levengood, C.; Talbot, Nancy. Dispersion of energies in worldwide crop formations, in
Physiologia Plantarum, Stockolm, n 105, pp. 615-624, Junho 1999.
19 Note sur les apparitions mariales, personal communication, 8 de Janeiro 2001.