The Fátima incident was an important event in the history of religion. In 1917, three little Portuguese shepherds - Jacinta, Francisco, and Lúcia - suddenly encountered the Virgin Mary, illuminated in the splendor of heavenly lights, who told the children three secrets about the fate of the Earth. The contacts were followed by an unexplained aerial phenomenon, called "The Miracle of the Sun," in which the Sun was seen to dance in the sky by thousands of awestruck onlookers who flocked to Fátima.    

The apparitions were presumed to be a case of divine intervention in human affairs, a sign from Heaven that the world war then raging in Europe should end. A shrine sprang up at Fátima that drew millions of believers, and a myth was invented that the secrets of Fátima would be revealed in the fullness of time - as a testament of faith in a secular age.   

In "Heavenly Lights" (EcceNova Editions; July 2, 2005; $22.95), Portuguese historians Joaquim Fernandes and Fina d'Armada tell the true story of the apparitions of Fátima. The first history of Fátima to be written by Portuguese historians based on the original documents, Heavenly Lights is the result of a 25-year odyssey by the authors in search of the actual facts of the Fátima case. Fernandes and d'Armada began their investigation in 1978, when they were given access to secret archives held at the Sanctuary of Fátima.  

The records of Sister Lúcia, kept at the archives since the incident, revealed that the children did not interact with an apparition of the Virgin Mary but with a hologram of an extraterrestrial projected on a beam of light from a spacecraft hovering high above them. The archives clearly showed that the entities encountered at Fátima were not deities from Heaven but rather alien beings visiting our planet from "elsewhere" in the vast Cosmos. This finding was supported by hundreds of other facts from the time of the apparitions. Fátima, the authors discovered, was the first major UFO case of the 20th century.  

Now the whole world can know the truth about the apparitions of Fátima. This new translation offers a powerful argument for both UFO researchers and religious scholars alike to re-examine the actual evidence that at last explains the enduring mystery of the Fátima incident.  

Joaquim Fernandes is Professor of History at the University Fernando Pessoa in Porto, Portugal. He directs the Multicultural Apparitions Research International Academic Network (Project MARIAN). His research interests include the history of science and the comparative anthropology of religion, with an emphasis on anomalistic phenomena.

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