Apparitions from heaven???

[pocaracas]

So, we have a wobbling sun which could not be seen by all the people gathered there.
Some saw it, some of those who saw it were believers... some were skeptic... some of those who didn't see it were believers, some were skeptic.
This means that belief is not the operating factor to see the wobbling sun.

To my mind, mirage is the word that best describes the events... a rising column of air, charged with water distorting the view. Such a column would not be homogeneous, so it stands to reason that some people would see through it while others not.

Add to that the fact that the location is kinda shaped like a bowl, and the effect would only happen right there. Anyone away from "Cova da Iria" (luckily, the clue is in the name, 'cova' is a hole in the ground), would be unable to look through this air column towards the sun.

Have you seen such effects before?
Ever heard of this? http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-na...09/?no-ist

I understand.

The thing is though, I just find it too much of a coincidence bc the children said something would happen at that same day and at pretty much that exact time even. If this was just an isolated event where people were going on about their daily lives and all of a sudden they saw the sun moving around through the sky just kind of randomly out of nowhere, I'd be a lot more skeptical that it was a miracle. 

But it's just the combination of everything that makes it convincing to me. The fact that it was predicted to almost the exact hour when it happened, the fact that it was seen by tens of thousands, including skeptics... the fact that it started and ended at the same time for everyone who saw it.... and even the wet clothes and wet ground became dry in seconds, as reported by many people. 

Those kids must have been really really lucky if they were just completely lying about the apparition of the Virgin Mary telling them something was going to happen at that same day at that same time... and then coincidentally enough there was something that was either the same mass hallucination or the same mass optical illusion by the thousands. Also, if this was just some illusion that happened because of the shape of the land, etc etc, then it seems like it would have happened there before and/or since then... and that people who lived in the area would be familiar with it. 

As I said, this is very convincing to me that it truly was a miracle that happened that day. But I'm not trying to get you guys to think it's convincing as well. It just simply makes more sense to me that it was a miracle than it does that it was some sort of elaborate coincidence in so many ways.

Yeah...I don't believe the kids were lying.
I find it far more likely that they were being deceived by someone else (possibly a team of people).
Someone who knew the land and who had noted consistent atmospheric phenomena throughout the years... There's another well known phenomenon here, the Summer of St. Martin, that happens yearly around November 11th (St. Martin's day, when we traditionally eat roasted chestnuts... global warming must be messing it up, as it seems to have passed by last week), but I remember it working like clockwork,
just last year.

It wouldn't take much to make those kids believe in what they were being told... Rural Portugal was pretty much pastoral - no sophistication of any kind... Very religious to begin with, so, by default, gullible.
Curiously, on the day the sun was seen to wobble, there was no apparition... no lady, no angel... just the sun. It's as if it would be impossible to pull such a trick in front of all those people.