But why had so many people (estimates were between 30,000 and 100,000 onlookers) gathered in this one spot in rural Portugal on this particular autumn day?<\/p>\n
The whole episode began six months previously when three young local children \u2013 ten-year-old L\u00facia dos Santos and her younger cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto \u2013 announced that they had witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary while they were tending their sheep. \u2018Mary\u2019 apparently told the children she would return on the 13th day of each of the next few months and that, on 13 October, would reveal herself to everyone, performing a miracle to confirm her identity.<\/p>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2016\/10\/GettyImages-642472829-76da469.png?quality=90&resize=261%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>On each of the intervening months, the apparition supposedly reappeared but only the children were able to see her. But this didn\u2019t stop word spreading throughout the region \u2013 and possibly beyond \u2013 of what might occur come October.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly to a staunchly Roman Catholic population, the prospect of a miracle was an attractive one, an event not to be missed. For them, it didn\u2019t matter that three young children were the source, with the widely reported visitations encouraging tens of thousands of people to arrive early in those fields on that October morning.<\/p>\n
Again, the apparition reportedly appeared, but again, she was only seen by the children. The gathering remained in the dark, none the wiser. Then, according to L\u00facia, the woman \u2013 who had identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary \u2013 threw her arms upwards, causing the young girl to call out \u201cThe Sun!\u201d\u00a0 This in turn caused tens of thousands of people to cast their eyes towards the skies.<\/p>\n
A trick of the eye?<\/h3>\n
While many confirmed that they had seen unusual solar activity, the observations weren\u2019t completely uniform. Some saw a kaleidoscopic range of colours. Some saw the Sun \u2018dancing\u2019 around the sky. Others saw it move in a more zigzag formation. Plenty of witnesses believed that they had seen it hurtling towards Earth and expressed fear that the planet was shortly to be annihilated. There were some who claimed that they had observed a combination of all of these phenomena.<\/p>\n
Not everyone has accepted these curious events, eschewing religion in favour of science to explain what had actually happened. These sceptics have pointed out the optical effects a person\u2019s eye can experience having been told to stare at the Sun. These can include not only the appearance of the Sun \u2018dancing\u2019, but also the colour distortion caused by prolonged retinal exposure to such a bright object. To back up this hypothesis, there are no reports of astronomers or observatories in the local region \u2013 that is, those not observing the sky with the naked eye \u2013 witnessing any unusual behaviour in the Portuguese skies that day.<\/p>\n