29 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Instant Classic, July 24, 2005
First published in 1982(!) in Portuguese (which has kept it
virtually invisible to most of UFOlogical community), this book
is now published in translation, complete with an imprimatur in
the form of a forward by Jacques Vallee.
What do you get if you take away the Christian interpretation
from the Fatima apparitions? Only the largest and most dramatic
mass UFO sighting in history, witnessed by ~50,000 people!
In this meticulous phenomenological presentation, the authors
have dug deep into the historical record as only Portuguese
speaking researchers could, tracking down accounts from the time
in the form of newspapers, meteorological reports, letters
written by witnesses to their relatives, and even a couple of
eye witnesses still alive when they were doing their research.
What is crucial here was going back to the original testimonies
and stories. Lucia, the primary "seer" ("experiencer"?), later
entered a convent, and her story became progressively more and
more attuned to the Catholic paradigm, her writings made
subject to approval by Church authorities. The authors have put
less emphasis on these later "official" versions, and relied
more on the first reports. Lucia originally never said it was
the Virgin Mary she saw, it was the adults around her that
jumped to that conclusion. Based on the time and culture they
lived in, how else could they have interpreted it?
What emerges is something far stranger and less easy to
interpret than a "simple" Marian apparition. Through careful
analysis and comparison with other UFO cases, they show that
most if not all elements present in the Fatima apparitions are
found throughout the UFO literature as well.
Of course the unique element of this case is the mass sighting
on October 13, 1917, when a large crowd of approximately 50,000
people including all social classes from farmers to professors
and journalists witnessed a whole host of dramatic phenomena
involving the sun (or possibly a craft or energy phenomena
appearing similar to the sun), strange atmospheric effects, as
well as objects traveling through the sky, some apparently with
occupants. There is a chapter of statistical analysis of witness
testimonies, correlation of descriptions of the event from four
towns using trigonometry, as well as discussion of chromatic,
thermal and atmospheric effects, mechanical breakdowns,
simultaneous cures, and much more.
While others have raised the issue of Fatima in relation to the
UFO phenomena, this book is the first to my knowledge to present
in-depth original research on anything like this scale. I
believe it is indeed an instant (20 years later!) classic
describing one of the most important cases on record.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
FATIMA, 1917, THROUGH THE LENS OF FANTASY, September 17, 2009
This review is from: HEAVENLY LIGHTS: The Apparitions of Fatima and the UFO Phenomenon (Paperback)
"Heavenly Lights: the Apparitions of Fatima and the UFO Phenomenon" is the first volume of a trilogy of books (in English) whose primary author is Portuguese professor/writer Joachim Fernandes, with some volumes co-authored by writer Fina D'Armada. These two authors have been among Portugal's most prominent resident UFOlogists for close to the last 30 years. The other books of the trilogy series are "Celestial Secrets: The Hidden History of the Fatima Incident" and "Fatima Revisited: The Apparition Phenomenon in Ufology, Psychology and Science". These books represent a loose summary of the authors' long-term traditional work in this "UFOs at Fatima" fantasy, with additional material input from other authors, editors and translators.
The core theme of all 3 Volumes is to seek to co-opt and displace the well known Fatima, Portugal visionary events of 1917 as a religious apparition. This is done by attempting to superimpose a case that although the authors agree that stupendous events did indeed occur there on October 13, 1917, they were in reality a major example of a visit to Earth by extraterrestrials in UFOs. Furthermore, that submit that they could not be the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Lord Jesus, as the Catholic church has supported and promulgated as "worth of belief" for close to the last 80 years. The authors and promoters strive to buildup interest and credibility for this particular book series by highlighting their document research at the Fatima archives in 1978, and by being repeated exponents of the "we saw the original documents" of Fatima mantra.
A brief summary follows of these original Fatima apparition reports. There were reported to be 6 major apparitions by a beautiful young lady on a small holm-oak tree (Carrasqueira) purported to be witnessed by 3 very young shepherd children, Lucia 10, Francisco 9 and Jacinta 7, beginning on May 13, 1917 and ending on October 13, 1917. The children reported that the lady announced on her final visit that she was "The Lady of the Rosary", known by Catholics worldwide to be none other than the Virgin Mary herself. This last visit climaxed with a 15 minute series of totally spectacular cosmic and solar phenomena, that has come to be known as the "Miracle of the Sun", and was reportedly witnessed by approx. 70,000 people, up to 40 miles away. On the prior July 13th, statements were made by the seer children of the prediction given to them by the lady that she would perform a miracle on Oct 13th, so that all may believe. This prediction spread quickly throughout Portugal and thus...the vast crowd that was in attendance on October 13th, as reported by all of the major secular newspapers of Portugal on that day.
In recent months, I have had in my possession several of the Portuguese language books that have been used by the authors in their trilogy series as some of their reference sources. Comparing these volumes with "Heavenly Lights..." and the rest of the trilogy as a 31 year research veteran myself of technical, religious and historical subjects, I regret to say that I am really stunned by the poor detail quality of this trilogy work that passes itself off as a unique and serious research project.
I really do support a "let the documents speak" sentiment, as in any research project, but in my opinion the authors and editors have demonstrably failed in their attempts to "let them speak" here. They have instead relied on fantasy, gross misrepresentations, and some poor rendering of Portuguese language translations that are woven around and interlaced with some of the accepted historical elements of those 1917 events. The writers in this trilogy have also employed frequent use of selective "cherry-picking" of key phrases out of context, displayed much creative logic and otherwise have submitted a boring exercise of poorly evidenced, gymnastic literary arguments. The result is a statement of sophistic reasoning, a deeply flawed and a fallacious product of so-called meticulous research. The examples of the above are far too numerous to list them all here, but please see my review of "Celestial Secrets: The Hidden History of the Fatima Incident" on this website called "THE LADY OF THE CARRASQUEIRA", for only a few examples of the above authors' methodology.
Instead of letting the evidence lead one to eventually compelling logical conclusions, this work and its complements are a prime example of preconceived biased arguments that are amalgamated with historical Fatima data and then all shaped and shoe-horned to fit into their own belief system of "Extraterrestrial visits to Earth via UFOs." and specifically into ones that just had to be the entities responsible for the Fatima events of 1917 !.
To any believers of UFOlogy reading this, I would say that my words here are not disavowing any or all possibilities of occasions of UFO visits to Earth throughout history, nor is it any critique directed toward UFOlogy in general. To each his/her own faith in their own individual belief systems. I am only saying that these authors have not produced credible or convincing evidence for any serious scenario that E.T.s in UFOs had visited our planet in Fatima, Portugal in 1917.
In summary, the closest description that comes to my mind of this book and its companions of the trilogy is that it is another exercise of Sigmund Freud's "free-association" technique of thought generation. Its use of fantasizing betrays a woeful lack of detailed real knowledge of the Fatima events of 1917, and it is saturated by imprecision, fallacious reasoning, and nonsensical conclusions.
"Heavenly Lights..." and the rest of this trilogy might appeal to those fans of science fiction masters such as Isaac Asimov and many others, because this book series is indeed full of fiction and if so, I hope they would all enjoy it. Most importantly though, it is definitely not a work of straightforward definitive research that will give a prosaic answer to all those who may be looking for a different but credible version of the Fatima 1917 events, an alternative to the one that has been promulgated at Fatima for close to the last 90 years, first mainly by those who witnessed it all and since then by their successors in faith.
Edmund Grant
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
