6 November 2009
Fatima and the UFO Phenomenon
Jadyn Cassidy j.cassidy@allnewsweb.com
Interview with Professor Joaquim Fernandes, PhD in History at the University of Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal.
Professor Fernandes has recently completed some seriously groundbreaking research on the Fatima Cult linking it to UFO phenomena or to put it simply suggesting that the key event relating to this saga was extraterrestrial. Professor Fernandez was a key contributor to a series of books on the topic: The Fatima trilogy. All News Web recently caught up with the Professor to gain further insight into his fascinating findings on this topic:
|
1. What led you to research the Fatima Apparitions?
For a long time the Fatima Apparitions story was considered controversial and a lot of authors and thinkers thought that they were supported more by political than religious reasons and motivations. Then, we look to question what really had happen there by accessing the original archives and documents.
2. What kind of difficulties and obstacles did you find during the research?
The main obstacle was to access the Fatima sanctuary documents, namely the so-called Formigao archive that were classified until the end of the 1970’s when we proposed to study them. Following having the chance to read them, one of the authors (Fina d’Armada) was badly punished in her professional career.
3. Did you find any kind of surprises there?
The main surprise was that the extraordinary events could not have been invented. In our opinion they occurred in fact. But as more of the original documents emerged the more the events were mimetic of the ufological phenomena. Another surprise was the certification that Canon Formigao had modified the first historical description of the Fatima “Lady”: a little girl with a skirt to her knees he changed to an adult lady with a long and shining skirt. We also discovered that the image that the people can see today ay the Sanctuary was inspired by an old image of the previous cult of Senhora da Lapa Lady. But, more surprising was finding witnesses that described the so-called “Sun Miracle” as a “disk-like metal object” with equidistant lights in the periphery, like the classical hard daylight UFO cases.
4. How did Catholic believers and the religious authorities react?
As a lot of us are grounded in “belief systems” and have a deep supernatural dependence many believers did not read our books. Others linked their supernatural needs directly and exclusively with Fatima and are happy with their simplistic faith while not knowing the details of the Fatima events. Others read the books with a critical mind or react with perplexity or deny all in the name of their faith. Then, a lot of members of the Catholic Church hierarchy avoid discussing our views since they also need Fatima to keep on as a major financial source.
5. Do you plan to continue looking for new clues to the Fatima events?
We keep always in our minds the urgency to rethink religious personal experiences, like the “Marian apparitions” as a syndrome that calls for a deeper and deeper interest and research to find its origins and ways of expressions as a part of the Extraordinary Human Experiences in its totality. So, the different scientific disciplines and other cultural paranormal approaches must give attention to this aspect of popular religion. Also, we urge the experimental and theoretical experts to look at these rich documents that we think can be a good exercise to discover and understand how our brain and spirit can be stimulated to surpass the ordinary limits of human perception, “tuning” new extensions of the consciousness.
|
