The Fátima Miracle: Apparitions and the Miracle of the Sun

The Miracle of Fátima, more commonly called the Miracle of the Sun, refers to the extraordinary visual phenomenon reported by a large crowd at Cova da Iria near Fátima, Portugal, on October 13, 1917. The event took place at the end of a series of reported Marian apparitions experienced by three shepherd children: Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto.

For Catholics devoted to Our Lady of Fátima, the October event is understood within the religious message associated with the apparitions. From a historical perspective, it is also one of the most extensively reported episodes connected with a modern Marian pilgrimage site. Contemporary witnesses described unusual appearances of the sun, changing colors and apparent movement in the sky, although individual descriptions varied.

This guide separates the historical sequence of events, the children’s reported visions, the later Catholic interpretation and the eyewitness accounts of October 13. That distinction is important because Fátima is both an active place of faith and a subject of continuing historical discussion.

Who Were the Three Children of Fátima?

In 1917, Lúcia dos Santos and her younger cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto were children from the small village of Aljustrel, near Fátima. They helped their families by tending sheep in the surrounding countryside.

The children later reported that in 1916 they had experienced three encounters with an angel whom they identified as the Angel of Peace or Angel of Portugal. In 1917 they said they began seeing a luminous woman whom they eventually identified as Our Lady of the Rosary.

The places associated with these accounts can still be visited today. The principal Marian apparition site became the Sanctuary of Fátima, while Aljustrel, Valinhos and the Loca do Cabeço preserve much of the rural setting connected with the children.

The First Reported Apparition: May 13, 1917

According to the account preserved by the Shrine of Fátima, the first reported apparition occurred on May 13, 1917 at Cova da Iria. The children described seeing a Lady “more brilliant than the sun” who asked them to return to the same place for six consecutive months.

The children said the Lady asked them to pray the Rosary and to offer their suffering for the conversion of sinners and for peace. Europe was then deep in the First World War, and Portuguese soldiers were fighting abroad, giving the appeals for peace a powerful contemporary context.

News of the children’s claims spread through the surrounding region. As the months passed, increasingly large crowds began traveling to Cova da Iria on the expected apparition dates.

The 1917 Fátima Apparitions: May Through October

The sequence usually described as the six Marian apparitions of Fátima unfolded between May and October 1917:

May 13: the children reported the first apparition at Cova da Iria.
June 13: a second reported apparition took place as a growing crowd gathered nearby.
July 13: the children later associated this apparition with what became known as the Secret of Fátima.
August 19: the reported fourth apparition took place at Valinhos, not on August 13 at Cova da Iria.
September 13: the children again reported seeing the Lady at Cova da Iria.
October 13: the sixth reported apparition coincided with the event remembered as the Miracle of the Sun.

The August date requires explanation. On August 13, local authorities detained Lúcia, Francisco and Jacinta and took them to Vila Nova de Ourém for questioning. The children therefore did not reach Cova da Iria that day. They later reported that the fourth apparition occurred at Valinhos on August 19.

Why Were the Children Detained in August?

Portugal in 1917 was politically tense. The First Portuguese Republic had experienced serious conflict between anticlerical political forces and the Catholic Church, while the country was also participating in the First World War.

The local administrator, Artur de Oliveira Santos, detained the children on August 13 and questioned them about the reported apparitions and the secret they said had been entrusted to them. Accounts associated with Fátima describe efforts to pressure the children into revealing what they had been told.

Whatever interpretation is placed on the episode, the detention prevented the anticipated August 13 meeting at Cova da Iria. The next reported apparition occurred several days later at Valinhos, a site that pilgrims can visit today.

What Happened on October 13, 1917?

By October, the Fátima story had attracted national attention. A very large crowd gathered at Cova da Iria despite heavy rain and muddy conditions. Estimates vary, but contemporary reporting commonly described tens of thousands of people present.

The children said that during the apparition the Lady identified herself as Our Lady of the Rosary and repeated the request for prayer. Lúcia also said that a chapel should be built at the site.

Afterward, many people in the crowd reported an unusual visual phenomenon involving the sun. Descriptions differed, but recurring elements included the impression that the sun could be looked at directly, changing colors, apparent spinning or trembling, and movement that some witnesses interpreted as the sun plunging toward the earth before returning to its normal position.

The expression “Miracle of the Sun” refers to these reported observations. It should not be read as a claim that the astronomical sun physically left its position in the solar system. Historical accounts concern what people at and around Fátima said they perceived in the sky.

What Did Eyewitnesses Say About the Miracle of the Sun?

One reason the October event became so widely known is that reports came not only from pilgrims but also from journalists, skeptics and other observers who had traveled to Fátima because of the publicity surrounding the children’s prediction that something extraordinary would occur.

The Lisbon newspaper O Século published an account by journalist Avelino de Almeida shortly afterward. The official Shrine of Fátima preserves this report among its historical sources and notes his description of the sun appearing to tremble and “dance” before the crowd.

Not every witness described exactly the same thing, and the event has been interpreted differently ever since. Devotional accounts regard it as a miraculous confirmation of the apparitions. Other writers have proposed atmospheric, optical, psychological or sociological explanations. The historical point on which there is broad agreement is more limited: a large crowd gathered at Fátima on October 13, 1917, and numerous people reported unusual solar phenomena.

Was the Miracle of the Sun Officially Recognized by the Catholic Church?

The Catholic Church investigated the Fátima events over a period of years. On October 13, 1930, the Bishop of Leiria declared the reported apparitions at Cova da Iria worthy of belief and officially permitted devotion to Our Lady of Fátima.

That recognition is important, but Catholic teaching also distinguishes approved private revelations from the central doctrines of the faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that private revelations do not belong to the deposit of faith and are not intended to replace or complete the revelation of Christ.

For travelers and readers, this distinction provides a useful framework: Fátima can be described accurately as an officially recognized Catholic devotion without presenting every reported supernatural detail as an independently verifiable scientific fact.

Lúcia’s Testimony and the Message of Fátima

Lúcia became the principal surviving witness and later wrote extensively about the events. Francisco died in 1919 and Jacinta in 1920, both during the influenza era, while Lúcia entered religious life and lived until 2005.

Her memoirs became a central source for the narrative of the apparitions. The themes she associated with the message of Fátima include:

daily prayer of the Rosary;
conversion and repentance;
prayer and sacrifice for others;
peace and an end to war;
devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary;
prayer for the Pope and the Church.

Some devotional practices now closely associated with Fátima developed through events Lúcia reported after 1917. For example, the detailed form of the First Saturdays devotion is associated particularly with her later experiences in Pontevedra, Spain, beginning in 1925. It should therefore not be presented as though every element of that devotion was given in its final form during the 1917 apparitions at Cova da Iria.

What Are the Three Secrets of Fátima?

The expression Three Secrets of Fátima is commonly used, although Catholic sources generally describe them more precisely as three parts of one secret associated with the reported apparition of July 13, 1917.

First Part: The Vision of Hell

In Lúcia’s later account, the first part describes a frightening vision of hell. Within the devotional message of Fátima, the vision is connected with prayer, repentance and concern for the salvation of sinners.

Second Part: War, Russia and the Immaculate Heart

The second part concerns peace, the end of the First World War, the warning of another and worse war, and references to Russia. Lúcia’s account links these themes with devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a request for the consecration of Russia.

This material became particularly influential during the 20th century because Catholics interpreted it against the background of the Russian Revolution, communist governments, the Second World War and the Cold War.

Third Part: A Vision of Persecution and a “Bishop Dressed in White”

The third part generated decades of speculation because it remained unpublished for much of the 20th century. Lúcia wrote the text down in 1944, and it was eventually placed in the custody of the Holy See.

The Vatican published the complete text on June 26, 2000. It describes a symbolic vision involving an angel, a ruined city, suffering Christians and a “Bishop dressed in White” who is killed along with bishops, priests, religious and lay people.

The Vatican’s theological commentary interpreted the vision in relation to the persecution and martyrdom experienced by Christians during the 20th century. Pope John Paul II also associated the imagery with the assassination attempt against him on May 13, 1981. The official publication explicitly rejected the idea that the text unveiled a detailed secret timetable of future events.

Why the Old “Third Secret” Speculation Is Outdated

Before 2000, the unpublished third part prompted widespread speculation about apostasy, nuclear war, the end of the world and crises within the Catholic Church. Those theories became part of popular Fátima literature for decades.

They should no longer be presented as though the contents of the third part remain unknown. The Holy See released the text in full in 2000 together with historical documentation and a theological commentary. Readers interested in the primary Catholic source can consult the Vatican’s official publication, The Message of Fátima, linked below.

Francisco and Jacinta Marto

Francisco Marto died on April 4, 1919, and Jacinta Marto died on February 20, 1920. Both children became important devotional figures in the development of Fátima.

Pope John Paul II beatified Francisco and Jacinta at Fátima on May 13, 2000. Pope Francis later canonized them as saints on May 13, 2017, during the centennial of the first reported apparition.

Their tombs are inside the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fátima. Francisco is buried in one transept, while Jacinta is buried near Sister Lúcia in the opposite transept.

What Happened to Sister Lúcia?

Lúcia dos Santos entered religious life and eventually became a Discalced Carmelite nun, known as Sister Lúcia of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart. She spent many years at the Carmelite convent in Coimbra.

She died on February 13, 2005. Her remains were transferred to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Fátima on February 19, 2006, where they were placed near Jacinta’s tomb.

Her cause for canonization is separate from those of Francisco and Jacinta and has continued through the Catholic Church’s formal process.

Visiting the Places Connected With the 1917 Events

Understanding the Miracle of the Sun is easier when the places are seen in relation to one another.

Cova da Iria and the Chapel of the Apparitions

The Chapel of the Apparitions stands at the center of the modern sanctuary. The Shrine identifies this as the location of five of the six reported Marian apparitions of 1917: May, June, July, September and October.

Valinhos

Valinhos marks the location of the reported August 19 apparition. It lies outside the main sanctuary on the route toward Aljustrel and is much quieter than the monumental Prayer Area at Cova da Iria.

Loca do Cabeço

This rural site is associated with the first and third reported appearances of the Angel of Peace in 1916.

Aljustrel

The children’s village preserves their family homes. Visiting Aljustrel helps place the Fátima story within the modest agricultural world in which Lúcia, Francisco and Jacinta lived.

For detailed practical information about the basilicas, tombs, Chapel of the Apparitions, Berlin Wall monument, pilgrimage dates and visiting times, use our Sanctuary of Fátima visitor guide. For transportation, hotels, nearby towns and suggested itineraries, see the broader Fátima travel guide.

Fátima Pilgrimages Today

Fátima remains one of the world’s major Catholic pilgrimage destinations. The Shrine reported approximately 6.5 million pilgrims in 2025, illustrating the international scale the destination has reached more than a century after the 1917 events.

The most important anniversary pilgrimages take place from May through October, particularly on the night of the 12th and the morning of the 13th. May and October are especially significant because they commemorate the first and final reported apparitions.

Candlelight processions, Rosary prayers, Masses and other liturgical celebrations can fill the Prayer Area with very large crowds. Travelers who prefer a quieter historical visit should consider dates outside the principal anniversary pilgrimages.

Planning a Visit to Fátima

Fátima is easy to include within a central Portugal itinerary. Many travelers visit from Lisbon and combine the sanctuary with Batalha, Nazaré, Óbidos, Alcobaça or Tomar.

The 3-Day Wonders of Portugal Tour includes Fátima together with several of central Portugal’s best-known historic destinations.

The 5-Day Wonders of Portugal Tour provides a longer guided itinerary that includes Fátima while connecting Lisbon, Sintra, central Portugal and Évora.

Travelers who want to combine Fátima with other religious, historical or cultural destinations can also browse our guided Portugal tours or use the Portugal Vacation Planner to request a customized itinerary.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Miracle of Fátima

When did the Miracle of the Sun happen?

The event remembered as the Miracle of the Sun took place on October 13, 1917, at Cova da Iria near Fátima.

How many apparitions did the children report in 1917?

They reported six Marian apparitions between May and October. Five were associated with Cova da Iria. The August apparition was reported at Valinhos on August 19 after the children had been detained on August 13.

Did everyone at Fátima see exactly the same thing?

No. Many witnesses reported unusual solar phenomena, but descriptions varied. The term Miracle of the Sun is the traditional name given to the collective reports associated with the October gathering.

Did the Catholic Church approve the Fátima apparitions?

Yes. In 1930, the Bishop of Leiria declared the apparitions worthy of belief and authorized devotion to Our Lady of Fátima. Catholic teaching nevertheless classifies Fátima as private revelation rather than part of the deposit of faith.

What happened to the Third Secret of Fátima?

The Vatican published the third part of the Secret of Fátima in full on June 26, 2000, together with historical documentation and theological commentary.

Was the Third Secret about Pope John Paul II?

The vision does not name John Paul II. Vatican commentary connected the figure of the “Bishop dressed in White” and the vision of persecution with the suffering of the Church during the 20th century, and John Paul II personally associated Fátima with the attempt on his life on May 13, 1981.

Are Francisco and Jacinta saints?

Yes. Pope Francis canonized Francisco and Jacinta Marto at Fátima on May 13, 2017.

Where is Sister Lúcia buried?

Sister Lúcia is buried in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fátima near the tomb of Jacinta Marto.

Can non-Catholics visit the Fátima sites?

Yes. Fátima welcomes visitors of many backgrounds. The sanctuary remains an active place of Catholic worship, so prayer, liturgies, processions and pilgrims should be treated respectfully.

Official and Historical Fátima Resources

Last reviewed August 2026. This article distinguishes reported apparitions and devotional interpretations from independently verifiable historical facts while reflecting the terminology used by the Shrine of Fátima and the Catholic Church.