Speaker 1: You're listening to part two of Unexplained, Season six, episode twenty,
Speaker 1: Children of the Pastures. Young Lucia looked up at the
Speaker 1: stern faced man standing in the cell doorway. All she
Speaker 1: knew was that Jacinta and Francisco were gone, leaving this
Speaker 1: world before her, just as the Virgin Mary had said,
Speaker 1: and now it was her turn to die. Calmly, she
Speaker 1: made the sign of the cross and followed the man
Speaker 1: out of the door. From there, she was led into
Speaker 1: a room to find not a vat of burning oil
Speaker 1: waiting for her, but the mayor, Arter de Santos. De
Speaker 1: Santos told Lucia to take a seat and then explained
Speaker 1: that both Jacinta and Francisco had refused to admit to
Speaker 1: their lies, and now they were dead. But Lucia had
Speaker 1: one final chance to save herself. Lucia thought for a moment,
Speaker 1: but needed little time to make up her mind. It
Speaker 1: was not a lie, she told the mayor, and she
Speaker 1: was prepared to die to defend that truth. The exasperated
Speaker 1: De Santos was forced to finally reveal his own charade.
Speaker 1: There was, of course, no pot of boiling oil, and
Speaker 1: Jacinta and Francisco were not dead, but rather alive and well,
Speaker 1: playing back at the Mayor's residency. Back in Algustrelle Lucia,
Speaker 1: Jacinta and Francisco's parents had spent a fraught few days
Speaker 1: agonizing over what might have happened to their children. News
Speaker 1: filtered through eventually, however, that they'd been seen playing happily
Speaker 1: at the Mayor's house in Oragne, though there was still
Speaker 1: no indication of when they might see their children again.
Speaker 1: On August fifteenth, Jacinta and Francisco's parents, Manuel and Olympia
Speaker 1: were attending Father Manuel Ferreira's mass at Saint Anthony's Church
Speaker 1: in Fatima when a loud disturbance was heard outside. A
Speaker 1: crowd of the children's supporters had descended on the church,
Speaker 1: demanding to know where the children had been taken, believing
Speaker 1: that Father Ferreira, who was known to be skeptical of
Speaker 1: the children's story, might have had something to do with
Speaker 1: their disappearance. All in the crowd that day had traveled
Speaker 1: to Covert area on the thirteenth, hoping to witness the
Speaker 1: children communicating with the Virgin Mary, or indeed a sighting
Speaker 1: of the blessed Virgin herself. Despite the children not having
Speaker 1: shown up that morning. What the people saw in their
Speaker 1: absence left them in no doubt that they hadn't been
Speaker 1: making any of it up. In the wake of the
Speaker 1: third apparent visitation of the Virgin Mary in thatcham A, Portugal,
Speaker 1: on July thirteenth, nineteen seventeen, talk of the extraordinary things
Speaker 1: said to be happening there had only intensified. By the
Speaker 1: morning of August thirteenth, What had been a crowd of
Speaker 1: hundreds the month before had now grown well into the thousands.
Speaker 1: That day, however, a strange nervous energy spread among the
Speaker 1: people waiting in the pasture even before news of the
Speaker 1: children's abduction had reached them. This was due to a
Speaker 1: pernicious rumor going round that the children hadn't actually been
Speaker 1: talking to Mary in the last few months, but were
Speaker 1: in fact being manipulated by the devil to trick people
Speaker 1: into traveling to covert Aria so that when the time
Speaker 1: was right, he could open the earth beneath them and
Speaker 1: swallow them all up. When the people then received word
Speaker 1: that the children would not be making an appearance that morning,
Speaker 1: many began to worry that there might be some truth
Speaker 1: to the rumor. As the time approached eleven a m
Speaker 1: the time in which the children usually claimed that Mary appeared.
Speaker 1: A huge clap of thunder rang out through the valley,
Speaker 1: causing hundreds to scream out in terror that the devil
Speaker 1: had come to take them to hell. Only the earth
Speaker 1: did not move and the people were not swallowed up. Instead,
Speaker 1: as was reported by many witnesses afterwards, in the moments
Speaker 1: after the thunder was heard, a strange, multi colored light
Speaker 1: shone down on the crowd from above, as though a
Speaker 1: rainbow had opened up over their heads, that shimmered on
Speaker 1: the ground and in the faces of all who were there.
Speaker 1: To the believers, it was a clear sign that Mary
Speaker 1: had come to speak with the children, even though they
Speaker 1: hadn't been there to receive her. Clearly, they thought something
Speaker 1: very special was taking place in the pastures of Fatima.
Speaker 1: Back outside Saint Anthony's Church on August fifteenth, as the
Speaker 1: crowd chanted for the release of the three enigmatic young
Speaker 1: shepherds from algia Strell, it was clear that the mayor's
Speaker 1: efforts to put an end to the growing hysteria surrounding
Speaker 1: them had completely backfired. Thankfully, just as things threatened to
Speaker 1: get out of control, the Mayor's coach pulled up at
Speaker 1: the front of the church, out of which stepped ten
Speaker 1: year old Lucia, nine year old Francisco, and seven year
Speaker 1: old Jacinta. Seeing their children, Manuel and Olympia ran to
Speaker 1: greet them, scooping them up in their arms and promising
Speaker 1: to never let anyone take them again, And with the
Speaker 1: crowd satisfied that the children were safe and well, it
Speaker 1: eventually dispersed. On August nineteenth, the children spent the morning
Speaker 1: watching sheep in covert Aria, after which Jacinta returned home
Speaker 1: to al Giustrell, while Lucia and Francisco headed on to Velinos,
Speaker 1: the small field just next to it, where they were
Speaker 1: joined by Lucia's sister and brother in law, as well
Speaker 1: as Jacinta Francisco's older brother John. At some time around
Speaker 1: four pm, Lucia ordered John to fetch Jacinta immediately. Fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes later, he and Jacinta arrived, and John watched, along
Speaker 1: with Lucia's sister and brother in law, as Lucia, with
Speaker 1: Jacinta and Francisco standing silently by her side, apparently communicated
Speaker 1: once more with the Virgin Mary. When news of this
Speaker 1: fourth communication then spread beyond the village. Attention among the
Speaker 1: rapidly growing band of believers turned to the next scheduled
Speaker 1: appearance of September thirteenth. That month, as many as thirty
Speaker 1: thousand people descended on Fatima for what was set to
Speaker 1: be the Virgin Mary's fifth appearance. The day proceeded much
Speaker 1: like Mary's previous apparent visitations, the children standing in front
Speaker 1: of the usual home oak Tree, while Lucia dictated Mary's
Speaker 1: words to the crowd as she received them, telling them
Speaker 1: more that Mary wanted nothing more than for all those
Speaker 1: present to continue to pray for all sinners and to
Speaker 1: pray for an end to the war. Most sat listening
Speaker 1: in awe, while some stood up loudly denouncing the children
Speaker 1: and demanding that they be burned or hung for their
Speaker 1: blasphemous deceptions. Unmoved by it all, Lucia once again asked
Speaker 1: aloud for Mary to give a sign of her presence,
Speaker 1: and once again she told the crowd that Mary promised
Speaker 1: only to show herself on the sixth and final visit
Speaker 1: the following month, and with that she threw her hands
Speaker 1: toward the sky and shouted the now familiar refrain, look
Speaker 1: there she goes. Some claim aimed that shortly before Mary appeared,
Speaker 1: a luminous globe drifted down from the sky and perched
Speaker 1: above the sacred tree, where it remained for the duration
Speaker 1: of Lucia and Mary's apparent exchange, until when it was
Speaker 1: over and it was seen flying back into the sky.
Speaker 1: With all the joy of the children's return from prison
Speaker 1: and the seemingly continuing miracle of the Virgin Mary's appearances,
Speaker 1: little attention was paid to the small matter of the
Speaker 1: secret that Mary had apparently entrusted the children with. It
Speaker 1: was clear from their refusal to divulge it to Mayor
Speaker 1: de Santos, even under threat of death, that there was
Speaker 1: little point in trying to extract it from them. Shortly
Speaker 1: after the events of September thirteenth, Doctor well for Migau,
Speaker 1: a professor at the Seminary and Lyceum of Saint Urram
Speaker 1: who'd been in the crowd that day, managed to secure
Speaker 1: an interview with the children in the hope of gaining
Speaker 1: a little more insight into them and what Mary had
Speaker 1: apparently been telling them. Doctor for mcgou hadn't seen anything
Speaker 1: unusual in the sky on the thirteenth, However, after speaking
Speaker 1: to the children, he was left in no doubt that
Speaker 1: they were being entirely sincere in their story. On the
Speaker 1: question of the secret, he learned only from Jacinta that
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why they didn't want to spill
Speaker 1: it was because the whole world would be sad if
Speaker 1: they did, And so all attention turned solely to the
Speaker 1: apparent miracle that Mary had allegedly promised to perform at
Speaker 1: her next appearance, in the hope that this would put
Speaker 1: an end once and frall to the question of whether
Speaker 1: the children had been telling the truth or not. A
Speaker 1: heavy rain that had started to fall on the eleventh
Speaker 1: of October did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the
Speaker 1: lines of people as they clogged up all roads leading
Speaker 1: to Fatchima en route to coverd area. They came in
Speaker 1: their tens of thousands, some on horseback or ox drawn carts,
Speaker 1: while those who could afford to came with their cars
Speaker 1: and bicycles, but most came simply on foot, trudging endlessly
Speaker 1: through the mud in their desperation to witness the miracle.
Speaker 1: In the village of algustrell As, news that the steady
Speaker 1: throng of people making their way to Fatima reached the
Speaker 1: children's families. They became understandably concerned. They had already how
Speaker 1: quickly a crowd could turn. What if the miracle didn't happen.
Speaker 1: They wandered, and all those people had traveled there for nothing.
Speaker 1: Lucia's mother, Maria Rosa, had even heard a rumor that
Speaker 1: their house would be bombed if her daughter was shown
Speaker 1: to be a liar. On the thirteenth of October, the
Speaker 1: sky was practically black, so dark were the clouds that
Speaker 1: blotted it out, while the rain continued to pummel down.
Speaker 1: When the children, dressed in their finest communion clothes, white
Speaker 1: dresses for the girls and a smart gray suit for Francisco,
Speaker 1: stepped out of their homes that morning, they were confronted
Speaker 1: by a sea of faces crying out to them. They
Speaker 1: had come from all over the country, some simply to
Speaker 1: witness the miracle and see the children, while others pleaded
Speaker 1: for them to pass messages to Mary so that they
Speaker 1: or their loved ones might be cured of whatever ailment
Speaker 1: had befallen them. The crowd was so big the people
Speaker 1: had to be pushed back as the children stepped onto
Speaker 1: the village's single sodden and muddy track and began their
Speaker 1: journey toward coverd Aria, barely noticing the rain as it
Speaker 1: soaked them through. Shouts of makeway for the children who
Speaker 1: saw our Lady went up as they passed, while many
Speaker 1: dropped to their knees in the mud and genuflected toward them.
Speaker 1: It was sometime around eleven am when the children were
Speaker 1: finally spotted at Covidiria, and gasps of excitement rippled through
Speaker 1: the crowd as they watched Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco take
Speaker 1: their place at the base of the home oak tree,
Speaker 1: where an arch had now been constructed to mark the
Speaker 1: momentous spot. No sooner had they arrived, a local priest
Speaker 1: shouted out to the children, demanding to know when Mary
Speaker 1: would appear, to which Lucia replied midday, And so the
Speaker 1: crowd stood patiently while the rain fell, waiting for her arrival,
Speaker 1: their excitement growing steadily with each passing minute, until finally
Speaker 1: it was noon, but nothing happened. At ten minutes past
Speaker 1: there was still no sign of the virgin mother. Manuel
Speaker 1: and Olympia Marto could only watch on from afar as
Speaker 1: the usual cry sprung up, accusing their children of lies
Speaker 1: and blasphemy. Then that local priest stood up again and
Speaker 1: jabbed his finger aggressively toward them. Where is she? Then
Speaker 1: he demanded, are you saying our lady is a liar?
Speaker 1: Or perhaps it is you who are lying? Is that right?
Speaker 1: Turning to the crowd, he shouted, can't you see it's
Speaker 1: all a lie? Everyone go home now. Then he began
Speaker 1: to shove the children, pushing them away from the tree
Speaker 1: in anger. Others eventually stepped in to calm things down,
Speaker 1: while Lucia reassured them more that their lady would come. Then,
Speaker 1: with the time approaching one pm, Lucia said loudly to
Speaker 1: just Center, as the rain continued to pour, Neil, our
Speaker 1: lady is coming. I have seen the lightning. What followed
Speaker 1: were the usual exchanges between Lucia and the invisible Mary,
Speaker 1: with one additional request from Mary, according to Lucia, that
Speaker 1: a chap will be built in covert to Aria in
Speaker 1: honor of her appearances there. And then, just as she
Speaker 1: had done each time before, Lucia threw her arms into
Speaker 1: the air and announced Mary's departure from the pasture. But
Speaker 1: what about the miracle? Shouted someone from the crowd. Just wait,
Speaker 1: said Lucia as she then described how Mary had suddenly
Speaker 1: stopped midway into her ascent back to Heaven, and how
Speaker 1: she then turned her palms outwards to reveal a bright
Speaker 1: light from inside her hands. And just then something incredible happened.
Speaker 1: The rain stopped, and the dark gray clouds that had
Speaker 1: hung above the valley for the best part of three
Speaker 1: days suddenly began to part. Look, said Lucia, Look at
Speaker 1: the sun. The crowd turned their heads in unison toward
Speaker 1: where Lucia was pointing, and cried out in joy. Not
Speaker 1: only had the sun been unexpectedly revealed through the clouds,
Speaker 1: but it looked like nothing anyone had ever seen before.
Speaker 1: As described in Lisbon's oh Secular Paper the following day,
Speaker 1: the sun had a transparent gauzy veil, so that the
Speaker 1: eyes could easily be fixed upon it. The gray mother
Speaker 1: of pearl tone turned into a sheet of silver, which
Speaker 1: broke up as the clouds were torn apart, and the
Speaker 1: silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy gray light, was
Speaker 1: seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds.
Speaker 1: Cries went up from every mouth, and people fell on
Speaker 1: their knees on the muddy ground. Then all about. The
Speaker 1: light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had just
Speaker 1: come through the stained glass windows of a cathedral, and
Speaker 1: spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands.
Speaker 1: The blue faded slowly, and then the light seemed to
Speaker 1: pass through yellow glass. Yellow stains fell against white handkerchiefs,
Speaker 1: against the dark skirts of the women, on the trees,
Speaker 1: and on the stones of the pasture. Witnesses also reported
Speaker 1: that clouds were seen to move behind the sun, as
Speaker 1: though it had somehow become detached from the sky. Others
Speaker 1: claimed that the sun also danced and jerked about, and
Speaker 1: appeared at one point as though it might actually fall
Speaker 1: out of the sky. Entirely seventy thousand people as said
Speaker 1: to have witnessed what would become known as the Miracle
Speaker 1: of the Sun, with reports of people claiming to have
Speaker 1: seen it coming in from as far as twenty five
Speaker 1: miles away, and in the eyes of all who were there,
Speaker 1: the children had finally been vindicated. In the days that followed,
Speaker 1: the sight became a place of pilgrimage, as hundreds continued
Speaker 1: to flock to it to bask in the after glow
Speaker 1: of the miraculous event and touched the sacred oak tree
Speaker 1: above which Mary had apparently appeared. Not everyone was so
Speaker 1: easily convinced, however, and on October twenty third, ten days
Speaker 1: after the supposed miracle, a group of men from the
Speaker 1: Masonic lodge in Santarem cut down the tree in an
Speaker 1: act of protest against the children and their followers. Regardless,
Speaker 1: over time, a small chapel was built on the site
Speaker 1: which took the place of the tree, and though at
Speaker 1: the time the church refused to officially recognize any of
Speaker 1: the apparently miraculous events or the children who claimed to
Speaker 1: witness them, the location continued to serve as an unofficial
Speaker 1: site of pilgrimage to thousands of local Catholics. As for
Speaker 1: the children, in the aftermath of the Miracle of the Sun,
Speaker 1: they became celebrities throughout Portugal and continued to be harassed
Speaker 1: in the street, either by those who refused to believe
Speaker 1: them or by supporters who wanted them to make requests
Speaker 1: of the Virgin Mary on their behalf. Of the three
Speaker 1: of them, Francisco seemed the most affected by the unusual fame.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was simply the insistence from Lucia that he
Speaker 1: and Jacinta would be taken to Heaven soon that preoccupied him,
Speaker 1: or merely the sheer fact that Mary had supposedly been
Speaker 1: visiting them from heaven. Either way, the events had left
Speaker 1: a profound mark. When asked a few months after Mary's
Speaker 1: apparent last visit what he wanted to be when he
Speaker 1: grew up, the nine year old boy replied simply that
Speaker 1: he wanted to die and go to heaven. It was
Speaker 1: as though he already had an understanding of something that
Speaker 1: was about to come. Haskell County in Kansas, USA lies
Speaker 1: just under five thousand miles west of the village of Algustrel.
Speaker 1: It was there in January nineteen eighteen that local physician,
Speaker 1: doctor Loring Minor, noticed large numbers of his patients being
Speaker 1: struck down by an unusually virulent strain of flu, and
Speaker 1: then they began to die. Over the next few months,
Speaker 1: all Army personnel from Heskil County who were due to
Speaker 1: be shipped off to Europe to fight in the Great
Speaker 1: War reported to Camp Funston, about three hundred miles away,
Speaker 1: and it was there on the morning of March eleventh
Speaker 1: that Army cook Albert Gitchell reported to the Camp Funstone
Speaker 1: Hospital complaining of a severe saw throat and a high fever. Soon,
Speaker 1: hundreds of fellow soldiers from the same camp started presenting
Speaker 1: at the hospital with similar symptoms. An estimated eighty four
Speaker 1: thousand US troops left for Europe in March, with another
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighteen thousand crossing the Atlantic the following month,
Speaker 1: and before long, similar flu like symptoms were being seen
Speaker 1: all over Europe. As the seriousness of the virus became
Speaker 1: apparent to many of the countries currently engaged in the war,
Speaker 1: news of just how lethal it was proving to be
Speaker 1: was suppressed by their respective governments. In Spain, however, whose
Speaker 1: government remained neutral throughout the conflict, there was no such censorship,
Speaker 1: being one of the few countries that wrote openly about it.
Speaker 1: What may well have actually started in the United States
Speaker 1: subsequently became known as the Spanish Flu, though there are
Speaker 1: conflicting theories as to where it originated exactly, with some
Speaker 1: believing it may have been already present in trenches in
Speaker 1: France as far back as nineteen sixteen. Albert Gitchel, who
Speaker 1: survived his brush with it, is often cited as the
Speaker 1: first known individual to contract it. The flu would eventually
Speaker 1: go on to kill six hundred and seventy five thousand Americans,
Speaker 1: with anywhere between twenty to fifty million people estimated to
Speaker 1: have died worldwide from it, with five hundred million thought
Speaker 1: to have contracted it at some point, equal to a
Speaker 1: quarter of the world's population at the time. Among those
Speaker 1: who contracted it in October nineteen eighteen were nine year
Speaker 1: old Francisco and seven year old Jacinta Marto. On April fourth,
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, having suffered from various complications in the wake
Speaker 1: of contracting the flu, Francisco Marto died. It would take
Speaker 1: another eight months before Jacinta two succumbed to the infection,
Speaker 1: having suffered terribly from bronchial pneumonia and abscesses on the
Speaker 1: membranes of her chest as a consequence of catching the virus.
Speaker 1: She died on February twentieth, twenty at the age of nine,
Speaker 1: as the last remaining of the three children. Just as
Speaker 1: Mary had apparently predicted, Lucia dos Santos, only twelve years
Speaker 1: old at the time, was left not only shoulder the
Speaker 1: burden of their incredible story, but also to be the
Speaker 1: sole bearer of the grave and profound secret that she
Speaker 1: and her cousins had apparently been tasked with keeping Amazingly,
Speaker 1: though she had the support of thousands behind her, few
Speaker 1: in her hometown, including her family, actually believed her and
Speaker 1: her cousin's story. As such, it was decided in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty one by the Diocese of Laria, which oversees the
Speaker 1: parish of Fatima, to have her enrolled at the School
Speaker 1: of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy in Villa near Porto,
Speaker 1: while the church made arrangements to have her apparent communication
Speaker 1: with the Virgin Mary officially investigated. For most of her
Speaker 1: time training and preparing to become a nun, Lucia refused
Speaker 1: to disclose the secret. However, for the church to make
Speaker 1: an official judgment of all that she claimed had happened,
Speaker 1: it was essential that she shared it, and so in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, with great reluctance, she finally revealed it,
Speaker 1: or at least part of it. As it turned out,
Speaker 1: According to Lucia, writing in a memoir in nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just one secret they'd been given, but three.
Speaker 1: The first secret was revealed to have been a vision
Speaker 1: of Hell. It was this that Lucia had apparently seen
Speaker 1: on the July thirteenth visitation, when her face had been
Speaker 1: seen to drain of color and a look of abject
Speaker 1: terror came over her. The second secret was a warning
Speaker 1: that although the Great War that was raging at the
Speaker 1: time would end, if people did not stop offending God,
Speaker 1: a far more terrible war would eventually break out, with
Speaker 1: the Virgin Mary having a particular concern over the state
Speaker 1: of Russia. According to Lucia back in July nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: the Virgin Mary was concerned that russias slide toward a
Speaker 1: new type of government in the wake of the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventeen Revolution would only serve to cause further suffering throughout
Speaker 1: the world. Lucia refused, however, to reveal the third secret
Speaker 1: until nineteen forty three, when, after a bout of severe flew,
Speaker 1: perhaps fearing that she might die before it was ever disclosed,
Speaker 1: she was ordered to reveal it by her superiors. The
Speaker 1: third Secret was finally written down in nineteen forty four
Speaker 1: and delivered to the Bishop of Laria, who was said
Speaker 1: to have been so troubled by it he hung on
Speaker 1: to it for thirteen years before eventually sending it on
Speaker 1: to his superiors at the Vatican. Then controversially. In nineteen sixty,
Speaker 1: the Vatican, having allegedly been so troubled by it, too,
Speaker 1: released a statement saying that it was most probable that
Speaker 1: the secret would remain forever under absolute seal. To find
Speaker 1: out more about the secrets than to hear the incredible
Speaker 1: story of what happened next listening to next week's Unexplained
Speaker 1: extra until then. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like
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Speaker 1: the show's music, are produced by me Richard mc lane smith.
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