“The buzzing of bees”
And the Being spoke. To Lúcia, it was not strange at all. They understood each other in Portuguese, as if Mary, the
Mother of Jesus, had become a polyglot, or as if two thousand years of history had not altered the language of the
people. The news spread throughout the village, and on June 13th, part of the neighborhood came to the site of the
Apparitions.
They were not many. “I counted the people and saw that only 40 were present,” wrote Inácio António Marques. 1
And those people anxiously waited in that deserted place for the veritable Queen of Heaven to descend to the oak
tree, in the hopes of contemplating her serene face, one popularly imagined being young, soft, and extraordinarily
beautiful.
Stella 2, through the voice of writer Maria de Freitas (who behind the scenes wrote a great part of the book about
Fátima attributed to Father João de Marchi), captured forever the impressions of that first day in which onlookers
participated. Among them was Maria Carreira, who, in the language of a simple countrywoman, later described for the
journalist her memories of the event:
At the same instant, Lúcia jumped up and exclaimed, ‘O, Jacinta, there she comes already, there was the lightning,”
and then ran to kneel at the foot of the oak.’
“And you did not see anything?,” de Freitas asked.
“Me? No, ma’am. And no one boasted about having seen the lightning. We would follow the children and kneel in
the middle of the field. Lúcia would raise her hands and say, “You bade me come here, what do you wish of me?” And
then could be heard a buzzing that seemed to be that of a bee. I took care to discern whether it was the Lady
speaking.”
“And everyone heard it?,” the reporter asked.
“Well, it could be heard very well!,” Carreira answered.
The buzzing of a bee – here is the voice attributed to Our Lady of Fátima by the miracle’s greatest publicist. She, and
the other onlookers, did not hear a voice speaking Hebrew, Aramaic, or even Portuguese, but a voice like that of an
insect.
And the Being spoke. To Lúcia, it was not strange at all. They understood each other in Portuguese, as if Mary, the
Mother of Jesus, had become a polyglot, or as if two thousand years of history had not altered the language of the
people. The news spread throughout the village, and on June 13th, part of the neighborhood came to the site of the
Apparitions.
They were not many. “I counted the people and saw that only 40 were present,” wrote Inácio António Marques. 1
And those people anxiously waited in that deserted place for the veritable Queen of Heaven to descend to the oak
tree, in the hopes of contemplating her serene face, one popularly imagined being young, soft, and extraordinarily
beautiful.
Stella 2, through the voice of writer Maria de Freitas (who behind the scenes wrote a great part of the book about
Fátima attributed to Father João de Marchi), captured forever the impressions of that first day in which onlookers
participated. Among them was Maria Carreira, who, in the language of a simple countrywoman, later described for the
journalist her memories of the event:
At the same instant, Lúcia jumped up and exclaimed, ‘O, Jacinta, there she comes already, there was the lightning,”
and then ran to kneel at the foot of the oak.’
“And you did not see anything?,” de Freitas asked.
“Me? No, ma’am. And no one boasted about having seen the lightning. We would follow the children and kneel in
the middle of the field. Lúcia would raise her hands and say, “You bade me come here, what do you wish of me?” And
then could be heard a buzzing that seemed to be that of a bee. I took care to discern whether it was the Lady
speaking.”
“And everyone heard it?,” the reporter asked.
“Well, it could be heard very well!,” Carreira answered.
The buzzing of a bee – here is the voice attributed to Our Lady of Fátima by the miracle’s greatest publicist. She, and
the other onlookers, did not hear a voice speaking Hebrew, Aramaic, or even Portuguese, but a voice like that of an
insect.
THE “BUZZING” SOUNDS IN FATIMA APPARITIONS 1917 by Joaquim Fernandes*
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(excerpt from the book Heavenly lights. The Fatima Apparitions and the UFO Phenomenon, by Fina d' Armada and
Joaquim Fernandes, translated from Portuguese and edited by Andrew D. Basiago and Eva M. Thompson, published
by Anomalist Books, 2007
Joaquim Fernandes, translated from Portuguese and edited by Andrew D. Basiago and Eva M. Thompson, published
by Anomalist Books, 2007
JOAQUIM FERNANDES is
a professor of History at
the University Fernando
Pessoa in Porto, Portugal,
where he is a member of
the Center for
Transdisciplinary Studies
in Consciousness
(CTEC). He holds a Ph.D.
in Contemporary History.
His doctoral thesis
explored “The Imagined
Extraterrestrial in Portugal
from the Middle of the
19th Century to the
Modern Era” is the first of
its kind presented in an
European Academia till
now. He is the co-editor
of CTEC’s journal Cons-
sciences. His interests
are the history of science
and the comparative
anthropology of secular
and religious visionary
experiences, emphasizing
the Fátima apparitions of
1917, about which he has
co-authored three works
with Fina d’Armada. This
work is been published by
Anomalist Books in US.
a professor of History at
the University Fernando
Pessoa in Porto, Portugal,
where he is a member of
the Center for
Transdisciplinary Studies
in Consciousness
(CTEC). He holds a Ph.D.
in Contemporary History.
His doctoral thesis
explored “The Imagined
Extraterrestrial in Portugal
from the Middle of the
19th Century to the
Modern Era” is the first of
its kind presented in an
European Academia till
now. He is the co-editor
of CTEC’s journal Cons-
sciences. His interests
are the history of science
and the comparative
anthropology of secular
and religious visionary
experiences, emphasizing
the Fátima apparitions of
1917, about which he has
co-authored three works
with Fina d’Armada. This
work is been published by
Anomalist Books in US.
| Copyright © 2009 JFS |
| All the rights reserved, 2007 |
This same witness recounted this same episode to Father
João de Marchi. In his work, entitled Era uma Senhora
Mais Brilhante que o Sol [It was a Lady More Brilliant than
the Sun], we read 3:
I had been sick, and was feeling very weak. It must have
been around midday, when Lúcia was asked: “Will Our
Lady be long delayed?”
“No, ma’am, she will not be long,” she responded.
The tiny child was watching for the signs.
We prayed the Rosary and, when the girl from Boleiros
was going to begin the Litany, Lúcia interrupted her,
saying that there was no longer sufficient time. She
immediately rose to her feet and shouted:
“Jacinta, there comes Our Lady, the lightning has struck.”
João de Marchi. In his work, entitled Era uma Senhora
Mais Brilhante que o Sol [It was a Lady More Brilliant than
the Sun], we read 3:
I had been sick, and was feeling very weak. It must have
been around midday, when Lúcia was asked: “Will Our
Lady be long delayed?”
“No, ma’am, she will not be long,” she responded.
The tiny child was watching for the signs.
We prayed the Rosary and, when the girl from Boleiros
was going to begin the Litany, Lúcia interrupted her,
saying that there was no longer sufficient time. She
immediately rose to her feet and shouted:
“Jacinta, there comes Our Lady, the lightning has struck.”
All three children ran to the oak, as we ran behind them. We knelt upon the thickets and shrubs. Lúcia lifted her
hands, as in prayer, and I heard her say:
“You bade me to come here, please tell me what you want.”
Then we began to hear something like this, in the manner of a very fine voice, but what it said could not be
comprehended or put into words, for it was like the buzzing of a bee!
But that buzzing did not disturb the silence of the mountain only in June. The following month, word spread
throughout the entire region and nearly four to five thousand people found their way to Cova da Iria. 4 Jacinto de
Almeida Lopes, proprietor of the site of the Shrine later established by the parish of Fátima, was among them. He
would be one of the eyewitnesses chosen by the parish priest to testify during the Inquiry. The parish priest, writing
in the third person, related the evidence given by Lopes:
“Then what is it that you want of me?”
After this question, she waited in silence for a short period of time, the time of a brief response. And during this
silence, he heard, as if coming from the oak tree, a faint voice, similar, he says, to the humming of a bee, but without
distinguishing a single word.
In July, Manuel Marto, the father of Jacinta and Francisco, made his way to the site for the first time. Questioned as
to what he experienced 5, he told João de Marchi:
“I heard a sound, a din, such as a great fly makes inside an empty water pot,” and wondered whether it was “far off
or close by.”
Manuel Marto helped himself to odd comparisons. When interrogated about the same matter by the Italian priest
Humberto Pasquale 6, he affirmed: “I heard something like the buzzing of a fly inside an empty barrel, but without
articulation of words.” For his part, Pasquale added: “Mr. Manuel Marto explained to us that, during the entire
duration of the appearance, those present heard an indefinable sound, like that which is heard next to a hive, but
altogether more harmonious, even though words were not heard.”
In this same month, we find other testimony, however, which demonstrated that the buzzing must have been heard
quite well, which, as a matter of fact, Maria Carreira stated. António Baptista, from Moita, in the parish of Fátima, was
then 50 years old. When interviewed by the Viscount of Montelo on November 13, 1917, he declared, “on July 13th, I
was at Cova da Iria. She (Lúcia) knelt. I thought I heard, at that moment, a little wind, a zoa-zoa sound. While
Lúcia was listening to a response, it seemed there was a buzzing sound like that of a cicada.” 7
“Many people say that when the Apparition was speaking, it could be heard,” wrote J. de S. Bento, in a letter possibly
penned on October 13th of that year 8. “But they could not distinguish what She was saying.” And another witness
also made reference to the sounds of the “speech” of the Being. Manuel Gonçalves, Jr., a 30-year-old farmer from
Montelo – the place name that the Canon Formigão adopted in his pseudonym 9 – also declared on October 11th
“some people have affirmed that they hear the sound of the answers.”
Herewith we arrive at 1978. In July 18th of that year, the authors interviewed the relatives of the seers and
eyewitnesses then still living. One of the people with whom we spoke was Lúcia’s sister, Maria dos Anjos. Sitting in
an armchair, beside the house where she was born, living out the rest of her days, smiling to the daily visitors, she
narrated for us once again the story that had forever altered the life of her family:
“Did you know Maria Carreira?,” we asked on that hot summer afternoon.
“I knew her as well as I knew my own mother.”
“She said that when Our Lady would speak, she would hear something like the humming of a bee...
I also heard that little buzz. I also got to hear it, but I know not what it was.”
“Was it as if there were many bees?,” we asked.
“No, only one,” she responded, categorically.”
“Do you recall what month that was?”
“At that time, I did not go there every month. It seemed as if a bee was around there whenever Lúcia was listening.
But I have no idea what it was!”
“I have no idea what it was!” Her statement gives one pause to consider whether the event should have been given a
Marian interpretation, if the sound that the Being made was not even understood. In truth, who can explain why her
voice was comparable to the buzzing of a bee? Or yet to the buzz of a great fly inside a water pot, or of a fly inside
an empty barrel? Have these sounds been heard solely in Fátima? Or have there been, in other parts of the world,
other witnesses to identical sounds
13. Experimental observations of the effects of microwaves
One working hypothesis, subject to experimental verification, attributes some of the physical phenomena occurring at
the time of the Apparitions to the eventual effect of microwave radiation (that falling in the electromagnetic spectrum
between 30 and 300,000 MHz.) We refer, namely, to the following:
a) the declaration of the “fourth seer,” Carolina Carreira, when she alluded, in the course of contact with an “angelic
being” of small height, to the non-auditory reception, inside her mind, of a repetitive order: “Come and pray three
Hail Mary’s… Come and pray three Hail Mary’s…”;
b) the various indications by witnesses near to the site of the “contact” by the three young shepherds with a
communicating “being,” who heard a “humming of bees,” which is, as we have seen, one of the characteristics of
modern Ufological phenomenology that appears with some frequency;
c) the properties of microwave radiation, discussed by McCampbell 1, among others, and [which] would justify the
triple effect registered by the testifying masses of Fátima during the solar phenomenon of October 13, 1917: intense
heat, rapid drying of clothes, physiological effects.
The most suggestive fact to retain is furnished to us by the witnesses when they refer that the “buzzing of bees”
cited was always produced when the “luminous lady” spoke with the three seers, “but without moving her lips.”
Since McCampbell, other labs have reproduced the experiences that confer a coherent principle to the totality of
witnesses in regard to this question of “communication/reception of messages,” and, particularly, as regards the
hearing of sounds identified as the “buzzing of bees.”
We refer, for example, to the experiences of investigators from the Canadian Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, specifically, to the works of James C. Lin, Sergio Sales-Cunha, Joseph Battocletti and Anthony Sances,
published under the title, “The Auditory Microwave Phenomenon” 2. These investigations could prove to be promising
for the gradual comprehension of this problem and, in a general way, for the elaboration of explicative models of
certain secondary effects, of a physical and physiological nature, registered in human beings and lesser animals, in the
presence of unidentified aerospace phenomena.
Scientific exploration of the auditory “phenomenon” of microwaves may help to explain, in a rational and coherent
way, what type of reception/communication is involved in cases of “contact with messages,” whether they occur in a
secular context (i.e., UFO’s) or a religious one (i.e., “Marian apparitions”.) This may be especially true in situations like
Fátima, where the contact includes altered states of consciousness.
The Canadian case cited above gives an account of the effects of small discharges of microwave radiation
reverberating in the crania of human subjects. The heads of the individuals subjected to these emissions were placed
outside the reach of a conical antenna. The experiments took place in an appropriate compartment. The perceptions
that resulted consisted of a combination of audible sounds.
The studies showed that the individuals perceived buzzing types of noises or pops within the head, when subjected
to microwave radiation between 200 and 300 MHz.
Generally, these sounds were perceived as something produced in the interior of the head or in the posterior part of
the cranium. Remember, once again, that the “fourth seer” of Fátima would hear the commanding words of the “little
angel” inside her head…
A new contribution, virtually contemporaneous with the cited experiments, was communicated to us by Petit, director
of research at the French CNRS, and Assistant Director of the Calculus Center of the University of Provence, which
came to reinforce the plausibility of this working hypothesis. Certainly, according to Petit, in the course of the
experiments carried out in 1979, in the ambient area of the Department of Microwave Studies and Investigations
annexed to the National Center for Space Studies of Toulouse, its director, Professor Thourel, personally confirmed
accidental reception by non-auditory means of modulated, low frequency microwaves when exposed to the active rays
of a transmitter. 3
Returning to the Fátima case, we verify that the “buzzing” or “humming” was not exclusive to the three small seers.
In fact, others who were in the vicinity of the “contact” site gave various accounts of those impressions. They
underscored that they were “clearly hearing” that noise when the “Lady” was speaking with Lúcia “without moving her
lips.”
This detail comfortably sustains the notion, maintained by the accounts, that the “buzzing” or “humming”
phenomenon would be audible within a determined area around the three children and would come from a source
external to the onlookers. In our working hypothesis, the means of communication between the “luminous lady” and
the principal “message” receptor was the previously described beam of focused light.
Naturally, new cross-trials will be necessary and desirable, given their potential to provide controllable and statistically
representative data, with a view to the study of psycho-physiological reactions and human (as well as animal)
behaviors at those levels of radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum. We cannot even speak to the immense field of
analysis which is openly anticipated, having as its target the structure of the discourse of the religious and para-
religious “messages” and their semantic content within the phenomenology of the “unidentified” processes involved 4.
Lastly, let us address the hypothesis set forth by Claude Rifat, when he confronted the apparent distortions and
anachronisms of content, i.e., the obvious unreality and irrationality of the UFO-type experiences and the “Marian
apparitions.” In the magazine UFO Phenomena, Rifat emphasized the function carried out in these situations by the
Locus Coeruleus, an important region in the mammalian brain. And it is there, according to Rifat, that the
phenomenon of dreams is induced. Maybe, then, the source of Radiation “X” (flying saucer, “luminous being,” what
have you) might interfere in the normal functioning of the brain via the emission of microwave radiation. The
distortion or alteration of the “message” (beyond the eventually suggested “images,” i.e., those of “Hell” 5) could be
one resulting from the interference of that radiation at the level of Locus Coeruleus, while our unconscious would act
as a rectifying “filter,” actualizing and adapting the information according to the surrounding cultural context and time
6.
* PhD in History, with the doctoral thesis “The Extraterrestrial Imaginary in Portuguese Culture. From the end of the
Modernity until the middle of the XIX Century”, University of Porto, 2005. Professor at the CTEC – Center for
Transdisciplinary Studies on Consciousness, Co-editor of Journal Cons-Ciências, University Fernando Pessoa, Praça 9
de Abril, 349, 4249-004 Porto, Portugal.
e-mail:jfernan@ufp.edu.pt
hands, as in prayer, and I heard her say:
“You bade me to come here, please tell me what you want.”
Then we began to hear something like this, in the manner of a very fine voice, but what it said could not be
comprehended or put into words, for it was like the buzzing of a bee!
But that buzzing did not disturb the silence of the mountain only in June. The following month, word spread
throughout the entire region and nearly four to five thousand people found their way to Cova da Iria. 4 Jacinto de
Almeida Lopes, proprietor of the site of the Shrine later established by the parish of Fátima, was among them. He
would be one of the eyewitnesses chosen by the parish priest to testify during the Inquiry. The parish priest, writing
in the third person, related the evidence given by Lopes:
“Then what is it that you want of me?”
After this question, she waited in silence for a short period of time, the time of a brief response. And during this
silence, he heard, as if coming from the oak tree, a faint voice, similar, he says, to the humming of a bee, but without
distinguishing a single word.
In July, Manuel Marto, the father of Jacinta and Francisco, made his way to the site for the first time. Questioned as
to what he experienced 5, he told João de Marchi:
“I heard a sound, a din, such as a great fly makes inside an empty water pot,” and wondered whether it was “far off
or close by.”
Manuel Marto helped himself to odd comparisons. When interrogated about the same matter by the Italian priest
Humberto Pasquale 6, he affirmed: “I heard something like the buzzing of a fly inside an empty barrel, but without
articulation of words.” For his part, Pasquale added: “Mr. Manuel Marto explained to us that, during the entire
duration of the appearance, those present heard an indefinable sound, like that which is heard next to a hive, but
altogether more harmonious, even though words were not heard.”
In this same month, we find other testimony, however, which demonstrated that the buzzing must have been heard
quite well, which, as a matter of fact, Maria Carreira stated. António Baptista, from Moita, in the parish of Fátima, was
then 50 years old. When interviewed by the Viscount of Montelo on November 13, 1917, he declared, “on July 13th, I
was at Cova da Iria. She (Lúcia) knelt. I thought I heard, at that moment, a little wind, a zoa-zoa sound. While
Lúcia was listening to a response, it seemed there was a buzzing sound like that of a cicada.” 7
“Many people say that when the Apparition was speaking, it could be heard,” wrote J. de S. Bento, in a letter possibly
penned on October 13th of that year 8. “But they could not distinguish what She was saying.” And another witness
also made reference to the sounds of the “speech” of the Being. Manuel Gonçalves, Jr., a 30-year-old farmer from
Montelo – the place name that the Canon Formigão adopted in his pseudonym 9 – also declared on October 11th
“some people have affirmed that they hear the sound of the answers.”
Herewith we arrive at 1978. In July 18th of that year, the authors interviewed the relatives of the seers and
eyewitnesses then still living. One of the people with whom we spoke was Lúcia’s sister, Maria dos Anjos. Sitting in
an armchair, beside the house where she was born, living out the rest of her days, smiling to the daily visitors, she
narrated for us once again the story that had forever altered the life of her family:
“Did you know Maria Carreira?,” we asked on that hot summer afternoon.
“I knew her as well as I knew my own mother.”
“She said that when Our Lady would speak, she would hear something like the humming of a bee...
I also heard that little buzz. I also got to hear it, but I know not what it was.”
“Was it as if there were many bees?,” we asked.
“No, only one,” she responded, categorically.”
“Do you recall what month that was?”
“At that time, I did not go there every month. It seemed as if a bee was around there whenever Lúcia was listening.
But I have no idea what it was!”
“I have no idea what it was!” Her statement gives one pause to consider whether the event should have been given a
Marian interpretation, if the sound that the Being made was not even understood. In truth, who can explain why her
voice was comparable to the buzzing of a bee? Or yet to the buzz of a great fly inside a water pot, or of a fly inside
an empty barrel? Have these sounds been heard solely in Fátima? Or have there been, in other parts of the world,
other witnesses to identical sounds
13. Experimental observations of the effects of microwaves
One working hypothesis, subject to experimental verification, attributes some of the physical phenomena occurring at
the time of the Apparitions to the eventual effect of microwave radiation (that falling in the electromagnetic spectrum
between 30 and 300,000 MHz.) We refer, namely, to the following:
a) the declaration of the “fourth seer,” Carolina Carreira, when she alluded, in the course of contact with an “angelic
being” of small height, to the non-auditory reception, inside her mind, of a repetitive order: “Come and pray three
Hail Mary’s… Come and pray three Hail Mary’s…”;
b) the various indications by witnesses near to the site of the “contact” by the three young shepherds with a
communicating “being,” who heard a “humming of bees,” which is, as we have seen, one of the characteristics of
modern Ufological phenomenology that appears with some frequency;
c) the properties of microwave radiation, discussed by McCampbell 1, among others, and [which] would justify the
triple effect registered by the testifying masses of Fátima during the solar phenomenon of October 13, 1917: intense
heat, rapid drying of clothes, physiological effects.
The most suggestive fact to retain is furnished to us by the witnesses when they refer that the “buzzing of bees”
cited was always produced when the “luminous lady” spoke with the three seers, “but without moving her lips.”
Since McCampbell, other labs have reproduced the experiences that confer a coherent principle to the totality of
witnesses in regard to this question of “communication/reception of messages,” and, particularly, as regards the
hearing of sounds identified as the “buzzing of bees.”
We refer, for example, to the experiences of investigators from the Canadian Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, specifically, to the works of James C. Lin, Sergio Sales-Cunha, Joseph Battocletti and Anthony Sances,
published under the title, “The Auditory Microwave Phenomenon” 2. These investigations could prove to be promising
for the gradual comprehension of this problem and, in a general way, for the elaboration of explicative models of
certain secondary effects, of a physical and physiological nature, registered in human beings and lesser animals, in the
presence of unidentified aerospace phenomena.
Scientific exploration of the auditory “phenomenon” of microwaves may help to explain, in a rational and coherent
way, what type of reception/communication is involved in cases of “contact with messages,” whether they occur in a
secular context (i.e., UFO’s) or a religious one (i.e., “Marian apparitions”.) This may be especially true in situations like
Fátima, where the contact includes altered states of consciousness.
The Canadian case cited above gives an account of the effects of small discharges of microwave radiation
reverberating in the crania of human subjects. The heads of the individuals subjected to these emissions were placed
outside the reach of a conical antenna. The experiments took place in an appropriate compartment. The perceptions
that resulted consisted of a combination of audible sounds.
The studies showed that the individuals perceived buzzing types of noises or pops within the head, when subjected
to microwave radiation between 200 and 300 MHz.
Generally, these sounds were perceived as something produced in the interior of the head or in the posterior part of
the cranium. Remember, once again, that the “fourth seer” of Fátima would hear the commanding words of the “little
angel” inside her head…
A new contribution, virtually contemporaneous with the cited experiments, was communicated to us by Petit, director
of research at the French CNRS, and Assistant Director of the Calculus Center of the University of Provence, which
came to reinforce the plausibility of this working hypothesis. Certainly, according to Petit, in the course of the
experiments carried out in 1979, in the ambient area of the Department of Microwave Studies and Investigations
annexed to the National Center for Space Studies of Toulouse, its director, Professor Thourel, personally confirmed
accidental reception by non-auditory means of modulated, low frequency microwaves when exposed to the active rays
of a transmitter. 3
Returning to the Fátima case, we verify that the “buzzing” or “humming” was not exclusive to the three small seers.
In fact, others who were in the vicinity of the “contact” site gave various accounts of those impressions. They
underscored that they were “clearly hearing” that noise when the “Lady” was speaking with Lúcia “without moving her
lips.”
This detail comfortably sustains the notion, maintained by the accounts, that the “buzzing” or “humming”
phenomenon would be audible within a determined area around the three children and would come from a source
external to the onlookers. In our working hypothesis, the means of communication between the “luminous lady” and
the principal “message” receptor was the previously described beam of focused light.
Naturally, new cross-trials will be necessary and desirable, given their potential to provide controllable and statistically
representative data, with a view to the study of psycho-physiological reactions and human (as well as animal)
behaviors at those levels of radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum. We cannot even speak to the immense field of
analysis which is openly anticipated, having as its target the structure of the discourse of the religious and para-
religious “messages” and their semantic content within the phenomenology of the “unidentified” processes involved 4.
Lastly, let us address the hypothesis set forth by Claude Rifat, when he confronted the apparent distortions and
anachronisms of content, i.e., the obvious unreality and irrationality of the UFO-type experiences and the “Marian
apparitions.” In the magazine UFO Phenomena, Rifat emphasized the function carried out in these situations by the
Locus Coeruleus, an important region in the mammalian brain. And it is there, according to Rifat, that the
phenomenon of dreams is induced. Maybe, then, the source of Radiation “X” (flying saucer, “luminous being,” what
have you) might interfere in the normal functioning of the brain via the emission of microwave radiation. The
distortion or alteration of the “message” (beyond the eventually suggested “images,” i.e., those of “Hell” 5) could be
one resulting from the interference of that radiation at the level of Locus Coeruleus, while our unconscious would act
as a rectifying “filter,” actualizing and adapting the information according to the surrounding cultural context and time
6.
* PhD in History, with the doctoral thesis “The Extraterrestrial Imaginary in Portuguese Culture. From the end of the
Modernity until the middle of the XIX Century”, University of Porto, 2005. Professor at the CTEC – Center for
Transdisciplinary Studies on Consciousness, Co-editor of Journal Cons-Ciências, University Fernando Pessoa, Praça 9
de Abril, 349, 4249-004 Porto, Portugal.
e-mail:jfernan@ufp.edu.pt
1 McCAMPBELL, James, Ufology, Belmont, Jaymac Company, 1973.
2 Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 68, no. 1, January 1980.
3 PETIT, Jean Pierre, personal communications, 1983.
4 RIFAT, Claude, “The induced dream hypothesis,” UFO Phenomena, Bologna, vol. 2, 1977.
5 The images of “Hell” were presented in July 1917 to the seers of Fátima. They comprise part of the “secret,” which was already divulged by Lúcia
in her Memórias, but not developed in this work.
6 Ibid. “A theoretical framework for the problem of non-contact between an advanced extraterrestrial civilization and mankind; symbolic sequential
communication versus symbolic non-sequential communication, UFO Phenomenon, Bologna, vol. 3, 1978-79.
2 Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 68, no. 1, January 1980.
3 PETIT, Jean Pierre, personal communications, 1983.
4 RIFAT, Claude, “The induced dream hypothesis,” UFO Phenomena, Bologna, vol. 2, 1977.
5 The images of “Hell” were presented in July 1917 to the seers of Fátima. They comprise part of the “secret,” which was already divulged by Lúcia
in her Memórias, but not developed in this work.
6 Ibid. “A theoretical framework for the problem of non-contact between an advanced extraterrestrial civilization and mankind; symbolic sequential
communication versus symbolic non-sequential communication, UFO Phenomenon, Bologna, vol. 3, 1978-79.
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