Celestial Secrets: The Hidden History of the Fatima Cover-Up

Celestial Secrets: The Hidden History of the Fatima Cover-Up
Dr Joaquim Fernandes & Fina D'Armada
Ecce Nova
ISBN: 0-9735341-8-4
Non-Fiction, UFOs, Extraterrestrials, Mariology
Reviewed by Frederick Noronha

It has everything. A mix of religion, intrigue, conspiracy, mystery. If you grew up Catholic, you've surely heard about Fatima. Now, 'Celestial Secrets' tells you that the children whom the devout believe saw "visions" of the Virgin Mary in early 20th century Portugal actually encountered "aliens visiting our planet from elsewhere".
This is an interesting book. It's neatly printed, looks scholarly even on first encounter, and is authored by a team that comprises a professor of history and a women' studies
expert. Spread in three parts, and 15 chapters, the fairly thick tome begins by looking at the media reporting on Fatima.
Fatima, a parish of 10,000 inhabitants, is located in the district of Santarem in Central Portugal, some 123 km north of Lisbon. Fatima's claim to fame is the local shrine, built
to commemorate the events of 1917 when three peasant children claimed to have seen the "Virgin of the Rosary". This encounter happened in a pasture called the Cova da Iria
("Irene's Cove") near the village of Aljustrel, about a mile from Fatima.
But Fatima has a context. It was a time when the "First World War" wrecked large parts of Europe. "It is against this setting of wartime hardship that the story of Fatima must be
placed," says the foreword.
One of the chapters of this book deals with 'The Jesuits and the Secret of Fatima'. Given the widespread mix of devotion to, and suspicion of, this powerful Catholic religious order, over the decades, sure there's a lot of scope for the authors to get a detailed reading.
The strengths of this book include the huge amount of documentation it marshals, to question and challenge the official version, over what has come to be the most accepted
version globally.
But its weaknesses is the claim that what the children saw was actually some "UFO phenomenon". Maybe one is simply too skeptical of such claims, and this blocks the possibility of more seriously considering the possibility. Yet, one can't run away from the belief that there could be some more rational explanation ...