A strange scene unfolded in Ireland over the weekend as thousands of people flocked to a religious shrine in the hopes of seeing an appearance by the Virgin Mary.
The gathering of more than 2,000 people were drawn to the village of Knock after a Portuguese teen claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary in the famed town of Fatima last month.
According to the boy's father, he was told by the vision that she would reappear at 3 PM on June 10th at a shrine to the Virgin Mary in Knock and would bless everyone in attendance.
After word of the teen's experience spread on social media, an enormous amount of people journeyed to Knock on Saturday hoping to take part in what they thought would be a miraculous moment.
Whether they were rewarded for their faith appears to be a matter of conjecture.
In a somewhat confusing turn of events, media reports initially said that there were no sightings of the Virgin Mary over Knock on Saturday.
However, one of the people among the throng subsequently posted a video online allegedly showing the Virgin Mary appearing before the crowd.
Making matters all the more confounding, the footage seems to only feature the blinding sun shining in the sky, occasionally obscured by clouds, but nothing particularly resembling the Virgin Mary.
Nonetheless, people in the crowd can be heard gasping, praying, crying, and declaring that "I can see it!"
The puzzling event raises the question as to whether the witnesses were seeing something in the sky that wasn't captured on video, such as an anomaly in the clouds, or if they were simply so determined to experience a vision of the Virgin Mary that they mistook the sun for something more miraculous.
While the latter possibility sounds hard to fathom, the collective power of belief could have inspired a mass hallucination, of sorts, when the Virgin Mary did not appear in the way that they expected.
As with most matters surrounding religious miracles and apparitions, it would appear that the events in Knock over the weekend may very well turn out to be a matter of faith, especially for those who were in attendance.
Source: Mirror
