The intention of this post was to shift gears from the run of UFO-related anomalies that have preceded it. As you will read, I have only partly succeeded in that. To set the stage, I should state for those who don't already know it that I am a practicing Catholic [albeit a pretty "far left" one] and therefore have no built-in prejudices against the possibility of miracles nor apparitions. As an old scientist, however, I am in line with most Church authorities as being highly skeptical of Marian apparitions, believing most of them to be unsupported claims of people who desperately need their shaky faith-levels bolstered. I believe that the Church sanctions only five Marian apparitions as veridical [I may be off in my number but the number is a small one].
This post was inspired by the purchase of the pictured book from our famous/notorious bookseller-to-the-UFO-community, Bob Girard. Bob doesn't believe in any of this "christian" stuff himself, but has curiosity about all things anomalous. He therefore offers, occasionally, unusual and sometimes very rare items on a variety of "Fortean" type topics. I didn't need a history of Mary, but Bob stated that this book had an appendix which was the first report of the witness testimony to the Knock apparition. THAT was interesting, and so I bought the book. This post is my attempt to you to pass on what was in that appendix.
The picture above is a colorful if not very accurate rendition of the sight. The most particular change which should be made would be painting the scene at night and in the rain. The bright aura which surrounded the figures would then stand out more impressively. I'm not going to retell the person-by-person coming and going, because it doesn't seem important. Suffice it to say, that a couple of people saw the images in dusk/daylight, night rapidly fell and the rain came, and several other witnesses, told by one of the early sighters came out to view the apparition while the skies were dark and ultimately rainy. The apparition was like a three-dimensional life-like sculpture which never moved [sort of like what we would call today a very well done holographic projection of a skill probably still a bit beyond us today]. The apparition lasted a few hours and was gone before morning. The event happened on August 21, 1879.
The event gets its strength from the early testimonies of more than a dozen residents of the small village of Knock. These testimonies were taken not long after the event and with churchmen present along with the questioner. Particularly of interest to the modern field investigator is the fact that not all testimonies precisely agree [showing a great deal of independence in the witnesses] while perfectly agreeing as to the main outlines of the event. The witnesses were all well known people in this village, and they were considered credible persons beyond reproach. Many of the witnesses didn't know what to make of the apparition and were far from forming some kind of instant cult. The picture at the left is one of the witnesses. It is labelled [on an internet site picturing some later book on the subject] as "Mary Byrne". This is probably not true. The main family name in the village was spelled "Beirne" and this is probably the elder Margaret Beirne rather than the 26 year-old Mary. This is not essential to our tale, but it demonstrates the simple goodness of going to the earliest closest sources possible. Mary and Margaret Beirne [there were actually two ladies named Margaret who witnessed] were among the 14 witnesses whose testimonies were recorded in the book cited above. [8 females and 6 males, ranging in age from a six-year-old to a lady of 75.] A thumbnail listing of the elements of their testimonies has been included below.
The "sociology" of this little parish is worth a mention. The priest was one Bartholomew Aloysius Cavanagh --- no doubt what ethnic stock he. Cavanagh himself had a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin. In fact it is rumored in other books that not only was he devoted to Mary but had visions of her himself at earlier times. [this is not confirmed in the book that I own, however]. But it is puzzling that when one of the women called on Father Cavanagh with the news that people were seeing a vision behind the chapel, he never left his house to go see. The book says that he misinterpreted his housekeeper's words to mean that the vision had come and gone, and rather bitterly rued the circumstance of not venturing out in the rain. Nevertheless, perhaps it was better evidence-wise that he was not there. The people made up their own minds without an "authority figure" on site.
The witness testimony is extremely strong in my eyes with much excellent agreement on the main points, and most of the differences being due to apparent omissions, probably caused by poor and impatient interviewing. Having read the statements, I can see why the Church considers Knock to be substantial incidence. But in my mind I am not sure WHAT SORT of substantial incident it was.
My grid-list of the features of the 14 witness statements is above. If I had anything like this in a UFO case I'd consider it one of my best. Thirteen of the fourteen witnesses, it appears to me, were obviously looking at the same thing. The fourteenth, Patrick Walsh, was not at the site but was observing a golden globe of light high above the chapel [which apparently those folks fixated on the ground-level images did not notice]. The common elements in the apparition were three figures: St. Joseph, The Blessed Virgin, and a "bishop" interpreted by half the people as St. John, standing three-dimensional and brightly colored, very life-like, and surrounded by a bright aura. To the right was an Altar on which was a Lamb, head turned towards the group. Debated among the witnesses [later] was the Cross seen by some and not by others, behind the Lamb. Some people described a sparkling starry light surrounding this area. Only one witness claimed to see hovering Angels whose wings fluttered.
Of tremendous importance to the utter strangeness of the experience are two further related phenomena. The oldest woman was deeply moved at the sight, and went over the separating ditch and right up to the images. They continued to look alive to her, albeit not moving. She threw herself at Mary's feet and attempted to kiss them. Her hands and face went through the image despite its solid look. At least one other witness went close to the images at the same time and saw the older lady attempt this. Secondly, this lady stated that it was not only this which stunned her, but that despite the hard rain, the area around the images was dry--rain did not reach it somehow. At least four other witnesses testified to this enigma. What do we make of THAT?
Knock's story spread pretty quickly [even the inclusion of it in this book was rapid as the book came out in January of 1880]. The apparition never returned, but in January and February "extraordinary stars and globes of flame" appeared on or near the church steeple. One person claimed to see a vision of Mary within one of the lightforms.
In February, another person claimed to see lights of many colors and then three dark arches, within the center of which was an image of Mary. Later claims such as these have never been robust. Still, they helped push forward the growing legend of Knock, and shortly people were making pilgrimages from all over Ireland in hopes of seeing a personal Marian vision.
Of course this is not all that some were hoping for and so Knock also became the destination for many ill and disabled persons looking for cures.
Still today people go to Knock hoping for personal miracles, and one notorious fool regularly claims that he's getting messages from the BVM all the time, and consequently predicting spectacular new appearances, which to the vast majority of persons who then go to see, never happen. All this is much to the distress and disgust of the Church hierarchy, who believe that this person is ruining the faith that people have invested in the original event.
But what actually happened back in 1879?? I have about as close to zero doubt in my head that the images seen were "real" as described as I'm allowed by my intellectual honesty to have. But still: what was this?? From an "objective distance" the phenomenon looks like a piece of displaced space. It is as if a physical set of extremely well-done images were standing somewhere "else" and they and the space surrounding them "slipped" into an interface with our own. What??!! Well, it's not exactly unknown as a hypothesis for several other types of anomalistic mysteries. It might explain the sort-of-there sort-of-not-there aspect of this. It might explain the "rain not wetting the images". It might even explain why no one felt that they received any spiritual message during the event.
But I'm way-Out-Proctor now, so there I'll leave it.
But, as I said above: things were missing. The first thing missing that bothered me immediately was that there was no [known] communication of any religious message. Although this is one aspect of the event that actually makes it MORE credible [in that no religious motive to make stuff up can be assigned], it puts Knock into an extremely bizarre status of an apparently religious event with no religious content. The only possible reasonable counter to this would be if one imagined that some religious message was transmitted to the rector of the chapel, Bartholomew Cavanaugh [to the left], but he never said any such thing and in fact did not go out to see the apparition himself. It seems VERY unlikely that Cavanaugh would have received a revelation from the Blessed Virgin Mary and mentioned it to no one. This made another idea grow in my mind: this wasn't a religious apparition at all. But if not, what? The answer to that I cannot give, but I am going to speculate on it because there is something else missing here.
