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Manuel Nunes Fromigao, canon of the cathedral at Lisbon and professor at the Seminary of Santarem. He later wrote that he noticed a peculiar dimming of the sun in the cloudless sky as the children went into their trance, but he failed to see the luminous globe reported by other witnesses. Up until this time the Lady had not identified herself in any manner. She had been seen only by the three children, and her voice had been heard by just Lucia and Jacinto. Determined adults had extracted and embellished a description of the Lady from the youngsters, but they never really saw anything beyond a luminous figure. No hair or features were apparently visible. An estimated 70,000 people collected at the Cova da Iria on October 13, 1917, in anticipation of the promised miracle. Many of them carried cameras, and primitive hand-cranked movie cameras had been set tip by newsreel men. The weather was sour, with dark, sullen skies and a heavy rain. The meadows and fields were a sea of mud, and the faithful huddled under umbrellas. The three children gathered with their parents in front of the little tree and waited. Shortly after noon, Lucia gasped, and her upraised face flushed as she entered a rapturous. The Lady had arrived, even though the crowd saw nothing. The children declared that she held an infant in her arms, and for the first time she identified herself, saying that she was “‘the Lady of the Rosary.”’ The war was going to end soon, she told them, and all of the soldiers would be returning home. (The war continued for another year.) Suddenly the crowd screamed, and all the people fell to their knees. Something was coming through the clouds: a huge silver disk which rotated rapidly as it descended toward the mob. Fragile strands of silvery “angel hair’’ showered from the sky, melting away before any of it could be collected. The object bobbed up and down, waltzing under the cloud layer, and as it whirled faster, it seemed to change color, going through the whole spectrum. It swooped down and passed low over the terrified people; then it bobbed upward again. These gyrations were continued for a full ten minutes. Miles from Fatima, others were watching the same object. A well- known poet named Alfonso Lopes Vieira claimed that he saw it from his home at San Pedro de Moel, forty kilometers from Fatima. Eighteen kilometers away in Alburita, Dona Delfina Pereira Lopes, a teacher, and all of her students reportedly witnessed the spectacle. Father Inacio Lourenco described it as looking ‘“‘like a globe of snow revolving on itself.” A Sure Cure for Alligator Bites / 231