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Fatima was not an accidental contact; it was obviously a carefully planned and deliberately executed demonstration. Dr. Jacques Vallee, Antonio Ribera, and other well-known UFO researchers have written extensively about it, but following the style of contemporary UFO research, they concentrated on the descriptions of the object and the fact that 70,000 witnesses were present, and they studiously ignored the whole pattern of events that preceded the appearance of the object. Those events were far more important than the climactic sighting. The correlations are very clear. First, Lucia was singled out in 1915 for the cautious initial contacts. She saw something in the sky that sununer, and a few weeks later she and her friends were approached by a luminous transparent figure which appeared to be a fifteen-year-old boy. Because the children came from strict Catholic backgrounds, the contact was conducted on a religious level. The boy asked the children to join him in prayer. Fear was replaced by reverence and awe. The experience undoubtedly amplified Lucia’s religious beliefs and increased her interest in religious training. A study of her autobiography and the thorough reports written during and after the miracle suggest that she had many of the medium characteristics mentioned earlier and that she willingly prepared her mind for the events of 1917. In modern contactee reports we find that initial contact is sometimes carried out months or even years before the contactee is finally fully involved in the situation. (Small children often have a high degree of ESP, but as they grow older and develop reason—and skepticism—and their minds become more disciplined to the material world around them, these powers seem to slip away. A remarkable Italian teacher, Maria Montessori, worked out educational methods that took advantage of this fact, and she founded the school system which bears her name. Four- and five-year-olds in Montes- sori schools learn to read, write, and work out complicated mathematical problems by themselves. The teacher serves more as a consultant and does no lecturing or open teaching. There are now Montessori schools world- wide, and many of her methods have been absorbed into our conventional educational system. It is probable that small children make excellent contactee material because of these factors, and that may explain why so much UFO, ghost and poltergeist activity seems to surround children.) The world was in foment in 1917, and the ultraterrestrials may have decided that some form of impressive demonstration was necessary to restore faltering human values. Random appearances of ‘“‘signs in the sky” A Sure Cure for Alligator Bites / 233 Analysis of the Miracle