I dunno, the Asch conformity experiment seems to suggest that people will doubt the evidence of their senses if enough peer pressure is applied. Combine that with general unreliability of memory formation and maybe you could explain away tens of thousands of people all claiming to have experienced the same weird phenomenon.
I posited the mass hysteria explanation before I read up on Fatima, but I think on balance I still believe more in mass failures of human senses and cognition (which I already know is pretty buggy) than in weird supernatural phenomena.
I dunno, the Asch conformity experiment seems to suggest that people will doubt the evidence of their senses if enough peer pressure is applied. Combine that with general unreliability of memory formation and maybe you could explain away tens of thousands of people all claiming to have experienced the same weird phenomenon.
I posited the mass hysteria explanation before I read up on Fatima, but I think on balance I still believe more in mass failures of human senses and cognition (which I already know is pretty buggy) than in weird supernatural phenomena.
The asch conformity experiment, it should be noted, makes people say they see a line as slightly longer than it actually is.