Have you ever heard of the apparition of the Virgin Mary over the Coptic Orthodox church in Zeitoun, a suburb of Cairo? She appeared there beginning in 1968, and appeared intermittently until 1971. ▶Here is a short summary of that event.
Above is a real photograph. There are many photographs of the event. It became worldwide news at the time. Even The New York Times reported on the initial apparitions:
Here’s a fascinating, 16-minute discussion of the apparition’s history on Matt Fradd’s podcast, with a Coptic priest telling the story:
One thing the priest said that I had never before heard: crowds observed the figure of the woman bowing towards the cross atop the church’s dome. This matters because one might have wondered if the apparition was a demonic counterfeit. The fact that the lady bowed towards the cross demolishes that theory.
Here’s another photo. Countless were taken. As the Coptic priest explained, Egyptian authorities, trying to rule out a hoax, once cut all electricity to Zeitoun, in case the image was being created. The image only shone more brightly.
From a Coptic newspaper account at the time:
One of the priests, echoing the views of many clergy, said that the clarity of the vision differs from person to person. Spiritual depth, purity of heart, and faith all influence the degree to which the apparition is seen: some witnesses see her figure clearly, others perceive only light, while a few see nothing. On one night, twin brothers stood together watching; one saw the Virgin’s full figure, while the other saw only a faint ray of light. It was also noted that children often saw her most vividly, for their innocence and purity make them more receptive to divine visions. Even those who did not see her directly experienced a profound spiritual atmosphere; hymns, prayers, and tears of devotion filled the night. Crowds stood awake until dawn, yet none felt fatigue, returning home at sunrise filled with peace and faith.
Interesting to note that the capacity to see the apparition depended in part on the state of one’s soul. Still, everybody saw it — even Muslims, who venerate Mary as the mother of the prophet Issa (Jesus). In the Fradd video, the priest says that outside the church, as the Virgin was appearing, both Christians and Muslims embraced in peace. This all came at a very difficult time for Egypt, which had been defeated in the 1967 war with Israel.
Here’s a link to a page with many more photographs.
As far as I know, the Virgin was not known to have disclosed a message. According to the priest Fradd interviews, she was seen blessing the crowds at times. She bowed towards the cross, as mentioned. On one occasion, she blessed the crowds with an olive branch, signifying peace.
How do you explain that?
You might not have heard of Skinwalker Ranch, a 512-acre rural property in Utah which is legendary as the site of many paranormal occurrences. There have been a number of TV shows and documentaries about the place, usually placed in context of the UAP phenomenon. In his new book, Jay Stratton, who led for a while the government’s investigation into UAP and related phenomena, tells of making two investigative trips to Skinwalker Ranch. He and his team observed paranormal phenomena. But after that, Stratton says he brought back “hitchhikers” with him — that is, his home and his family became demonized. He doesn’t use the “demon” term — Stratton seems to be, from the book’s context, a secular Jew — but the stories he tells about what happened to his family are terrifying. (I wrote about the Stratton book here recently; in that newsletter, I included some details about the paranormal events at the Stratton home after his Skinwalker Ranch visit.)
Well, the Department of War has just dumped a bunch more UAP data into the public realm — including reports on Skinwalker Ranch. Sit down for this one. It’s wild. If you follow that link, you’ll be able to download the 2010 internal government report of its Skinwalker Ranch investigations. Excerpts:
There’s a lot of this kind of thing, much of it truly frightening. Names have been redacted. Look at this:
All kinds of bizarre, demonic creatures seen on the site by witnesses. For example:
Et cetera. This doesn’t “prove” anything, of course, but it gives strong reason to believe that something paranormal and wicked is attached to that land.
I said at the top of this item that the photo illustrating it was not connected to Skinwalker Ranch. That said, in his new book, Jay Stratton, the former senior US intelligence official, says he saw something exactly like that when he visited the ranch:
It appeared to be a perfect delta shape, a 20-degree isosceles triangle–shaped craft, flying faster than any conventional aircraft I knew. No contrail. No visible propulsion. Just sharp geometry slicing across the blue. I had no way of knowing exactly how far away it was, which made estimating its size difficult. If it was very large and farther away, that could explain the absence of sound. But if it was and I believe it was, it was roughly the size of an F-117. I’ve been around F-117s for years, and I can say without hesitation it was not an F-117, nor any other aircraft in our inventory or that of a foreign country at the time. And it sure didn’t sound like one.
I don’t have data to back it up, but I know what I saw. This was the kind of observation you couldn’t get from a report. It was why analysts sometimes needed to leave the desk and step into the field, because the field had a way of reminding you that the unknown doesn’t just hide in the dark. Sometimes, it crosses the sky at noon.
Later on in the trip, I also witnessed orbs at night. These were not up close or hovering in front of me; they were in the distance, but clearly within the property. I did everything I could to rule out other light sources. These were in locations where there was no possibility of headlights, and no people on foot with flashlights. The orbs were small, self-contained spheres of light, typically white, blue, or orange, that seemed to generate their own illumination and move with purpose.
The orbs at Skinwalker Ranch were not just passive, floating lights that drifted through the darkness; they were enigmatic and moved in a way that suggested they were intelligent, weaving through the property as though they were conducting surveillance. Notably, they also evoked an unsettling combination of curiosity and dread.
I believe that we are going to be seeing and hearing about more and more things like this in the days and years to come. In fact, this week, I heard from two separate people — both Christians, one a UAP experiencer who has suffered from demonization since his initial sighting — both of whom say they have been observing an intensification of paranormal and demonic activity lately. Neither knows why.
About Skinwalker Ranch, I believe that the phenomena there are ultimately demonic. But I don’t necessarily believe that they are all purely spiritual. There could be something biological involved. I just don’t know. I think it is a false and unnecessary dichotomy, to claim that either they are purely spiritual, or they are purely biological.
Similarly, I don’t have a strong opinion on whether or not there could be orders of being that are not necessarily aligned with evil, but that are not human. (That is, the kind of thing that Reuben, in the David Bentley Hart account, saw and interacted with.)
I personally know a devout and prayerful Christian, well educated and sound of mind, who has interacted with what he takes to be faerie. He lives in a part of the country with a reputation for enchantment. He hasn’t sought them out, but he has encountered them. This isn’t Tinkerbell stuff. He won’t talk about it publicly, for obvious reasons. But he believes. He doesn’t just believe, he knows, from experience, that this stuff is real. What it is, he can’t say for sure. But that it exists, he has no doubt. And he believes it is not to be trifled with.
I wish my book * Living In Wonder* had sold more copies than it did. It didn’t do badly, but man, we are entering a world in which the paranormal and the mystical are going to be manifesting ever more vividly. Spiritual warfare is going to become more explicit. Christians (and others) have to be ready for this! Most of us are not, because we cling to modernist superstitions about materialism. Even if we are Christian, many of us think that the world of spirit is Up There, far away from us. In fact, it interpenetrates material reality. This is what all Christians believed prior to the last 500 years. Now, even many Christians who worship within sacramental traditions doubt it. They shouldn’t.
Christians (and others) who are not prepared mentally and spiritually to contend with these realities are going to be left undefended, and are primed to be deceived. I noticed in his book that Jay Stratton expressed intense anger at an unnamed military officer who warned him not to investigate this stuff, because it is demonic. Stratton made the usual valorous proclamation of Faustian man: that the Right To Know is sacred. Meanwhile, his house is beset by what Christians would instantly recognize as demons, and they are particularly attacking one of his children (at least they were when the book was written; I don’t know if they still are).
What if it is impossible to “know” fully what’s going on here without putting yourself and your loved ones in real spiritual peril? We moderns like to think it is possible to stand apart from the world and measure it, and observe it. It ain’t necessarily so. Many people who have had UAP experiences have noticed that the phenomenon somehow interacts with the individual’s consciousness. Similarly in Zeitoun, nearly everybody outside the church saw something of Our Lady, but those who were more devout saw the apparition more clearly, or more of the apparition.
We live in such a mysterious world. One way to think about “mystery” is that it is a truth that cannot be known solely through abstract, observational distance, but that has to be experienced, and “known” the way you know another person. Just like you wouldn’t want to know everyone, because there are some truly evil people in the world, so might it be with these paranormal mysteries. I’m just sayin’.
