HOLY BOREALIS

Outtakes reported April 28 that “Chain Reaction,” a new film about atmospheric bomb testing, is being primarily financed by the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, a Catholic organization interested in religious miracles.

Reporter Joan Borsten wrote that “part of the movie will be filmed in the small village of Fatima, where, in 1917 and 1938, villagers witnessed an unusual aurora borealis . . . heralding the coming of each world war.”

1917 was a little late for World War I to be heralded. This fact should have tipped you off that your writer didn’t have the story straight.

In 1917, three Fatima children claimed to see a Marian apparition; two of the putative visionaries died in the flu pandemic following the war, while the third, Lucia dos Santos, still lives. On Jan. 25, 1938, a spectacular (but entirely natural) aurora borealis was seen throughout Europe--not just in Fatima; Lucia later claimed that the apparition had prophesied such a light in the sky would herald a new--and worse--war.

While reports of the 1917 episode are not without intriguing details, Lucia raised suspicions by keeping the aurora “prophecy” and other “predictions” to herself until after the fact.

What all this has to do with atmospheric testing is beyond me. However, the above illustrates how reports of “miracles,” like games of Telephone, breed misinformation.

MARTIN CANNON

Canoga Park