Atheist experiences of religious apparitions

What are your memories of the epidemic of moving statues in the Summer of 1985 or similar experiences of any religious apparitions?

Btw, that summer was one of the most miserable, overcast, sunless, rain sodden summers of all time.

I did, in fact, set off for Ballinspittle, Co Cork one fateful Sunday afternoon as part of a family outing. The fevered excitement in the country at the time was palpaple. The whole thing was hilarious in my reminicing of it – yet strangely compelling.

And even as a 16 year old (who was even then at what I now know to be a 6.9 on Dawkins 1 to 7 scale of atheism) this was, without doubt an exciting adventure. I was tickled pink anticipating my parents (who were staunch catholics) likely reaction.

And yes, I did see the statue in Ballinspittle move….tee hee!!! No, seriously.

To explain: We (a crowd of maybe 200-300) were all gazing intently at the statue for ages, probably hours from around 4pm. I saw precisely zero movement of the statue in that time interval.

I was listening to people around me (even including N. American tourists) who were convinced they were seeing various kinds of movement during the time I saw no movement.

The evening wore on. Time passed. The crows began returning home.

Then as dusk arrived, the adjacent public street light switched itself on…..and hey presto, the statue started moving :eek:

But it wasn’t gentle, graceful rhythmic, swaying that one would hope a religious apparition would be. Instead, it appeared to me to be insanely vibrating at say 500bpm – or like a ghostly image in very bad reception on now defunct analog TV broadcasting.

It was immediately obvious to me that what I was seeing was a trick of the street light at that time of dusk combined with the flaws in human eyesight (while excellent evolution – isn’t perfect). I did say this out loud to a family member (and those around who could hear me) but was ignored.

Ironically, at the end of the day no other of my staunch Catholic family members seemed to see the statue move (beyond vague, ambivalent comments).

A few weeks later we went to Manister, Co Limerick after reports of another moving statue in that village. There were big crowds there too that night but, as for the statue – alas, nothing moving for me (and no adjacent street light there either, hmmmm!).

So, have you any similar experience or insight from the Summer of 1985 or Knock, Fatima, Medjugorge etc.