Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In the last episode, Children of the Pastures, we traced the remarkable story of three young shepherds from the parish of Fatima in southern Portugal, who, in nineteen seventeen claimed they were visited six times by
the Virgin Mary. The children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, claimed that during one of the Virgin Mary's appearances, she told them a secret about the future of human civilization, the knowledge of which they insisted was too dangerous for the public to know. With the death of Francisco in nineteen nineteen, followed by the death of Jacinta in nineteen twenty, Lucier was left as the only living member of the enigmatic trio who possessed
the apparent secret. In nineteen forty one, twenty four years after the fact, Lucier revealed they hadn't received one secret, but three. The first was a vision of Hell, which she described as being like a sea of fire under the earth, inside which demons and souls in human form floated about without weight or equilibrium, as their bodies blazed
like transparent burning embers. This appeared to carry some weight, owing to the eyewitness accounts of Lucia seemingly being horrified by something back in nineteen seventeen during one of her alleged conversations with the Virgin Mary. The second apparent secret reflected a fear that the rise of Communism in Russia, which as an inherently anti theocratic movement, was an existential threat to the Church, would lead to an even greater war breaking out than the war that was taking place
at the time. For some, this proved that there was something inherently evil or destructive about communism, since that even greater war did come to pass. Many others have noted, however, that although Lucier claimed this was told to her in nineteen seventeen, this wasn't actually revealed until nineteen forty one, two years after the Second World War broke out in Europe, thus undermining its legitimacy somewhat as a genuine prophecy, all
of which leads us to the third secret. This one, however, Lucia would absolutely not reveal, believing it was simply too distressing for the public to hear. As a compromise with the Church, she eventually agreed to write it down, but only for her superiors. As the story goes, the first who read it, Bishop Jose de Silva of Learia, was so unsettled by it that he waited thirteen years before
sharing it with the Vatican. It is also said that when the secret was read by Pope Pious the Twelfth, the surfing pope at the time, his mouth fell open in shock, and so in nineteen sixty the Vatican found
never to release it. Numerous conspiracy theories emerged in the wake of this decision, with many speculating that the secret was in fact nothing less than a prophecy detailing the imminent collapse of our world, which naturally made people a little uncomfortable and in some cases quite desperate to know
exactly what it said. On May second, nineteen eighty one, an aer Lingus Boeing seven three seven was en route from Dublin to London, when, five minutes from landing, the passenger seatbelt signs flashed on as cabin crew member Deirdree Dumphy asked everyone to take their seats. She noticed a man in his late fifties and dressed in a business
suit making a quick dash for the toilet. Assuming he was just one of the many professionals on a short business trip to London, Deirdre let it pass, so it was with some shock when she turned around moments later to find him standing in the aisle with his clothes completely soaked through and holding a vial of liquid in
each hand. Before anyone knew what was happening, the man made a bee line for the cockpit and told the pilots that he was covered in petrol and they didn't take the plane immediately to t Iran, he would set himself on fire and release the cyanide he was holding in his hands. The man, who spoke with an Australian accent, claimed he had a new constitution for Iran that he
wanted to deliver in person. As panic set in among the passengers, the pilots agreed to the demand, but only if they could first land in France to refuel the plane. After landing in Normandy, the plane was met by French authorities and prevented from taking off again, forcing the man to rethink his plan, at which point he finally came
clean about why he'd really hijacked the plane. After demanding to be put in touch with the editor of Irish newspaper The Irish Independent, the man proceeded to give them a thirty five hundred word manifesto demanding the release of the Third Secret of Fatima. Seconds later, however, he was tackled to the ground by French paratroopers who had managed
to sneak on board while he was distracted. Lawrence Downey was originally from Perth in Australia, but had fled the country as well as his wife and five children after being allegedly involved in some fraudulent dealings, and eventually settled in Ireland. Downey had been a Trappist monk in the nineteen fifties, but had been expelled for assaulting the head of the order, after which he spent some time working
as a tour guide in Thatchama. It was there that he became obsessed with the Children's story and finding out the truth about the mysterious third Secret, believing that once he knew what it was, it would bring fulfillment to him and many other people's lives. Downey, who had turned out had only poured water on himself, and whose vials of cyanide were also just vials of water, was arrested
and sentenced to five years in prison. No hostages were harmed during the incident, and the Vatican declined his demand to release the secret. Eleven days after the air Lingus hijacking, Pope John Paul the Second was in Saint Peter's Square in Rome, greeting the hundreds of people who'd gathered there for his regular Wednesday general audience at five nineteen pm.
As he sat dressed in all his white splendor, waving at the crowd from inside his popemobile, gunshots rang out through the square and the Pope collapsed in the back of the jeep. He'd been shot four times, with two bullets being lodged in his lower intestine, one striking his left index finger and another hitting him in the right arm. Miraculously, by losing three quarters of his blood, the Pope survived
the attempt on his life. The lead perpetrator, Memet ali Axa, who fired the shots, was arrested soon after, along with three accomplices. To this day, it isn't known exactly what motivated the group to carry out the act. However, one of the reasons that memet ali Axa gave at his trial in nineteen eighty five was that it was connected to the Third Secret of the Madonna of Fatima. Even
before this, it hadn't escaped the Pope's attention. That the attack took place on May thirteenth, sixty four years to the day that the Virgin Mary was apparently first cited by the three children. The pope was convinced that his earthly life had been saved by the Virgin Mary, and so having paid little public interest in the story of the prophecies, they suddenly appeared to attain a more significant
status in the eyes of the church. The following year, he visited the sight of the apparent apparitions to lay the cornerstone of what would become the Grand Sanctuary of Fatchima, dedicated to the alleged visions of the Children, which now stands there. The pope remarked then that the coincidence of his assassination attempt and the Virgin Mary's appearances occurring on the same date was so great that it seemed a
special invitation for him to visit the sacred location. In spite of all that, the Church continued to refuse the release of the secret. As the years went by, speculation about the mythical Third Secret of Fatima became increasingly alarmist, and so seemingly in an effort to calm things down, in two thousand, the Church finally agreed to reveal it,
publishing it on June twenty sixth of that year. The secret was largely based around a vision of the Holy Father, who, after moving through a ruined city, is gunned down by soldiers firing bullets and arrows, alongside a bishop dressed in white, as well as other bishops, priests, and women and men of faith. For some, the Vatican included the secret had clearly prophesied the nineteen eighty one assassination attempt on the Pope, who was depicted in it as the bishop dressed in white.
Some sought to read more into its violent imagery and its talk of ruined cities. However, few could quite understand what about It was so distressing for people that it had to be kept hidden for almost fifty years, leaving many, including Lawrence Downey, who had hijacked an entire plane just to hear it feeling a little underwhelmed, unless, of course, what had been revealed to the public wasn't actually the whole secret, or in fact the real secret at all.
In two thousand and six, Italian journalist Antonio Socci published a book entitled The Fourth Secret of Fatima, in which he made the stunning and controversial claim that the secret published by the Vatican was only part of it. Socci's suspicions had been raised when the apparent original secret was shown to have been written on four sheets of paper, when in fact, previous talk of it from the Church and Lucia dos Santos suggested it had only been written
on one sheet of paper. He also pointed out that back in nineteen eighty four, when one cardinal who'd read it was asked to comment on it, he said only that it involved the importance of the Novissame, also known as the four last things of death, judgment, heaven, and Hell, something that didn't seem to be explicitly evident in the
released version. It is also claimed that Lucia dos Santos herself once said, on being asked to give some indication of what it was about, that it was all there written in the Gospels and the Apocalypse that includes the Book of Revelation and the depiction of the end of Times. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help support us, you can now do so via Patreon To receive access to add three episodes. Just go to patron dot com
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