Professor of Natural Sciences at Coimbra University. Theologian Father Stanley L. Jaki wrote that it was actually given by José Almeida Garrett, a young lawyer, and is often mistakenly attributed to his father, a professor of natural sciences at the University of Coimbra, named Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett. "As if like a bolt from the blue, the clouds were wrenched apart, and the sun at its zenith appeared in all its splendor. It began to revolve vertiginously on its axis, like the most magnificent firewheel that could be imagined, taking on all the colors of the rainbow and sending forth multicolored flashes of light, producing the most astounding effect. This sublime and incomparable spectacle, which was repeated three distinct times, lasted for about ten minutes. The immense multitude, overcome by the evidence of such a tremendous prodigy, threw themselves on their knees." — Manuel Formigão, a professor at the seminary at Santarém, and a priest. "I feel incapable of describing what I saw. I looked fixedly at the sun, which seemed pale and did not hurt my eyes. Looking like a ball of snow, revolving on itself, it suddenly seemed to come down in a zig-zag, menacing the earth. Terrified, I ran and hid myself among the people, who were weeping and expecting the end of the world at any moment." — Rev. Joaquim Lourenço, describing his boyhood experience in Alburitel, from Fátima. "On that day of October 13, 1917, without remembering the predictions of the children, I was enchanted by a remarkable spectacle in the sky of a kind I had never seen before. I saw it from this veranda" — Portuguese poet Afonso Lopes Vieira. De Marchi also drew on the newspaper account written by Avelino de Almeida, a journalist sent by the newspaper , who described in detail the reactions of the crowd. Catholic Church recognition The event was declared of "supernatural character" by the Catholic Church in 1930. A shrine was built near the site in Fátima, which has been attended by thousands of faithful. Pope Pius XII approved the "Fatima apparitions" in 1940. Four times during the week that he declared the dogma of the Assumption of Mary (33 years after the actual event said to have occurred in Fátima), Pope Pius XII claimed to have witnessed the same "Miracle of the Sun". At 4:00p.m. on 30 October 1950, during a walk in the Vatican