 Estimates of the number of people present range from 30,000 and 40,000, by Avelino de Almeida writing for the Portuguese newspaper "O Século", to 100,000, estimated by lawyer Dr. José Almeida Garrett, the son of a professor of natural sciences at the University of Coimbra.Various claims have been made as to what actually happened during the event.According to many witnesses, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke and the Sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky.