Recently, we revisited a remarkable statement Fatima seer Sister Lucia dos Santos (almost certain for canonization) made at her convent in Coimbra, Portugal, during a videotaped interview between 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. on October 11, 1993, with Cardinal Ricardo Vidal of the Philippines and eight others. “The Consecration of 1984,” she said, “prevented an atomic war that would have occurred in 1985.”
An incredible, largely unreported remark.
Could that have been true? How does it measure against other prophecies?
At Medjugorje — where the Virgin implored special prayers for an unseen crisis right around this time — Mary reportedly said, in 1982, “The third world war will not take place.” That year she allegedly told seer Mirjana Dragicevic, “I have prayed; the punishment has been softened. Repeated prayers and fasting reduce punishments from God, but it is not possible to avoid entirely the chastisement.” It was supposedly an event in the seer’s seventh secret.
Apparitions in other places under different circumstances have reported somewhat different messages. In a Church-approved apparition in Managua, Nicaragua, Mary told a humble sacristan named Bernardo Martinez (later a priest), “if you don’t change you will hasten the arrival of a third world war.” That was in 1980. A similar scenario was indicated at Akita, Japan, where fire was seen falling from the sky and destroying a large segment of humanity.
There are also prophecies in this regard from so-called near-death experiences, including the case of former atheist (now minister) Dr. Howard Storm, an art professor who “died” on June 1, 1985, while he was leading students on a trip to museums in Paris. He claimed that during his paraphysical experience angels showed him glimpses of the future and told him that while chastising events would come to break down an errant planet, the Lord would not allow a nuclear conflict to destroy the world (for our discernment). Dr. Storm believes “one or two” nuclear bombs may explode as God permits conflict in order for men to come to their senses, but not destruction of the entire earth. (He also warns of a “massive worldwide economic depression” that will leave the world with almost no technology.)
What occurred in the 1980s — and particularly in 1985, the year cited by Sister Lucia — that might fit the bill as a close call with nuclear warfare?
Just after midnight on September 26, 1983, at the height of Cold War tensions, Soviet satellite operators at the Serpukhov-15 bunker just south of Moscow got a warning that a U.S. Minuteman nuclear missile had been launched. Later, four more missiles were “detected.” Fortunately, Russia’s commanding officer at the bunker, Stanislav Petrov — who was ready to reach for the hotline — suspected it was a mistake. (A close call, it was later discovered that a Soviet satellite had mistaken sunlight reflecting off the top of clouds as missiles.)
In November of 1983, according to declassified documents, the U.S. and Soviet Union came much closer to war that historians — and even many officials — realize.
Known as the “Able Archer Incident” (named after a military exercise by the name), NATO simulated transition from conventional to nuclear conflict in the event of a European war, and during it, top Soviet leaders thought the war game was real—that the U.S. and NATO really were about to launch a nuclear first strike against the USSR. And Soviet military commanders took steps to retaliate, before finding out that it was just a NATO exercise.
“In one of those steps, the new documents reveal,” recounts a magazine, “the commander of the Soviet 4th Army Air Forces in Eastern Europe ordered all of his units to make ‘preparations for the immediate use of nuclear weapons.’ As part of that order, crewmen loaded actual nuclear bombs onto several combat planes.”
It was one of nearly a dozen close calls since the 1960s.
But what about 1985? How was it that we were at the brink at that time?
Nothing quite stands out like the above. But until February of that year — when he died and after which Gorbachev rose to power — the U.S.S.R. was in the hands of Yuri Andropov — a militant, sinister-looking leader who had headed the KGB and was very prone, like Putin (also former KGB), to hostility toward the West. This was not long after Ronald Reagan’s famous speech in which he called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”
In 1985, a Soviet submarine undergoing a delicate refueling procedure experienced a freak accident that killed ten naval personnel. The fuel involved was not diesel, but nuclear, and the resulting environmental disaster contaminated the area with dangerous, lasting radiation. The incident, which remained secret until after the demise of the USSR itself, was one of many nuclear accidents the Soviet Navy experienced during the Cold War.
On August 10, the submarine was in the process of being refueled. Reportedly, the reactor lid—complete with new nuclear fuel rods—was lifted as part of the process. A beam was placed over the lid to prevent it from being lifted any higher, but “incompetent handling apparently resulted in the rods being lifted too high into the air. This resulted in the starboard reactor achieving critical mass, followed by a chain reaction and explosion.”
Was that it — or is there information in still-classified military documents that would show something yet more threatening that year cited by Lucia: an even closer call?
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[Footnote: Storm says that he was also told that war is “always” wrong, and while we must always maintain a healthy skepticism over such dramatic pronouncements (and while we must be on special guard with near-death experiences, which can at times seem muddled by components of the New Age), the views he relates as those from angels bear certain striking consistencies with what has been stated by Pope John Paul II (who himself had a brush with death, linked to Fatima, in 1981). That Pope said that “war is always a defeat for humanity.” The current Pope says there is “never justification” for it and just this week, parroting John Paul II, said “war is a defeat of humanity.”
[“They made it plain to me: ‘God hates war,’” says Storm. “If we desire to kill each other God will not stop us. We are supposed to learn that war is unacceptable and prevent wars from happening. Wars happen because of the spiritual sickness of people. The way to prevent war is to love aggressively and care for all people. Our purpose is to know and do God’s Will in this life and we do this when we love each other as God loves us. Every person without exception needs to be loved by us. This is the most difficult and most important lesson of our lives. This is what has shaped the past and this is what will shape the future.”
[Storm says that the angels further explained that “God has no desire for you to use violence and destructive means to assert your will over one another. But God allows wars to happen when you are determined to be at war. Every war is a lesson that war is undesirable and you need to learn better ways of achieving harmony with one another.”
[No war, claimed the angels, is ever “inevitable.” “God is very unhappy with your continuing desire to make wars,” the angels supposedly said.]