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A mass vision is a phenomenon in which a large group of people, usually in physical proximity to each other, all experience the same unexplained phenomena simultaneously. It is similar but not identical to the Folie à deux phenomenon.

Famous mass visions: List of UFO sightings; The Miracle of the Sun -where 70,000 pilgrims at Fatima in Portugal in 1917 saw the sun "tear itsef from the heavens and come crashing down upon the multitude".

Richard Dawkins' addresses mass visions, specifically The Miracle of the Sun, in "The God Delusion". Whilst it's unlikely that 70,000 would all have the same vision, he says it's even less likely that what they "saw" really happened (because none of the rest of the world noticed). He cites David Hume's miracle test: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish." With this, he shrugs off the mass visions. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mass Vision". This entry is a fragment of a larger work. Link may die if entry is finally removed or merged.

# posted by Cliff Pickover @ 6:39 AM