Girls In Italy Claim The Blessed Mother Prophesied 9/11 During Apparitions In 1994

By Michael H. Brown

First story

Two girls from a village called Zaro on the island of Ischia in Italy have asserted that the Blessed Mother appeared to them on October 8, 1994, prophesying the events of September 11 seven years before they occurred.

The alleged visonaries, Simona Patalano and Simona Impagliazzi, who were nine and 11 at the onset of the apparitions, have claimed that Mary appears to them in a forested area, where they began a routine of gathering every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday to pray, along with the 8th and 26th of each month, in commemoration of aspects of the apparition.

Spirit Daily has not yet been able to update the situation -- but according to a report based in a local newspaper called Epoca, which first reported on the situation in 1995, and another, Il Golfo, which carried a report on January 10, 2002, the Virgin purportedly has shown herself to the young women as both Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Lourdes, though not dispensing any messages or prophecies under those particular appearances.

During the apparition in 1994, the girls say Mary showed them the Twin Towers, how they would be attacked, and the collapse -- as well as an attack on the Statue of Liberty (which of course did not ensue, although such may once have been in the plans of terrorists).

We submit this for your discernment. There have also been reports of recent apparitions with similarly sober prophecies from Oliveto Citra south of Naples and elsewhere in Italy; those we will review in coming days. According to the Epoca report, a local priest at Ischia, Don Franco Patalano, appeared skeptical of the girls' claims and accused the newspaper of seeking a "scoop" instead of doing what he advised: ignoring the situation. In speaking to reporter Frederica Raimondi, Father Patalano said the girls had been directed to report messages or anything directly to him and no one else. "If roses bloom, they will bloom," he commented -- a local idiom apparently expressing the view that if the apparitions were true, word would eventually be disseminated no matter what anyone did.

Allegedly, the Virgin at times spoke in languages unknown to the girls -- German, English, and Aramaic, the latter an ancient language of Israel -- and in addition to showing them how the two buildings would collapse, granted Simona Patalano the vision of a volcano erupting in the future on an unidentified island. The girl said she was shown the eruption of lava, people attempting in vain to flee, and the island disappearing beneath the ocean.

Ischia located off the Gulf of Napoli, some twenty miles southwest of Napoli and slightly more than that west of Vesuvius. Its highest peak, Epomeo, is not a volcano -- but numerous recent and historic eruptive centers are scattered on its flanks, the most recent of which formed in the 1300s. Continuing volcano-tectonic activity was destructively demonstrated on 28 July 1883, when the famous thermal resort of Casamicciola was leveled by the most violent in a series of local earthquakes -- killing more than 2,213 people on the very island where the visions are now occurring.

This history may account for the fears of the girls -- although it should also be noted that it is an area of the world where volcanoes like Vesuvius and Etna have caused cataclysmic events, and where, to the east, in the Aegean, the island of Santorin or "Thera" served as the location of one of history's great volcanic disasters during Minoan times -- an event estimated to have been 40 times more powerful than Mount St. Helens.

In Italy itself, Vesuvius caused the ruin of Pompeii not long after the time of Christ. 

Interestingly, the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, visited Ischia for a youth rally in the days leading up to World Youth Day in Toronto.

We can't verify that the prophecies were made before the events of September 11-- the girls say they paid them little heed until the tragedy actually occurred -- and as news accounts point out, no one can know the full truth for certain but the young women themselves.

Only they know what they actually saw or didn't see.

But they relate to us something important. They say the Blessed Mother told them, "If you pray, everything is going to be all right. You can change anything with prayer."

Eruption Of Mega-Volcano: Is It Part Of Future Events Foreseen By Visionaries?

By Michael H. Brown (santorini)

Second story

Adapted from Sent To Earth:

Most people don't know that history's largest volcano may have been in the U.S. at Yellowstone National Park. There, 660,000 years ago, there was an explosion with 2,500 times the force of Mount St. Helens -- spewing pumice, gas, and hot ash across an area of 3,000 square miles of the continent.

At least, this is what geologists tell us. States as far away as Texas had inches of soot. Closer to the eruption, Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada found themselves under lava a half a mile or more thick.

Probably, there was global darkness.

We have also forgotten that far more recently, in 1883, an Indonesian volcano called Krakatoa erupted with such fury that the sound of it was heard 2,900 miles away -- on Rodriguez Island in the Indian Ocean! While not nearly as huge as the Yellowstone eruption, its ash drifted in traceable amounts as far as New York -- and 36,000 were killed near Krakatau itself when tsunamis generated by the volcano's collapse (and reaching as high as 120 feet) washed along the Sunda Strait.

The ocean measurably rose as far away as London -- and weather effects were noted around the world, causing storms, blizzards, and a cold that became known in the U.S. as the "year without summer." There were eerie glows and sunsets and temperatures that dropped by several degrees globally.

We bring this up in line with the alleged prophecy granted to an Italian girl, Simona Patalona, on the island of Ischia, who says she was shown the collapse of the Twin Towers during a vision of the Virgin Mary back in 1994 and also that a volcano would erupt (without prayer would erupt) on an unidentified island, stranding those trying to flee and causing the island -- much like Krakatau -- to disappear beneath the ocean.

Is this an event we face? Is this something that is in the secrets of other alleged seers? Does it relate to similar historical events?

While we often think of asteroids, hurricanes, and earthquakes when it comes to cataclysmic events, scientists say the most likely mega-disaster -- one that can have greater effects than all but a major asteroid -- would be a mega-volcano. And we are overdue. There are even reports of rumblings there at Yellowstone. Through history, eruptions have played into events that can clearly be seen as chastisements, and it is high time that we take note. Consider what happened to yet another island, Santorin (or "Thera"), in the Aegean Sea around 1,600 B.C., which some believe was the time of Moses. During that eruption, darkness lasting three days was said to have hovered over land within 130 miles of the eruption -- with ash covering Cyprus with up to a foot.

This eruption was forty times Mount St. Helens and six times the eruption at Krakatau.

Santorin was inhabited by the advanced civilization of Minoans, who had taken much of their culture from ancient Babylon and were famous for materialism, sensuality, and idolatry. One deity worshipped by the Minoans was an alluring "snake goddess," and Minoan women were known for their flounced skirts and partial nudity. Geographically, Ischia bears an unnerving resemblance to the island of Thera.

At any rate, the eruption sent smoke barreling thirty miles high and steeped Minoan villages in up to 150 feet of ash. According to one scholar, darkness "so total that not even lamplight could penetrate it" descended within 130 miles for up to three days.

It was out of Dante's Inferno. It was the day the earth stood still. Ash rained. Rock vaporized. Thera was blown into five bits and towns on neighboring islands -- root of Europe's highest civilization -- were terrorized.

A huge cloud of gas and dust rose to the stratosphere and when the crater collapsed there was another tidal wave. We can only imagine the terror. We don't have specifics. Scientists don't agree on how significant the tidal wave was. We do know that at Thera there was ruin and we know that around this time the Minoans -- the first high civilization in Europe -- disappeared.

It was a clear chastisement for the wanton lust, the idolatry, and it serves as an example for us. Can this happen again?

Right there in Italy, an explosion of Mount Vesuvius shortly after the death of Jesus caused the famous disaster that buried Pompeii -- a city also known for its idolatry, materialism, and lustfulness.

One wonders if this was what Christ warned about when He said there would be fire and darkness. One also wonders if Krakatau was related to a prophecy from the Virgin Mary at LaSalette, France, where, several decades before, in 1846, she allegedly said, "At the first blow of His thundering sword, the mountains and all nature will tremble in terror."

Did that relate to the eruption that decade -- or to events yet to come?

The only thing we know is that prayer and conversion can stop anything -- even fire, even darkness, even an event bigger than what happened at Krakatau.

previously published as santorini