Our Lady of Assuit Need Debunking

[shawnfrye]

Many people online claim there were supernatural lights at Assuit, Egypt in 2000. Looking at the video I linked, it seems like there are lights on top of/near a church with no known source. Some have put this forth as evidence for Christianity.

Here's the video that shows the lights I described.

From 2:03 to 2:25 there are intermittent flashes of light from unknown places

From 2:26 to 2:47 there is a bright light on the top left corner

From 2:48 to 4:08 there is a bright light near the cross which seems to move

Here's some pictures:

How would you explain this? What is the source of the lights? Are these photos/videos doctored?

 

[Mauro]

Well, most of the pictures are just of... lights in the LIZ. They could be anything, from the Moon to Jupiter to a plane and even to an apparition of the Virgin Mary, or maybe ET crafts or Athena having a quarrel with Ares... who can possibly know. I'd stick to things proven to be real and eliminate the last three possibilities.

Picture #2 looks to me like a window reflection of some light fixture inside the room.

You might be interested also in Our Lady of Zeitoun and Our Lady of Warraq, and undoubtely many more I guess.

Desire to believe + someone starting a rumour = UFO apparitions flaps.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

They actually remind me of fireworks.

 

[Giddierone]

There are several alleged mass sightings of an apparition of the Virgin Mary in Egypt (as well as other place in the world). For example 2 April 1968 over a Coptic Orthodox church of Zeitoun, (see https://skeptoid.com/episodes/766). Then a couple more (17 Aug 2000, March 2004) over Saint Mark's Coptic Christian Church in Assuit.

Legend has it they've been happening "for centuries"...

Assuit has a specific significance for Coptic Christians in Egypt because it's apparently where the "holy family" sheltered when hiding from Herod's soldiers.

However, despite the claim that thousands have seen it the apparition all the evidence is as poor or worse than the video posted in this thread.

Later cases just look like spotlights on low cloud, camera flashes, "exceptionally large pigeons" caught in those lights, or could even be lights deliberately shone from the nearby hills.

In a 90% muslim community novel evangelising methods by a minority might be employed...

Other newspaper stories were suitably pun heavy.

 

[John J.]

(The place is probably Asyut, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asyut), less often written as Assiut).

The video and audio are poor quality, maybe filmed from the screen of another device- there's maybe a hint of fingers at the right side of the screen at approx. 16:40.

From approx. 17: 44, there's a BBC news report from Caroline Hawley, a BBC correspondent who covered Egypt, Libya and Sudan from 1999 (BBC profile http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/hi/profiles/newsid_3787000/3787599.stm); the original must have been in much better quality.

The story is in the context of claimed Marian apparitions (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_apparition) but we don't see any Marian apparitions, so we are left with various lights and brief illuminations of the church. The latter might be due to entirely mundane sources, e.g. spotlights being flashed on and off, perhaps powerful photography flashes.

The perhaps out-of-focus "globular" light from approx. 1:29 could be almost anything. We don't see any part of the Church (or anything else) in this sequence.
The light very near the cross from about 2:47 might be the Moon; I'd guess there are others here who would be able to establish if this might be a possibility (if the camera time and date are correct).

If accurate, the dates at the lower left of the screen are from 21 August 2000 to 10 September 2000; plenty of time to arrange for good quality filming from a number of different viewpoints. But this doesn't appear to have happened.

If this (low quality) footage has been filmed from the screen of another device, the opportunities for hoaxing might be greater- manipulation of imagery on the first device might be harder to detect; the editing might allow inclusion of non-authentic footage though my feeling is perhaps this didn't happen- but nevertheless all lights seen probably have prosaic explanations.

The burden of proof is on claimants to demonstrate that these lights are probably not of mundane origin.

 

[shawnfrye]

(The place is probably Asyut, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asyut), less often written as Assiut).

The video and audio are poor quality, maybe filmed from the screen of another device- there's maybe a hint of fingers at the right side of the screen at approx. 16:40.
View attachment 92129

From approx. 17: 44, there's a BBC news report from Caroline Hawley, a BBC correspondent who covered Egypt, Libya and Sudan from 1999 (BBC profile http://news.bbc.co.uk/aboutbbcnews/hi/profiles/newsid_3787000/3787599.stm); the original must have been in much better quality.

The story is in the context of claimed Marian apparitions (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_apparition) but we don't see any Marian apparitions, so we are left with various lights and brief illuminations of the church. The latter might be due to entirely mundane sources, e.g. spotlights being flashed on and off, perhaps powerful photography flashes.

The perhaps out-of-focus "globular" light from approx. 1:29 could be almost anything. We don't see any part of the Church (or anything else) in this sequence.
The light very near the cross from about 2:47 might be the Moon; I'd guess there are others here who would be able to establish if this might be a possibility (if the camera time and date are correct).
View attachment 92128

If accurate, the dates at the lower left of the screen are from 21 August 2000 to 10 September 2000; plenty of time to arrange for good quality filming from a number of different viewpoints. But this doesn't appear to have happened.

If this (low quality) footage has been filmed from the screen of another device, the opportunities for hoaxing might be greater- manipulation of imagery on the first device might be harder to detect; the editing might allow inclusion of non-authentic footage though my feeling is perhaps this didn't happen- but nevertheless all lights seen probably have prosaic explanations.

The burden of proof is on claimants to demonstrate that these lights are probably not of mundane origin.

I don't think the light at 2:47 could be the moon.

Here's the light at 2:47:

At 4:05, you can see the time is 2:54, 28 minutes later:

Surely if it were the moon, it would've moved more than that.

I think a hoax might be the most likely explanation. I invite anyone who's qualified on video editing/practical effects to speak on this.

 

[Giddierone]

Here's the location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/y29Z2vTxbEEUpENo8
The time on the video might be off, but an hour earlier the moon was low and pretty much where the bright light is in the video.

Another clip from a different date:

looks like another good match.

 

[NorCal Dave]

I think a hoax might be the most likely explanation. I invite anyone who's qualified on video editing/practical effects to speak on this.

To paraphrase an often used quote in Skeptical circles: "Be sure there is some sort of video hoax to bother with, before asking experts to explain it".

As note by @John J. this looks like it was filmed off a screen and is claimed to be a compilation of events. One can make out the tracking lines at the bottom of the screen:

IF that's the case, then it could just be a collection of edited together events that were then re-recorded off a screen. So, during the flashing lights sequence at around 02:00-02:15, it looks like the crowd in the lower right changes with the different flashes. Possibly indicating it's a series of different lighting schemes for an event, that was then edited to make it look like it was flashing much faster than it really was.

At 12:49, there is clearly some big ass lights set up, so it's not unreasonable to suggest there were other lights as well:

I don't think the light at 2:47 could be the moon.

Here's the light at 2:47:

At 4:05, you can see the time is 2:54, 28 minutes later:

But if the time and date is on the device recording something off a screen, it doesn't reflect the time or date of the actual event on the screen.

It's all crap video of very poor quality and very difficult to tell what's going on in many of the scenes. Thought it does appear light shows of some kind may have been part of the various gatherings.

This footage seems to get passed around as here is some of it again from a few years ago:

 

[Giddierone]

edited to make it look like it was flashing much faster than it really was.

The time code goes from 3:42 to 3:57 in a couple of seconds. It's clearly been edited. They're just turning the uplights that illuminate the towers on and off.
And this "capture" might be from the same moment as the newspaper clipping above. Just light on the lens.