Such are the alleged official instructions to a once illiterate girl who tended sheep -- a girl who is now very old, and world-famous. No doubt it is a strange case. To get the world's ear is not an easy thing for a shepherd girl. Imagine the world-transforming possibilities. Imagine the power of such a person. But those in authority keep her muzzled, perhaps because transformations are not always pleasant. Still humble, still poor, she obeys. She is a disciplined and loyal adherent, ever faithful even to those who might -- for reasons of state -- oppose, thwart or alter her message.

I am writing of Sister Lucia dos Santos, cloistered in a Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal. To explain who she is and what she represents I will not quote from any Catholic authority. I will not represent a religious viewpoint. Instead, I will quote the work of a scientist named Jacques Vallee, who under the heading "A Morphology of Miracles," in a volume called "The Invisible College," writes of inexplicable phenomena that once surrounded Sister Lucia. In fact, this phenomena represents the best-documented crack in material reality ever to appear. But is this really so strange? The universe itself is a miracle, after all, and mankind should not be surprised to find miracles within the miracle.

To be sure, the skeptics and agnostics will speak of mass psychosis, hallucination and schizophrenia. So long as nothing unnatural happens in their vicinity, as long as angels leave them unmolested, they are perfectly smug. But when superhuman intelligences bend the skeptic's little mind and seriously tweak his reality, the skeptic will crumble in terror like the peasant, the shepherd and the village idiot.

The scientist, Vallee, tells of such an event, which happened within living memory. It happened in front of 70,000 witnesses at a place called Fatima, Portugal, on Oct. 13, 1917 (on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution). "The events at Fatima," writes Vallee, "involve luminous spheres, lights with strange colors, a feeling of 'heat waves,' all physical characteristics associated with UFOs."

But this is not a case of little green men mutilating cattle or abducting New York science fiction writers. The phenomenon of Fatima, notes Vallee, "also encompass healing and prophecy and a loss of ordinary consciousness on the part of the witnesses...."

An apparition of a lady appeared, and a prophecy was given to three shepherd children. A portion of this unearthly communication was sealed in an envelope, not to be opened by the Pope until 1960. Even then, the Vatican did not dare reveal its contents for another forty years, adding to the mystery. Last year the Vatican supposedly revealed the secret, which had to do with an assassination attempt on the Pope -- something which took place 20 years ago.

But why would the Church keep a fulfilled prophecy secret for two decades?

According to Vallee, who had a source inside the Vatican, when Pope John XXIII opened the sealed envelope in 1960 and read the contents the listeners were shocked and frightened. One of the Pope's secretaries saw the cardinals leaving after the so-called Third Secret of Fatima was read. This secretary was brushed aside by a cardinal who looked as if he'd seen a ghost.

"What revelation could have so shaken these men?" asked the intrigued scientist, Vallee. "Perhaps it was the confrontation with the nature of a phenomenon that transcends our reality and our highest beliefs, transcends our concepts of reason and of faith, and whose very absurdity appears carefully designed to misguide our probing minds."

The message of Fatima -- the part that has long been known -- involves a warning to the world. Joseph Pelletier's book, "The Sun Danced at Fatima," offers the following translation of the Fatima message, which was given at the time of the First World War:

"The war is going to end, but if people do not stop offending God another and worse one will begin during the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light know that this is the great sign that God is giving you that he is going to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecution of the Church and of the Holy Father.

"To prevent this I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia.... If they heed my requests, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world."

The scientist, Vallee, thought this warning was a "mixture of seriousness and absurdity." It must be pointed out that approximately three weeks after the miracle at Fatima Russia was taken over by atheists under Vladimir Lenin. Thousands of priests were butchered. Many were buried in mass graves. Churches were looted and vandalized. Some were turned into "atheist museums," used as communist teaching tools. Meanwhile, Lenin's followers turned Russia into the world's greatest prison-house, described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in "The Gulag Archipelago" as a vast "sewage disposal system" which ebbed and flowed with the raw stuff of ruined lives.

From Russia the Bolshevik madness spread to Eastern Europe, to China, to Korea and Southeast Asia. Then to Cuba and Africa, to Afghanistan and Yemen, Ethiopia and the Congo. The carnage continues, even now, in Angola and Colombia and in the forced labor camps of the People's Republic of China. Just as the apparition at Fatima foretold, Russia's error was spread. By some counts, 100 million people are dead as a result.

And maybe worse atrocities lie ahead. Perhaps that is why Sister Lucia has been compelled to keep silent. But rumors out of Italy, attributed to Father Luigi Bianchi, allege that Sister Lucia is now worried. The events of Sept. 11 have agitated and alarmed her.

I am not Catholic and I am no theologian. I am not trained to wisely interpret prophecies or comment upon supernatural occurrences. Along with Vallee I am baffled, but also convinced that something did happen at Fatima in 1917. Was it demonic or angelic, extraterrestrial or ultra terrestrial?

Whatever it was, it pointed to Russia and offered a warning that ought to make perfect sense -- even to skeptics.