Our Lady of Coogee: the Virgin Mary on the Dolphins Point fence

At the north end of Coogee Beach, above Giles Baths rock pool, a headland carries the Bondi-to-Coogee coastal walk. It had recently been renamed Dolphins Point, in honour of six Coogee Dolphins rugby league players killed in the Bali bombings of 12 October 2002. A memorial there lists 20 Eastern Suburbs residents who died. Along the clifftop runs a white-painted wooden safety fence.

December 2002. Christine Cherry, of the Beach Street Gallery Laundrette, saw a figure in that fence. The next day, at the same time, it was there again. In January 2003 she took it to the press. She freely called it an optical illusion. But she asked, "what are the odds it take the form of the Virgin Mary?"

It appeared on sunny afternoons, roughly between 3:00 and 4:30 pm, when the sun's rays hit the fence at a particular angle. Rob O'Neill watched from a hundred yards away, across the sand. The fence and its shadow on the concrete wall, he wrote, presented the "Madonna (the original one), side on at first and then slowly turning to face you."

Hundreds came. Then thousands. Some wept, others sang, most prayed. Scores hiked up the cliff path to touch and kiss the post. Flowers, rosaries, crucifixes and bottles of baby lotion and coconut oil piled up. A cap read "Jess, Grace, Helena, Amy Beck witnessed Mary 2003." Nadia Giltinan wondered why a fence "up for a long time" showed the vision only now. Hanna Fraser spoke of a Bali victim's mother: "It is the only thing that has brought her some peace." Others poured out of the pubs, bars and backpackers to scoff. The press called it "Our Lady of the Fence Post" and "Rail Mary".

The night of Saturday 8 February 2003. Vandals knocked the fence down. "This is just awful," said visitor Tess Nerona. Accounts of what followed differ. Sydney Coast Walks says locals restored the shrine in mere hours, and that six dolphins were then seen playing just offshore. Carole M. Cusack wrote in 2003 that the fence was restored and the phenomenon continued. A 2017 retrospective says Randwick City Council rebuilt it over the following months with a slightly altered design, and the Virgin has not been seen since.

The Church kept its distance. Father Denis Holm put no great store in it, but if people found a sense of peace there, he saw it as a good thing. The Sydney Archdiocese never opened a formal investigation. Baptist minister Mark Tossell called it "a freak of nature." Parks manager Tim McCarthy suspected "just a kink in the fence."

The accepted reading is pareidolia. A white rail, late afternoon shadow and a small rise at the end of the railing combined, at one sun angle and from one viewpoint, into a veiled woman. No one alleged a hoax.

Interest waned within a few weeks. Not for everyone. In 2005 Jenny Veselcic still travelled two hours from western Sydney every Tuesday and reported visions of Mary "in blue veils." Cusack, of the University of Sydney, said pilgrims were "joining in an age-old religious practice, older than Christianity." A small garden now marks the spot.