The Bayside Apparitions (Our Lady of the Roses), Queens, New York, 1970 to 1995

Veronica Lueken was a housewife in Bayside, Queens. In June 1968, praying for Robert Kennedy after he was shot, she smelled "an overwhelming fragrance of roses." It stayed after he died. That summer she reported a black eagle in the sky over Bayside, screaming "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth!"

On 7 April 1970, she said, Mary appeared to her at home. Mary promised to come to St. Robert Bellarmine Church "when the roses are in bloom."

June 18, 1970. Night. Rain. Lueken knelt alone before a statue of the Immaculate Conception on the church grounds. She said Mary told her she was a bride of Christ, wept for the sins of the world and asked everyone to return to the rosary. Her followers' transcript records the words: "My tears fall on you… Pray, My children." Mary asked for a national shrine there, and promised to appear on every Catholic feast day.

At later vigils Lueken entered what was described as an "ecstatic trance," repeating the messages word for word onto audio tape. She reported Mary, Jesus and many saints. By 1995 there were about 300 messages. They opposed the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and warned of the "Ball of Redemption," a fiery object that would strike the Earth.

No one else saw the figures. But others reported signs. Ann Ferguson, Lueken's secretary, said: "In August 1973, on the vigil grounds I witnessed the spinning of the sun in colors of green, pink and orange." On 7 December 1973, with about 450 present, she saw Mary holding the Infant Jesus, "standing on a large ball. She was as brilliant as the sun." Three times she saw "illuminated doves in the sky forming a large letter 'W'." Grace Pera, a neighbour, smelled roses with Lueken when no flowers were present. Pilgrims spoke of balls of light and "miraculous photos," mostly Polaroids marked with streaks, blurs and colour casts.

Bayside drew up to 2,000 people every Sunday afternoon and usually one evening a week. Up to 100 police officers were needed. The Bayside Hills Civic Association answered with counter-vigils, lawnmowers and patriotic songs. Fights broke out. On 15 June 1974 Daniel Slane, 17, was stabbed twice. On 22 May 1975 the New York Supreme Court barred vigils at the church. They moved to the Exedra in Flushing Meadows, near the Unisphere. On 18 June 1983, about 15,000 came.

On 29 June 1973 a Diocese of Brooklyn commission found the visions "lack complete authenticity." That year the Queens District Attorney's Fraud Bureau sent nine "miraculous" Polaroids to the Polaroid Corporation. No charges were filed. Joseph Laycock, author of The Seer of Bayside, calls it "perhaps the only case in which alleged miracles associated with a Marian apparition site were the subject of a criminal investigation." In 1975 the NYPD Photo Unit filmed the crowds. On 4 November 1986 Bishop Francis J. Mugavero declared that "no credibility can be given to the so-called 'apparitions'."

Laycock traced most photo anomalies to user error, candlelight and car headlights, though "some remained spectacularly unexplained." Scholar Daniel Wojcik described the reading of such images as photodivination. Others see the movement as traditionalist resistance to Vatican II, mixed with Cold War fears of the apocalypse. The spinning sun recalls Fátima. Lueken died on 3 August 1995. The vigils at the Exedra go on.