Theresa Lopez's Marian visions and the sun-gazing crowds at the Mother Cabrini Shrine, Golden, Colorado

April 3, 1990. Theresa Antonia Lopez later said a voice began speaking to her that night. "The voice whom has led me for so long began on that night," she said. She lived in Highlands Ranch, outside Denver. She was married, with three children. Her visions came two to three times a week. Several of them came at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, in the foothills near Lookout Mountain.

Fall 1991. The visions went public. At a prayer meeting in Colorado Springs on November 12, 1991, the Virgin was described as dressed "all in pink with a gold tie around her waist." She wore "a gold crown with hundreds of sparkling points." She "stood on a pedestal of light," with "a rosary in each hand." Other accounts gave her a gold gown, "surrounded by pink, sparkling lights." Lopez said she saw Mary in the sky as well, and witnessed sun miracles. She said she received more than 300 messages at the shrine, "a dramatic call for a return to God, for prayer and for living holy virtues."

They came by the thousands. About 3,000 people gathered to pray at the shrine on November 10, 1991. By late December, TIME reported that "devotees by the thousands have been flocking to the Mother Cabrini shrine near Denver." Lopez foretold a public appearance by Mary. On January 12, 1992, more than 6,000 people came, some from around the country.

Some pilgrims reported spectacular signs in the heavens. People thought the sun was spinning in the sky. Some of them stared directly into the blazing light. Most saw only the blue sky and bright sunlight.

The cost was real. About two dozen people suffered eye damage. One pilgrim, a woman named Kathy, was told by a doctor that she had burned both retinas and damaged her central vision. Afterwards she saw yellow and green dots.

December 9, 1991. Archbishop J. Francis Stafford appointed a commission of inquiry. While the crowds were still coming, he warned that the visions were unproven and that staring at the sun is dangerous. "I strongly advise and urge the Christian faithful not to participate in any future public gatherings associated with these private revelations," he said.

The commission finished on February 22, 1994. On March 9, 1994, Stafford issued his decree. The alleged apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Theresa Antonia Lopez were "devoid of any supernatural origin." The faithful were told to "refrain from participating in or promoting para-liturgical or liturgical services" linked to them.

For skeptics, the spinning sun has a plain explanation. Staring at the sun produces afterimages and a sense of pulsing or spinning, the same effect reported at Fatima-style sun miracles. Fr. Robert Finnegan, analysing the messages, found they borrowed from respected spiritual texts. In 2013 the skeptic Karen Stollznow called Golden "The American Medjugorje" and raised questions about Lopez's past, including a 1990 guilty plea to second-degree forgery. Those claims rest on her account.

Golden became one of several American apparition vigils of the early 1990s, alongside Conyers in Georgia and Lubbock in Texas. Lopez spoke on tour, including a talk in Salt Lake City sponsored by the Medjugorje Resource Center. From April 1993 an inner circle of about 12 received a syllabus of some 40 lessons. What most people remember now is the sky over the shrine. And the pilgrims who looked too long.