considerations of claims of supernatural apparitions at medjugorje

From the Heelers emails...

To Professor Louis Belanger

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: James Healy
To: "louisbelanger.lb@gmail.com" <louisbelanger.lb@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, 8 February 2013, 18:14:30
Subject: re Your suggestions on the internet youtube site that the claimed visions at medjugorje have been faked.

Salut Louis.

I've been viewing some of your footage on Medjugorje via Mr Youtube's nifty little website.

Has your view on the claims regarding these apparitions remained constant since the 1980's?

Your most well known clip from the 1980's where a man's finger is stabbed towards Vicka's eye while she is supposedly having a vision, is very interesting to me.

I am highly intrigued by Vicka's recoil.

But does it show what you say it showed?

The motion of the finger is so fast that I am left asking myself, do you really intend to claim the Vicka herself saw it and reacted to it?
You have claimed that you were present at the recording of the supposed vision and that you did not see the finger being stabbed towards Vicka's eye.
You also insist that you did not arrange for the man to stab his finger at Vicka's eye.
In any case you say that the motion was too quick for you to see it.
And you also say you did not initially see Vicka recoil.
You state that you only saw the finger stabbing towards her eye, and a subsequent recoil on her part, when you reviewed your footage.

If the finger actually contacted the eye, we might expect the body to recoil anyway.
In such circumstances there would be no loss of credibility for the visionary.

Could the recoil be explained as a bodily motor response rather than a conscious response?
A bodily motor response arising because the finger came so close or because it actually contacted.

Is there any conceivable scenario which maintains the supernatural postulation as an explanation for the apparition in spite of the head recoil?
I mean any other possible explanation.
Say, if a guardian angel moved Vicka's head because the finger was going to impact the eye?
I mention guardian angels Louis, because on reviewing the footage repeatedly, I find it difficult to accept that Vicka saw that finger and recoiled from it consciously, when you yourself insist that while looking right at her you saw neither the finger being stabbed towards her eye, nor her recoil from it.
You say that the finger and the recoil only came to your attention on a frozen segment of film.

Your narrator on the youtube footage, Miss Carol Vorderman asserts that any recoil by a supposed visionary from a very real finger being jabbed into the supposed visionary's eye, indicates that the supposed visionary is not having a real vision.

I am interested to know whether you or Carol Vorderman claim that this standard for defining the genuineness or falsehood of a supposedly supernatural vision, is based on an established scientific rationale.

When I look closely at the footage I still can't honestly assert with certainty that the child is flinching.

There is an incredibly momentary movement of the head.

Again I ask, does that necessarily show what you say it shows?

I am also intrigued by the manner in which you obtained the footage.

Did you know in advance that the man was going to stab his finger at Visca's eye?

Did you deliberately leave your camera running when Vicka was afterwards asked about the flinch?
At what point did you become aware of the flinch and decide to question Vicka about it, since you say you weren't actually aware of it while you filmed it?
At what point did you forget to switch off your camera?
How long had the camera been running before you or your assistants alleged to the teenage Vicka that she had flinched and that people needed an explanation for her flinching during a vision?

You claimed not to have known of the planned finger stab nor to have deliberately left your camera on later in order to film Vicka responding to the suggestion that flinching from a finger being stabbed into her eye meant she was lying about having visions.

My journalistic instinct is that the man who stabbed his finger at Vicka's eye had planned this action with you which is why you were able to film it so perfectly. I would also suggest that the camera being left switched on later when you claim Vicka explained her flinching by saying the Blessed Virgin Mary had been about to drop the baby Jesus, was also a deliberate act on your part which would seem to be a form of entrapment.

Your own actions even if you had planned in advance to have an accomplice stab his finger into Vicka's eye, or sought to entrap Vicka afterwards, though questionable (and in my view wrong) need not necessarily invalidate the footage and evidentiary data which you have obtained.

But a commitment to absolute truth is essential in any investigator and or investigation.

J'espere votre reponse!
Amities.

James