Early on August 6, 1945, a lone American B-29 Superfortress bomber circled in a clear blue sky over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The unsuspecting inhabitants on the ground barely glanced at the plane, unaware of the deadly payload it was about to unleash on them, thus ushering in the atomic age with unimaginable death and destruction.
As one single bomb neared the ground, a city died in an instant. Houses crumbled, people evaporated, an immense ball of fire shot skywards and a terrible wave of super-heated gas bulged out from ground zero, flattening buildings for miles as it went.
Amongst the inhabitants of Hiroshima was Fr. Shiffer, a Jesuit missionary assisting the many Catholics of that city. On the morning of August 6, 1945, he had just finished Mass and had sat down to breakfast. As he plunged his spoon into a freshly sliced grapefruit, there was a bright flash of light. His first thought was that a fuel tanker had exploded in the harbour, as Hiroshima was a major port where the Japanese refuelled their submarines. Then, in the words of Fr. Schiffer: "Suddenly, a terrific explosion filled the air with one bursting thunder stroke. An invisible force lifted me from the chair, hurled me through the air, shook me, battered me, whirled me round and round like a leaf in a gust of autumn wind."
Next thing he remembered was opening his eyes and finding himself on the ground gasping. He looked around and saw there was nothing left in any direction: the railroad station and buildings in all directions were gone. Yet, the only harm to himself were a few slight cuts in the back of his neck from shards of glass. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else physically wrong with him.
The small community of Jesuits to which Fr Shiffer belonged lived in a house near the parish church, situated only eight blocks from the centre of the blast. When Hiroshima was destroyed by the atomic bomb, all eight members of the small Jesuit community escaped unscathed, while every other person within a radius of one-and-a-half kilometres from ground zero died immediately. The house where the Jesuits lived was still standing, while buildings in every direction from it were levelled. Father Hubert Shiffer was 30 years old when the atomic bomb exploded right over his head at Hiroshima. He not only survived, but also lived a healthy life for another 33 years!
How did this group of men survive a nuclear blast that killed everyone else, even people over ten times further away from the blast? It is absolutely unexplainable by scientific means. An interesting detail is that this group of Catholic clergy was made up of ardent enthusiasts of the Message of Fatima. They lived the Message. Was their fidelity to Our Lady rewarded by this stupendous miracle of their survival?
Even more astonishing is that the story was to be repeated a few days later at Nagasaki, the second Japanese city to be hit by an atomic bomb. In both Hiroshima and Nagasaki the survivors were Catholic religious. Most other buildings were levelled to the ground, even at three times the distance, but in both cases their houses stood ? even with some windows intact! All other people, bar a handful of scattered mutilated survivors, even at thrice the distance from the explosion, died instantly. Those within a radius ten times the distance of the Jesuits from the explosion were exposed to fierce radiation and died within days.
After the American conquest of Japan, U.S. army doctors explained to Fr. Shiffer that his body would soon begin to deteriorate because of the radiation. To the doctors' amazement, Fr. Schiffer's body showed no radiation or injury from the bomb. All who were at this range from the epicentre should have received enough radiation to be dead within a matter of minutes. Scientists examined the group of Hiroshima Jesuits over 200 times during the next 30 years and no ill effects were ever found.
Could it have been a fluke? Could the bomb's makers have designed it to avoid killing U.S. citizens? There is no known way to design a uranium-235 atomic bomb so it could leave such an area intact while destroying everything around it. The Jesuits say: "We believe that we survived because we were living the message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that house."
Secular scientists are incredulous at his explanation. They are sure there is some "real" explanation. However, over sixty years later the scientists still have not been able to explain it. From a scientific standpoint, what happened to those Jesuits at Hiroshima still defies the laws of physics. It must be concluded that some other force was present, whose power to transform and control energy and matter is beyond our comprehension.
Dr. Stephen Rinehart of the U.S. Department of Defense is widely recognised as an international expert in the field of atomic blasts. Says Rinehart: "A quick calculation shows that at one kilometre the bulk temperature was in excess of 20,000 to 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the blast wave would have hit at sonic velocity with pressures on buildings greater than 600 psi [pounds per square inch]. If the Jesuits, at one kilometre from the geometric epicentre, were outside the atomic bomb's plasma their residence should still have been utterly destroyed. Unreinforced masonry or brick walls, representative of commercial construction, are destroyed at three psi, which will also cause ear damage and burst windows. At ten psi, a human will experience severe lung and heart damage together with burst eardrums and at 20 psi your limbs can be blown off. Your head will be blown off by 40 psi and no human would be alive because your skull would be crushed. All the cotton clothes would be on fire at 350 Fahrenheit, and your lungs would be inoperative within a minute of breathing even one lungful of air at these temperatures.
No way could any human have survived - nor should anything have been left standing at one kilometre. At ten times the distance, about ten to fifteen kilometres, I saw the brick walls standing from an elementary school and I think there were a few badly burned survivors; all died within fifteen years of some form of cancer.
The Department of Defense never commented officially on this and I suspect it was classified and never discussed in open literature. I think it is possible the Jesuits were asked not to say anything either at the time.
For God, who made all matter and energy, it is simply a matter of willing it and the laws that govern them are suspended. This is what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also happened in ancient times, to the loyal servants of God Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, as is related in the Book of Daniel (3:19-24):
Then was Nabuchodonosor filled with fury: and the countenance of his face was changed against Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and he commanded that the furnace should be heated seven times more than it had been accustomed to be heated. And he commanded the strongest men that were in his army, to bind the feet of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and to cast them into the furnace of burning fire. And immediately these men were bound and were cast into the furnace of burning fire, with their coats and their caps and their shoes and their garments. For the king's commandment was urgent and the furnace was heated exceedingly. And the flame of the fire slew those men that had cast in Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago. But these three men, that is, Sidrach, Misach and Abdenago, fell down bound in the midst of the furnace of burning fire. And they walked in the midst of the flame, praising God and blessing the Lord.
