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We travel to France, where today when a barely literate 14-year old girl, Bernadette Soubirous told her mother that a "lady" had spoken to her in the cave of Massabielle while she was gathering firewood with her sister and a friend. This would be the beginning of 18 such encounters which were later referred to as apparitions or visions When they were eventually investigated and authenticated by the church, it would transform the town of Lourdes into one of the world's most important sites of pilgrimage and religious tourism. We look at how the apparitions unfolded, how they were investigated, How an obscure piece of theology proved decisive, how Lourdes became a famous pilgrimage spot especially for the sick and disabled.