No one has explained why divine personalities would choose such unusual venues to reveal themselves. Social scientists like anthropologist Charles Nuckolls of Emory University, though, compare these apparitions to events in Hindu societies where statues of deities are said to bleed or give forth a milky substance in a miraculous fashion. Religion can do that. Many who visit the scenes of such apparitions and believe often attach an apocalyptic message to the event. Thousands have joined the Bayside Movement, which coalesced around a New York woman, Veronica Leuken, who claimed to have regular visitations and messages from the Virgin Mary.
Religion can do that.
These events often leave church authorities in an awkward position. Church officials have asked the flock to ignore the Bayside Movement, but such groups nevertheless seem to attract a large following. Reports of apparitions, visits and sightings of Mary, Jesus or other bible-era characters have steadily increased over the years. Social scientists have speculated that this may have been due to a rising excitement about the upcoming millennium, or that such events manifest tensions which arise in times of social stresses and dislocations. Juan Diego's apparition, for instance, came as Aztec society was unraveling after the Spanish conquest, and the Roman Catholic belief system was replacing the indigenous pagan religion.