As far as I know, he also had a vision at Christmas Eve in 1777. The story was referred to the press by one of his aide-de-camp and other closest people. It was officially published for the first time by the National Tribune in 1880, nearly 40 years before the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima. If it was a product of the fertile imagination of some writer, we don't know, however, the resemblance between the shepherds' account in Fatima seems at least odd.