Beginning August 23, 1971, Maria Gõmez Pereira played host to a series of strange events. An expressionistic, painterly image of a man's face spontaneously appeared on her kitchen floor--which was ripped out six days later and re-laid with cement. One week later, another face appeared in the same spot. Again, the family wanted the image destroyed, but the town mayor intervened and had the offending slab of cement removed and preserved. The property was known to have been a graveyard in the past, so the floor was excavated in hopes of finding whatever was causing the phenomena. | |||||||
Nine feet down, human remains were discovered and given a proper burial, and a new floor was installed. Two weeks later, another man's face appeared, and two weeks after that, the face of a woman surrounded by 9-15 tiny faces. By this time, the mysterious goings on had attracted crowds of onlookers. Some of these were able to watch the faces appear before them, but there was never a consensus on their expression or meaning. Occasionally, these images would appear and then disappear within the course of a single day, others would last longer. Recordings were made in the room, and when the tapes were played back, sounds of whispering and wailing were heard on them. The floor was torn out a number of times, but the faces returned every time it was restored. The images were scrubbed with detergent, but though the eyes widened and the expressions changed, the pictures persisted; over time, the faces seemed to age. Chemists tested samples of the cement, but found no evidence of paints or dyes. Although the events continued through 1972, there is a dearth of photographic and other hard evidence, scientific explanations.were quickly abandoned. The debate over whether this was a case of fraud, a haunting, or psychokinetic influence (the faces' expression would sometimes change depending on Maria Gõmez Pereira's mood) has never been resolved. |
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Most of the above were taken from Las caras de Belmez, which is written almost entirely in Spanish, so good luck with that. |
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