In childhood, we all heard horror stories about how a blood stain appeared on the ceiling or on the wall of a room, and how it was not painted over, it appeared again. Instead of a bloody stain, a terrible face, a black figure, etc. could appear. The essence of this did not change: the image was painted over with almost a ton of paint, but it still showed through.
However, children's horror stories are children's horror stories, a separate area of urban legends, but such an incident actually took place.
For the first time they started talking about him in 1971, when mysterious events began to take place in the house of one of the simple Spanish families in the Spanish village of Belmes de la Moraleda (address: Street Real 5, Belmez de la Moraleda, Jaen, Spain): on a tile located on the floor and walls of the house, the outlines of people's faces began to appear.
It all started with the fact that in August of that year, the owner of the house, Maria-Gomez Pereira, once noticed on the floor of her own kitchen, on a cement slab under the hearth, the outlines of a woman's face.
It was only natural that this phenomenon caused her fear and disgust. She tried to scrape off the image. It didn't work. Then Maria asked her husband to cover this part of the floor with cement, which the husband safely did, putting new cement an inch thick in the wrong place.
However, this did not help, the face appeared again. Then the unfortunate woman turned to her husband again - already with a request to replace part of the sex. Thoroughly frightened, the husband and his son removed the old concrete and poured the floor with new cement mortar, but after a while the face appeared again.
Moreover, soon other human faces with rather distinct outlines began to appear on the walls and on the floor in other places.
Promotional video:
The family did not already know what to do, and turned to the mayor of Belmes de la Moraleda. The mayor, after their story, told them next time not to touch their face, but to leave for study.
Very soon, information about mysterious persons spread far beyond Belmes de la Moraleda and attracted the attention of many skeptics and mystics: some considered it a skillful trick, others saw this as confirmation of the existence of other entities, or spirits.
The story received more and more widespread publicity, along with the publicity there was a huge number of versions explaining the emergence of persons. A wave of rumors spread through the village that the house was located on the site where an old cemetery was once located.
Excavations carried out under houses No. 3 and 5 on Real Street in Belmes and research have revealed that before the appearance of houses in this place in the XIV century. in fact, there was a church with an adjoining cemetery. The church and part of the cemetery were relocated in 1838 before the construction of houses to another location. The rest of the cemetery was moved only shortly before the events, just before the appearance of the first persons.
This story received the support of local media - newspapers, and television reacted with interest to this phenomenon. In the meantime, images continued to appear on the walls and floor in the house - the faces of men, children and women …
After a short time, curious and tourists began to come to the village in crowds - to see the miracles with their own eyes.
Moreover, the protruding faces could be photographed - unlike other numerous miracles, which were known only from eyewitness accounts. The phenomenon was named "Faces of Belmes".
Naturally, "Faces of Belmes" attracted close attention of researchers of the unknown, parapsychologists and other specialists from "related fields". Some parapsychologists have considered this event to be one of the most important paranormal events of the twentieth century.
Thus, the German parapsychologist Hans Bender believes that the village of Belmes is the birthplace of "the most wonderful paranormal phenomenon in Europe." And some thought it was an artful falsification. Like, Maria-Gomez paints these faces herself.
What skeptics did not do! In the early 90s, they tried to erase the images with cleaning agents, examined the material for the presence of dyes, but they could not find any catch: the faces were not painted!
All who visited this place were forced to agree that the phenomenon cannot be explained logically and its authenticity is trustworthy.
In 1991 and 1994. Priest José Maria Pilón ordered two chemical analyzes of the emerging images. And again, no traces of dyes were found. They even conducted an experiment: the kitchen in the ill-fated house was sealed in the presence of a notary, which excluded anyone from entering the room.
Three months later, the seal was removed in front of the cameras of German television crews invited by researcher Hans Bender. One new face was recorded, and the other two, already available, the images were rotated 180 degrees. The experiment was recorded in the notary office of the city of Huelva under the numbers 462 and 667 for 1994.
In addition, researchers of paranormal phenomena left the tape recorders in the house at night, and the study of the records made allows us to state the presence of sounds similar to snatches of phrases spoken in a whisper.
Provided that there was no one in the house for the purity of experiments, this whisper can be considered a manifestation of the other world. So, at least, the researchers think.
However, the adherents of the materialistic approach to explaining all the secrets of the universe continued to fall out against the mistress of the house. They argued that since the flow of tourists and researchers to the village does not dry up and, therefore, brings residents a good addition to the basic income, then Faces of Belmes is nothing more than a PR move to attract tourists.
I had to bring in expert chemists. Scientists, through complex chemical analyzes, have revealed how, from a scientific point of view, these faces could be drawn by human hands. It turned out that at least three chemical compounds are capable of creating an effect similar to the faces of Belmes.
But for this it was necessary: a) to have these complex connections in this lost on the outskirts of Europe, and b) Maria-Gomez, a simple peasant woman, needed to know elementary about their existence and their possibilities.
And you also needed to be able to draw! Because the faces were, although not always distinct, but almost always anatomically correct, sometimes not even in front, but in three-quarters.
Moreover, with a variety of emotions clearly expressed in the image. Maria-Gomez could not draw. Her son and husband, too. By the way, at the time of the first appearance of the faces, Maria-Gomez was 52 years old. Honorable, you must agree, the age for the beginning of any kind of hoax …
One of the researchers put forward a hypothesis that these may be frescoes, made by some colorless substance, which, mixed with the lime of the slabs, manifested itself after some time, as happens with colorless ink.
In support of the paranormal origin of faces, the fact that faces appeared for a short time, then disappeared, also speaks. If they were created with the help of oxidizing reagents (acid), with which cement would enter into an active process (since almost all types of cement are alkaline), then the images would remain, if not forever, then for a very long time.
As a result, the public was divided into two camps. Some believed that the mystic was to blame, others argued that they were dealing with a clever hoax. Do the crowds of tourists bring income to the village? They bring. This means that all this was started with a commercial purpose.
This argument is rather feeble … The phenomenon might or might not have attracted attention. And if we take into account that the house of Maria-Gomez has literally become a courtyard, that for the sake of experiments it was necessary to move somewhere for the sake of many months of experiments, then it is quite difficult to imagine a family who voluntarily sacrifices their own peace for the sake of incomprehensible and ambiguous fame.
And the family did not have peace either day or night! Now tourists, now onlookers, now research … During one of them, a human body was dug out from under the house. It was announced that now everything will stop. However, faces continued to appear.
They have appeared for more than thirty years. In 2004, Maria-Gomez, 85, died. The famous parapsychologist Pedro Amoros tried to find evidence of the appearance of new faces in the house of Mary.
According to some reports, they continue to appear, according to others, after the death of Marie-Gomez, miraculous phenomena stopped. However, a new wave of the phenomenon called "Belmes Faces" swept the world. The parapsychologist was mocked by the press, claiming that Belmes's faces were created by ghost-hunters and the local government of the village.
For example, the Spanish media, namely the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, published an article New Belmez Faces Faked by 'Ghostbusters' and Municipal Government. What the article is about is clear from the title.
Then there were rumors about the son of Maria, Diego Pereira, as the author of all the mysterious "paintings" in the house. This was facilitated by the publication in 2007 of the book Los Caras de Belmez ("Faces of Belmes"), in which the authors - the journalist Javier Cavaniles and the researcher Francisco Manes - refute all the mysticism associated with the persons of Belmez. Cavaniles and Manes claim that the authorship of the drawings belongs to the son of Maria Gomez.
They made this conclusion on the basis of the very history of the appearance of drawings and their study. How such a conclusion can be drawn from the history of the appearance and analysis of drawings, remains, so to speak, behind the scenes. Especially if we take into account all the experiments carried out, including the kitchen sealed for three months, in which, nevertheless, new images appeared, and the old ones were transformed.
The main argument of the authors of the book is that after the death of Maria-Gomez, the images no longer appeared. Means what? So, all this is the work of her son. Well, who else? There is no one else! So what if he can't draw? So what if the images appeared in the sealed kitchen? So what if the tape recorder recorded some voices in a completely empty room?
However, the fact remains: after the death of Maria-Gomez, faces no longer appeared. If we abstract from the desire of official science in everything and everywhere to look for materialistic explanations and see only a hoax in every miracle, then it is worth considering another option: Maria Gomez could be an unconscious medium. By virtue of the specific features of her personality (or her body), she could be a catalyst for certain processes, for which modern science has no explanation.
From the same area, the appearance of geometric figures in the fields, water or fire in the room, if there is a person there, causing (as a rule, unconsciously) these processes. From the same area and the phenomenon of poltergeist, when objects suddenly start to move or fly, furniture doors slam, drawings appear on the walls, etc.
Poltergeist scientists have come to the conclusion that these phenomena are usually caused by a family member. Let's repeat - unconsciously.
It is quite possible that Maria Gomez was the kind of person thanks to whom another world (otherworldly, parallel - call it what you want) somehow manifested itself in our world, left us some messages. And declaring everything a fraud and falsification is as easy as shelling pears!