In the fall of 1934, the Spanish public was agitated by rumors of a mysterious poltergeist in a house in the center of Zaragoza. The Spanish government learned about the event, and the news of the mysterious voice from the chimney even reached foggy Albion.
The case took on an unprecedented scale, the police and the judiciary, mysterious people with a military bearing and psychoanalysts were involved in the maelstrom of events. Parapsychologists were prohibited from entering the scene. Tens of thousands of Spaniards held their breath as they followed the news from Zaragoza. After a while, the mysterious voice disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.
From laughter to word
So it tempts to start the story with the words: “In this black-black city there is a black-black house. This black-black house has a black-black kitchen …”. But this is how a children's horror story begins, and what happened in Zaragoza 70 years ago is a real reality. Recorded in accordance with all the rules, filed into a fat file and stored in the court and police archives.
At dawn on September 27, 1934, the tenants of the first and second floors of one of the houses of modern construction on the rue Gascon de Gotor were awakened by thunderous rumbles of laughter, coming from nowhere. The astonished people, running out onto the stairwells, did not find anyone, and after a few minutes the devilish laughter subsided. Over the next few days, the joker, who frightened everyone, was at the center of the neighbors' discussions, but they did not pay special attention to the strange sounds and noises that began to be heard in the building closer to morning from that memorable day. The tenants will remember about these sounds only a month later, when the restless voice finally decides to puzzle the people seriously.
On the second floor, in an apartment located on the right hand, lived Antonio Palason with his wife Isabel, a little daughter and a young servant. In the early morning of November 15, 16-year-old servant Pasquala Alcober ran to her mistress with a message that a plaintive male voice was heard in the kitchen. Isabelle, of course, didn't believe her. However, the next day, when Pasquala was closing the stove, Isabel, who entered the kitchen, heard with her own ears how a deaf man's voice cried out: "Ay, it hurts, it hurts, Maria, come here!"
The frightened women ran out of the apartment and turned to neighbors for help. Gathered in the kitchen, the residents of the house clearly heard an angry male voice coming from the chimney. Making sure that the matter was not a joke, the team unanimously headed to the nearest police station. From that moment on, for the first time in the history of Spain, public authorities opened an official investigation into the paranormal.
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The one who laughs last laughs well
With jokes and jokes, the police agents went to the indicated apartment. However, they soon became no laughing matter. When one of the policemen started poking a poker in the stove, everyone shuddered when they heard a clear hoarse cry: "Ay-ay, you hurt me, you goat !!" And it began. The house was searched from top to bottom, the police cut off the radio antennas on the roof and even dug a moat around the house in search of hidden wires. Plumbers and electricians thoroughly checked their fiefdom.
The arriving architect provided the agents with detailed plans for the building. The bricklayers who built the house were urgently called in. The builders checked all cavities, tapped all walls and ceilings. The voice continued to ring, at times threatening the "inspectors". The architect got the most. When he ordered the bricklayers to break through part of the chimney, the brownie promised threateningly that if the order was fulfilled, he would move to live in the architect's apartment.
Transformation from brownies to "idol of Zaragoza"
The agents settled in the house for a week, but could not find a material explanation for the phenomenon. Suspicion fell on the unfortunate servant: the girl was present at those moments when the voice declared itself. So, she was the only culprit. Pasquala was accused of ventriloquism.
The famous psychiatrist, laureate of the prestigious Ramon y Cajal Prize, Joaquin Jimeno Riera, upon learning of the accusations, said that "there are mediums, usually women with inexplicable abilities, but before declaring a girl a medium, she should be examined."
Meanwhile, the case was taken to court, an unusual case was reported in the newspapers, and a picket with security had to be set up near the building, which became famous throughout the country in a few days. At the main entrance crowds of curious townspeople gathered, eager to hear with their own ears the complaints of the “idol of Zaragoza”. Newspaper publications and radio broadcasts have turned the "stove brownie" into the most popular character. Not without children's pranks. Several students, dressed in sheets and armed with flashlights, bribed the owner of the bar located on the ground floor and climbed the back stairs to the roof of the building, wanting to scare the police agents with ghosts. By the way, meticulous journalists also used this path. The joke cost the parents of the students a fine of 50 pesetas. The journalists were scolded for entering the forbidden territory, but not fined.
Publications in newspapers about this incident
On the evening of November 23, civil governor Otero Mirelis qualified the case as a "violation of public order" and called for it to be completed as soon as possible, otherwise "the consequences will have to be very, very sorry." On November 24, judge Pablo de Pablos on duty, accompanied by forensic doctors, appeared in the cordoned-off building. The judge, along with the landlord, examined the house and questioned the tenants, while the medics examined Pasquala at the same time. By evening, the authorities left the building, advising all residents and the police to do the same. Only in the enchanted kitchen were two agents left who testified that while the last people were leaving the room, a man's voice was heard, sadly saying: "Goodbye, goodbye." Thousands of onlookers who did not leave their observation posts opposite the main door, day or night,looked with disappointment at the empty building.
On Monday, November 26, Police Commissioner Perez de Soto called a press conference, at which he said that since the house was empty, that is, since the evening of November 24, the voice has not spoken again. On the same day, the conclusion of the forensic medical examination of Pasquala was published. The doctors who examined the maid argued that the girl had nothing to do with the phenomenon: “We did not find any tendency to invent, or to lie, or to simulation. It is impossible to prove that Pasquala is a medium or hysterical ventriloquist. In addition, when the girl was taken out of the kitchen, the voice from the oven continued to speak."
Soothsayers not allowed in
The news appeared on the pages of the foreign press. The Times reporters called the voice from the rue Gascon de Gotor “ironic brownie”. The publication of Londoners, describing with relish the congestion of people in the center of Zaragoza near the building with the brownie, did not go unnoticed in the Spanish government. On November 28, a phone call was made at the police station investigating the incident. The director of DGS - General Directorate of Security has demanded all the information about the strange incident. Things were getting nasty.
One of the expert commissions in the house
As if having heard about this, at midnight the stove voice again declared itself. This time the brownie was clearly out of sorts. I'm here again. Underpants. Underpants. I will kill all the inhabitants of this damned house,”he shouted irritably. The report was urgently telegraphed to DGS, and security agents were housed in the damn apartment.
On November 29, the police refused to let the famous Aragonese soothsayer and clairvoyant Thomas Menes and the film crew accompanying him into the building. Alas! The security fighters did not think about the descendants. As a result, the only thing we have with you are yellowed newspaper pages, photographs, police and court reports. And not a single filming inside the building.
The growing international fame scared officials: the governor asked the newspapers to stop writing about the incident. "The case of the stove brownie" was transferred to higher authorities. Judge Pablo de Pablos was replaced by District Judge Luis Fernando. New broom chalk in a new way: Since November 30, the authorities have been silent. The journalists found themselves in an information vacuum, which is known to lead to rumors. They said that Pasquala was again brought to the enchanted apartment for some reason, they claimed that the new judge and his team were conducting some secret experiments in the kitchen. All the free space in front of the building was filled with a crowd eager for spectacles. Uncertainty oppressed and excited at the same time, creating an explosive situation.
The authorities decided …
Finally, on December 3, Luis Fernando delivered the final verdict: “At first I wanted to hear a mysterious voice. Experiments have proven quite clearly that the voice is a psychic phenomenon that occurs under certain conditions … so I hear the voice whenever I want. In the kitchen of the apartment we were with the maid of the former tenants and two witnesses. The voice was heard as many times as I wished … From a scientific point of view, the phenomenon cannot be interesting … Such cases have occurred in the history of medicine … The case will be filed in the archive, since the person responsible was not found. The mysterious phenomenon has been fully clarified. " Like this. In fact, Luis Fernando accused the servant of "unconscious ventriloquism", and since it is "unconscious", the responsible was not found. It couldn't be clearer.
The governor spoke in the same spirit: "Everything is clear with the case, but whoever does not agree is simply taking the wrong position, wanting to piss everyone off." Visiting psychiatrist Gimeno Riera heard the voice for the first time on December 3: "Finally, I heard a voice … considering how events are developing, the best I can do is to consider the case completed and remain silent … the position I occupy in the case is dangerous …".
One thing was clear, the political pressure exerted on the investigators from the center turned the investigation into a farce. If the first forensic medical examination claimed that the 16-year-old servant did not possess any extraordinary mental abilities or abnormalities, and the police recorded that they heard a mysterious voice when the girl had already left the apartment, why did the new investigator bring her to the kitchen for experimentation? The girl continued to serve with Antonio Palason in a new home, and no paranormal events were recorded at the new place of residence.
Everything is very simple: the case had to be hastily completed and the crowds of onlookers had to be removed from the street by all means. A switchman was needed, and Pasquala was the best fit for this role. If the servant is said to be the culprit, since she has moved, the crowd will finally return to their homes. And if you declare that the mystery remains unsolved, then street congestion and disturbances of public order may end in no one knows what. Yes, even these Englishmen poke their noses with their comments, but they are ironic.
Arturo is a friend of the brownie
So, the case was officially closed. New tenants have moved into the apartment on the second floor - the large family of Grihalba Torre. In December 1934 - January 1935. four-year-old Arturo really made friends with an invisible stove interlocutor. Even decades later, Arturo is worried, recalling his conversations with the brownie: “The only thing he did was chat without stopping and loved to guess riddles. One day my father asked him how many of us live in the apartment. The brownie answered: "13". “You were wrong, there are twelve of us,” the father rejoiced. To which the brownie shouted: "But no, you are 13, you are 13!" When my father counted us, it turned out that, indeed, there were 13 of us, just for the first time he forgot to count the newborn."
Grihalba Torre with a child
It seems that Arturo became the only friend of the brownie, and when the police came to listen to the mysterious voice again, the boy was always put in front of the stove. In January 1935, the oven house was silent forever. Arturo Grijalba, a witness to the first case from The X-Files of Spain, does not forget the time when the poltergeist kept the whole country in suspense. Seventy years that have passed since the memorable autumn and winter have turned Arturo into a living legend of the 20th century.
A reminder of those unforgettable days on the site where once there was a house with an enchanted kitchen, now rises a modern building, proudly bearing the name "Brownie" building (Edificio Duende).
Arkhip Chistik
