I — The Beginnings of an Unsettling Development : Faces ( With Eyes ) in the Floor, Looking Up
II — Outside Eyes Peering In : The Local Government
III — Outside Eyes Peering In : Tourists
IV — Outside Eyes Peering In : Investigators
V — Outside Eyes Peering In : The Skeptics
VI — Conclusion : The Three Things That Make This Story Unsettling
.
.
I — the beginnings of aN unsettling development : faces ( with eyes ) in the floor, looking up
The year : 1971 :
The town : Bélmez de la Moraleda, Spain.
The location : The home of Maria Gomez and Juan Pereira.
The scene : The floors of their home.
Miguel Pereira Gomez, Maria’s son, was a farmer, who had just come home from a day out in the fields, only to be confronted by a disturbing sight, and he wanted a witness, and called his mother, Maria, into the room. He asked her what she saw.
She saw that it was a face and asked, “Who has painted it?”
No one had.
It developed ( unnaturally — or should that be “supernaturally”? ) on its own.
María Gómez could not believe what she was looking at.
That shape on the floor was not a random development.
It was a face — and it had eyes!
And a nose.
And a mouth — that would later be described as “an expression of sorrow.”[2]
Miguel tried covering over the spot with fresh concrete, but much to his horror, according to one article. “…the face was back within three days, and seemed to look right at him“. [1]
After the attempt to cover the image with fresh concrete had failed to solve the problem, Maria’s son and husband destroyed the section with a pickaxe.
The image, and the concrete it was displayed in, was shattered.
That demonic face was gone.
Well, for a few days, anyway.
The image returned.
Then … another appeared….and then another.
To make the situation even more unsettling, was the fact that “when Maria was happy, the faces looked cheerful, and when she was sad, the faces also reflected her mood.”[1]
.
.
II — outside eyes peering in : the local government
At one point, as word spread, the town’s mayor got involved.
He had municipal workers dig up the floor to a depth of 2.8 meters ( or approximately 9 feet ) and did they find anything?
Yep!
Several skeletons, among which were, according to one article, “…two headless skeletons…. [which] belonged to people buried in a 13th-century cemetery, part of which had been located where the house now stood.”[1]
AI-Generated
The situation somewhat reminds me of Steven Spielberg’s original movie, “Poltergeist”, where the family in the movie ( the Freely’s ) had a house that was ( unbeknownst to them ) built on top of a cemetery, where the real estate developer moved only the headstones, but left the graves buried in the ground.
In Maria’s case, no one really knew who these people were. There were no headstones with their names on them.
Just people killed — centuries ago!
.
.
.
III — outside eyes peering in : tourists ( ANd the lack of tourist photos )
I’m not sure I would turn my home into a tourist attraction while I still lived there.
But, Maria and her husband did.
They apparently allowed crowds to trapes through their kitchen and gawk at the constantly-changing faces looking up at them.
Some of those visitors claimed that the faces would actually change expression, when no one was looking.
Others were convinced that their eyes followed them as they moved across the room.
ONE QUESTION, THOUGH :
Not to be a “detractor” from those who believe the story, the one thing that I find interesting, is that with all the tourists that visited the house, you would think that every one of them, that went through the trouble of traveling there, would have taken pictures of those faces in the floor , and the internet would be flooded with those photos.
But no. Zero
For all intents and purposes, there are no photos from tourists!
Why not?
Were they not allowed to take pictures? Were they confiscated by customs at the airport?
The two main reasons I saw for having difficulty in finding images online pertaining to the Faces of Bélmez story were :
Copyright and Sourcing
Many of the photos of the faces were captured by local newspapers, paranormal investigators, and television crews, which were never uploaded to any current-day photo-sharing platforms. [11]
House Rules and Privacy
According to one inquiry , “The Pereira family home is a private residence, and there are often strict photography rules inside” [9]
If I knew there were restrictions on what faces you could and could not photograph, I wouldn’t have wasted any time or money on the trip.
“Let me get this straight: I can come here and look with my own eyes, but I can’t take pictures?” I would have been thinking, had I shown up, and poised to take a picture, only to be stopped and told, “Sorry. Not allowed!”
That’s not cool.
If there were “good” reasons to NOT ALLOW tourists to take pictures of the very artifacts that attracted the tourists to the house in the first place ( especially for purposes of having witnesses to one’s claims ), I wouldn’t even allow people to visit.
What’s the point?
If they can’t take pictures ( i.e. evidence) something’s not kosher.
I would give them the side eye of total mistrust.
Conversely, if it was allowed, I know I definitely would have taken an image of every face on the floor — possibly several pictures of each face, just in case, some didn’t develop correctly.
When I tried to locate Tourist-generated photos, the best I could find was in the image below ( ALL, but one, were Instagram posts ) SOURCES at end of post
.
.
IV — outside eyes peering in : investigators
A — What Questions Were being Asked ?
If the faces were genuine, investigators faced some troubling questions such as :
* — “What did they ( the entities causing the images to appear in the floor ) want?”
** — “Why were they appearing?”
*** — Were they random images? or,
**** — Were the dead attempting to communicate with the living?
One question that refuses to disappear:
If it was a hoax, why did the faces keep coming back?
B — What Methods Were Used to Investigate The Mystery?
i — Chemical Analysis
Some of the investigators asserted that their tests proved no paint was used and that the images seemed to originate from within the concrete itself..
Of course, skeptics countered that the images were created using a silver nitrate-based compound that reacts with light, or standard paint. [9]
ii — Excavation & Archive Checks
They did find human skeletons (some decapitated) dating back to the 13th century —directly below the floor that displayed the ghostly images
iii — Isolation Experiments
To test for hoaxes, investigators covered the floor with thick cloth and sealed the room in the presence of a notary.
Months later, when the seals were broken, the original faces had supposedly faded and new ones appeared, which investigators claimed proved the phenomenon was not a human forgery
iv — Audio Recording
Subsequent investigations employed what is called Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), which the investigators claimed recorded disembodied whispers and voices coming directly from the floorboards. [10]
.
V — OUTSIDE EYES PEERING IN : SKEPTICS
The 5 Reasons Skeptics Dismiss the Claims :
i — Chemical Evidence
Independent researchers using chemical analyses on the floor showed traces of pigments and chemical agentscommonly found in commercial paint. [12]
ii — Financial Motives
It was no secret that Maria and her family openly advertised their home as “La Casa de las Caras,” and charged admission to see the faces. [13]
iii — Family Involvement
Skeptics pointed out that the images that initially appeared in the media were “discovered” by members of Maria’s family, and that later images of the faces were attributed to the homeowner’s son [ 14 ]
iv — Method of Creation
Certain investigators asserted that the images were most likely fabricated by “intentionally applying paint or corrosive agents to the cement, then rubbing them in to look deeply ingrained”[15]
v — Replication Tests
Experts and university researchers showed that similar stains and faces could be easily duplicated using store-bought paint and chemical combinations on concrete. [16]
VI — Conclusion : The Three Things That Make This Story Unsettling
The faces allegedly appeared where human remains were later found.
Destroying the images reportedly failed to stop new ones from appearing.
Mind Candy 101 