Sometime back, around 1971, something strange began to happen in the small town of Belmez de la Moraleda, Spain .
Inside the modest home of Maria Gomez Pereira, what appeared to be a face began to materialize on the hearth in her kitchen. Maria being superstitious, had her husband destroy it with a pick ax and lay new cement in it’s place. Appoximately one week later, the face mysteriously reappeared.
An interesting fact about the home where the faces started to appear is that it is built on what was once the site of multiple graveyards. The most recent being that of a Christian graveyard and it is reported that even ancient Romans had at one point laid their dead on this site.
As the faces continued to appear, word quickly spread and people began to line up outside Maria’s house. Sometimes up to five thousand people would line up to catch of glimpse of the Belmez ghost faces. The city council became involved and decided to excavate the spot where the faces were appearing. Upon doing so, human remains were found about nine feet from the surface. It
was believed by many that after these remains were moved and given a proper burial, that the faces would stop appearing. This turned out to be a false assumption.
The faces continued to appear, including faces of a smaller size that resembled children. Nobody could explain exactly what was happening inside of this home.
Teams of scientists and paranormal investigators swarmed the house and many non believers were sure that these “ghost faces” would be debunked quickly. They were wrong.
Tests were done on the Belmez Faces and samples of the cement taken . These tests were able to do away with the theories that someone was simply sneaking in and painting the cement. Besides that, the faces were appearing inside the cement, rather than on it. One of the scientists involved was quoted as saying that the Belmez Faces were “the most important
paranormal happening in history”.
Maria eventually stopped trying to remove the faces and for three decades now, they have continued to appear. People continue to travel to the small village of Belmez to see them and the Belmez Faces continue to be one of the biggest
mysteries of our century.
