The Belmez Faces
Disclaimer: Scary stuff ahead
There is a town in Spain called Bélmez de la Moraleda, which has a population of less than 2000 people. In 1971 a very strange phenomenon happened that some people still debate today. The phenomenon is known as The faces of Belmez.
A resident there named Maria Gomez Periera one day noticed a weird stain on her kitchen floor. Next day the stain darkened into face of a man. She tried to erase that face by scrubbing, but no matter what she did, it didnt go away.
Her husband finally took an axe and removed that part of the floor, and replaced it with a new concrete sheet. Strangely after one week the face returned. This time word spread throughout the town and before Maria could destroy it again, the Mayor of the town got that part cut out to perform research.
Further investigations revealed that the house was built in 1830 on a site that used to be a graveyard for Romans, the floor was excavated. After digging 90 feet below many skeletons were found with somewhat disconnected faces, many skeletons didn't have skull, they were removed and given a proper burial. The floor was reinstalled again.
But the faces began to reappear again, some male some female, big and small. They also changed expression and moved. This was the 3rd time faces appeared, so word went beyond town and people started to flock to get a firsthand look of it, including some psychologist, priests and paranormal researchers. A German parapsychologist named Dr. Hans Bender called the Bellmez Faces the most important paranormal occurrence of 20th century.
The Hypothesis-
Some psychologists thought that it was a case of Psychic Photography also known as Thoughtography or Psychic Thermography. Psychic Photography is ability to burn images of your mind onto physical surfaces, parapsychologists thought Maria herself was creating those faces subconsciously, the argument in its favour was the faces that appeared match Maria's mood and the expression on the faces change in synchronization with Maria's mood. Faces didn't change when maria was not around.
The Hypothesis Fails
Finally Maria died in 2004 at age of 84, everyone thought that faces will not appear now. They were wrong. Strangely enough not only they appeared they also continue to change.
The research showed that it couldn't be artificially created, no paint or dyes were used, the floor was not tampered with at all , yet faces appeared.
A Different Hypothesis-
Some researchers believed it was due to sunlight, AgNO3(Silver Nitrate) & some other chemicals are capable of creating such effect under influence of sunlight.
It fails again-
To test that the investigators put an opaque sheet over the floor for avoiding any external influence, and observations were made on regular intervals, to everyone's horror the faces continued to appear and change. Some people kept calling it a hoax but couldn't find any proof in favour. No-one ever gained any financial reward due to the whole incident, so calling it a hoax is bit too far.
No one still knows what is causing those faces, some people call it paranormal, some call it a hoax, but the reality is the faces continue to appear, if you go to Spain in that particular town you can still have a firsthand look of it. That house is also known as House of Faces.
Thanks for reading.
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