The Buddies Forums

Following on from Dawnie's thread re: Faces on Orbs....I remembered this interesting story.

I originally read it in my son's "Fortean Times". I wonder if any of our Spanish buds have visited this place?

The Belmez Faces

In Belmez de la Moraleda, Spain, sits the Pereira family home, the scene of strange events that have lasted over 30 years.

The events began in 1971 when Maria Gomez Pereira spotted a strange formation on the hearth of her kitchen. It looked like human’s face, so Maria’s husband took a pickaxe and destroyed the hearth, then re-laid it with new cement. A week later the face reappeared on the new floor. The family asked the City Council to investigate and after weeks of excavating they found a pit containing human bones directly beneath the hearth. The pit was filled and a new hearth was laid but within weeks more faces began to reappear.

No matter how much the Pereira family tried to destroy them, the faces returned. For thirty years the faces have been visited by scientists, researchers and countless TV crews. Many believed the faces were faked and that they had been painted. But thorough examination of the hearth it showed the faces were in the cement rather than painted on top. This seemed to prove that the faces were a real phenomenon and one scientist proclaimed it was "without doubt the most important paranormal phenomenon this century".

On some internet sites this phenomenon has been described as an "Urban Legend" but this footage makes me wonder! How could this occur and just why??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12dNZdIi ... L&index=43

I read about these things too Cherub but they seem to have been de-bunked upon further research. I would have liked to have gone to see them !

"Luis Ruiz-Noguez believes that the most likely explanation for the visual effect of the Bélmez images is Jordán's suggestion of the use of an oxidizing chemical agent. For example, nitric, sulfuric, muriatic, acetic acid, and others, could be used to obtain such an effect.

Another explanation might be the use of agents sensitive to light (which was not mentioned in either Jordán or Perera's repertoire of forgery hypotheses): silver nitrate which, when subjected to ultraviolet sunlight, darkens.

In general, there may be at least three chemical sources capable of producing an effect similar to that of the Bélmez faces: Products that affect the chemical structure of the cement which include some oxidizing agents and several acids (all types of cement are of alkaline nature and therefore easily attacked by acids); products that leave the cement intact but change their chemical structure upon contact with external agents such as light or chemical reagents; and the utilization of a pigment in a vehicle or resin, as discussed by Ruiz-Noguez in his commentary on the ICV chart.

According to Ramos Perera, hypothesis was the case of the first "wall face" appearance of Bélmez: the ghastly face known as La Pava. Presently this old face is fading out in the dark, humid cement as can be seen in the photographs of a web site.
María Gómez, the purported psychic that allegedly produced the appearances, died on February 2004 at the age of 85 years. After her death the popular psychic researcher Pedro Amorós tried to "discover" more thoughtographic appearances in María's house. A new wave of Bélmez faces thus took place. However, Amorós' claims have been debunked in the Spanish media. In November 2004 the newspaper El Mundo published the article "The New Bélmez Faces Were Faked by Some Ghostbusters": The Objective is to Exploit Commercially the Phenomenon and to Favor Tourism. On May 2007, journalist Javier Cavanilles and investigator Francisco Máñez published a book called Los Caras de Bélmez, a play-on-words that means "The cheeky evils of Bélmez", where they explain the history of the scam and pointed to María's son, Diego Pereira, as author of the mysterious paintings."

I hope someone from Spain has more information or even visited the place.

Thanks Angelica, for that information...yes, I do hope our Spanish hosts and visitors can add some information that they may have gleaned.

This thread came as a direct result from Dawnies "Faces On Orbs"! So thanks again Dawnie for jolting my memory of the article in the Fortean Times! XXX

Anyone think there may be a spiritual link to BOTH?

This next link is totally in Spanish..can any of our Admins from Spain or fellow Spanish buds, draw a conclusion from these images and reports online? Gracias!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZjKeLlp ... L&index=14

The video talks about the mystery Cherub, it says how many tests have been done on the cement but it still remains a mystery. i think its in a library now.

Experts were brought in from Madrid to study the authenticity of the faces of Belmez

By Daniel Schweimler in Madrid
As one of the region's better known tourist attractions - or as some would have it - one of the great unexplained mysteries of all time - the faces of B_ez are not very well promoted. A few sporadic signposts on the road from the southern Spanish city of Jaen mark the way.

The town of B_ez de la Moraleda - set high in the mountains of Andalusia and surrounded by olive groves - is always quiet, but on a Sunday morning it is deadly. A group of about 20 old men sat in the town-square, muttering to one another, smoking or looking at the ground.

When I asked one of them where I could find the faces at least eight of them began giving directions. In a maze of narrow, cobbled streets around the church - muffled voices from dark doorways gave me further directions if I showed any sign of hesitancy. Finally I arrived at a small whitewashed cottage.

An apparition

The front door was open so I entered and found an old lady in an armchair watching a religious service on television.

"Las Caras, the faces?" I asked. "Can I see them?"

She waved me into the small, sparsely-furnished front room and continued watching television. I looked at the floor where I'd been told the faces would be. And as soon as my eyes had become accustomed to the dim lighting, I quite clearly saw the face of a young woman.

It was faint at first but gradually the definition and the details became clearer. It was a sad face. There were others - some clear, some not so clear. Images of old men and children deeply ingrained in the cement floor.

A nun arrived to treat an ailment the old woman was suffering from, so I apologised for the intrusion and left.

I could have been looking at paintings cleverly rubbed into the stone floor. But a stream of scientists have been to the house, taken away chunks of floor, applied every test available to them and discounted that theory.

The faces of Belmez have been a mystery ever since the old woman, Mar_G__ C_ra, saw the first image appear in her kitchen in August 1971.

She ran to tell the neighbours who were so disturbed that one of them chopped the image out with a pickaxe - only to see it re-appear shortly afterwards. More faces appeared and word spread.

First came the journalists and television film crews, then the religious and political authorities.

Explanations

The faces of Belmez became known all over Spain and on some days up to 5,000 people would line up outside Maria's small house for a look at this strange apparition.

Many explanations were suggested - it was some kind of religious intervention, a neighbour's son - a talented artist - was doing the drawings late at night as a joke, they were the product of some kind of radioactive leak.

What was known for sure was that the house was built in the 1830s over what had been a Christian cemetery. Before that it was a Muslim burial site and before that the Romans had lain their dead there.

The local church and political authorities were keen to put an end to the disruption caused by the growing number of visitors to the town. They were also uneasy about the fact they couldn't explain the phenomenon and sought to have the faces declared a fraud as soon as possible.

A 24-hour police guard was put on the house and any suspicious characters seen entering were questioned. Experts were brought in from Madrid to try to find out what materials the faces were made from, to analyse the stone floor, to check the earth beneath the house.

Believers and disbelievers

As news spread, members of religious cults, believers in extra-terrestrials and just the plain eccentric arrived in their hundreds.

Some observers, especially among local people, were convinced from the start that the faces were a fraud and someone was making money from them.

Others said that the owners of the house, Maria and her ailing husband, Juan - simple farm-workers - were unable to read or write, let alone fool the scientific establishment.

All Maria appears to have gained is a new kitchen - built by the local authorities since so many visitors were walking through the original kitchen - where the faces first appeared - that her family went days without eating.

In the 28 years since Maria saw the first face neither the believers nor the disbelievers have come up with conclusive proof to back their case.

Experts

Germ_de Argumosa is a Madrid-based parapsychologist who has investigated the case in depth and while he doesn't have the answers, is convinced it is not a fraud. He has brought in experts from around the world.

One of them, Professor Hans Bender from Germany, called the faces of Blmez "without doubt the most important paranormal phenomenon this century."

Leading the case for the sceptics is Jos_uis Jord_Pe__ho is convinced it is nothing more than a joke played between neighbours which got out of hand in a boring town.

The faces, he says, have been impregnated into the cement floors using a mixture of soot and vinegar. Detailed analysis found traces of both. Of course, say the believers - soot and vinegar traces will be found on any kitchen floor in the region if one looks hard enough.

As I walked back past the men who had given me directions, one of them stopped me.

"Did you see the faces? What did you think?" he asked. "Did she show you the face of General Franco under the table?" No, I replied. "Ah, that's because you didn't pay her - she wants money before she shows that one," he explained conspiratorially before rejoining his friends.

Did the men then laugh at another visitor attracted by a simple but effective hoax? A hoax that's put the otherwise uninteresting town of B_ez de la Moraleda on the map. Or are the faces of B_ez really one of the great unexplained mysteries.

I know what I was looking at but am not really sure what I saw. If anyone does know the secret, it's Mar_Gom_C_ra - and she's certainly not telling.


Here's a website for you Cherub.
http://www.thecobrasnose.com/xxghost/belmez.html

Sad to say some of thes e piccies on closer inspection look like they have been photoshopped.
There are marks of gaussian blur and areas that look Cloned.

people think it is a fake thing, but who knows.

I would like to beleive this , but oh , I am not too sure about it. I mean you know after reading lots about it , it seems there are so many doubts.

I'm not so sure either Henry's Yorkie - so many things could be done to give that effect.

Wonder where Cherub is hiding out at these days.?