The Effect
It is the 27th August, 1971, and in the small town of Belmez de la Moraleda in southern Spain, Maria Gomez Pereira notices an unusual stain on the floor of her kitchen. She has no idea where such a stain could have come from - since nothing, to her knowledge, has been spilt on the floor. Nevertheless, Maria cleans the stain away and thinks no more about it.
However, the very next morning, Maria re-enters her kitchen and stops cold. The stain is not only back, but has chillingly altered its appearance. It has inexplicably morphed and darkened, consolidating into the unmistakable form of a human face. Beginning to become seriously unsettled, Maria again sets about cleaning the floor to remove the stain, but no matter how hard she scrubs, it will not budge. Indeed, as she scours her wet brush over the concrete, Maria could even swear the stain changes position before her eyes
Witnessing his wife’s growing sense of distress, Maria’s husband, Juan, vows to solve the bizarre problem of the face in the floor once and for all and, together with his son Miguel, takes a pickaxe to the concrete. Once it has been smashed into chunks and removed, Juan then smooths a fresh layer of concrete in its place. Together, the Pereiras breathe a sigh of relief. It was an odd thing to happen to them, for sure, but now the floor has been completely replaced, and so they can all put the peculiar event behind them and carry on with their normal lives.
However, just one week later, their peace is shattered. The face is back, this time in the brand new layer of concrete. Maria and her husband cannot believe what they are seeing. But, before they get the chance to remove the disturbing, staring countenance for a second time, word about the mysterious goings-on in the Pereiras’ kitchen quickly spreads across town, and the mayor pays them a visit. He decrees that the portion of the kitchen floor into which the face is inexplicably stained should be removed and taken away for further investigation.
The Pereiras follow the mayor’s instructions, and the floor is subsequently torn up and replaced several more times, to no avail. Every single time, without fail, the face reappears. Even stranger - and there is no mistaking this time - whenever it is scrubbed with detergent, the face’s expression changes, its eyes widening as though in pain.
As news of the bizarre, preternatural goings-on in the Pereiras’ floor spreads ever further afield, their modest house starts to play host to an array of visitors. Priests, journalists and paranormal investigators all make the journey to Belmez to examine the eerie faces for themselves. Eventually, a number of these investigators decide to conduct their own experiments. So the downstairs room is completely sealed off for three months, during which time a makeshift kitchen is set up for the family in a different part of their home. The floor of the original kitchen is covered with a layer of cloth and wax, to prevent anyone from tampering with it during the months of the experiment. A tape recorder is also left running in the room, in the hope that some EVP or ‘electronic voice phenomena’ might be detected.
Once the three months have passed, the investigators return, peeling back the layers of wax and cloth only to be dumbfounded by what they see. The face beneath, which no human has touched or seen for months, has transformed, has been joined by scores of other smaller, more intensely peering faces, the expressions of which range from enquiry to surprise to abject terror, their opened mouths contorted into silent shrieks. And when the tape is rewound and its recordings played, the investigators are once again confounded, as a series of unearthly screams assaults their ears.
Could these really be the cries of the souls trapped under the concrete of the Pereiras’ floor, an ungodly choir of spirit entities trying to communicate in some way? Might they be issuing a warning, exacting revenge, or seeking injustice from beyond the grave?
Further investigations are undertaken, the entirety of the ground floor excavated this time, and the earth beneath it removed. At first, it is uncertain whether anything will be found under the house, but after a few hours of digging, the dull gleam of something catches the eye. It is an object, shaped like a stick, lying chalk-white beneath the soil. And not just one. More and more bones are exposed by the digging, as a series of skeletons are revealed by the shifting earth, their heads disconnected from their bodies, the skulls’ faces tilting skyward, almost as though they might be staring up through the concrete that was once the kitchen floor.
The Method
The skeletons, discovered beneath the Pereiras’ house in the small town of Belmez de la Moraleda in southern Spain, are carefully removed and, once tested, found to date back to the 13th century. A little research is carried out in the local archives, and it is discovered that the ground on which the house was built was once a historic cemetery. A story even comes to light about an old Governor of Granada, murdering five members of the same family on or near the site where the Pereiras’ home was built.
The skeletons are laid respectfully to rest and given a proper burial. Surely, everyone thinks, the strange occurrences that have plagued the Pereiras are now over? But no, the faces keep appearing, again and again, whole legions of them in this ordinary kitchen floor in this ordinary house in Spain. One of the parapsychologists researching the case, Dr Hans Bender, is convinced the faces are undeniable proof of the existence of the supernatural, and calls them: ‘the most important paranormal occurrence of the twentieth century’. But is he right, or could a more scientific explanation finally be identified?
Once again, the concrete of the Pereiras’ kitchen floor is removed, and the faces are this time taken to the Institute of Ceramics and Glass in Madrid for analysis. According to the lab tests, no traces of paint or dye are found on the fragments of floor, and this is apparently taken as, if you’ll pardon the pun, ‘concrete’ proof that the faces have not been made by human hand. However, a whole plethora of other materials could have been used to create the illusion, without the need for paint or dye at all.
When the concrete samples are tested, zinc, barium, copper, phosphorus, chromium and lead are all found to be present. As both chromium and especially lead are common ingredients in paint, this discovery seems to provide some evidence of paint being used, at one point, to create the faces. Indeed, examination of them under infrared lights reveals that one or more of the faces consists of ‘added pigmentation’, which seems to indicate they might have been ‘touched up’ when they began to fade. But this cocktail of chemicals also points to another explanation for the appearance of the mysterious faces at Belmez: that is that simple elemental reactions might be the cause of the seemingly impossible - namely how the faces were able to materialise beneath that seal of cloth and wax laid by the investigators.
When the chemical silver nitrate, for example, is mixed with salt water, it becomes very reactive to light. So by using this solution to paint an image onto rock - or concrete - and exposing it to sunlight, the same image can appear to materialise and vanish again before one’s very eyes. Could it have been that when the layer of cloth and wax was peeled away by investigators, a chemical solution previously applied to the concrete floor was suddenly exposed to sunlight, causing the ghostly faces to appear? In fact, since concrete is alkaline, any acid applied to it would have had an effect, and there are a number of acids that could fit the bill as the so-called ‘paint’ used, including a liquid found in kitchens all over the world: acetic acid… or household vinegar.
But, if this was indeed a hoax, then what does it imply about the perpetrators? Surely the Pereiras would have needed to possess a relatively astute knowledge of chemistry to use such a method to create the famous faces of Belmez?
One thing Maria Pereira allegedly did claim to possess, was psychic powers. And, believing these claims, parapsychologist commentators on the case put forward another idea. That the mysterious faces of Belmez were an important example of ‘thoughtography’ - also known as ‘thermography’ or ‘psychic photography’ - the psychic ability to burn images from your mind onto physical surfaces. They proposed that Maria was in possession of this extraordinary gift, and so able to make the faces appear on her kitchen floor without ever really being consciously aware of it. Indeed, it was only when Maria was around that the faces appeared to change form and even colour, seemingly to match her mood.
So was this all a hoax, perpetrated by Maria Gomez Pereira for financial gain, as many sceptics who have come to this case over the years believe? At the height of its paranormal fame, the Pereira house was advertised as: ‘La Casa de las Caras’ or ‘The House of the Faces’, and by Easter 1972 it was playing host to hundreds of paying visitors eager to witness the phenomena first-hand, with queues of people choking the streets of Belmez.
When Maria died in 2004, it was assumed that the faces would stop appearing on the floor. But they did not. They continued to appear, and while some are certain this was because the Pereiras’ son, Diego, was now creating them, others still remain convinced that they are unequivocal proof of the supernatural. In fact, it is said that the strange phenomena continues to this day. So next time you find yourself in Southern Spain, perhaps you should stop by this Andalusian town, and look into the eyes of one of the faces of Belmez for yourself.
© 2025, Lora Jones. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
