In the impoverished village of Bélmez de la Moraleda in Spain, María Cámara discovered a phenomenon that would change her life: faces in the floor of her kitchen that would appear and disappear before your eyes. As news spread, the story gripped the nation attracting attention from parties desperate to make a profit.

Visit our website at www.strange-phenomenon.com

Hosted by Ray Tarara

Written & Produced by R.J. Blake and Ray Tarara

Theme Music by Terra Monk

Special guests: 

Javier Cavanilles - Los Caras de Bélmez

José Javier Gracenea - www.incopin.com

Additional music by: 

Sergey Cheremisinov

Kai Engle

Ghost Stories Incorporated

Graham Plowman

Oolsound

Javier Cavanilles, the co-author of the book Los Caras de Belmez, described the town to us.

Javier Cavanilles: It's not a city or a plain where you can go and to cross. You have to go to Bélmez if you wanted to go to Bélmez. It was very isolated from the rest of Spain, but it was not so different for so many people, village in this area of Spain.

An icon which would grip a country, causing a desperate search for an answer to this strange phenomenon. 

Javier: María was at home, cooking one day. The village was in, let's say, a holiday. They have a very big fiesta for all the village, and she was cooking at home. She realized that where she was cooking what is called La Pava,

Javier: Where she was cooking, there was something that looked like a face, but not any face.

RAY: Her grandson was in her arms when they originally spotted it… a discoloration in the cement that looked like a face, with sunken eyes and a beard draped over its gaping mouth. Something about the face frightened the child. It was no mere stain; they could feel a soul emanating from it. 

Javier: It was very close to the face of then Christ, the Jesus Christ, that was in a holding in the Cathedral of Jaén. She thought that what she has found was a signal, let's say, from God more or less, in the same way of the Virgin in Mexico, the Virgin of Guadalupe, it was more or less the same thing. At the beginning, it was a religious thing that happened.

RAY: Describing the moment later, Maria said, “First, I believed that I was dizzy ... Then I called the neighbors and we saw that it was a face. I don't know if he is a saint or a devil, or what he is (...) some They say that it gives an air to the Lord of Life, that they burned him in the War". 

The Holy Lord of Life was a piece of art that used to hang at the local Cathedral before it was destroyed by the dictatorship. The holiday Belmez had been celebrating was in honor of this piece. 

News of the rebirth of the Lord of Life ripped through the town. Within a day, over 2,500 people had visited Maria’s kitchen to look upon the face. Now becoming known as La Pava. 

Javier: People were actually believing it was some kind of miracle. In fact, in few days, people from other places surrounding Bélmez went to see the face. Then the new richer city, the main city in Andalusia. Andalusia, in the south of Spain. You have buses that went to see the Face of Bélmez because they thought it was the face of Christ. It was still a religious phenomenon.

RAY: “The faces are to be seen," would become a common refrain of Maria’s as she welcomed her visitors. 

The visitors would soon out stay their welcome. With the exposure the faces were gaining, the family became terrified of the interested parties. Not just the religious, but now the government and scientists were beginning to pay attention.  

One night, Maria’s step-son took a pick axe and destroyed the face. Covering it with fresh cement. 

To their horror, the face returned on September 9. Not only did La Pava reappear, but more faces began to unveil themselves. The exact number is unclear, but by some estimates there were as many as 500.

This time the news went directly to the mayor. Many were saying the faces were the only proof of a “permanent paranormal phenomenon.” Something that was undeniable because you could see it with your own eyes. 

But the mayor wanted proof. He ordered a municipal bricklayer to the house and demanded him to remove the faces for examination. The bricklayer was to work with a team to discover an explanation for the faces.  The home had been built over an ancient cemetery. 

Javier: The bones were found by students from the University of Madrid who were studying medicine. They went to the village, they dug the bones, and the trail is lost. Nobody knows what happened with the bones.

Battles between Christians and Moors had left so many dead with unmarked graves around the city.

RAY: Even after the bones were removed and the floor replaced, the faces returned. But this time, it was a woman’s pained face surrounded by other child-like faces. Journalist Lorenzo Fernandez claimed to have an explanation for the severed heads. Through his research, he determined that the home had been a brothel, and that the children were the aborted fetuses of the prostitutes. Their neighbor across the street told the press “Faces were made with the blood of the slaughter.”

Javier: For the first weeks, it was only a very local phenomenon. At the end of January of the new year, a journalist from Madrid, Antonio Casado, that was working in Pueblo, was a newspaper very well-known at the time, heard about the story. He went three days. He wrote the whole story.

We are talking about the end of January to end of February of '71. That's when in Spain, it was a very, very well-known thing. It was boom like a horror or something. It was everywhere. We have only two TVs at the time. In Spain, a lot of newspapers, radio, national TV, they were everything for one month. It was really crazy.

RAY: People from all over not just Spain, but all of Europe, began making pilgrimages to see the Faces of Belmez. 

Javier: There was not a ticket admission, but people went there and because they thought it was some kind of miracle, they gave some money. You don't have to. If you want, you gave them some money. It's not something that is going to make you a millionaire. It's not Roswell. Even now, they have a museum. It's not such a big business.

RAY: Now on the national stage, the authorities were suspicious of the money that Maria and her family were taking in. With all of these people pouring in, the Civil Guard began to surveil the home. They believed that somebody was forging the faces, and that they would catch them in the act. 

Despite their mission, some of the Guard came away as believers. They witnessed time and time again as the faces would appear and disappear in front of the people visiting the home. 

In an effort to crush the story once and for all, the governor called upon German de Argumosa, Spain’s top authority on the paranormal, to investigate. Having worked with the University of Madrid as well as being the President of the Spanish Association of Parapsychological Investigations of Barcelona, Argumosa had the credentials needed for such an important investigation. 

Javier: He was the first people in Spain interested in Fortean phenomenon, in parapsychology and everything.

He was very, very interested in what this is from other ghost, or whatsoever. When you put a tape and you register a laugh, a voice from nobody knows where, a piece-- He was very interested. That's why he went to Bélmez to investigate, and he was the main character in the story. In fact, he was not only has money and is important, and it's true that he was very well-known in Europe, in the field of Fortean phenomenon. He met Hans Bender.

RAY: Hans Bender was a professor at the University of Freiberg in Germany. As the director of the Institute for Border Areas of Psychology and Mental Hygiene, he was best known for his research into poltergeists.

Javier: Hans Bender was the most important parapsychologist in Europe. He started working in paranormal phenomenon with Nazis, with  I imagine. With Himler and he started- he continued working in Freiburg, a small city of Germany. It's true that he was very well-known. He met Germán de Argumosa. Germán de Argumosa say that Hans Bender told him that Faces of Bélmez was one of the biggest mysteries on earth.

RAY: With Bender agreeing to visit Belmez, Argumosa brought a team of experts and journalists from Pueblo, the national newspaper, to Maria’s home with a clear directive from the government: put an end to the fraud. 

The plan was to seal the room where most of the faces appeared from not only the outside world, but Maria’s family as well. With the room cut off from all outside sources, they would bring in a notary to certify their findings. 

However, when they emerged, the results went missing. Many insinuated that the government was covering up the truth, but the participants could not be silenced. 

One expert on Argumosa’s team, a famed muralist, would say of the faces, “If this were a fraud, I’d like to meet the author, because of course, he is a real genius.” 

Argumosa himself felt he had failed his mission: he was now a true believer in the faces. Later stating, "the possible trickster would have to be, apart from a painting genius, a very profound connoisseur of psychology; That is the only way to explain the pathos the tragedy and the horror that are reflected in these Faces.”

Despite the enthusiastic response from the investigators, without the evidence, few were convinced and more investigations took place. 

When the results came back they showed that while there was zinc in the ground, it was not a large enough quantity to have come from paint. The only other substances they could find besides concrete were silver nitrate and common grease that covered any kitchen floor. 

However, Alonso felt that he had finally found the answer: 

Javier: In fact, he found that it was a print in the concrete, a foot in the concrete that looked like a face of someone.

It's true that you can see the pictures called el obispo, we have different name, but if you see the face called el obispo, you will see that it looked like a face, but it was in part of a print of a foot. The concrete was wet.

RAY: Following Alonso’s work, the argument over the faces broke out into public view with the TRIAL OF THE FACES. A spectacle where a judge presided over a debate of the face’s authenticity. It was presented as the mayor and City Counsel of Belmez silencing witnesses to the miracle. 

Journalist Martinez Romero reported that the audience sat enraptured as the main defense witness spoke for 13 minutes about encounters surrounding the faces that had been unknown to the public. When he was done, they sat in silence -- stunned by what they had heard..” 

However, the prosecutors, argued the faces were nothing more than paintings done with silver nitrate and ammonia. 

Eventually, the judge ruled, “Let this case remain pending, until there is a better resolution and move forward in our desire to unravel the great truths of the macrocosm and of the spiritual microcosm that dwells in Man.”

Martinez Romero wrote the findings were prudent even if the lack of resolve left him with, “disappointment derived from neutrality."

After the trial, there were three more major examinations taken of samples from the faces. 

RAY: Until the 90’s, this was the last word on the faces: nothing but concrete, paint, and footprints. 

“THE FACES OF BELMEZ ARE AUTHENTIC!” read the headline on the paper Enigmas. It continued: “Church and state united in a lie. The report is a real depth charge and not only because it dismantles the theory of fraud, but also explains how a horrible conspiracy was hatched that deceived all public opinion.”

Iker Jimenez, journalist and controversial television host, along with Lorenzo Fernandez claimed that they had uncovered the documents created by the notary in Argumosa’s experiment to seal the home. 

The government assigned notary verified that Argumosa and Bender had sealed the room for 3 months. When it was unsealed, not only had some faces changed, new ones had appeared. It not only verified what Argumosa had been saying for decades, but also uncovered a conspiracy called Operation Trident. 

Operation Trident was designed by the Franco regime to put an end to the Faces of Belmez. A local priest confessed that the bishop and governor of the province had been directed by Franco’s wife to make a coordinated attempt to spread the rumor that the entire thing had been a joke that got out of hand. 

Iker Jimenez would continue his research into the faces on his show Cuarto Milenio. On the program, Jimenez brought in Dr. Luis Alamancos and José Javier Gracenea to take samples of the faces. Gracenea spoke to us about his work: 

Jose: I'm a chemist. I am PhD in organic chemistry. I started with coatings more or less 20 years ago. This is more focused on organic coating. Let me say, paint, in order to speak easily. Lead to that, I established a company, more a laboratory, a coating laboratory related to the coating analysis, do the coating test and so on.

I took several pieces of the groundwork, let me say, contaminated with faces and analyzed them. Getting result and the result of the analysis was that those faces were not, let me say, were not manipulated, if you will. This is due to the concrete. When you look up a concrete face, now, for more than a-- I was in Africa after Cuarto Milenio for two years, and for more than a two years, I was working directly on concrete.

Jose: We used a IR, infrared spectroscopy and a electronic scanning microscopy. These are the two techniques we used in order to do the analysis we need. Infrared and a scanning electronic microscope, same.

Jose: Infrared technology is just for knowing if there are organic compound so when I took several pieces of Bélmez faces, the first analysis was infrared technology in order to know if there was any organic coating put by people. This was the test analysis.

Afterwards, and once we realized that there was no organic compounds, we go into mineral compounds. For that, we used a scanning electronic microscope. Scanning electronic microscopy is more for atoms, not for molecules. With scanning electronic microscopy, what you see are atoms. You can see silicon, lead, I don't know, sodium, whatever you want. Infrared technology is for organic molecules, polymers, resin, and scanning electronic microscopy for atoms.

Jose: Let me say, these are the typical stains of concrete after some time. The faces of Bélmez were natural ones and that was all. Nothing more than that. Apart from that, you have, I don't know how to say, you have the media influence in this point, but technically speaking, there is nothing to say. We cannot explain why the faces are there. We cannot explain that.

RAY: The explosion in news about the Belmez faces attracted the interest of computer engineer, world authority on Transpersonal Communication, SETI member, and President of theSpanish Society of Parapsychology:  Pedro Amorós.

He launched the Genesis Project -- the largest scale examination into the origin of the faces to date. They removed a tile containing a fading face from the ground, but left 14 others in place. By recreating the humidity in the home, the face began to resurface as clear as day. 

They determined that the clarity of the faces depended on four factors: the humidity in the subsoil of the house, Maria’s health, her mood, and how many people were visiting the home. 

The Genesis Project concluded that the origin of the faces was Thoughtography: Maria’s ability to burn images into physical surfaces using only her mind. After working with her, regressive hypnotist Ricardo Bru determined that the faces were Maria’s relatives that had died in one of the deadliest sieges of the Civil War. 

To symbolize the town’s full embrace of the phenomenon, the center would be located directly next to town hall. 

But with new tourism flooding into their home, Maria’s family pushed back on the sale. They began putting out images of the faces: more defined than ever before. No longer appearing as a stain. These were truly distinct images. As if made by a master painter. 

Tourism boomed in Belmez. Igniting interest in two authors -- Javier Cavanilles, and Francisco Máñez, who would aim to put all of the pieces of the story together from so many disparate sources. 

What they would discover is a series of lies, half truths and undeniable falsehoods in an effort to make a quick dollar. The faces of Belmez were a fraud.

Javier: María Cámara is a woman-- It's very important to understand who he was. When some people told the story, they forget about her background, and then try to show her as a some kind of Madam Curie mystery, and she was not. She had a very sad story. His father and his mother, I think, they died when she was very young. She married when she was still young. I think she was not 20 years when get married with Juan Pereira.

Juan Pereira was a very old man who was widow and have three children. In the south of Spain in this area, for a young woman to married an older man with kids meant, for the people, that she was trying to find a way of surviving in life, and so, she got a lot of problem. We are talking a very old society in Spain. It was with a dictatorship, a very Catholic country.

People didn't like her because they think she was in some ways guilty. The Faces of Bélmez, for her, was some kind of revenge. It's very interesting because if you miss María Cámara, sometimes you miss the most important part of the story.

Javier:What was the real first face?

Months before it happened, another woman- and her name is lost- another woman found, let's say, a stone with something that was like a Virgin. This woman with her friends kept the stone and put it somewhere in the- it's in the middle of nowhere. From time to time, they went there to pray to the Virgin. María didn't belong to this group. She was, in some ways, an outsider of the town or the village, as I say.

In some way, María tried to repeat the phenomenon that has happened already in Bélmez. The Faces of Bélmez, even the people who have studied and want to forget, they're going to start with María, and they're going to study at María's house.

RAY: A neighbor across the street said in an interview that Maria had actually discovered a “face” the year before in the kitchen. 

The quote “The faces were made with the blood of the slaughter” is a common misprint. In fact, he told the true story of how the first face was created: 

Maria had been boiling pork fat and meat in water, when it splashed causing the ground to burn. At the beginning, Maria would admit that the way she discovered the face was by simply sweeping the ground, unlike the story that would become famous of her holding the frightened child. Her husband Juan couldn’t even make out the features, they were so undefined. 

Javier: It just started as a joke. More than his husband, the children of his husband-- She has children with his husband, but her husband, Miguel Pereira had, I think, three other children with another woman that died. I think these three ones were the most interested in making money.

Javier: At some point, she knew it was a fake, but it's also true that she believed in the phenomenon. She knew because we know for her lawyer speak to us and explained. Half of María knew it was not real, but the other half of her believed in the phenomenon. She was in some way trapped because her life was the Faces of Bélmez. Imagine, you live in the middle of nowhere, and then you appear on TV from time to time.

You have people from Madrid that come here, scientists who come here to talk to you, people who want to talk to you. In some ways, she was trapped in this own joke. She didn't start the joke. She didn't start the phenomenon.

RAY: While Maria’s goal was not to get rich, others in her family saw an opportunity as they remembered that people had donated money to the owners of the previous face. They invited the neighbors to view La Pava, and that is when the story began to take on a life of its own. 

Javier: People, in fact, in the context of the village was very Catholic. I understand when she thought she was find something that was almost like the face of Christ. Everybody believed she was not lying. They believed in her words.

RAY: Soon, people came pouring into the home to view La Pava and as a sign of gratitude for being able to view the face, they would leave donations to the family. The “second” Pava appeared, and with it: pictures that tourists could buy. 

It last for, let's say, two, three months, no more than that. It's true that they have made some money. Maybe now, you can go to her house to see the face, and you gave them £5 or $5 or $1.

RAY: The second face was ordered to be destroyed by the Mayor. 

Javier: That's happened because there's so many people who went to the village that the mayor said that they have to finish, because the mayor knew it was a fake. That's why the mayor talked to them and to say, "You have to finish because there is so many people coming here, let's say, three, four, five, six times. More people are going to see the face. The people living here, it was a very big problem for them." That's why they destroyed the first face, but because they have earned some money, let's say--

They never get rich, but they got some money, and they paint another face. The second face that is lost was a very shitty face. It was not made by the same painter, so they had to destroy the second one, and then they paint the third one. The third one is the picture you have seen. If you type Faces of Bélmez, the face you see is like Gene Simmons from Kiss. That's the third face, the third Pava, the third face of Bélmez.

RAY: While there were other techniques used, largely the faces were made using this incredibly simple technique of a mixture of pork fat. It also explains why chemical examinations only turned up organic compounds that would be present in a kitchen to begin with. 

But what of the faces appearing and disappearing in front of those visiting? Simple brain tricks. Like staring into clouds, the longer that somebody stared at the kitchen, more faces would appear through the grime. 

Some, like the faces of the “children”, were simply finger prints from guests poking at the face on the floor, leaving smudges. 

It is true that there were bones found beneath the home, but in Belmez this was not an unusual occurrence. 

Javier: You have to take in account that this area was full of bones. We don't know if these bones belong to human beings. That, nobody knows. If you see the picture, you can't know.

The other thing is that this area of Bélmez de la Moraleda was full of bones from the animal, for instance, because they have had a long time ago wars between Spanish or the Spanish people and all Moorish people. It's true that the bones were there. It's also true that if you dig a hole 50 meters away, I'm sure you will find more bones.

RAY: As the story gathered national attention, others saw an opportunity to make a profit on the faces. German de Argumosa was one. Descended from wealth, he never had to gain a formal education -- instead he used his wallet to increase his standings in social and academic circles. 

Despite going by “Professor” he was anything but. In an interview with Pueblo, he was pressed on the issue, leading him to admit that “Professor” was simply a nickname given to him by the friends he would donate money to at universities. Never once taking or teaching a class. 

For him, the faces were a way to increase his profile on an international level. That is why he brought Hans Bender into the story. 

Javier: … In fact, the truth is that Bender never wrote nothing about Faces of Bélmez. I think he went one or twice to the village with her lover, who was married, but she had a lover. He went and he spend, I don't know, they spend one day. Three hours here. He went to take it out, but he didn't pay so much attention. He was more interested in song and drinking wine and everything. He never wrote nothing about Faces of Bélmez because it was not his business. He has other... He was more focused on poltergeist and this kind of things.

That's why Germán de Argumosa pretend that Hans Bender was very interested. Hans Bender was very interested in coming to Spain, but I don't think he did see the faces of Belmez. In fact, he went later on to Madrid to give a speech, and he didn't talk at all about the Face of Bélmez.

RAY: However, the experiment of sealing the room did happen, but Argumosa was not even there for the sealing! He left that to a school teacher. Argumosa only appeared later with a German film crew to show off the experiment. 

Javier: They close the kitchen, where the faces come up. They call a notary, and the house was sealed. You couldn't come in. They waited, they took pictures. The pictures will disappear. Nobody has seen the picture ever. They wait for months. When they open the kitchen again, nothing has happened.

The only new faces have appear in the new kitchen, in the kitchen where they're having book working on- when their old kitchen was close, but inside the kitchen, nothing happened. 

RAY: In fact, there were two notaries, as was customary to preserve the integrity of experiments, and while one did certify the appearance of new faces, their notes were not certified by the 2nd notary and the 2nd notaries report is lost to this day. 

While Argumosa’s studies were dubious to say the least, they were huge business. Pueblo, who carried the stories that caught the attention of the nation, saw their circulation multiply during their time covering the Faces. Jumping to almost 50,000 subscriptions. 

But Pueblo would eventually turn on the stories. Publishing a letter which read, “Our team is going to air, here and now, all collected data pointing to fraud. If we didn't before, it was not for lack of testimonies, but for the logical fear we made mistakes.”

The article laid out stories of people touching the faces and coming away with smudged fingers and more. 

Even the story of the Trial of the Faces has been warped over the years. Far from a serious courtroom, the Trial was a publicity stunt on the radio. 

Javier: That's another funny thing for glory of Bélmez. The trial of faces is in fact a broadcast in our local radio. They put together people who believe in the phenomenon and people who don't. They were having a debate for an hour. They didn't reach any conclusion. It was called the trial of Bélmez. It's true that in their program was, more or less, with a lawyer. One acted as a lawyer of the Faces, let's say.

The other as a fiscal of the Faces. One said it was true, another said it was not true. The answer was, in some way, the truth, but they didn't reach any conclusion. Some people thought that the trial of Bélmez, it really took place. It didn't. It was just a program of radio that it's lost.

RAY: Project Genesis, years later, was nothing more than an updated version of the notary experiment. 

RAY: It should come as no surprise that the faces after Maria’s death were a last ditch effort to try to increase tourism to this town. 

Javier: Yes. As you see [crosstalk] as you compare, there's nothing like the others one, like the La Pava or La Pelona there. There is different made with oil. You see it's a forgery. There are also the others, but the others have some, let's say, taste. The new ones were made by people who didn't know how to do a face.

RAY: But what of the investigation that took place where Iker Jiménez found that there were only organic compounds? Some have argued that their methods were focused on attempting to find solutions they knew wouldn’t be there.

Javier: Iker Jiménez knows because he's one of the people involved in the forgery.

He went here to try to find the silver powder, knowing it's impossible to find it. He presented as a very strange thing, but the thing is, nobody care how he did. He tried to prove in a scientific way that it was a very strange phenomenon, but people who love Fortean phenomenon, maybe they swallow the story, by nobody gave a damn about him.

RAY: However, Jose Gracenea pushes strongly back on the idea that they were selective in what they were searching for. He emphatically insists that the samples he took were simply concrete. 

Jose: No. What I know, not I think, what I know, is that nothing manipulated is there, first of all. What I know is that nothing apart from concrete is there. Why do we say that? Believe me, I don't know. I don't know because I was in place, and I saw faces, but then, there is nothing related to chemistry that causes that. Nothing. This is after the first thing I asked at the time, was if there was a magnetic field or something physical, more than technical, explaining that. From the chemistry point of view, nothing causes the faces.

Jose: This TV show is very controversial in Spain. A lot of people are looking at that, and they are very interesting in that. For me, believe me, I don't have any-- I don't know how to say that, I don't need to do that. I don't need to show anything special, so believe me, my only task was from the technical point of view. Believe me, I don't mind what is there.

We didn't have any previous information, any previous condition. It was very professional and scientific point of view, only scientific point of view. I don't mind about other side of this probability.

Jose: Nothing. Nothing apart from the compounds being in the concrete cause faces. Nothing apart from that. There are nothing. This is because of the stain of concrete. No more than that. There is not any compound apart from those that are very common in concrete. There is nothing related to organic coatings. There is nothing related to paint that caused those faces. Nothing apart from that. Nothing.

RAY: While Argumosa and others profited from the faces, it was far from lucrative for the people of Belmez. 

Javier: I wrote about Bélmez. I made some money, but I didn't get a million. Everybody that work and do something tried to get some money. That happened. I don't believe that the main idea in María Cámara head was to make money with the faces. She really believed it was a religious phenomenon, even if she made money.

Javier: If you go to Belmez, you can go to see the house. There is also a small museum in summer. 

RAY: On Trip Advisor there are only 2 attractions currently listed in Belmez: 

Maria’s home and the Interpretation Center of the Faces. On the door hangs a sign. It reads the price of admission is only 3 euros.