F (4:37)

We're back again for another creepy episode. Hi, I'm Yvette Gentile.

G (4:42)

And I'm her sister, Racha Pecorero. And today we're covering the House of Faces, otherwise known as the Belmez House. It's a home in the Spanish village of Belmez de la Modaleda. That's a small rural town about 50 miles north of Granada. And what makes the Belmez House so bizarre is that images of different people's faces have been appearing on its kitchen floor since 1971, and no one can explain how or why.

F (5:20)

So when I heard about this case, the first thing that came to mind was this phenomenon called pareidolia. Basically, that's a fancy term for any situation where you see something that looks like. Like a certain object or shape. But it wasn't intended to be that. For example, if a particular cloud looks like an angry old man or for me, when I look into the sky, I always see angel wings. And I know that that is Mama Fauna looking out for me. We've all seen stories like this on the news. I know there was one time, I think it was in Spain as well, that on this big stained glass window, they actually saw the Virgin Mary there.

G (6:04)

Like it wasn't already on the window.

F (6:07)

No, it wasn't already on the window. It appeared. So it was miraculous to them.

G (6:12)

I see. I see.

F (6:14)

I figured this case must be something simple like that until we dug deeper and realized this one has so much more to it. And that is why we just had to share it with you guys because it's going to be a ride.

G (6:33)

Let's start at the beginning and travel back to 1971. A 52 year old homemaker named Maria Gomez Camara is living in Belmez de la Moraleda. This town has a population of just under 2,000 people. It's in a remote part of the country, surrounded by mountains and olive farms. And life in the village is pretty simple and quiet. Maria has lived here since she was born. Her childhood home is just down the street from her current house. So it's safe to say that she knows the people in town pretty well and has plenty of friends and acquaintances. She also has a reputation for being a very honest and stand up woman. She's someone who is happy quietly living out her days here in Belmez. But that easy life gets a whole lot more complicated. On August 23rd of 1971, Maria's cleaning her kitchen that afternoon when she notices this weird stain on her concrete floor. I haven't been able to find an exact detailed description of what it looks like, but as far as I can tell, it's just an ordinary blotch, like something spilled on the floor and then hardened. The weird thing is that Maria doesn't remember spilling anything. The stain doesn't look like anything she was cooking recently. And if Maria checks the ceiling or under the sink for leaks, she doesn't find any signs of moisture. There's no obvious explanation for how this stuff got on the floor. But also, Maria is getting over a bad cold. Nothing serious, but she still has a bit of a lingering fever. So she's groggy and maybe not thinking super clearly. She figures she must have been out of it enough to knock something over without noticing. So she just grabs a sponge, runs it under the water and squirts some kind of cleaning product on the floor. And then Maria tries to clean the stain up, only to find that she can't. No matter how hard she scrubs or what different products she uses on the stain, she can't wipe it away. This stuff, whatever it is, seems to now be a permanent part of her floor. Eventually, Maria just gives up. Then she goes to bed, gets a good night's sleep, and wakes up the next morning. And that's when she sees that the stain has completely evolved.

F (9:13)

That's right, the next day, there are new colors and details that weren't there the day before. Almost like someone snuck into her house overnight with a paintbrush and added to it. But once again, Maria blames the Whole thing on her own illness, she figures she probably just didn't get a good look at the stain the first time around. So maybe she's just misremembering what it actually looked like. And she never snapped a photo of it, so it's not like she can double check the differences. Except a few days go on, and every single night, the stain keeps changing and evolving, and these shifts are undeniable, even spookier. It seems to move from one part of the floor to another. It always stays in the kitchen, but from one day to the next, it shifts a few inches or even a few feet in either direction. Before you know it, certain features start to appear on the mark in detail. A spot that looks a bit like an eye, A darker blotch that could be a smile. Eventually, the stain becomes a realistic portrait of a person, particularly a man with a mustache. And now Maria is positive she's not just imagining things.

G (10:41)

Maria is so mystified that she just has to share this with someone else outside of her home. I'm sure she's already shown her husband and her son, who are probably just as shocked by it as she is. But that's not enough. So she calls a bunch of her friends and neighbors and invites them all over. And when they get there, she's like, have you ever seen anything like this before? And of course, everyone says, no. This is really creepy. In fact, it seems clear to all of them that there's some kind of supernatural force behind this stain. They all feel like it's creepy to the point that it could possibly be evil. So Maria and her family decide they're not going to keep this thing in their home. They're getting rid of it immediately. And since scrubbing and cleaning hasn't worked, they're taking things to the next level. Maria's son gets his hands on a bunch of tools, including a pickaxe, and they literally smash the concrete kitchen floor into a million tiny pieces, trying to get rid of the face. Once it's obliterated, they pour fresh cement. And finally they figure it's over and done, with no more weird faces on the kitchen floor.

F (12:04)

Yeah, but they're wrong. Because a couple days later, on September 8th, another stain appears. It's not clear to me if it pops up overnight or if it takes a few days to form like the original one did. The point is, it also looks like a face, but it's not the same mustache man as before. It's someone else. A man with dark creases around his open mouth. Even more chilling. He has this shocked expression on his face, one of either surprise or excitement. I can only imagine how freaked out Maria and her family must feel at this point. It's like no matter what she does, she can't get away from this stain. It always comes back. So now Maria's wondering, what sort of supernatural force is she dealing with here?

E (13:09)

The 2026 Chevy Equinox is more than an SUV. It's your Sunday tailgate and your parking lot snack bar. Your lucky jersey, Your chairs and your big cooler fit perfectly in your even bigger cargo space. And when it's go time, your 11.3-inch diagonal touchscreen's got the playbook, the playlist, and the tech to stay aside.

D (13:29)

Step ahead.

E (13:30)

It's more than an suv. It's your Equinox Chevrolet. Together, let's drive.

G (13:38)

Cooler days call for layers that last. And Quints is your go to for quality essentials that feel cozy, look refined, and won't blow your budget. Think $50 Mongolian cashmere premium denim that fits like a dream. And luxe outerwear you'll wear year after year. Their wool coats. They look designer level but cost a fraction of the price. It's the kind of wardrobe upgrade that feels smart, stylish and effortless. Now that it's fall, I can finally wear all of my Mongolian cashmere sweaters, my staples for looking fashionable and feeling so cozy. Find your fall staples at Quint's. Go to quints.com supernatural for free shipping on your order and and 365 day returns now available in Canada, too. That's quince.com supernatural to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com supernatural on August 23, 1971, Maria Gomez Camara spotted a face on her kitchen floor in Belmez de la Moraleda, Spain. She and her family felt the only way to get rid of it was to destroy it. But afterwards, a new face appeared in its place. Once this new face shows up, Maria is really freaking out, even more than before. Her plan is to do the same thing she did the first time around destroy the floor and pour new cement. But she can't find a free moment to do it because every single day, visitors knock on her door and ask if they can see the face for themselves. Apparently, word has been spreading around town ever since Maria invited a few people over to see the first one. Some of these people are just curious. They don't know what this phenomenon is, but they want a chance to witness it firsthand. Others who come are religious. Somewhere along the way some people decided the phenomenon isn't evil after all, but instead might actually be some kind of miracle. And the most devout people in Belmez think that seeing it will help them get in touch with God. I don't know what Maria believes. I know she still wants to destroy the face and be done with all of this. But before she can do anything, the mayor of Belmez gets involved. It's not super clear what his motives are. Maybe he's afraid of whatever this entity is that created the faces. Or maybe he knows that somewhere along the way someone is going to want to study this thing. The point is, he uses his political power to keep Maria from destroying the picture. He says it's now illegal to break up her floor or destroy the image. On doesn't sound to me like the mayor intends to do anything with the face, just that he wants to make sure it remains intact. Maria makes a deal with the mayor. She'll keep the face intact, but she wants it out of her kitchen. As a result, the mayor has a team actually remove the block of cement that the face is on. They put it in a frame and add a glass cover to preserve it. This is a very long and slow process. For context, the face appeared on September 8th. It takes almost two months of careful measuring, trimming and cutting before they can fully remove it. On November 2, after the work is done, Maria decides to hang the first face on her wall, almost like a piece of art. But something weird happens. In December, a new face appears right alongside the one they just removed. And then the following month, there's another face. Before long, it's almost like she's proud of the faces, like they're comforting to her in a way. And she's not alone.

F (18:03)

So by the winter of 1971, word of the mystery has spread beyond the village of Belmez. People all over Spain and across the world are talking about the phenomenon, which they dub the belmez faces. By 1972, a new face shows up roughly once a month. Some slowly fade in like the original one did, and others pop up in an instant. Each image is of someone different. There are men, women, old people, young people. Some look happy, others look sad or angry. As time goes on, some of the faces just fade away, only for brand new ones to appear in their place. And the existing images change too. Like one picture will clearly be a middle aged man one day, but the next morning it'll be the same man, except older or bigger or smaller. Some change their expressions, going from happy to sad to Angry and back again. Naturally, everybody wants to know what these things are about. As hundreds of visitors come pouring into town, they take countless photos of the floor and the one behind the glass, which has now been nicknamed la pava, that is Spanish, by the way, for the turkey, though I don't know why everyone is calling it that. One theory is that Maria was cooking turkey on the day the stain first appeared, so people named it after that dish. But okay, I don't know how credible of an explanation that is. The point is that the constant stream of tourists is getting to be very disruptive for Maria. It's becoming impossible for her to get anything done. Eventually, she decides that if everyone's going to make it so difficult for her to live her life in peace, she might as well get something out of all of this. So guess what she decides to do? She begins asking people for tips. I mean, can you blame her? They're coming into her house. Why not? What do you think?

G (20:23)

I can't blame her at all. I mean, to be clear, she's not directly charging anyone to see the faces. If someone wants to come and look at them for free, they can. But her stance is basically, if you are going to ask me to drop everything and I let you into my home, I mean, you might as well give me a little bit of cash for my trouble. I don't blame her.

F (20:46)

Yeah, I don't either. On top of that, she takes a bunch of photos of the faces and then she sells them as souvenirs. Between the pictures and the tips, she ends up making quite a bit of money. If she worked at a typical job in her village, it would take her nearly 12 years to make as much as she does in roughly five months of showings. Which may be why a bunch of people start gossiping that the faces are a hoax and Maria's behind it. You know, people always have something to say.

G (21:17)

Always. Well, Maria's happy to let the doubters or the haters test their theory because she knows she has nothing to hide. She let some skeptics gather samples from the floor, scraping little bits of concrete from the surface, especially from the areas that have faces on them. Then one group tests all those pieces for paint, oil, and other mediums, and.

F (21:44)

The results say the floor has basically everything on it. There's paint, there's oil. There's also something called silver salt, which is a material that cameras use to make images show up on film. In theory, you could sprinkle this silver salt and other chemicals on a concrete surface and it would kick Off a reaction that allows colors and shapes to appear. If you're very careful and precise with how you apply it, you can even ensure that a certain picture appears. I don't know, like, say, a human face. And it'll become darker and more visible over time. Which could explain why some of the faces get more distinct and seem to change as the days pass. It could just be a natural part of the chemical process. The point is, it looks like someone used every tool they had to draw, paint, or chemically create these faces on the floor. Which is why many say it's not supernatural. It's just a very unique art project.

G (22:53)

Except there are still certain details about the faces that are impossible to explain, like the fact that they disappear and sometimes move. I mean, if these images really were painted or chemically applied to the floor, they wouldn't shift. They'd be a permanent part of the concrete. Okay. You might be thinking, well, maybe Maria and her family used some kind of extra powerful stain remover, dissolved the pictures late at night when no one was watching, and then they recreated them somewhere else so it would just look like they'd moved or changed. Except these adjustments don't only happen at night. There are a ton of eyewitness reports of people seeing these faces transform right before their eyes. As in, the picture disappears, or a new one shows up, or an image drifts across the floor, shifting from one spot to another while people are actually watching. Even the professionals are stumped by this part. And in the fall of 1971, a new group had tried to solve the mystery. The Spanish government. They send teams of researchers to scour Maria's house from one end to the other, just to see if they can figure out what's going on. The scientists are skeptical at the start. I mean, they're fully prepared to debunk the faces and prove that they are a hoax. And they're not going to fall for any tricks that Maria might try. They investigate the case from every single angle. And after they gather all of their data, they come to a conclusion. As for what that conclusion is, I actually have no idea. Because they file their results, and right afterwards, all of their reports and data go missing. Anytime someone asks government officials about the study, the answer they give is something like, sorry, we must have misplaced the file. We don't know anything about the faces in Belmez de Moraleda.

F (25:10)

Doesn't that seem all too familiar? Oh, we've misplaced the file.

G (25:15)

Cover up.

F (25:17)

Cover up so many of these cases. But again, people still want answers. So a Short time after that first investigation ends, the local government launches a new one. This one is led by a Spanish police force. And shockingly, history seems to repeat itself because they come to their conclusions, they file their paperwork, and their results are never published or announced.

G (25:46)

Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise.

F (25:49)

To this day, if you ask the police whether they think the faces were a fraud or a miracle or something else, they refuse to answer.

G (25:57)

Okay, I get it. One lost file could be just bad luck. But two investigations where the findings are never released or announced sounds like a cover up to me. It really has to make you wonder, though, what did they find? If this is evidence of the paranormal or a miracle from God, or if they found it really was a hoax, I mean, why hide it?

F (26:24)

I don't know. But I can say this alleged cover up makes the case even more mysterious. Because rumors circulate that there's a top secret Spanish government program that exists solely to suppress the truth about the Belmez faces. Its name, when translated into English, is Operation Trident. Okay, I'm going to level with you guys. There is no proof that Operation Trident actually existed. It is just gossip. But still, people hear it, and they know they have to get to the bottom of the mystery of the Belmez faces.

G (27:05)

So even more independent researchers get involved. I'm talking people who aren't associated with the government and who can't be pressured to keep quiet about whatever they find. In October of 1972, one team even decides to lock the doors of the house and put seals over all of the entrances to the kitchen. We're talking doors, windows, everything, so no one can get inside for months. No one is able to go in or out. I'm not sure if Maria and her family find somewhere else to stay or if they're still living at home with no access to the kitchen at this time. But there are definitely people keeping an eye on things. Trained professionals check the seals regularly to make sure no one has gotten past them. At the end of the test, when they finally break the seals and look into the kitchen, there are several new faces. But it would have been really difficult for anyone to break in and create them while the room was sealed. If we go back to a study that was performed In December of 1971, it was even more shocking at that point. The faces had been appearing and disappearing for roughly two and a half months. But the investigators got a major clue on December 2, 1971. That's when some of them decided to remove the concrete floor and dig underneath the kitchen. They thought this phenomenon might have been caused by something underneath the house. And sure enough, while this team was excavating, they came across something shocking. Something that even Maria and her family didn't know about. A mass grave of human remains.

D (29:03)

Attention party people. You're officially invited to the party Shop at Michaels, where you'll find hundreds of new Items starting at 99 cents with an expanded selection of party wear, balloons with helium included on select styles, decorations and more. Michaels is your one stop shop for celebrating everything from birthdays to bachelorette parties and baby showers to golden anniversaries. Visit Michaels store or michaels.com today to supply your next party.

H (29:30)

For a limited time at McDonald's, get a Big Mac Extra Value meal for eight bucks. That means two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, and medium fries and a drink. We may need to change that jingle.

G (29:44)

Prices and participation may vary. In December of 1971, a group of researchers dug under Maria Gomez Camara's home to see what might be causing the Belmez faces. And that's when they found human remains buried underneath the home. They're not fresh. These remains were seriously deteriorated, like they've been underground for centuries. But they're not complete skeletons, because the researchers pull body after body out of the earth. And each and every one is missing one crucial part, their head.

F (30:30)

Now, everyone's pretty freaked out. They have no idea how the headless skeletons ended up here. But eventually someone looks into the historical records and they find that way back in the 1200s, this particular patch of land was a cemetery. But by the 1800s, the town of Belmez was growing. People were looking for places to build more houses and buildings, and they decided to put them right on top of the graveyard. Construction crews removed all of the headstones, but they didn't bother to dig up the bodies or rebury them somewhere new. Instead, new houses went up right over the tombs. This includes the home that Maria is living in when the faces start appearing. Which does explain where all of the bodies come from. But it's not clear what happened to all of their heads. In fact, to this day, nobody has been able to figure out how they ended up like this.

G (31:38)

Which, sadly, is a mystery that might never be solved. But the existence of the old cemetery could explain where the faces came from. Many wondered if they were created by restless spirits who were angry about their graves being disturbed. In fact, a lot of people believe the images are the actual faces of the individuals who were buried beneath Maria's house. The theory Goes that these ghosts are showing up on Maria's floor To basically say, hey, I'm here. Don't forget about me. Okay?

F (32:15)

Yes, that is an interesting theory. But not long after the researchers found the skeletons, they organized a huge excavation project. They dug up each and every body, and they gave them a proper burial in a real graveyard. Thank God.

G (32:37)

That makes my heart happy, right?

F (32:39)

Some good came out of this. Afterward, the crews filled in the hole under the house with dirt and concrete. They laid Maria's kitchen floor back in its proper place and basically restored her house back to its original state. So you'd think the faces would have stopped appearing after that. But no, they kept coming back right up until 2004, which is when Maria died at the age of 85. Apparently, between 1971 and the day of Maria's death, More than a thousand faces reportedly showed up on her kitchen floor.

G (33:21)

According to most of the reporting and tiktoks I've seen, as soon as Maria passed, the faces stopped appearing altogether, at least in that particular house. But soon after her death, the faces started showing up in a different house, One right down the street that also had a very strong connection to Maria. Her childhood home where she was born and raised. The faces appeared there on the day of her death, but after that, they stopped forming entirely. There have been no new faces in Maria's childhood home or the one where she lived as an adult ever since. Some of the ones that were already on the floor faded, but a small handful of them remain there to this day. That includes La Pava, which is still on display on Maria's wall.

F (34:22)

So, of course, there are skeptics out there looking with a magnifying glass at the timeline.

G (34:28)

And.

F (34:28)

And they say Maria created these faces herself. She's a con artist. And they stopped after her death because she simply wasn't around to fake them anymore.

G (34:40)

Except there might be another explanation. Maybe Maria did create the faces, but she wasn't intentionally painting them on the floor as part of a hoax. Instead, she might have made them by accident because she wasn't aware that she had psychic powers. Specifically, some paranormal investigators think Maria had an ability called thoughtography. The theory says that some people can create images using only the power of their minds. And most of the time, they make those images appear on film, say, with film or video cameras. But some people claim they can also project their thoughts onto other surfaces. In other words, thoughtography is like reverse mind reading. It's a person with psychic powers who shows their thoughts to people by making them show up in Unexpected places. The term was coined by a Tokyo University professor and psychological researcher named Tomokichi Fukurai. In the early 1910s, he performed tests on people who believed they had supernatural abilities. He believed psychics could make images appear on photo plates, which is what cameras used before film was invented. Later, other researchers followed in his footsteps with similar tests. One involved pointing a camera at a subject's forehead and snapping the shutter with the lens cap on. The cap prevented the camera from capturing the person's face. But sometimes the photos would develop with images on them anyway. Thoughtography researchers believed these were photos of what the person was thinking at the precise moment when the picture was taken. Some of the pictures showed human faces, ghost like figures, and even fuzzy balls of light. In fairness, other pictures were just dark and indistinct. You could explain them away as camera malfunctions or issues with the development process. But a few photos were very clear and distinct. You can clearly make out individuals, staircases or bookshelves. In theory, a person might have this skill, but be completely unaware of it. Supposedly, if they're emotional enough and the situation is just right, they might create images without meaning to. And if there's no camera nearby, pictures could appear just about anywhere, like on a cement floor. The story goes that in the summer of 1971, Maria was having a pretty rough time. I don't know enough about her day to day life to know what kind of stress she was under. But I do know she was getting over a cold or even the flu. She was tired, she was frustrated, and something inside her could have just snapped. Her psychic powers might have kicked into gear and created a face on the floor of her kitchen. Then, once word spread, Maria had to deal with the new stress that came from a constant stream of guests, nonstop investigations, and all of the uncertainty around the faces. With all of that pressure, she made new images or changed and moved the ones that already existed. When she died. Her spirit might have unleashed a final wave of energy before moving on to the next life. And that could explain why all of those final faces showed up in her childhood home. It may have been a way for her spirit to say goodbye one last time. We also can't ignore one other detail about the faces. Turns out Maria had a brother in law named Miguel Chamorro. He died in 1936, almost four decades before the faces ever started appearing. Maria would have been about 17 years old at the time of his death. And some people have noticed that the Pava face bears a striking resemblance to Miguel. Like it could be a portrait of him. Miguel wasn't buried in that old forgotten graveyard beneath Maria's house, though. He wasn't haunting her as an angry ghost, but she could have psychically created his face after mourning him for decades.

F (39:31)

It really makes you wonder about the paranormal, doesn't it? Because we're not just talking about ghostly visions or chilling exorcisms anymore. Now it's creepy portraits mysteriously appearing on people's floors. But we're so quick to obsess over what we're seeing, trying to prove it's real, that we forget to ask ourselves, why are we seeing these things in the first place? What if these eerie encounters aren't just random, but messages we weren't meant to decode? There is more to this than meets the eye. Maybe we need to forget the medium and instead focus on what the message is trying to tell us.

G (40:28)

This is so supernatural. An audio check Original produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram @sosupernaturalpod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com Join Yvette and me next Friday for an all new episode. I think Chuck would approve.

D (40:53)

Attention party people. You're officially invited to the party Shop at Michael's where you'll find hundreds of new Items starting at 99 cents with an expanded selection of party wear balloons with helium included on select styles, decorations and more. Michaels is your one stop shop for celebrating everything from birthdays to bachelorette parties and baby showers to golden anniversaries. Visit Michaels store or michaels.com today to supply your next party.

I (41:21)

You open the fridge. There's nothing there. So what's it gonna be?

G (41:25)

Greasy pizza?

I (41:27)

Sad drive thru burgers? Dish by Blue Apron is for nights like that.

C (41:32)

These are the pre made meals of your dreams.

I (41:34)

Means at least 20 grams of protein. No artificial flavors or colors. No chopping, no cleanup, no guilt. Keep the flavor. Ditch the subscription. Get 20% off your first two orders with code APRON20. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron. Com terms for more.