BÉLMEZ FACES

1. Public Record

23 August 1971, Bélmez de la Moraleda, Jaén. María Gómez Cámara at the kitchen hearth saw a stain become a face. Her son Miguel took a pick to the tile and put cement in. Days later another face sat in the same place. Neighbours came. The mayor had the hearth opened. Under the kitchen, bones. The house stood on older burial ground. A face was lifted and put under glass on the wall. German de Argumosa counted faces spreading onto the tiled floor, some under plastic he said he had sealed. Hans Bender called it among the century's important cases. An official Spanish look later leaned fraud.

Faces kept arriving through the 1970s. The kitchen became a destination. Sceptics named paint and suggestion. Keep the first week: a woman at a stove, a son with a pick, cement that did not hold.

Without doubt, the most important paranormal phenomenon this century.

2. Date of Incident

First face 23 August 1971. Second after the pick. Dig 1971-72. Later faces through the decade.

3. Location

Pereira house, Bélmez de la Moraleda, Jaén. Approximate 37°43 N 003°16 W.

4. Official Narrative

Local authority opened the floor. Later official tone: small fraud. No criminal close that satisfied both camps.

5. Witness Layer

María. Juan Pereira. Miguel with the pick. Argumosa. Bender as the visiting name.

We came back convinced it was a small fraud.

6. Recovery Logistics

Lifted tile under glass. Bones from the trench. Photographs. No paint tin the family produced as a confession.

7. Assessment

A hearth file. Keep the cemetery under the floor as context, not as a verdict. Keep the pick and the return. A sealed-plastic claim is only as good as the seal. Do not let Bender's adjective do the work of a sample.

8. Materials & Remains

Kitchen photographs. One face under glass. Trench bones of older date.

9. Key Personnel

María Gómez Cámara : The stove.

Miguel Pereira : The pick.

Germán de Argumosa : The count.

Hans Bender : The visiting weight.

10. Aftermath

The house stayed a stop. Faces after María's death are a second argument. The first week is the clean page.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: Kitchen faces, August 1971. Hearth opened. Bones beneath. Fraud and phenomenon both filed.

Confidence: High that faces were photographed in that kitchen in 1971. High that a trench found older bone. Low that a spirit has been shown. Low that a single fraud note closes the first fortnight.

Filing note

Peppers on a stove, a stain that grew a mouth, a son with a pick, cement, the same place again, a mayor, a trench, bone under a kitchen. The village came to look.

He put cement in the hole. Not an exorcism. A household trying to make a floor be a floor again, and watching it refuse.