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In the small village on Belmez, on August 23, 1971, Maria Gõmez Pereira noticed something odd on her kitchen floor. An image was forming there, and it looked like a human face. Mrs. Pereira had no explanation for it and her first thought was that it must be something paranormal. She tried to get rid of it. The cement floor was ripped up and a new one was laid. One week later another face appeared in exactly the same place.
Word soon spread about the face and she was inundated by people who were anxious to see the unusual image. The Pereira family wanted to destroy the face again, but the Mayor ordered that it be preserved. The face was removed from the floor and hung on the wall. This time the floor was dug up. It was surmised that whatever was causing the images must be under the floor, and it was known that this village was built over an area that once held a graveyard. Sure enough, nine feet under the floor, human remains were discovered.
A new floor was put down. Two weeks later, another male face appeared. Another two weeks later, a female face appeared, this time with several smaller faces around it - nine to fifteen of them. This time, their emergence was observed by experts who watched the shapes take form. Many more faces formed, some quickly and then disappearing just as quickly - sometimes in a single day. Over time, the expressions appeared to change and get older. Almost everyone who saw them saw something slightly different in the features. Some saw fear, others saw shock, despair,or happiness. Investigators made tape recordings while the house was empty and locked. When they were played back, the tapes contained sounds of human wailing, whispering and crying.
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Efforts to eradicate the faces inevitably failed. The floor was ripped up many times. Cleansers and scrubbing seemed to do nothing but change the expressions and widen the eyes. Eventually, each face disappeared in its own time. It is unclear as to what actual pigments, paint or dyes were used to create the faces. Chemists were unable to detect any elements in the faces that were not present in concrete and could not explain the existence of the faces by any explanation currenlty known to science.