A crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rapeseed. Crop circles are also referred to as crop formations, because they are not always circular in shape. The documented cases have substantially increased from the 1970s to current times. In 1991, two hoaxers claimed authorship of many circles throughout England.
Twenty-six countries reported approximately 10,000 crop circles in the last third of the 20th century; 90% of those were located in southern England. Many of the formations appearing in that area are positioned near ancient monuments, such as Stonehenge. According to one study, nearly half of all circles found in the UK in 2003 were located within a 15 km (9.3 miles) radius of Avebury. Archeological remains can cause cropmarks in the fields, in the shapes of circles and squares, but they do not appear overnight and they are always in the same places every year.
The scientific consensus is that crop circles are almost entirely man-made with a few possibly due to meteorological or other natural phenomena.
History
The concept of crop circles began with the original late-1970s hoaxes by Doug Bower and Dave Chorley (see Bower and Chorley, below). They said that they were inspired by the Tully “saucer nest” case in Australia, where a farmer found a flattened circle of swamp reeds after observing a UFO. Since the 1960s, there had been a surge of UFOlogists in Wiltshire, and there were rumors of “saucer nests” appearing in the area, but they were never photographed. There are other pre-1970s reports of circular formations, specially in Australia and Canada, but they were always simple circles, which could have been caused by whirlwinds. In Fortean Times David Wood reported that in 1940 he had already made crop circles using ropes near Gloucestershire.
Early reports of circular formations
In 1686, British scientist Robert Plot reported on fairy rings in his The Natural History of Stafford-Shire, and said they could be caused by airflows from the sky. In 1991 meteorologist Terence Meaden linked this report with modern crop circles, a claim that has been compared with Erich von Däniken’s pseudohistoric claims.
A 1880 letter to the editor of Nature by amateur scientist John Rand Capron, describes how a recent storm had created several circles of flattened crops in a field.
In the 1960s, in Tully, Queensland, Australia, and in Canada, there were many reports of UFO sightings and circular formations in swamp reeds and sugar cane fields. For example, in 8 August 1967, three circles were found in a field in Duhamel, Alberta, Canada, and the Department of National Defence sent two investigators, who concluded that it was artificially made but couldn’t make definite conclusions on who made them or how. The most famous case is the 1966 Tully “saucer nest”, when a farmer said he witnessed a saucer-shaped craft rise 30 or 40 feet (12 m) up from a swamp and then fly away. When he went to investigate the location where he thought the saucer had landed, he found a nearly circular area 32 feet long by 25 feet wide, where the grass was flattened in clockwise curves to water level within the circle and the reeds had been uprooted from the mud”. The local police officer, the RAAF and the University of Queensland concluded that it was most probably caused by natural causes, like a down draught, a Willy-Willy, or a waterspout. In 1973, G.J. Odgers, Director of Public Relations, Department of Defence (Air Office), wrote to a journalist that the “saucer” was probably debris lifted by the causing willy-willy. Hoaxers Bower and Chorley were inspired by this case to start making the modern crop circles that appear today.
Modern crop circles
The majority of reports of crop circles appeared since the 1970s, and spread in the late 1970s as many circles began appearing throughout the English countryside. This phenomenon became widely known in the late 1980s, after the media started to report crop circles in Hampshire and Wiltshire. After Bower’s and Chorley’s 1991 statement that they were responsible for many of them, circles started appearing all over the world. To date, approximately 10,000 crop circles have been reported internationally, from locations such as the former Soviet Union, the UK, Japan, the U.S., and Canada. Skeptics note a correlation between crop circles, recent media coverage, and the absence of fencing and/or anti-trespassing legislation.
Although farmers have expressed concern at the damage caused to their crops, local response to the appearance of crop circles can be enthusiastic, with locals taking advantage of the increase of tourism and visits from scientists, crop circle researchers, and individuals seeking spiritual experiences. The market for crop-circle interest has consequently generated bus or helicopter tours of circle sites, walking tours, T-shirts, and book sales.
The last decade has witnessed crop formations with increased size and complexity of form, some featuring as many as 2000 different shapes, and some incorporating complex mathematical and scientific characteristics.
A video sequence used in connection with the opening of the Olympic Games in London in 2012 shows two crop circle areas shaped as the Olympic Rings. Another Olympic crop circle area was visible for those landing at Heathrow Airport, London, UK before and during the Olympic Games.
Bower and Chorley
In 1991, self-professed pranksters Doug Bower and Dave Chorley made headlines claiming it was they who started the phenomenon in 1978 with the use of simple tools consisting of a plank of wood, rope, and a baseball cap fitted with a loop of wire to help them walk in a straight line. To prove their case they made a circle in front of journalists; a “cereologist” (advocate of paranormal explanations of crop circles), Pat Delgado, examined the circle and declared it authentic before it was revealed that it was a hoax. Inspired by Australian crop circle accounts from 1966, Doug and Dave claimed to be responsible for all circles made prior to 1987, and for more than 200 crop circles in 1978–1991 (which other 1000 circles not being made by them). After their announcement, the two men demonstrated making a crop circle. According to Professor Richard Taylor, “the pictographs they created inspired a second wave of crop artists. Far from fizzling out, crop circles have evolved into an international phenomenon, with hundreds of sophisticated pictographs now appearing annually around the globe.”
All or part of the article above was taken from the Wikipedia article Crop Circle, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
The Dybbuk Box (or Dibbuk Box) is the commonly used name of a wine cabinet which is said to be haunted by a dybbuk, a spirit from Jewish folklore. The box achieved recognition after it was auctioned on eBay with an accompanying horror story.
The term “Dibbuk Box” was first used to describe the subject of an original story by Kevin Mannis which he posted as an eBay auction listing. Mannis, a writer and creative professional by trade, owned a small antiques and furniture refinishing business in Portland, Oregon at the time. According to Mannis’ story, he purportedly bought the Box at an estate sale in 2001. It had belonged to a German Holocaust survivor named Havela, who had escaped to Spain and purchased it there before emigrating to the United States. Havela’s granddaughter told Mannis that the Box had been kept in her grandmother’s sewing room and was never opened because a dybbuk—an evil spirit from Jewish folklore—was said to live inside it. He offered to give the box back to her, but she became upset and refused to take it.
On opening the box, Mannis found that it contained two 1920s pennies, a lock of blonde hair bound with cord, a lock of black/brown hair bound with cord, a small statue engraved with the Hebrew word “Shalom”, a small, golden wine goblet, one dried rose bud, and a single candle holder with four octopus-shaped legs.
Numerous owners of the box have reported that strange phenomena accompany it. In his story, Mannis claimed he experienced a series of horrific nightmares shared with other people while they were in possession of the box. His mother suffered a stroke on the same day he gave her the box as a birthday present—October 28. Every owner of the Box has reported that smells of cat urine or jasmine flowers and nightmares involving an old hag accompany the Box. Iosif Neitzke, a Missouri student at Truman State University in Kirksville Missouri and the last person to auction the box on eBay, claimed that the box caused lights to burn out in his house and his hair to fall out. Haxton had been following Neitzke’s blogs regarding the box from day one and when he was ready to be rid of the Dybbuk Box Neitzke sold it to Jason Haxton, Director of the Museum of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, Missouri. Haxton wrote The Dibbuk Box, and claimed that he subsequently developed strange health problems, including hives, coughing up blood, and “head-to-toe welts”. Haxton consulted with Rabbis (Jewish religious leaders) to try to figure out a way to seal the dybbuk in the box again. Apparently successful, he took the freshly resealed box and hid it at a secret location, which he will not reveal.
Skeptic Chris French, head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths’ College, told an interviewer he believed that the Box’s owners were “already primed to be looking out for bad stuff. If you believe you have been cursed, then inevitably you explain the bad stuff that happens in terms of what you perceive to be the cause. Put it like this: I would be happy to own this object.”
Design
The cabinet has the Shema carved into the side of it. Its dimensions are 12.5″ × 7.5″ × 16.25″.
In popular culture
- The box inspired a British performance tour, The Thirteenth Box, a cave tour led by Jez Starr in Cheddar Gorge, in which audience members claimed to have taken a picture of the Dybbuk.
- The box is the subject of a 2012 Sam Raimi film by Ghost House Pictures, entitled The Possession, starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick and Natasha Calis and directed by Ole Bornedal. The script was written by Juliet Snowden and Stiles White and was based on an Los Angeles Times article by Leslie Gornstein, which told the story of the Dybbuk box after the first eBay auction. Mannis and Haxton served as production consultants.
- The box’s story has been featured on the Mysterious Universe podcast.
- The box’s story has been covered in an episode of Syfy’s Paranormal Witness.
- A Portland radio show entitled “The Daria, Mitch and Ted Show” found out about the story via the film The Possession. The program told the stories from previous owners who attempted to sell the box to exorcists. Immediately after that, odd things began happening in the studio.
References
^ Kevin Mannis (September 2, 2009). “The Dibbuk Box, A.K.A. The Haunted Jewish Wine Cabinet”. Yahoo. Retrieved July 29, 2012.
^ “TONIGHT (7-21) on Paranormal Underground Radio We Talk About the Haunted Dibbuk Box”. Paranormal Underground. July 21, 2011. Retrieved July 29, 2012.
^ Max Gross (February 13, 2004). “A Box Full of Bad Luck: Haunted Wine Cabinet Goes to Highest Bidder”. The Forward.
^ Leslie Gornstein (July 25, 2004). “A jinx in a box?; Maybe mischievous spirits do haunt this Jewish scroll cabinet, or maybe it’s just another Web-spawned legend run wild.”. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 31, 2010.
^ Collis, Clark. “Little Box of Horrors.” Entertainment Weekly, August 3, 2012, pp. 50-55.
^ “Paranormal Witness Episode “Dybbuk Box””. SYFY.
^ “Mystery of possessed box at caves”. Cheddar Valley Gazette. June 10, 2010.
^ “Demon ‘haunts show audience member'”. Bridgwater Times. October 21, 2010.
^ “Magician’s shock after demon ‘haunts carer’ following show”. Cheddar Valley Gazette. October 21, 2010.
^ CATHY DUNKLEY and NICOLE LaPORTE (October 26, 2004). “Horror unit will unlock new ‘Box'”. Daily Variety.
^ Nicole LaPorte (October 30, 2006). “Brand New World for Scribes”. Variety.
^ “Episode 209 Mysterious Universe”.
^ “Episode 524 Mysterious Universe”.
^ Syfy’s Paranormal Witness Returns in August Dread Central
External links
Dybbuk Box website
Mirror of eBay auction
All or part of the article above was taken from the Wikipedia article Dybbuk Box, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
The Mothman is a creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia from November 12, 1966, to December 1967.Most observers describe the Mothman as a man-sized creature with large reflective red eyes and large wings. The creature was sometimes reported as having no head, with its eyes set into its chest.
A number of hypotheses have been presented to explain eyewitness accounts, ranging from misidentification and coincidence, to paranormal phenomena and conspiracy theories.
Appearance
Mothman is described as a man sized, or larger, creature with glowing red eyes and wings of a moth. It may have eyes set in his chest. It is described as a 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) creature, with long wings and huge red eyes. It possesses an unusual shriek.
History
On November 15, 1966, two young couples from Point Pleasant, Roger and Linda Scarberry, and Steve and Mary Mallette, along with their young cousin, Lonnie Button, were traveling late at night in the Scarberrys’ car. They were passing the West Virginia Ordnance Works, an abandoned World War II TNT factory, about seven miles north of Point Pleasant, in the 2,500 acre (10 km²) McClintic Wildlife Management Area, when they noticed two red lights in the shadows by an old generator plant near the factory gate. They stopped the car, and reportedly discovered that the lights were the glowing red eyes of a large animal, “shaped like a man, but bigger, maybe six and a half or seven feet tall, with big wings folded against its back,” according to Roger Scarberry. Terrified, they drove toward Route 62, where the creature supposedly chased them at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour.
A plaque on the Mothman statue provides a version of the original legend: “On a chilly, fall night in November 1966, two young couples drove into the TNT area north of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, when they realized they were not alone.” Driving down the exit road, they saw the supposed creature standing on a nearby ridge. It spread its wings and flew alongside the vehicle up to the city limits. They drove to the Mason County courthouse to alert Deputy Millard Halstead, who later said, “I’ve known these kids all their lives. They’d never been in any trouble and they were really scared that night. I took them seriously.” He then followed Roger Scarberry’s car back to the old Ordnance Works and found no trace of the strange creature. According to the book Alien Animals, by Janet and Colin Bord, a poltergeist attack on the Scarberry home occurred later that night, during which the creature was seen several times.
The following night, on November 16, several armed townspeople combed the area around the TNT plant for signs of Mothman. Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Wamsley, and Mrs. Marcella Bennett, with her infant daughter Teena, were in a car en-route to visit their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Thomas, who lived in a small house near the igloos (concrete dome-shaped dynamite storage structures erected during WW-II) near the TNT plant. The igloos were now empty, some owned by the county, others by companies intending to use them for storage. They were heading back to their car when a figure appeared behind their parked vehicle. Mrs. Bennett said that it seemed like it had been lying down, slowly rising up from the ground, large and gray, with glowing red eyes. While Wamsley phoned the police, the creature walked onto the porch and peered in at them through the window.
On November 24, four people allegedly saw the creature flying over the TNT area. On the morning of November 25, Thomas Ury, who was driving along Route 62 just north of the TNT, claimed to have seen the creature standing in a field, and then it spread its wings and flew away, and Thomas sped toward the Point Pleasant sheriff’s office. He then reported the incident that he had seen.
A Mothman sighting was again reported on January 11, 1967, hovering over the town’s bridge, and several other times that same year. Fewer sightings of the Mothman were reported after the collapse of the town’s bridge, the Silver Bridge, when 46 people died. The Silver Bridge, so named for its aluminum paint, was an eyebar chain suspension bridge that connected the cities of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio, over the Ohio River. The bridge was built in 1928, and it collapsed on December 15, 1967. Investigation of the bridge wreckage pointed to the failure of a single eye-bar in a suspension chain due to a small manufacturing flaw. There are rumors that the Mothman appears before upcoming disasters and seems to try to warn people of them. After that, Mothman was never again seen in Point Pleasant.
Analysis
There are several theories concerning the Mothman phenomenon.
Supernatural theories
John Keel claimed that Mothman was related to parapsychological events in the area, including precognitions by witnesses, and the December 15, 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge spanning the Ohio River.
Misidentified bird
One of the early theories is that the Mothman was a misidentified Sandhill Crane, which, in the late 1960s had been a problem in surrounding regions. Sandhill cranes have an average wingspan of 5.3 feet (up to 7 feet), average overall length of 39 inches and have the general appearance described, glide for long distances without flapping, and have an unusual shriek. Other theories suggest the possibility of the Mothman being a Barn Owl, an albino owl, or perhaps a large Snowy Owl (based on artists’ impressions). Skeptics suggest that the Mothman’s glowing eyes are actually red-eye caused from the reflection of light, from flashlights, or other light sources that witnesses may have had with them.
All or part of the article above was taken from the Wikipedia article Mothman, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
The Bélmez Faces or the Faces of Bélmez is an alleged paranormal phenomenon in a private house in Spain which started in 1971 when residents claimed images of faces appeared in the concrete floor of the house. These images have continuously formed and disappeared on the floor of the home.
Located at the Pereira family home at Calle Real 5, Bélmez de la Moraleda, Jaén, Andalusia, Spain, the Bélmez faces have been responsible for bringing large numbers of sightseers to Bélmez. The phenomenon is considered by some parapsychologists the best-documented and “without doubt the most important paranormal phenomenon in the [20th] century”.
Various faces have appeared and disappeared at irregular intervals since 1971 and have been frequently photographed by the local newspapers and curious visitors. Many Bélmez residents believe that the faces were not made by human hand. Some paranormal investigators believe that it is a thoughtographic phenomenon, subconsciously produced by the deceased former owner of the house, María Gómez Cámara.
Skeptical researchers have performed extensive tests on the faces and believe that fakery has been involved and the images have been applied with lead paint. The faces are dismissed as a hoax and it has been suspected that the Pereira family may have perpetrated the hoax for financial gain.
History
The appearances in Bélmez began on 23 August 1971, when María Gómez Cámara claimed that a human face formed spontaneously on her concrete kitchen floor. María’s husband, Juan Pereira and their son, Miguel, destroyed the image with a pickaxe and new concrete was laid down. However, the Pereira story goes, a new face formed on the floor. The mayor of Bélmez was informed and forbade the destruction of the new face. Instead, the floor concrete was cut out and taken for study.
María’s home was advertised to the tourists as La Casa de las Caras (The House of the Faces). By Easter of 1972 hundreds of people were flocking to the house to see the faces. For the next 30 years the Pereira family claimed that faces continued to appear, both male and female and of different shapes, sizes and expressions.
The investigations
There have been several investigations into the Bélmez case:
The forgery hypothesis
In an article published in the July 1993 issue of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research Luis Ruiz-Noguez noted that the presence of three cations used as pigments in the manufacture of paint must be mentioned: zinc, lead and chromium. Two of these, lead and chromium, lay the foundation for suspecting the use of paint in making the Bélmez faces. Ruiz-Noguez postulated that lead was used for several reasons:
- Lead was, for many years, the most commonly used pigment in making the primary colors.
- The percentage of chromium in the analysis is too low to be a viable option.
- Lead tends to cause dark, difficult-to-see colorations; something that does not happen in chromium.
- The most common and cheapest primary colors are enamels, that contain lead; besides, these enamels are widely used in the home, since they are easy to apply.
Directly contradicting what Carballal says, the ICV analysis does not demonstrate the non-existence of paint. On the other hand, Ruiz-Noguez also points to several objections to the hypothesis of utilization of paint on the ICV samples: alkydalic-type enamels do not withstand abrasion; paint leaves a film that is easily differentiated from the substratum; and the alkydalics’ chemical tolerance to acids, alkalis and detergents is low.
Manuel Martín Serrano, a sociologist at the Complutense University of Madrid, wrote a laborious study, Sociología del Milagro (Sociology of the miracle): the first book that a skeptic has written about this case exclusively. Throughout his book Serrano interviews dozens of Bélmez inhabitants but he never mentions anyone by name. However, Serrano’s study is a contribution to explain the social dynamics of what he believes was a hoax perpetrated for financial gain.
Although José Luis Jordán was vice-president of the Spanish Society of Parapsychology, he was rather skeptical. In Jordán’s Casas Encantadas, Poltergeist he analyzes cases of supposed haunted houses in Spain, including the Bélmez case.
In 1971, a department of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior asked Jordán to head a commission that appointed diverse technicians specializing in concrete chemistry to carry out an exhaustive study of the strange occurrences in Bélmez and present a report on such to the authorities. In the report Jordán deals with several possibilities of fraud: “pigmentation with a dark, brownish substance”, “a mixture of soot and vinegar” and “the aggressive action of a chemical compound”. In an interview by two members of the Spanish Society of Parapsychology, Jordán stated:
- “With regard to the enigma of the chemical procedure, I solved it by discovering that this compound can be found in any drugstore by asking for a German product to remove concrete stains. [The mystery] that the images were invisible and latent for some time is thereby solved”.
In Spain other skeptical parapsychologists have also maintained the forgery hypothesis. Ramos Perera, president of the Spanish Society of Parapsychology, stated that it was found that La Pava, the first and most famous of the Bélmez faces, had coloration and deduced it had been painted:
- “Through infrared photography we saw that this one had added pigmentation [over the original appearance], and even the paint brush bristles could be perceived. Of course, after that we had no doubts it had been painted”.
La Pava was later embedded in the wall of María’s home for exhibition purposes.
Besides the ICV’s, there are other chemical analysis on the Bélmez faces, performed by J.J. Alonso, a researcher of the Spanish National Research Council. The Alonso report was originally published in Psi Comunicación, the journal of the Spanish Society of Parapsychology. However, the results are ambiguous on the subject of how the images were formed. Also, Alonso refused to wield judgment on the thoughtographic claims. However, his analysis did confirm the presence of a melanocratic compound.
In general, artificial cement is made from limestone, clay and gypsum (natural cements are obtained from rocks containing lime and clay). The main components are lime and kaolinitic clay. There are some cements such as the aluminous, derived from aluminous and lime materials, that are black (melanocratic). The presence of aluminum in the analysis of the Bélmez face called El Pelao (The bald one) could indicate that an aluminum-type cement was being dealt with. However, in his report Alonso does not indicate the percentage of said cation, nor its structure, resistance to compression, elasticity module, chemical resistance or other characteristics necessary to differentiate a Portland cement from an aluminum cement.
The thoughtographic hypothesis
The main researchers of the Bélmez case were Hans Bender and Germán de Argumosa. They collaborated in Bélmez and Freiburg in the early 1970s when the alleged phenomena began. Neither Bender nor de Argumosa published an official report on them. Bender wrote very little about the case in his journal Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie. Argumosa, a Spanish parapsychologist, spent two years evaluating what he believed was a Gothic mystery, but published nothing on the subject either. Bender did mention the case in passing and referred to it in some of his lectures. His crucial statement referred to the sealing of areas of the floor where some faces were in progress with a transparent plastic material:
- “In Bélmez, slight changes of the faces’ configuration during the period when the phenomenon was under seal (attested by a notary) have contributed to ensure its paranormal origin.”
The only believer who has published an entire book on the case is José Martínez-Romero. His book Las Caras de Bélmez is a collection of anecdotes. Martínez-Romero is not worried about falsifying the paranormal hypothesis. (An advantage of this and other cases of alleged thoughtographic appearances is that, as the paranormal interpretation is falsifiable, it is not a pseudo-scientific hypothesis.) Argumosa himself, who used to be the main defender of this case in Spain, believes that Martínez-Romero discredited the phenomenon with his book.
The most serious publication to date by a believer appears in the first chapter of the book The Seen and the Unseen by Andrew MacKenzie. MacKenzie did not speak Spanish and during his stay in Bélmez lacked an interpreter. Only a taxi driver and Martínez-Romero’s son were able to assist him, though very little.
Scientific studies carried out on a Bélmez face were performed by the Instituto de Cerámica y Vidrio or ICV (Institute of Ceramics and Glass), with samples from two of the faces recovered by Father J.M. Pilón’s team in September 1990. The samples, one 30 milligrams, the other 60 milligrams, were subjected to various tests such as granulometric, mineralogical and chemical. According to Carballal, “The result, expressed in extremely abridged form, was that no traces of paint were found at any place.” Carballal does not mention which faces were analyzed, nor which part of the faces correspond to each of the samples, nor what kind of mineralogical or chemical analysis was performed.
Chemical Analysis by ICV, Sample A, Sample B (%):
- Zinc 0.96; 0.40
- Barium 0.02; 0.15
- Copper 0.01; 0.16
- Chromium 0.09; 0.02
- Phosphorus 0.06; 0.30
- Lead 0.21; 0.06
Despite the fact that ICV is a respectable institution that belongs to the Spanish National Research Council, in 1992 Pilón published the above chart in the popular Spanish magazine Más Allá.
Conclusions
Luis Ruiz-Noguez believes that the most likely explanation for the visual effect of the Bélmez images is Jordán’s suggestion of the use of an oxidizing chemical agent. For example, nitric, sulfuric, muriatic, acetic acid, and others, could be used to obtain such an effect. Another explanation might be the use of agents sensitive to light (which was not mentioned in either Jordán’s or Perera’s repertoire of forgery hypotheses): silver nitrate which, when subjected to ultraviolet sunlight, darkens.
In general, there may be at least three chemical sources capable of producing an effect similar to that of the Bélmez faces: (1) Products that affect the chemical structure of the cement which include some oxidizing agents and several acids (all types of cement are of alkaline nature and therefore easily attacked by acids); (2) products that leave the cement intact but change their chemical structure upon contact with external agents such as light or chemical reagents; and (3) the utilization of a pigment in a vehicle or resin, as discussed by Ruiz-Noguez in his commentary on the ICV chart.
According to Ramos Perera, hypothesis #3 was the case of the first “wall face” appearance of Bélmez: the ghastly face known as La Pava. Presently this old face is fading out in the dark, humid cement as can be seen in the photographs of a web site.
Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell has written that the Bélmez Faces were deliberately faked, and the faces looked very amateurish in design.
Brian Dunning of Skeptoid has written that “the faces were shown to have been painted on the concrete floor, the first with paint and later with acid, and the woman living in the house found to be perpetrating a hoax on the public for financial gain.”
The “new” Bélmez faces
María Gómez, the purported psychic that allegedly produced the appearances, died on February 2004 at the age of 85 years. After her death the popular psychic researcher Pedro Amorós tried to “discover” more thoughtographic appearances in María’s house. A new wave of Bélmez faces thus took place. However, Amorós’ claims have been debunked in the Spanish media. In November 2004 the newspaper El Mundo published the article “New Belmez Faces Faked by ‘Ghostbusters’ and Municipal Government.”
On May 2007, journalist Javier Cavanilles and investigator Francisco Máñez published a book called Los Caras de Bélmez, which is a double entendré meaning “The Faces of Bélmez” and “The Scoundrels of Bélmez”, where they explain the history of the scam and pointed to María’s son, Diego Pereira, as author of the mysterious paintings.
All or part of the article above was taken from the Wikipedia article Belmez Faces, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
The Marfa lights or the Marfa ghost lights are unexplained lights (known as “ghost lights”) usually seen near U.S. Route 67 on Mitchell Flat east of Marfa, Texas, in the United States.
The first published account of the lights was written in 1957, and this article is the sole source for anecdotal claims that the lights date back to the 1800s. Reports often describe brightly glowing basketball sized spheres floating above the ground, or sometimes high in the air. Colors are usually described as white, yellow, orange or red, but green and blue are sometimes reported. The balls are said to hover at about shoulder height, or to move laterally at low speeds, or sometimes to shoot around rapidly in any direction. They often appear in pairs or groups, according to reports, to divide into pairs or merge together, to disappear and reappear, and sometimes to move in seemingly regular patterns. Their sizes are typically said to resemble soccer balls or basketballs.
Sightings are reported occasionally and unpredictably, perhaps ten to twenty times a year. There are no reliable reports of daytime sightings; the lights seem to be a nocturnal phenomenon only.
According to the people who claim to have seen the lights, they may appear at any time of night, typically south of U.S. Route 90 and east of U.S. Route 67, five to fifteen miles southeast of Marfa, at unpredictable directions and apparent distances. They can persist from a fraction of a second to several hours. There is evidently no connection between appearances of the Marfa lights and anything else besides nighttime hours. They appear in all seasons of the year and in any weather, seemingly uninfluenced by such factors. They sometimes have been observed during late dusk and early dawn, when the landscape is dimly illuminated.
It is extremely difficult to approach an ongoing display of the Marfa lights, mainly due to the dangerous terrain of Mitchell Flat. Also, all of the land where the Marfa Lights are observed is private property, and access is prohibited without explicit permission from the owners. There are only a very few accounts of success in moving very close to observed lights, but those that exist generally describe objects resembling fireworks lacking both smoke and sound.
The state notes the lights in travel maps, the city has erected a viewing platform, and the Marfa Chamber of Commerce promotes the peculiar lights. The weekend-long Marfa Lights Festival is held annually in the city’s downtown.