Palacio de Linares ghost case draws wide Spanish media attention

In the early 1990s, the Palacio de Linares, a 19th-century mansion on Madrid's Plaza de Cibeles, became the centre of one of Spain's best-known ghost stories. Reports of unexplained noises, voices and presences circulated in the press and on television, and the case was often compared with the earlier Bélmez faces affair, a famous Spanish paranormal story from the 1970s.

Parapsychology researchers and journalists visited the building and discussed alleged recordings of voices, known as psychophonies. The coverage drew on an older local legend about the family of the Marquis of Linares, who built the palace, which told of a hidden family tragedy involving a child. That legend has never been backed by solid historical evidence, and the paranormal claims were never scientifically confirmed.

The attention mattered because it turned a Madrid landmark into a lasting part of Spanish popular culture. The building, owned by the city, was then being prepared for a new public role and opened in 1992 as the Casa de América, a cultural centre for Latin American relations. The story of its supposed ghosts has kept returning in books, radio, television and now streaming productions.