Case file · Anomaly hotspot
Ochate, the 'cursed village'
An abandoned Basque hamlet whose population was wiped out by epidemics became a Spanish magnet for UFO and ghost stories after a 1981 photo of a light over its church.
1981 CE · 42.73, -2.68 · status: legend
The account
Ochate, in the Condado de Treviño, was emptied in the 19th and early 20th centuries by smallpox, typhus and cholera. On 24 June 1981 Prudencio Muguruza photographed a bright light over the ruined tower, and Spanish magazines turned the village into a 'cursed' site of apparitions and sightings.
The sceptical view
The depopulation is explained by disease and rural flight; the photo shows an unidentified light, possibly a flare or artefact.