Here's one right from the horse's mouth, MMers. Tom and Chris, two of our lead investigators here at Malevolent Maine, recently experienced a little firsthand unexplained phenomena of their own. They were driving to investigate a claim about a so-called "witch tree" in Limerick (check back soon for the complete story). They were traveling along Route 5 when they saw signs indicating a town up ahead.
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| The map clearly shows no suck town exists. |
"We're pretty familiar with the area," Tom said. "So the sign - you know one of those green signs that indicates the miles to the different towns - had a name we'd never seen before."
The sign indicated a town in between Waterboro and Limerick called Wilton Hills. This wasn't a town either of them had ever heard of before, and so they took a slight detour, following the signs that led them to this town.
"To be clear," Chris said. "This town is not on any map of Maine. Now, maybe that's not that unusual a little farther north or for those tiny little towns of only a handful of people, but this wasn't the case for us. This was a town that did not exist - could not exist - and yet, we were pulling up to their main street, just as real as the day."
Our intrepid investigators found a thriving little town similar in size to say downtown Saco. There was a general store, diners, a barbershop.. They passed an elementary school, a fire department, pawn shop. You name it, the town seemed to have.
"It was quaint," Tom said. "Like the kind of little downtown you'd see in a movie or tv show."
The two got out and walked around for a bit. "We talked to some people on the street, just as normal as could be." They even went into a local coffee shop and got some java and a bagel. "The food was real. It tasted just fine," Chris said. "It was real good, actually."
Shocked and surprised by the town that had seemingly sprung up out of nowhere, the two made sure to take a lot of pictures.
So after an hour or two of exploring the town, Tom and Chris continued to Limerick and completed their investigation there. On the drive they discussed this little town they had never heard of and where it could have come from. On their way home, they decided to stop in again and grab a late dinner.
Much to their surprise, they could not find the town. Any trace of it, including signs, mile markers, landmarks, and anything associated with Wilton Hills just no longer existed.
"It doesn't make any sense," Tom said. "We know that. But we were in that town. We walked around, we ate, we talked to people. I don't understand how it could just disappear like that. And I investigate stuff like this for a living!"
There are no historical records of a town named Wilton Hills appearing anywhere in that area. There is a Wilton, Maine, but that is located in Franklin County, no where near where our boys were. What that town was and where it came from cannot be explained. Both investigators agree that it was a nice little town, and they hope to get back there someday.
Stay safe out there, Maine.
Attention Malevolent Mainers, this one is serious. A report has come in from a MMer who goes by Greg, that he just narrowly escaped a malevolent entity. This man was driving on I-95 near a long stretch of thick woods when he noticed a large black dog getting dangerously close to the road. He pulled over and approached the animal which seemed friendly. The dog barked and moved towards the woods, often looking back at the man, as if to get him to follow. The man worried that the dog's owner might be in some danger followed the dog into the woods. The dog led the man deeper and deeper in, constantly looking back at him, his tongue lolling out of his head.
When Greg became worried that they hadn't found the owner after ten minutes he began to turn around and head back towards the road. As the dog noticed him turning to leave it began growling, Greg immediately back toward the highway and the dog chased him. Greg just barely made it back to his truck as the dog began tearing at his pant leg. He escaped narrowly with only slight injuries. As he looked in his rearview mirror he saw the dog's demeanor change once again from vicious to friendly as it went back to the side of the highway to wait once more.
If you see a black dog on the side of the road and you have the urge to help it or look for its owner, please use extreme caution. Before you get too far from your car, turn around and see if the dog reacts, if it does leave immediately, if it doesn't feel free to continue following the dog.
Stay safe out there, Maine!
Photo of a similar dog sighting from the late 1970's
Okay, MMers, this one is weird even by our standards. It comes to us from a reader named Chen from Biddeford. He told us about a secret movie theatre somewhere in Biddeford or Saco that shows rather, odd arthouse films.
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| Downtown Biddeford, ME |
The way Chen tells it, he had a buddy, Abraham were out drinking in Biddeford. They had gone to a few bars and sometime between 11 pm and midnight, the two found themselves walking to their next destination.
"To be honest, I'm not really sure where we were. We were somewhere around the bridge, but we'd had a few and everything got a little blurry after that. We stumbled around for a bit, down some side streets. There's all these old brick buildings that have been turned into cafes and shops and stuff."
Chen and Abraham found themselves outside of a brick building with no windows and a dark purple awning. There were steps that led down to a thick metal door with a wire mesh window in the door.
"I remember it because that cover over the door. It was purple - like a real dark purple - and I don't think I'd ever seen something like that before."
Thinking it was another bar, maybe one of the speakeasies that have opened in a lot of southern Maine cities, the friends went down to the stairs and knocked on the door. They saw a pair of eyes peer out at them from the window for a second, and then the door opened.
According to Chen a tall, thin man dressed in a tuxedo stood in the doorway, holding a lit candle. "It was an old style tux. He looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie." The man's face was pale and thin, with deep shadows beneath his eyes. "He told us he had been waiting for us and was glad we had arrived."
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| Artist's rendition |
The man ushered Chen and Abraham into a hallway and then into a room. At first, they couldn't see anything because it was so dark. "But as our eyes adjusted we saw that it was like a movie theatre. It was small, maybe not much bigger than like a classroom or something. There were old wooden seats set up in rows and we could there were people scattered around the room, sitting in small groups of twos and threes."
The patrons all seemed to be wearing black or dark clothes and we staring up at a blank, dark screen. The tall man ushered Chen and Abraham to some empty seats and told them to get ready for the show. He was back a moment later, offering the men glasses of what appeared to be wine.
"We were looking to hit up one last bar, but we found this little artsy movie theatre. We were just drunk enough to think this whole thing was pretty funny, and besides, we got some free wine. It was pretty bitter and didn't taste like any wine I'd ever had, but we thought whatever, right?"
All of a sudden the light on the projector came on and the room was filled with a pale light. The tall, thin man was standing in front of the screen.
"Welcome to the cinema nocturna!" the man said. "We are ever so glad you could make it. What you are about to see is an original creation. I hope it will grab you as it grabbed me."
Then he clapped his hands twice. The theatre went dark for a second and then the movie began.
Chen described the film to us.
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| "There were all of these creepy images." |
"It was black and white. It was a bunch of random shots. Like, there was a a shot of a fox slinking through the woods. There was another one, like one of those time-lapse shots of a mountain like crumbling or eroding or whatever. There were lots of real random stuff. I remember there was a skull. There was a fire that died down, and then I think they reversed the video and it sprang back to life. I can't remember a lot of it. But there was this awful music playing. Like screeching violins kind of. Maybe some sort of weird flutes. And, here's the crazy thing, that music sounded like it was coming from inside the room. There wasn't a band or anything, but it sounded like it was right next to me."
Chen began to feel dizzy. Maybe it was the alcohol or the film or some combination of the two, but he started to feel sick. "My head was swimming. I felt like I was outside of my body, but also deeper inside than I had ever been. It was like... like being high, but not in a good way. Not going to lie, I started to get pretty freaked out."
Chen looked around, but everyone else seemed entranced with the film. He tried to get Abraham's attention, but his friend stayed focused on the movie. "I remember looking down at the wine glass and it looked like... it looked like blood. I pout it down on the chair beside me and stood up."
Chen told Abraham he was going to be sick and he needed some fresh air. His friend made some noncommittal response, and then Chen lurched away. He thinks he remembers seeing the tall man staring at him questioningly, but he admits that could have been a false memory. He staggered his way out of the cinema as the images continued to flash on the screen and the music kept blaring.
"The images were getting more and more disturbing. And that music just drilled down into my brain."
Finally after what felt like a long time, Chen crashed through the door and up the steps. He leaned against the cold brick building and breathed in the fresh night air.
"I don't know how long I was out there. I must have passed out or fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was morning."
But here's the real kicker, MMers, the brick building with the purple awning was gone. Chen was in an alley behind a coffee shop and a law firm.
"I figured maybe I just wandered off. Like I said I was pretty drunk. But I've gone all over Biddeford and Saco looking for that building. It's a purple awning, right? How hard should that be to find? I can't find it anywhere. It's like it never existed. I've asked everyone I can about that place and no one has ever heard of the theatre or the cinema nocturna."
As for Abraham, no one has seen him since the night they wandered into the movie theatre. There's security footage of Chen and Abraham walking out of a bar at 11:17. Street cameras have them walking up Main Street. They turn off onto a side street, and that's the last anyone has seen of Abraham. At the time of this writing Chen has been cleared as a suspect, but the whereabouts of his friend is unknown. If you have any information about Abraham Baldwin, please contact the Maine State Police.
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| Abraham Baldwin, missing since May 16, 2020 |
We asked around and we have heard some rumors of an underground theatre, the
cinema nocturna, popping up in other towns. Westbrook, Auburn, and Bangor have all had unconfirmed sightings of the underground arthouse. Several witnesses remember the tall, thin man, and one person, who wished to remain anonymous, experienced similar symptoms as Chen. Who or what this obscure theatre is and what its true purpose is, remains unknown at this time.
Stay safe out there, Maine.
