Missing in Acadia

A lot of the stories we write about on Malevolent Maine are pretty dark, but this one is spooky for a lot of different reasons. So be warned, MMers, this one may disturb you.

Maine is a beautiful state with many scenic places to go visit. There are thirty-two state parks in Maine. There's only one National Park however: Acadia National Park. Our story starts there, but as we soon found out, it didn't end there. 

Acadia National Park, on Mount Desert Island

On June 12th, 2003, seven year old Nicholas Adams disappeared from his campsite. Nicholas was camping with his parents, Jim and Robin, and his aunt and uncle, Cathy and Sam Ferguson, and their two children, Billy, 6, and Amanda, 9. They were staying at the Blackwoods campground in Acadia National Park, hiking, swimming, and enjoying nature. 

Nicholas Adam, 2003

The kids were playing together while the parents relaxed around a small campfire. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon and they had recently come back from a hike. The kids were playing hide and seek with one another. Nicholas was the "seeker" and both of his cousins could hear him coming through the woods just behind the campsite.

Little Nicholas never found his cousins, and soon afterward, they both gave up and trudged back to the campsite, complaining about their cousin. Soon after the adults began to worry. They quickly searched the area around the campsite, shouting for Nicholas. They called 911 and Search and Rescue teams were soon dispatched. Over one hundred people searched for three days with no sign of Nicholas. Bloodhounds got two different scent trails but both of them led nowhere. Nicholas had vanished.

He remained missing until just last week. For eighteen years no trace of Nicholas Adams was ever discovered. There were no scraps of clothing, no bone fragments, nothing to indicate Nicholas had ever even been in the area. That changed last week when on July 19th hikers discovered some remains on Sargent Mountain, about six miles away from Blackwoods campground. The hikers found the remains in a rocky area, a stretch of the mountain that is quite steep and a moderately difficult climb.

They found one of Nicholas's sneakers partially hidden by a rock, the torn remains of his pants, and a single human tooth. Forensic scientists are still working to determine whether the tooth belongs to Nicholas Adams, but there is no denying the clothing is his: his initials had been written on both the tag of his pants and his sneaker. There were no traces of blood or DNA on the clothing. There is also very little wear and tear on the clothes. They do not look like they have been sitting on the side of a mountain for the past eighteen years.

The investigation remains ongoing and we'll update you as we learn more.

In our research for this blog post, we uncovered some interesting statistics. Every year in Maine about one hundred people go missing. California, on the other hand, leads the nation with over 2,000. The Adams disappearance isn't the first case of a missing person in Acadia National Park. There have been two other missing persons cases from Maine's only National Park and both of, though separated by over fifty years with Nicholas Adams' disappearance are strangely similar.

On August 20, 1983, three year old Bret Walker disappeared while hiking Cadillac Mountain with his parents. They were taking an easy trail, not taking the hike too seriously, just going as far as they thought they could with little Bret. At one point, both parents took their eyes off their son, just for a minute or two. They soon realized Brett was gone. Again, a search was conducted, no trace of Brett Walker was found. His parents were considered prime suspects but were later cleared by police. Bloodhounds were called in and led rescuers to a certain section of Cadillac Mountain, but then would go no further. According to reports, both hounds laid down on the ground and whimpered. They had to be dragged off the mountain. No trace of Bret Walker was ever found.

Anthony Stearns, right, 1956

Again, in July of 1956, five year old Anthony Stearns went missing while fishing with his grandfather near Bubble Pond. As with the other cases, Anthony simple disappeared. A fisherman several yards from where Anthony and his grandfather, Michael Stearns were fishing, told police that he saw the boy right around the time he disappeared. He didn't have any fishing gear and he asked the man if there were any bears in these woods before walking off in the opposite direction from where he had come from. That man was the last known person to see Anthony alive. An extensive search and rescue operation was undertaken, with over fifty volunteers combing the area where the boy was last seen. Nine months later, Anthony's body was discovered two miles from the shore where he had been fishing, in an area that would have proven difficult for a five year old to climb to, but one that had been searched multiple times by the rescuers. There was no apparent cause of death - Anthony had sustained no injuries of any kind. The National Parks Service deemed his death an attack by a mountain lion, though there was never any strong evidence of this.

Allan Dwight (middle) in 1995 with cousins after his rescue

There was one other case we found while doing our research and this is the one that began to turn us onto this really being a Malevolent Maine story our readers would want to know about. This one is pretty similar to the other three. In 1994, Allan Dwight went missing while hiking with his parents on Pemetic Mountain. Fairly similar to Bret Walker, in '83, his parents' attention drifted away for a moment or two and they realized that Allan was no longer behind them. They began a frantic search involving the park service and local authorities. Thirty hours later he was discovered, alive, tired and hungry, a mile and a half from where he had first gone missing in difficult terrain that would have proved all but impossible to a child. Again, this was a place rescuers had scoured earlier.

When asked what happened, Allan Dwight told police that he had seen someone who looked like his grandfather who had told the boy to follow him. They hiked off the path for what felt likes miles tot he boy until they came to a cave or a room of some kind, Allan wasn't quite sure. The boy claimed there were machines all over the floor that looked to him like, "broken spaceships or robots" and he saw weapons on the walls, though when pressed for more information about these weapons or what they were, he could provide no other information. 

He claimed that inside the cave or room the person he thought was his grandfather turned to him, and now his eyes began to glow, "like there was a lightbulb inside his head." The boy realized the person wasn't his grandfather and started to get scared. He claims the man told him not to worry, that he had been chosen, and that "though he had grown in his mother's womb, he was not destined for this world." Those are exact words that five year old Allen Dwight told investigators, not the typical fare for five year old boys in the 90s. 

Furthermore, Allan told police that the man had placed his hands on Allan's shoulders and squeezed really hard. That was the last thing Allan remembered and when he woke up he was alone in the woods just before he was discovered by the rescuers. Allan did have scratches of some kind on his shoulders, but investigators believe it was from a tree or a branch or perhaps something that Allan climbed beneath.

Police determined that Allan's grandfather, who was along on the trip but had remained back in the campsite, could be ruled out as a potential suspect. The grandfather had been in the camp the entire time, talking with someone in the neighboring campsite. Though he did tell investigators that the night before Allan went missing he had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. He said he felt a man's hand clamp down on his neck and whisper something in his ear, though he couldn't understand the words. Then he was gone. The grandfather assumed it was just someone who had too much to drink, but he did have a bruise on the back of his neck.

So what is stalking young children in Acadia National Park? Could it be a coincidence? Over active imagination and wild animals? Could it be purely human predators? Perhaps, but here's where things get even darker.

It turns out that hundreds of people, most of them young children, go inexplicably missing from National Parks each year. In fact, there are over 10,000 unsolved missing persons cases just from National Parks all over the country, places that many consider to be safe, family-friendly places, maintained by the U.S. government. Many of the stories are similar to the ones we uncovered from Acadia. Some eerily so. Researcher David Paulides, in his book series, Missing 411 (of which at least documentaries have also been made), details many of these cases. In fact, the disappearance of Bret Walker is documented in his book, Missing 411: Eastern United States. These books are a little hard to come by, but any intrepid researchers can find them on Amazon, though be prepared to pay a hefty price.

In many of these cases, including the ones here in Maine, the police seem cagey, almost flippant about their investigations. They seem to latch on to the simplest theory and run with it, despite lack of evidence to corroborate said theories. Often times in these cases the FBI or the military is called in to help with an investigation. These are duties regularly scheduled for National Guardsmen, but in plenty of these cases armed active Green Berets have been called in. What might these authorities know that they're not saying?

As Paulides alludes to in his books, it appears that something paranormal may be preying upon children in our National Parks. Could it be that something has been here, maybe has always been here and that it or they roam our National Parks, occasionally taking children for some nefarious purpose? Perhaps - and this is pure speculation on our parts, here - perhaps that is why the National Parks were first established, as a way to contain and track whatever it is that is taking the children.

What is taking children at our National Parks?

Sobering thoughts, MMers. To date, the National Parks Service does not maintain a list of missing persons, something repeatedly called for by the families of the missing. Perhaps if the data were readily available, people might reconsider their next family vacation.

Stay safe out there, Maine.

The Fury of the Moose Man

Happy Fourth of July, MMers! We hope you have a fun and safe weekend. It's been a trying year for many of us MMers, and we're not out of the woods yet, but this weekend, we'd like to remember the freedoms we do have and be thankful for those. With that in mind, we thought we'd present you with a story set during the time of the American Revolution.

Happy 4th of July, MMers!

Maine did not play a large part of the Revolutionary War, mainly due to its distance from both Boston and the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, and most of the action seen in this area were naval battles. The British did burn the city of Portland (back then called Falmouth) in October in 1775. Aside from this there were very few land skirmishes. Our story involves a rather infamous figure in early American history: Benedict Arnold. 

Benedict Arnold

Arnold is most famous, of course, for betraying the Americans, becoming the ultimate turncoat, and joining the British. Benedict Arnold wrote his name forever in the history books in 1779, but before that he was actually a well-respected general, and an early hero of Revolution. In 1775 he was ordered by George Washington himself to lead a 1,100 man expedition up through Maine en route to Quebec to attack the British stronghold there. The mission turned out to be somewhat of a failure as Arnold arrived in Quebec with just half the men he started with and his force was unable to take the city from the British. That's not exactly what makes this a Malevolent Maine story. 

See, Arnold and his troops were laid up for almost a month at the Great Carrying Place, in modern day Caratunk, Maine (just south of The Forks, on Route 201) where they planned to cross from the Kennebec River to the Dead River. There, disaster after disaster struck Arnold's men. A boat carrying supplies capsized and was lost. A "formidable number" of the men suddenly grew sick and died. A hurricane struck from October 19-21. Suddenly, it seemed like Benedict Arnold, who had become something of a hero up until this point, had suddenly run out of luck.

Then there were the stories of the Moose Man. Over forty reports of this strange apparition were reported by Arnold's men, including his second in command, Daniel Morgan, and the leader of the scouting part, Lieutenant Archibald Steele. All of the reports were similar enough that it is hard to discount them.

They all describe a figure somewhere between seven and eight feet tall, dressed in ragged torn clothing, possibly robes. The figure was described as thin to the point of emaciation, and his ribs could be seen through his torn clothing. He was described as having long fingers that seemed to be jointed in several extra places or, according to some reports, at odd angles. Where the man's head should have been was a moose skull. 

The Moose Man of the Dead River

The Moose Man, as they began calling the apparition, would appear to soldiers while they hunted the woods. At night it could be seen drifting between the trees on the outskirts of the camp. At first the Moose Man only observed the soldiers, disappearing when it was noticed, but as the men became more entrenched in the area, it began appearing more and more frequently.

"[It] brought a great sickness," Daniel Morgan wrote in a letter sent back home to the Continental Army headquarters. "Where the strange creature walked, disease followed. None of our medicines or treatments could cure the sickness, which began with crimson spots along the neck and face. These turned to blood and a thick, congestive cough. We lost a formidable number of men to the contagion the Moose Man spread among us."

Historians believe somewhere between 100 and 150 men died from this strange disease, which to this day has no rational explanation.

Arnold's scouts had forgotten to take into account how the terrain conditions would be impacted by rain and winter run off, and so the fifteen mile trek from Kennebec to Dead River became a slog. During the day, the men struggled portaging the boats and supplies, and night the Moose Man began raiding their camps. 

One soldier, Lieutenant Church told of how the Moose Man would come into their camps at night, in the darkest hours, and begin tearing the place apart, ripping through tents and men alike. Several reports emerged of corpses left behind, their heads and spines removed, never to be recovered. Another fifty or so men were believed to be killed in the raids by the Moose Man.

Arnold ordered the creature, who he believed to be a native, to be hunted and brought to justice. Several parties went out into the woods, only one returned. Of the ten man team, two of the soldiers returned, both with grave injuries. They were incoherent, speaking only of the, "thing things that moves beyond the trees." One of the men succumbed to his injuries, the other never recovered his sanity and was sent back to the military base at Skowhegan, where he would eventually take his own life in 1780. 

Was the freak hurricane natural 
or was it caused by the Moose Man?

It was the freak hurricane, rare of that part of the state that complete broke the morale of Arnold's troops. On October 18th, the scouting party, led by Lieutenant Archibald Steele encountered what they believed to be a camp of the Moose Man. They found a small fire pit surrounded by several large stones, some reaching five or six feet high. Atop each of these stones a blackened, burned skull had been set. Strange symbols had been drawn onto the stones with a sticky black substance and even the ground, soft earth, was covered with markings drawn into.

"I have never seen anything like it in all my days," Steele wrote in a report back to Arnold. "Bones and sticks arranged in a strange manner. Skulls looked at us with empty eyes. No way to indicate if these were our soldiers or not, but several of my men believed so."

That morning the men awoke to a steady rain which only intensified. By evening, it had turned into a full hurricane. Rain and wind lashed the men. There were reports of half inch hail. Trees were uprooted around the men. One man died when a tree fell directly onto him, snapped in half by a gust of wind. Today, experts estimate the hurricane that struck Arnold's men was a Category 3, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 111-130 mph. 

Several men reported seeing the Moose Man at the height of the storm, illuminated for brief seconds by flashes of lightning, fists raised to the heavens. 

By the time the storm finally blew away on October 21, many more of Arnold's men were dead. Over four hundred men decided that they had had enough. They deserted Arnold, returning back to Boston by way of Augusta and points south. The remaining men redoubled their efforts. They hardly slept, instead moving as rapidly as they could, determined to leave the cursed area behind them. 

When the less than 600 of the men who had set out with Arnold from Boston finally arrived on the outskirts of Quebec on October 30, they were weak and starved. Many men were marching with injuries they could not rightly explain. Several others were sick with unknown diseases. They had not slept in several days and complained of haunting calls in the night and a tall, shadowy figure that stalked them. 

The battle for Quebec was ultimately lost - the Continental forces were woefully unprepared for the fortifications of the British. Benedict Arnold was wounded and Daniel Morgan taken captive. Many of the soldiers who survived the battle, retired soon after, claiming the horrors not of the battle, but of the 350 mile trek through the Maine wilderness had been too much. Arnold, of course, would famously go on to be instrumental in the Battles of Saratoga before ultimately defecting to the British.

What was the strange Moose Man the troops encountered in the wilderness? Was it an angry native? A vengeful spirit? Did it cause the mysterious illness and somehow summon an impossible hurricane? Or was it just a fictional scapegoat for a growing contingent of men who had grown tired of this failed expedition? 

The Moose Man has been seen for hundreds of years

Reports of the Moose Man have persisted over the the two hundred and fifty years since Arnold's men encountered it. Many have claimed to see the Moose Man just on the edge of their vision, peering out from behind a tree or rock. Several people have claimed to have been chased by the apparition, and one hiker claims the Moose Man killed his companion, though the man was later found guilty of the murder. Still, none of been as much a victim of the Moose Man's rage as Benedict Arnold and the men of his unfortunate mission.

So, if you're in the area of Caratunk and the Dead River, stay safe out there, Maine.

No-Head Nellie

Usually our stories tend to be a bit on the... dark side, MMers, but today we've got a a heartwarming story for you. For this one we're traveling all the way to Johnson Mountain Township just south of Jackman. The story comes to us by way of Brock Easton who claims his great-grandfather had a dog with no head. As unbelievable as this seems, there are plenty of records of No-Head Nellie that seem to corroborate Brock's story. We'll try to stick to just the facts. 

Weston "Butch" Easton and his wife, Margery, 1938

Brock's great-grandfather, Weston "Butch" Easton lived in Jackman in the 1930s and 40s. One of the family dogs gave birth to a litter of pups and one of them was born with no head. Butch figured the pup was stillborn because of its deformity, so he was completely surprised when the headless pup began to crawl around. Butch immediately brought the pup to a local vet, who after his initial skepticism, did pronounce the pup as alive. He recommended that Butch put the animal down as it would never lead a full life. Butch refused. Instead, for the next fifteen years he raised No-Head Nellie and loved her as dearly as any animal companion.

According to Brock, who heard all of this from his grandfather, Butch's son, Carter, Butch took No-head Nellie on the road, showing her at local fairs and carnivals. Butch would feed Nellie through an IV injection, twice a day. Nellie could walk, run, wag her tail, even shake hands and roll over. If all this sounds incredible, it really is. To this day scientists have no idea how Nellie lived for fifteen years! But here's the proof. Brock has a picture he found in his grandfather's stuff. The picture was labeled 1947.

No-Head Nellie circa 1947

On top of that we were able to uncover a flyer from the 1949 Fryeburg Fair, and sure enough it mentions Butch Easton and his amazing No-head Nellie. Brock is working on going through the rest of his late grandfather's possessions, hoping to find more pictures from his great-grandfather, but he does recall his Grampa Carter (who passed away in 2019 at 92 years old!) telling stories of No-Head Nellie. He recalls his grandfather had a photo album full of Butch and Nellie's adventures, but so far Brock has been unable to locate it. He even remembers his grandfather telling him that Ripley's Believe it or Not at one point wanted to purchase Nellie's remains after she passed, however he was unsure whether the sale actually happened.

Brock Easton is attempting to put together a museum for No-Head Nellie. He says that if you or anyone you know has any information or possible pictures of No-Head Nellie, please contact him at: no-headnellie@yahoo.com. We'll keep our eyes peeled and hope you will too!

Help out Brock! Find some old pics of No-Head Nellie.

Stay safe out there, Maine! 

Rapid Fire - April 2021

It’s time for some more Rapid Fire, MMers!

• Speaking of Rapid Fire, there was a report out of Lebanon of a small lizard engulfed in flames. It was reported by local Bobby Newark that the old house on Mill Road was burned down by this “tiny fire dragon.” While this theory was quickly dismissed by the Lebanon Fire Department, Bobby swears up and down that it’s the truth. After all, he saw it with his own eyes.

• You know the paper mill up in Old Town? Well, when the wind is blowing just right, you can smell it from the University of Maine campus. Joseph Lundgren, a freshman residing in Cumberland Hall, reached out to us. “Yesterday the smell from the paper mill was so strong. Normally, it just smells like rotten eggs or sour milk. But today, it smelled like something else rotting. Like a corpse decomposing or something…” What is rotting at the paper mill, MMers? Is it just the paper, or is it something more...grotesque?

What's that smell?

• “Crinkle crinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.” Today we had another report of a potential Crinkle Face in Maine. James Rideout, a Newfield resident, wrote this to us: “The other night I was looking through my telescope at some constellations. When I was looking at Orion’s Belt, I could have sworn that I saw the stars aligned in the shape of Crinkle Face. I only know about it from your blog, and I really hope that it’s just in my head.” We here at Malevolent Maine take Crinkle Face very seriously, and we want to warn you again of the dangers of Crinkle Face. While we hope that it was just James’ imagination at work, we can’t be 100% sure. God, we hope.

• Last, but certainly not least, MMers, we had a report lost in the mail way up from Presque Isle. The letter was supposed to be delivered in March, but we just received it this week. Harry Bordeau reported an interesting phenomenon he experienced while tapping his maple trees, as he does every year around this time. Here is part of Harry’s letter, “I tapped the tree as I always do, but that wasn’t sap. It was a gooey substance, kind of like that Nickelodeon slime, but it wasn’t green. It was an orange-yellow color, and it smelled like hand sanitizer or some cleaning solution.” While we don’t know what infiltrated Harry’s tree, we do know that there was a reported UFO sighting up in Presque Isle back in January. And while we don’t know what this unidentified “slime” is, we would be willing to bet it’s not from this world…

Is there sap in that tree?

Well, that's it for today, MMers. As always, feel free to send us any strange happenings from around the state. Stay safe out there, Maine!

Black Dog of the Woods

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

Unanswered Questions - January 2021

 

We're back with another round of questions we just can't seem to shake, MMers. Hold on to your hats.

• When did Billy the Bull Moose at the Clarkson Animal Preserve die? And why is he still walking around in the woods?

• Who put the human skull at the top of the water tower in Arundel and for what purpose? Several local witches and warlocks claim it's a component to a deadly spell, but who is the target and when will it go into effect?

• How can you be in two places at once? We don't know, but you might want to ask Tyler Lancaster in Freeport and/or Winslow.

• What has six legs, two heads, and razor sharp teeth? We don't know either but it's terrorizing the farms in Raymond.

• Why did everyone in Beddington have the same dream on the same night? And why were they all walking through that empty temple?

Keep asking questions, MMers. If you have answers to these or any unanswered questions, please reach out to us at malevolentmaine@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Stay safe out there, Maine!

The Ghost Pig

 Okay, MMers, this one's a bit of a cheat, but it was too good to pass up. As you know, we're really focused on the paranormal and unexplained here in Maine, so when this story first crossed our inbox we weren't sure we wanted to use it - not because of the content, but because of its location. After much internal discussion, we agreed to make this one exception. So without further ado, we bring you the Ghost Pig of Effingham, New Hampshire.

The Ghost Pig

Effingham is a small town just over the Maine border. Boasting just over 1,400 people, the town was actually incorporated back in 1778. The story, which we heard from John Darling, author of the the book, The Wind Beneath the Eaves: An Oral History of Southern New Hampshire, involves Martin Leavitt, the grandson of the town's founding father in the year 1775. 

Martin Leavitt on his farm, 1775

Martin Leavitt was the third son of Moses M. Leavitt. He was a meager pig farmer living in the shadows of his more successful father and brothers. When the British troops came through Effingham (then known as Leavitt's Town) they demanded quarters from the locals. Many of the citizens reluctantly agreed. The commander of the British troops insisted that Leavitt slaughter his prize pig, Rufus, to feed his men. Leavitt refused, he had raised Rufus from a baby and he knew the pig very well could change his fortune. The commander threatened to burn Leavitt's far to the ground, slaughter his entire stock, and seed the earth with the pig's blood. 

Eventually Leavitt conceded, but before he did, he cursed the British. "Eat this pork and its owner will never leave you," were the words he was reported as saying. Some claim he mixed his own blood with the pig's to make a charm, some say his words were more of a jest than a serious hex, but the story seemingly ended there. 

Until it didn't.

For the next two centuries stories of the ghost pig began circulating out of Effingham. Multiple reports claim to have seen or heard the beast outside the area where Leavitt's pig farm once stood. One report from a hiker claimed that while, "walking in the woods, I suddenly heard a deep, grunting sound. There was the sound of the ground being trampled and bushes snapping. Whatever it was, it sounded huge, like the size of a compact car. I turned around, trying to find where it was coming from. All I saw were tusks the size of my arm and two burning red eyes." The hiker ran for his life and when he finally turned around again, he was alone. 

But the stories don't end there. People have reported trampled trash barrels, ransacked gardens, and smashed open camps. The ghost pig seems like a mutated, giant form of Rufus. He has been known to charge people, causing them to be injured leaping out of the way, before disappearing. At least two victims have claimed to have actually been trampled by Rufus, and a third victim appeared at the hospital with gore wounds from the beast's tusks. The one thing all of the stories have in common is the rage of the creature. 

Local citizens have embraced the story oft he Ghost Pig. There's Ghost Pig Brewery over on Route 25. There's Rasta Rufus Dispensary, even a statue dedicated to Martin Leavitt and the Ghost Pig int he center of town. 

Ghost Pig Brewing Co, Effingham, NH

"He's a hero to us," said Wayne DeWinter, the owner and head brewer at Ghost Pig Brewery. "We all heard the stories of Rufus growing up. A lot of us have seen or heard him. When I was thirteen, walking through the woods behind my parent's house with Bobby Taylor and Mike Smith, we heard him. He doesn't squeal like a pig on tv, He grunts and snorts, real scary stuff. We just ran, man, but we knew it was him. We knew."

If you're ever in Effingham, stop in for one of DeWinter's IPAs (that's India Pig Ale) or a Ghost Pig Porter, just make sure if you hear anything in the woods, you run away. You don't want to come face to face with the Ghost Pig of Effingham.

Stay safe out there, Maine (and New Hampshire)! 

Fungus Deer

Welcome back MMers this one comes to us from Mary who lives in Wiscasset. Mary is a retired woman who lives alone and likes to spend as much time as she can outside, she loves power walking around her property which is set back a ways from the road, she likes to play in her garden, and has fun setting up feeding areas for the local wildlife. She has bird feeders, spreads out peanuts for the squirrels, and in the fall she goes and buys as many cheap apples as she can to feed the deer. 

One older buck has been coming to see Mary every year for years. She knows it's the same one because it has uneven antlers, one side is much larger than the other, she figures this is also the reason a hunter hasn’t taken him down yet, he wouldn’t make a very good trophy. However last fall when she saw the old man in the yard his antlers were even stranger. He had what looked like thick white cobwebs growing over his tines. The old buck was also stumbling a bit and seemed to have trouble biting into the apples. Mary thought he looked a bit drunk almost and was worried that the apples she had bought might have gone bad or started to ferment. Eventually the buck strolled off and she didn’t see it again until this fall. 

Picture of Mary's backyard/garden

Mary reported that the old buck showed up again, but the strange white cobwebs on his antlers had spread over his entire head, almost completely covering the deer’s eyes, nose, and mouth. He was acting even stranger than the previous year. He moved very slowly, had no interest in the apples Mary had put out and would just stare at her house. When a younger deer stumbled by her yard and the old buck was still there, it kept its distance from the old deer. As the younger animal went to eat an apple, the old buck sprang into motion and attempted to gore it.  The young deer seemed mostly unharmed but Mary saw that some of the white gunk from the old buck’s antlers was transferred to the other deer. 

Our best guess as to what the white substance looks like

Mary isn’t sure what is going on with this deer, what is wrong with it or if it will start spreading through the local population, but she is extremely worried about the whole affair and asked us to spread word about it. So if you see any deer with this white substance on them please inform your local game warden or report it to the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. Whether it is a fungus, a parasite, or something otherworldly we need to make sure it doesn’t become an epidemic. Stay safe out there Maine!

Unanswered Questions - November 2020

 

Okay MMers, here are some questions that have been burning in our brains...

• Who is the man that appears on the corner of Stevens and Woodford in Portland on the third Friday of each month at 11:15? He's always holding that one green balloon with the x drawn on it. He wears a long tan overcoat and he only ever shows up for fifteen minutes. If you watch closely, he disappears at exactly 11:30. Who is he? Where does he come from? Where does he go?
• Why do all the fish in Crescent Pond have no eyes? Seriously, ever single fish. What's in the water that's mutating the fish? Is it safe to eat?
• How does the Wooly Man of Weld manage to evade capture? Some of the best hunters in the state haven't been able to catch him? How is that even possible?
• When is the best time to perform the ritual of Sarnem? According to some covens it's midnight on the night of a full moon. Other claim the best time is the first night of a new moon right before the clock strikes 13 (that's 1 AM for you non-pagans). All covens agree though Sarnem is the path and the way, whatever that means. Maybe a better question is what is Sarnem? 
• Where did Mary Lestage go in 1984? She was in a locked bedroom with no windows. How did she disappear and how has no one found her?
• What's in that cave in over in Kingfield and why does the town have it roped off with police tape? What are they hiding in there? Oh, and what happened to the four people who went in but never came out?

That's it for this installment. As always, if you have answers to these, don't forget to email us at malevolentmaine@gmail.com. Stay safe out there, Maine!

Fear the Fryzlwulf!

Watch your backs, MMers. Our most recent investigation brought us to North Monmouth, right off Route 202, along the shores of Wilson Pond. North Monmouth is a technically an unincorporated village, part of Monmouth proper. There are lot of summer homes around the pond, there's Tammy's One Stop, a gas station-slash-general store (and pizza and sub shop, don't forget), and Ray's Autos, though that looks like it's more of a museum to rust than a working mechanic. There's not much else, except for one heck of a whopper of a tale, going back all the way to 1963.

Wilson Pond, North Monmouth

Unlike a lot of the stories we investigate here at Malevolent Maine, this one seems fairly well documented. It started with a man, Juri Fryzlwulf (pronounced "Frizzle-wolf"), a Polish immigrant who moved to North Monmouth in the early 1960s. Fryzlwulf was a loner by nature, keeping to himself despite the large Polish community in the Monmouth area. 

On a few occasions, Fryzlwulf was seen running through his fields naked. This was usually in the late evening or early hours just before dawn. One witness described him as, "Naked as the day he was born. Well, that's not exactly right. He was wearing some sort of belt. It looked like fur. But he didn't have any pants on. You could see... well, you know. The belt didn't make much sense."

Many people assumed that Fryzlewulf was some sort of naturalist and as long as he wasn't bothering other people, they left him to his own devices. He might be a little eccentric, but he was mostly harmless. All of that changed in the summer of 1963, however. 

Edwin Simonet

Edwin Simonet was out for his early morning walk. He liked to be up before the birds, he said. He would walk the two and a half mile loop around his house, which brought him along Wilson Pond for about a mile. "In the mornings, it was just as beautiful as could be," he said. Simonet was a math teacher at Monmouth Academy, lived alone, and was well known and respected in town. He was forty years old in 1963, and when we sat down to talk to him, he was just as spry and sharp at 98 as the man he was half a lifetime ago. Here's Edwin:

"I remember that day just as clear as this morning. It was June 28th, a Friday. School had gotten out the week before. I have to tell you, even for teachers, summer vacation is like a rebirth of new life. The air is suddenly sweeter, the sky bluer. It's like while you were sleeping someone came and touched up the world. There's a weightlessness about late June and July. A sense that there is no evil in the world and there never could be. That morning was like that, like the world was free and alive and good. How wrong I was."

Simonet was doing his usual loop when he came to a particularly wooded area near the pond. He heard something then that didn't sound right. "It was a voice, a man's voice, but it was high and reedy. It was talking really fast, like he was trying to convince someone of something." That's when he saw something through the trees, a brief flash of skin.

Simonet couldn't take us out to the area. He lives at the Heron Pointe Senior Living Center in Monmouth, and while his mental faculties are still intact, he doesn't move around very well these days. Still, he was able to draw us a map of where it was, and true to it, we were able to find the spot easily enough. It's on the other side of the Plossay Road, across from Wilson Pond. It's pretty heavily wooded during the summer, a good place to hide.

The wooded area off Plossay Road,
where Simonet found Fryzwulf

As Simonet explained it, he saw that there was someone in the woods. He thought maybe someone needed some help and he went in. What he came upon shocked him. Seventeen year old Linda Williams had just finished Simonet's Algebra class that spring, so he knew her well. "She was standing there in her delicates.  Her clothes were in a little pile near by. She was standing there in her undergarments, her hands trying to keep herself modest."

Simonet said that Linda looked scared. Standing across from her was a man. He was naked save for a fur belt he had tied across his hips. 

"It was Fryzlewulf," Simonet told us. "No doubt about that." He tried to plead his innocence, but it was obvious to Simonet what was going on. He chased after Fryzlewulf but the man ran off, afraid to leave Linda alone, Simonet doubled back. 

The police searched for Fyzlewulf and found him barricaded behind the doors to his home. They arrested him and brought him to the jail. Linda Williams was not raped and claimed Fryzlewulf did not physically touch her at all, but her account of what happened was disjointed and made little sense. Here's a piece of he report:

"I... I went down there to swim. I was changing in the woods...it was a new bathing suit. a Two piece. My mom didn't know. That's when I saw him. That... man. Except he wasn't a man. He was... bigger...bulkier. His body didn't move like a man. So much hair. He... He kept saying, 'Please, please. Shhh. It's okay. Please.' And I saw... I saw.. I saw..."

There was very little they could charge Fryzlewulf with. The best they could do was indecent exposure. However, Linda Williams' father, Earl wanted to take matter into his own hands. He rounded up a posse of men and they went to Fryzlewulf's house. They jumped him and dragged him out of his home. Then they set his house on fire. Fryzlewulf went mad as his house went up in flames. One of the men, Brent Kirkwood recalled how Fryzlewulf almost threw them off and ran back into the house. "He kept screaming about his belt. How he needed his belt. How it was the only thing that could control it." Why the local fire department never responded to the house fire is unknown, though many suspect that Fire Marshall Carl Townes was part of the mob that came from the suspected child molestor.

After the house had burned down, the mob dragged Fryzlewulf to the woods where he had been arrested a few days earlier. There, they strung a rope up over a tree limb, looped the other end around Frylewulf's neck, and lynched him.

Things didn't go quite as planned though. Here's a report from Colin Hardy, another one of the men in the mob:

Artist's rendition of what Colin Hardy saw

"Earl was all fired up. We all were. Earl was a good guy. We all had kids. We could only imagine what that creep would have done to our kids if he caught them. Anyways, Earl was screaming and cursing him - Fryzlewulf, I mean - and the guy was just dangling there at the end of the rope. I had never seen a man die before, but Earl was a little older. He had been to Korea. But there he was twitching and jerking at the end of the rope, and the sun was going down. And I swear this is the God's honest truth, just as the sun went down all the way, Fryzlewulf's body started to twist and turn. Not like it had been. Like he was changing."

In the end seven of the fifteen men came forward and admitted their part of in the attack. To a man, every single one of them told the same story. All of these are on record at the Monmouth Police station. Fryzlewulf's body began to change. It lengthened in place. Bones cracked and regrew at different angles, skin split open and thick, coarse hair, fur, grew. HIs face shattered and turned more lupine. The creature at the end of the rope was half man, half wolf.

When the transformation was complete, the wolf-thing, snapped the rope around its neck. It snarled at the men and took a swipe at Earl Williams. slicing him across the belly. He would later be treated at the local hospital where he received twenty-three stitches. The medical records are private of course, but there are plenty examples of photographs showing the four slashes across his stomach. Then the creature that had been Fryzlewulf ran off.

Juri Fryzlwulf was never seen again. With no one to press charges, the men of the mob were not charged with anything. Again, the Police Chief happened to be a friend of Earl Williams. However, as previously stated the seven men who came forward with their stories of what happened, did so after several days. Many of the men said they could not live keeping secret what they saw.

The story of the Fryzlwulf does not end there, however. Over the next six decades the stories of a werewolf in the woods around Wilson Pond are regular occurrences. There have been multiple stories of mutilated deer found in the woods. Dogs and cats have gone missing; they're often found weeks later torn and shredded apart. In the late 80s there was three separate cases of people being attacked by a "tall, wolf-like creature." Game cameras, placed by hunters, have picked up several unexplainable images. The Fryzlwulf is described as standing over seven feet tall, with dark or black fur. It has the head of a wolf and human-like body. It runs on both two legs and four, and each appendage ends with a series of sharp claws.

Actual game cam footage from 2015

If Fryzlwulf is some sort of lycanthrope, he would be almost one hundred years old at this point. Still, the stories of Fryzlwulf roaming the woods have persisted. The beast is considered dangerous and should not be approached. As any long-timer in North Monmouth will tell you, when the moon is full, stay inside, lock your doors, and pray for no midnight visitors.

Stay safe out there, Maine.

The Whet One

Good Afternoon, MMers! Today’s story comes from up in Kennebec County. As I’m sure you know, lakes are incredibly prominent in our state, and Kennebec is no different. Even though it’s known for lakes like Messalonksee, and even the mouthful that is Cobbosseecontee, we recently heard a story about a lake that isn’t on any official map. And while we aren’t cartographers here at Malevolent Maine, we wanted to find more information. 

So, Tom and Lucas decided to trek up to Winthrop to meet with Barry Doldorff, a life timer up “theyah.” Barry was the man who contacted us about the strange experience he had while riding around local trails on his four-wheeler. We apologize in advance for the way the dialogue is written, but we wanted to get the tone of the conversation as accurately as possible.

“So you were riding...and then what?” asked Lucas.

“Well I was ridin’ pretty quick on em trails up heyah, and I’ll tell you what. I was passin’ through the normal areas and seein’ the lakes and the ponds ayuh. But I swear to Jesus, I couldn’t friggin believe what I saw when I whipped ‘er around Jackson’s Bend. It was a lake, and I ain’t never seen a lake there before. I thought I was havin’ one of those....what’s that called?"

“A hallucination?”

“Yeah! A halcyonation, or whatevah. Seens I never seen that lake before, and I might've been seein' stuff, I decided to hightail to back into town to get my buddy, Donny Smith. 'Donny!' I screams at the top of my lungs. 'Donny, get your ass out heyah!' Well, you see Donny has a bit of a drinkin' problem and he was passed out on the couch. Luckily for me, the back door was open I was able to go right inna'"

"So, you were able to get Donny to wake up for his stupor?"

"Yeah morealess. I went right inna kitchen and grabbed some cold water fromma faucet. Threw it right on Donny's face. It was 3PM for Chrissakes, and the sonuvabitch was drunk as a friggn' skunk! Well, anyways, I got em up and got em on my back of my wheelah, Donny couldn't ride himself as he was smashed two ways from Wednesday."

"So you got back to the lake, and then what?"

"NOTHIN'! Friggin' nothin'. I went right around Jackson's Bend just like before, but there wasn't nothing theyah. Then Donny got real mouthy about me getting him wet and forcing him to come out heyah with me, so I brought him back before he got reaaal friggin' mad."

"But you said that you saw a creature? That it come from the lake?"

"Oh yuh, but that was aftah. You see after I brought Donny back, I went back to my double-wide and opened up a bottle of Jimmy Beam I got down at the Hannafahds. Well, I bet I bout drank halfa bottle before passin' out on the couch."

"But then you saw something?"

"Friggin' right I did! Right around 2:45 AM I hear something inna kitchen. I was like a slippery slidey sound. By the time I got up and went in and got the light on I couldn't see nothing except for my floor was all wet, like someone just moppedah up real good. Then I got my flashlight and whet out the back door and I was shinin' it on my shed. Now I may have been halcyonating again, but I swear I seens like a man-fish or something. I tried to follow it, but I was too drunk to get on the wheelah, so I went back inna house and locked every lock I got. Next mornin' I woke up with a real killah headache, but that ain't stop me from goin' right back to Jackson's Bend, and there it friggin' was again! Except this time there were lily pads all ovah the place, and there was even a sign nailed to a tree. It said 'Whet Lake.' But not not 'wet' like watah, it was spelled W-H-E-T. Well I decided to walk right up to the watah line and see what was what. I ain't never heard of no 'Whet Lake,' and it sure as hell wasn't heyah when I brought Donny by. I walked right upta water and then I saw some lily pads move. It was like somethin' was under em startin' to come up. Well, I didn't wait much longah. I got right back on my wheelah and started movin'. But then I hear somethin'. It was like a child screechin' but it pierced through my head - I fell offa my rig and it slowly came to a stop by a tree on the side of the trail. I turned around when it stopped and there it was. The friggin' fish-man was staring at me with red eyes and all. I got right back up and got on my wheelah. I heard the scream again but I braced myself and rode as hahd and fast as I could, ya know?"

"Have you gone back since?"

"Frig no! No way. I ain't goin; back theyah. That's why I contacted you guys! I heard about you from my Nephew, Tylah. He's inna that weird intahnet stuff, and I figured why not?"

Well, MMers, we decided that it was time for us to see this "Whet Lake" for ourselves. Instead of riding out on a ATV, we decided to approach Jackson's Bend on foot as quietly as possible. When we arrived at the supposed spot of the lake, we were disappointed, but not surprised, to see nothing there but trees. We looked around for a bit, but there was nothing special of note, until Lucas pointed out something that he found about 50 feet off of the trail. It was a sign, worn down from the elements for many years. Even in its current state, we were still able to manage to figured out what the sign said. "Whet Lake."

While we aren't sure how this sign got there or if a lake could have ever have been located where the trees are now, we'd be willing to bet that this experience wasn't simply a hallucination by Barry, or a "halcyonation," as he would so eloquently put it.

If you are even out on the trails in or around Winthrop and come around Jackson's Bend, keep a close eye out for "Whet Lake," and whatever monster dwells within. Stay safe out there, Maine!

Is this the "Whet One" Barry Saw?

Rapid Fire: July 2020

Strap in for another RAPIDFIRE Malevolent Mainers! Its been a while so lets get straight into it: 

• Orbs over Dexter: MMer Natalie from Dexter reported that in late June there were several orbs of various colors that floated through the sky of her hometown. The orbs ranged in color from yellow to dark red, and moved oddly. Natalie has a strong suspicion that they are spirit orbs, a phenomenon where human spirits are unable to make their way to the afterlife and thus wonder around the material plane and appear to us as orbs of different colored light. Most of the time these orbs are harmless but some can be curious about people and drift near them or even follow them home. Go to Dexter if you want to watch some orbs in person!

An example of what a spirit orb looks like

• Sharpshooter of Roque Bluffs: An odd phenomenon brought to us from Ted of Roque Bluffs, Maine. He says since he was a kid there was a legend that if you left a silver half dollar at a tree stump up on a certain bluff that if you went back after the next full moon you would find your coin had a perfect bullet hole in the center of it. No one has ever seen the figure or heard the shots, but more often than not when people come back to the stump they find the perfectly pierced half-dollar. Is it the spirit of a long passes sharpshooter, an old man with an odd hobby, or something else entirely, we will let you decide! 
• Animals Missing in South Portland: Stacy, an MMer from SOPO has told us that the community is experiencing a series of missing animal cases. We urge all MMers in that area to keep your small animals indoors for the time being. This could be the work of a psychopath, the first sign of such a person is hurting small creatures. It could be there is a satanic cult forming in the area, or a new witches coven, both of which will use small animals as sacrifices in their day to day rituals. Either way keep your pets inside. Stay safe out there little fur-baby MMers!
• Dinner with a Stranger: This is an odd one. A man from Windham who preferred to be left unnamed has reported that after visiting a local pawn shop looking for antiques he was approached by a portly older gentleman who invited him to dinner. He found that no matter how much he didn't want to go to dinner with the man, he couldn't refuse. He went to dinner, they took a long drive and the next morning the man took him to a street art exhibit in Portland, and for lunch they had lobster rolls by the sea. It wasn't until after this lunch that the man could return to his family. Please be on the look out for this man, entity, or whatever he is. We at Malevolent Maine have decided to call him the Portly Man. 
  

  

  Drawing of the Portly Man's face
  
  Stay tuned for more stories coming soon MMers, and if you have any weird stories please share them with us, we couldn't do this without you! Stay safe out there, Maine!

The Androscroggin River People

Heads up if you're thinking of traveling to the Androscroggin River this summer, MMers. This is an old story, one you probably know if you've been around the bend a time or two here in Maine, but it's a good one, and one worth repeating for the newer generation. We're talking, of course, about the Androscroggin River People.

This story, believe it or not, dates back all the way to 1754, during the French and Indian Wars. British Corporal Eustis H. Gardner was leading a group of soldiers up the river to engage with French troops when he says they encountered a strange creature swimming alongside their boat. This is an excerpt from Corporal Gardner's journal:

T wast the regular size and rough shapeth of a sir though t wast cov'r'd in blue-green scales.  Its hands and feet w're massive, did shape liketh an oar, tipp'd with raz'r sharp claws.  Its eyes, though beneath the wat'r burn'd crimson.  T did swim 'longside our boat f'r five full minutes bef're t did swim off.  I, n'r any of mine own men, has't nev'r seen aught liketh the beast.

A woodcut inspired by Gardner's journal

Famed New England explorer, Bernard Pollack, claimed he encountered a similar creature in 1789, while mapping out the Androscroggin. He claims that while he and his Native American guide, Moxus, were canoeing the river, a fish-man swam up along side them. It leapt out of the water like a fish, before diving back down, hardly making a splash. Pollack claimed that the fish-man seemed to be leading them down a smaller river that branched off from the Androscroggin. Pollack and Moxus followed the fish-man until he lead them to a small village on the shore of the river, where he counted no less than seven of these fish-people. It should be noted, however, that Pollack was a bit of a braggart, known to exaggerate his own exploits to fill his pockets.

Sightings of the Androscroggin River People continued into the modern era. Randy Kramer, a Boy Scout leader, claimed to have encountered one in 1973 while taking a group of boys on an overnight canoeing trip. This is from an interview Kramer gave in 1980 to Boys Life Magazine:

Could this be what Randy Kramer encountered?

"I got up in the middle of the night and left my tent to relieve myself. I took maybe ten steps out towards the riverbank when I heard something I thought might have been a snake, but could have just been the tall grass moving. I looked up and I saw a pair of red eyes staring back at me. I froze, and realized I was in real danger. I could tell the thing was about to pounce, but then the clouds drifted away from the moon. In the moonlight I could see what it was - it was...and I know how crazy this sounds, it was a fishman. I knew right what it was. We'd even told a campfire ghost story about it that night. It was one of the River People. Quick as an eel, it dove back into the river and swam off. I don't think I slept a lick that night."

No one knows quite what the River People are. They appear to be some sort of fish/man hybrid. Whether there is more than one or how long these creatures can live is unknown. Many people believe there could be generations of these fishy creatures living up and down the Androscroggin River. 

One last interesting note is that the word Androscroggin comes from Abenaki tribe and it translates to "deep-dwelling river." Could this name refer not to the depth of the river itself but the name of the creatures that live in it? Noted author of weird and horror fiction, H. P. Lovecraft is known to have often visited this area of Maine. Is it any coincidence his stories are filled with a race of fish-people known as Deep Ones? 

Did Lovecraft know?

Hmmm.

Stay safe out there, Maine!