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 Son of Adam

 

Good Morning, MMers. We've got a Deep Dive for you today that will take us through one of Maine's most grizzly events. Many of our readers will remember the Son of Adam killing spree that gripped the state from 1996 to 1997. Here's a quick recap for those of you who need a refresher.

On July 2, 1996, at 11:30 PM, man walked up to Amy Camire while she was smoking a cigarette outside of a bar in Portland. He fired a single round of .38 Special into the back of Amy's head, then ran off into the night. There were only a few witnesses, and none of them got a good look at the shooter. Amy Camire was pronounced dead at the scene.

Several of the police sketches of the Son of Adam suspect

That kicked off a series of murders, all of them happening either late at night or in the early hours of the morning, with most happening between midnight and 2 AM. On August 15, 1996, Paul St. Cyr and his girlfriend, Christine Bouchard were shot in the head while sitting in St. Cyr's car. Bouchard was killed instantly. St. Cyr was taken to Maine Medical Center where he died on August 16th due to his injuries. Again, there were few witnesses and no positive identification could be made.

The killer struck again on August 30th, killing two young women, Jennifer Lachance and Lily Whitten, as they walked home from a party. A sixth victim, 24 year old, Kimberly Malley, was shot a month later while she sat in her car, after leaving a bar at midnight. Police believe she was smoking before she drove home. She was shot once in the neck and a second time in the head. This time the police found a letter from the killer left at the scene, placed in the victim's lap. It read:

YOU THINK YOU UNDERSTAND ME, BUT YOU DO NOT. I AM THE DARKNESS. I AM THE TOOTHY GRIN IN THE NIGHT. I AM THE ORIGINAL SON OF ADAM. YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT ME. I KILL BECAUSE I HAVE TO. BECAUSE I CARE. THE WHORES AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES MEAN NOTHING. ONLY THE BLOOD. ONLY THE SAKRIFICE [sic] MATTER. WHEN OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN DEATH COMMANDS, I MUST OBEY.

YOU CAANOT FIND ME. YOU CANNOT SEE ME. I AM THE BEAST WITH A THOUSAND FACES. I AM THE MORNNG STAR FADING AWAY. WHEN I LOOK AT MY WINDOW AND I SEE WHAT YOU HAVE MADE OF THIS WORLD, I AM SICK. I WILL REMAKE THE WORLD IN MY IMAGE. BLOOD AND CHAOS.

THE SCREAMS ARE THE LULLABY TO MY MOTHERS EARS. MOTHER MARY. MOTHER LILITH. MOTHER MAY I. SHE DANCES AND SWAYS TO THE MUSIC I MAKE. IF I MAKE HER SMILE SHE WILL LET ME OUT TO PLAY. 

I AM NOT DONE. I AM ONLY BEGINNING. DO NOT STOP ME. PORTLAND IS MY INSTRUMENT AND I AM THE COMPOSER. THE SYMPHONY IS NIGH. MOTHER WILL SING AND I WILL KNOW HER GRACE. 

I AM WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

I AM WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

SINSEERLY[sic],

MR. DEATH DEALER

Over the next three months, two more women, Beverley Lyons and Annemarie Wilcox were killed, bringing the total dead up to eight. All of the victims were shot with the same .38 Special. Police released several sketches of the shooter but differences in these sketches became apparent and speculation began that there might be multiple shooters.

On December 11, 1996 Portland Press Herald reporter Sam Wentworth received a letter from the so-called Son of Adam killer. Portions of it are printed below:

HELLO SAM!

I AM THE SON OF ADAM BUT I AM NO CAIN. HERE AMONG THE DIRT AND THE FILTH I WATCH. AND WAIT. AND DREAM...

...I KILLED THEM. KILLED THEM BECAUSE THEY WERE HARLOTS. BECAUSE THEY WERE WRONG. I WILL KILL AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN...

...IF YOU TRY TO STOP ME, TRY TO FIND ME I WILL KILL YOU. KILL YOU ALL AND DANCE ON YOUR CORPSE. I WILL DRIN YOUR BLOOD AND EAT YOUR FLESH.  SO GIVE UP NOW. BEFORE ITS TOO LATE FOR YOUR. FOR YOUR MOTHER. YOUR FATHER. YOU SON. YOUR DAUGHTER. YOUR WIFE.

-SON OF ADAM

The Son of Adam didn't attack again until March 12, 1997. By that time, paranoia and run rampant in the streets of Portland and the surrounding Maine communities. Many young women feared they would be the next victim. On March 12, the Son of Adam shot Stephenie Berger as she sat in her car outside her boyfriend's house. She had just dropped him off after a night out when the killer approached the car and fired a single shot. The bullet struck her in the top of the head, but surprisingly, Berger survived. 

Matthew Locke, the Son of Adam killer

Three more victims - Allison Roberts, Jessica Humphrey, and her boyfriend Marcus Woods - lost their lives in following months.

Eventually, on June 27, 1997, after almost a year of fear and violence, police identified 26-year old Matthew Locke as the Son of Adam killer. They arrested Locke as he exited his apartment on the afternoon of the 17th.  Locke was quoted as saying, "You found me. You found me. I'm Son of Adam," as the police surrounded him. Locke's arrest ended a year of terror and brought an end to the bloodiest crime  spree in Maine's history.

---

If it had ended there, that alone would have made a fairly horrific tale. Locke was found guilty of 11 counts of murder and sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences. For a long time, people believed the story of the Son of Adam killer was finally over.

That all changed in 2003 when journalist Sam Wentworth, the same reporter who had received one of the Son of Adam's letters, received a second letter from Locke. This one indicated that Locke would be interested in speaking with Wentworth, on the record about his crimes.

Wentworth agreed and set up an interview. Locke indicated during their talk that he had not acted alone during the killings. In fact, Locke claimed there had been at least three people who had actually pulled the trigger. Locke claimed that he had shot Camire, Malley, and Jessica Humphrey and Marcus Woods. When pressed, Locke wouldn't provide any names. He claimed he was worried about the safety of his family. 

Locke told Sam Wentworth that he had been part of a group that had met in Deering Oaks and had told him where it was they had met. Wentworth went to that area, an old pumping station, and found that it was covered with graffiti, much of it Satanic in nature. This led him to believe that Locke may have been involved with a Satanic cult and that perhaps they were the accomplices in the Son of Adam crimes.

Two months later, Locke mailed detective Chris Dawson, one of the men responsible for his arrest, a copy of the book, The Secret Lore of Magic, a book on Satanism, black magic, and the occult. On page 162, Locke had written in the margins, "SUN NOT SON." On page 197 he drew the symbol for an atom.

This led Dawson to discover something called the Church of the Atomic Sun. The Church, or CAS as it was sometimes referred, was a group who were dedicated to mastering the secrets of the occult. They believed that the Apocalypse was coming and that after it would come a new age on enlightenment. They believed that the Apocalypse was going to be an all out war between all the people of Earth and that only the strong and pure would survive the nuclear holocaust that would ensue. The cult was founded some time in the early Nineties by a man named Randall Perry. Born in 1970, Perry started his group by bringing together several other young people who were interested in the occult. They would meet in part of Deering Oaks Park late at night. They would drink wine, smoke marijuana, and practice black magic rituals. By 1994, Matthew Locke had joined CAS. Dawson was able to corroborate this with several members of CAS who had since reformed their ways. Many of them were unwilling to speak on the record about their involvement in the group.

One who did, however, was Bryce Harriman. Harriman had been a senior in high school during 1996 and claimed he would often go to the park to hear Randall Perry preach to his group. "It was all fun," he told Dawson in 2004. "At first, I mean. We'd get together, drink, get high. Perry would talk about magic and ripping back the veil of the world. We all had code names, either based on like old serial killers or Satanic stuff, you know? You know, the kind of stuff that an angsty teenager would find cool."

Of interest, was that he claimed Matthew Locke used the code name Berkowitz, the name of the Son of Sam killer, an obvious inspiration for Son of Adam. In addition, Harriman claimed that Randall Perry used the codename Cain, the Biblical first son of Adam.

He said he stopped attending CAS meetings when Perry and another man he didn't know, brought a dog to the park. He said that together, several members of CAS - most he didn't know by name - but including Perry and Matthew Locke sacrificed the dog, painting Satanic symbols with on the walls and floor of the pump house. This was a month before the first Son of Adam killing.

Bryce Harriman, 2003

Harriman also told Dawson that the Church of the Atomic Sun's purpose was to bring about the Apocalypse. They would play the part of Satan, who in their mind was a counterculture figure meant to represent the struggle against the oppressive society that had created such tension. They believed they could usher in the new era by instigating random acts of violence. This, they believed, would trigger a war between the races, which would eventually lead to the Last War, a nuclear war that would destroy the world and prepare it for those who would come next.

Harriman positively identified Locke as being a member of CAS.

In September of 2003, Randall Perry, now living in Vermont, was arrested and brought back to Maine.  Dawson was shocked to see that Perry resembled one of the early police sketches of Son of Adam. Perry was charged with murder. Before his trial, Perry was found dead in his jail cell of an apparent suicide. He was found hanging by a bed sheet.

Randall Perry

At this time Wentworth redoubled his efforts to get Locke to talk more. In the wake of Perry's death, Locke admitted to being a part of the Church of the Atomic Sun and that Randall Perry had committed at least two of the murders. Locke admitted to being there, watching. He claimed there was still at least two other shooters, one man and one woman, though he would not name them out of fear.

In February of 2004, Bryce Harriman was found dead in his apartment in Auburn of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. A symbol had been carved on his chest that some believe had a Satanic connection. Some believe the symbol is a backwards P and a lowercase b, the atomic symbol for lead, as in a bullet. Others believe it is an S for Satan, or perhaps even Son of Adam. There was some suspicion that Harriman's death was actually a homicide, though no evidence of this was ever presented to the public.

Sam Wentworth, the journalist who had first received a letter from Son of Adam, became convinced that Matthew Locke had been part of a Satanic cult that had orchestrated the killings. He believed that Randall Perry to be one of the shooters and that there were others out there who knew the identity of the others. 

With new evidence, the District Attorney re-opened the Son of Adam case, but no new convictions ever came from it. The belief was that Perry had radicalized Locke and together they had perpetuated their crimes in order to sew chaos and terror.

Here's an excerpt from Wentworth's book, Adam Raised a Cain: The Year of Terror in Portland: "Son of Adam. the Church of the Atomic Sun. It wasn't hard to see the connection. Adam. Atom. Son. Sun.  The police were happy with Perry's conviction and his death wrapped everything up nicely. Still, I couldn't forget the fear I had seen in Matthew Locke's eyes when he refused to speak of the other members. I remembered Bryce Harriman who had done nothing but name names of a ten year old Satanic cult and was now dead. There was more to this still uncovered. I was sure of it."

---

Wentworth would dedicate the next fifteen years of his life to uncovering what he claimed was the true story behind Son of Adam. Many dismissed him as losing his own grip on reality, going deeper and deeper down rabbit holes. Even Chris Dawson, one of the key architects in exposing the conspiracy killings, couldn't keep up with Wentworth.

"Sam was going places I just don't think the evidence pointed. He was looking for an answer, you understand? He wanted this grand Satanic cult story. He tried to drag in killings in other states, in other times, claiming they were all related. It was interesting stuff if you were looking for a story, but the evidence just didn't hold up under much scrutiny."

Wentworth was convinced there was someone else involved in the Church of the Atomic Sun. From the people he spoke with who knew Locke and Perry - none of whom would go on the record - Wentworth believed that it wasn't Randall Perry that was the head of CAS. He thought there was someone else, some shadow figure that had pulled all the strings.

According to his notes, Wentworth poured over every piece of evidence he could get his hands on. He remembered a line from the Son of Adam's first letter, mentioning Mother Mary, a reference many believed to be the Virgin Mother Mary, Jesus' mother, though some believed could be a reference to The Beatles' song, "Let it Be," of which Matthew Locke considered himself a super fan. Wentworth thought there might be more to it than just that.

Digging into both killer's pasts, Wentworth discovered that Perry had an aunt, coincidentally enough, named Mary Adams. Mary, a single mother, had one son, a year older than Randall Perry: Daniel Hunter.

Daniel Hunter had little digital footprint for Wentworth to follow. There was a report of an arrest in 2001 for shoplifting, but that was all he could find. Still, it felt a little too close to home to just dismiss. Hunter was the literal son of Adams, his mother maiden name which she retook after separating from Hunter's father, John. Wentworth became convinced that Hunter was the other man who had brought the dog to Deering Oaks for the sacrifice with his cousin, that he might be the mastermind behind the Son of Adam killing spree. 

Daniel Hunter had dropped off the grid entirely. Mary Adams, his mother, had died in 2000 after a battle with breast cancer. Wentworth was able to track down Hunter's father, Brian Hunter. Brian was a banker, now living in Ohio. He hadn't any contact with his son since Daniel had been twenty. 

"Things didn't end too well with me and his mom," Brian Hunter said in an interview with Wentworth in 2007. "I didn't see Dan too much after that. Maybe once a month at first, then less and less. I'd get a card from him on Christmas, send him one on his birthday, that kind of stuff. When I moved to Ohio, that was really the end of it."

Brian Hunter went on to say, "Dan was always a smart boy. Really good with people. Charismatic. People seemed to gravitate towards him. He was a good writer, too! He wanted to make comic books, I remember that. I still have some he did with his cousin back when they were kids. Randall? Hmm, Randy was a good kid, too. Quieter than Dan. Dan was the leader and Randy the follower, you know?"

Wentworth believed that it was Daniel Hunter who had been the mastermind of the Church of the Atomic Sun. Perhaps Harriman had misremembered, or all of the secret code names had been to distract everyone from the real leader. Either way, Wentworth believed that it was Hunter who had been behind all of the killings.

This was only reinforced when Brian Hunter sent him a scanned image of one of the comic books that Daniel Hunter and Randall Perry had made when they were eleven years old. It was a super hero story, a Superman-style hero, who used the power of nuclear energy to fight evil. The name of the comic?  ATOMIC SON.

Atomic Son comic by Hunter & Perry

That was all that Wentworth needed. It was the final piece of proof in his mind about the truth CAs. Daniel Hunter and Randall Perry had created the Church of the Atomic Sun to radicalize disenfranchised youth in order to caused death. He believed that Hunter, or some associate had found a way to silence Harriman when he started talking too much, and perhaps he had even killed his own cousin in jail. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough to reopen the investigation again. The Maine State Police insisted that Locke and Perry had been the only two working together. They considered the Son of Adam case closed.

Sam Wentworth passed away in 2019 from lung cancer. He went to his grave believing that the true evil had somehow escaped justice. There were dark forces at work, he believed, and that true evil still lurked somewhere in the shadows. Many accused him of pushing a narrative that he wanted, as opposed to going where the evidence led him, but Wentworth never strayed.

Matthew Locke remains in custody in the Maine State Prison. In 2002 he was stabbed by an inmate in the neck, but he survived. He refuses to speak with journalists. He has released several videos, claiming he has reformed, renounced Satan, and is an avowed atheist. He will be up for parole in the year 2136, long after his death.

Daniel Hunter, if he is still alive, remains at large. His whereabouts are unknown. To this date no evidence has connected Daniel Hunter to the Son of Adam killings.  

Recently discovered picture of Daniel Hunter from his high school yearbook
and the police sketch from the St. Cyr/Bouchard shooting.

This might be one of the more bizarre cases in Maine's history: a serial killer, a Satanic cult dead set on bringing about the end times, and maybe a killer still on the loose after all these years.

As always, stay safe out there, Maine.

Do You Hear What I Hair?

Happy Tuesday, MMers! Today’s report comes from up in Kingman in Penobscot County. Stuart Fields recently contacted us about some corn that he purchased from the local Jones Family Farm. Though the farm grows everything from beets to their famous “big, juicy blueberries,” they are most well known for their corn and their aptly named “Maize Maze.” Well, Stuart gave us a call and had some troubling information for us.

Corn Silk

“You know that kind of stringy hair that an ear of corn has when you are shucking it? Well, I bought a bag of corn from Jones Family Farm the other day, and my daughter and I were shucking the corn while my wife was finishing up the potato salad inside. About  halfway through the bag, my daughter, Anna, screamed bloody murder and threw down her corn. ‘What’s the matter, honey?!’ I asked. ‘That corn! That one has hair in it! Like Mommy’s!’. Her voice was trembling as she tried to get the words out.”

We went on conversing with Stuart for quite some time, but he kept harping on that same point. Hair. Hair in the corn. Blonde hair, like his wife’s. While we all know that corn silk is standard in an ear of corn, we’ve never heard of human hair where the corn silk should be. Stuart contacted us immediately after his experience, but he didn’t dare go back to JFF.

So, MMers, we decided to give a call to the farm ourselves to question further. The owner, Bartholomew “Bart” Jones, was at first unavailable, so we left a message with our contact information, hoping to hear back.

Luckily, around 10:30 AM the next day, we got a call. Our caller ID read the number from Kingman. We were excited to say the least. Unfortunately, it was not Bart on the other line. It was his stepdaughter, Helen. While Helen said that she had no idea why there would be actual hair in their corn, she promised that she would look into it for us.

And here is where the story gets mighty interesting, MMers. Helen called us back around 4 PM, after she had time to speak with her stepdad. She sounded disappointed, frustrated, and a little bit shaken up.

“Well, I went to go ask daddy Bart about the hair, and, well, he just snapped at me. Told me to get the heck out of his office if I knew what was good for me. You see, daddy Bart has a temper, but he’s been so much better about controlling it lately. I don’t know what came over him when I asked him about that hair.”

So, without wanting to push Helen much further than we already had, we here at Malevolent Maine decided to take matters into our own hands. We wanted to see the farm with our own eyes, hear the sounds with our own ears. We arrived at the farm the next day around 11 AM or so, and we quickly approached the barn and bought some corn. After we had brought it out to the car, we tore apart the ears, but to no avail. It was just regular corn with the standard corn silk. Lucas went back into the store for another bag, this time from the back of the rack. Again, nothing. No hair, just silk.

Frustrated, but not completely discouraged, we decided to head down to the “Maize Maze.” Not wanting to appear obvious, we went with a gardening trowel and nothing else. The maze was elaborate and immaculately maintained. It was as if the maze had been groomed that very morning. Even the dirt ground was neat and tidy. Slowly but surely, we worked our way through the maze, grabbing a few pieces of corn here and there and opening them up to see what was inside. After we were in the maze for about 20 minutes, two young boys ran by us, giggling and chasing each other. There was a third boy a few paces behind. He stopped and took one long glance at us before moving on through the maze.

 

Inside the maze

We moved on about another fifty feet or so, and Chris noticed something. “Hey, come here. Do you see that?!” Chris was pointing to what looked like blonde hair sticking out of the dirt on the side of the path. “You sure that’s not just corn silk?” “No. But let’s find out!” Lucas, crouched down with the trowel, grabbed the strands and confirmed that it didn't feel like corn silk, at least not fresh corn silk. Right as he plunged the small handled spade into the ground, we heard a booming voice from behind us.

“HEY! WHAT THE HELL YA’LL DOIN’ DIGGIN’ IN MY CORN?!” As we turned, we saw a big mass of a man moving swiftly towards us. He was well above six-feet tall, and at least 300 pounds. Daddy Bart. At first, we were frozen in space and time, unable to move or speak. Finally, Chris spoke up. “Sorry sir! We just thought we saw something poking out of the ground. We will be on our way!” Bart looked at us, and then at the spot Lucas was still kneeling in. “You boys better get your asses out of here, if you know what’s good for ya!”

And so we left in a hurry, MMers, and we regret that we don’t have more information. While we don’t have enough evidence to contact the police, we encourage you all to stay away from Jones Family Farm, and particularly Big Daddy Bart.

Stay safe out there, Maine!

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!

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!

Genius Party

Here's one that might be music to your ears, MMers. A sixteen year old minor from Falmouth (who we won't name for his protection) recently hosted his sixteenth birthday party when things got a little strange. The boy was acting as DJ for his party while his friends - other kids from his school - danced and cheered him on. 

It was at a birthday party just like this.

"I had the whole set up, my laptop, my Pioneer 4-channel controller, I even had my dad's old turntable, you know, a record player," the kid told us. "I had been mixing for a little while. Everyone was really into it, you know? I'm a really good DJ. I thought I would mix some of my dad's old records in. Like, the old school scratching thing."

After playing through various pop hits of the 80s, the boy pulled out a record he didn't immediately recognize. "It was black, right? I mean, they're all black. But the label in the center was black too. There wasn't anything written on it except, 'Adolphus Winn,' my great-grandfather."

Adolphus Winn was born in 1895 in Portland. By 1916 he had become an accomplished composer and musician. He released several compositions which had gained him some acclaim, but in 1916 he largely disappeared from public life. He continued to compose and record music by himself. By the 1930s he had fully embraced the new technology - vinyl recording.

Adolphus Winn's record looked something like this

What his sixteen-year old great-grandson had discovered was one of Winn's private recordings from his "quiet years." 

"I thought it would be pretty cool to put it on, maybe I could freestyle over it," the boy told us. "So I started spinning it, but it was all this weird piano music. So I thought, I'd reverse it."

When the sixteen-year old DJ played the record backwards that's when everything changed.

"They all stopped dancing," he says. "They just stood there. Then they... they just went crazy."

There were twenty teenagers at the party. Upon hearing Adolphus Winn's music played in reverse they froze for a moment before running around. They all grabbed for things to write with and started scribbling furiously. When they couldn't find pens and pencils, they grabbed whatever they could find. One boy used the frosting from the three tier birthday cake. A girl used a knife to scratch into the wood floor. Several kids tore into their own flesh and used their blood to write on the walls, floors, and tables.

"It was crazy," the teenager told us. "It was like they were possessed or something. They just kept writing. They couldn't stop until I stopped playing that song."

All in all, the episode lasted one minute and thirty-nine seconds before the plug was pulled on the speakers and the adults rushed to quiet the manic teenagers. As the music ended, they began to calm from their frenzied writing, but a new panic had set in. They could not recall what had been happening or what they were doing.

Like this if everyone was writing down genius level thoughts.

When asked about what his friends were writing, the aspiring DJ had this to say:

"I don't know. I couldn't see it all. [One kid] wrote a bunch of math problems, like crazy advanced equations and whatnot. One of the others drew like plans for some kind of machine. It didn't make any sense to me, but it looked advanced, like really complex. I think one of the girls was writing a play. She... she was using her own blood. She'd covered one of the white table cloths."

Four minutes after the music ended, the birthday boy says, men in black suits and cars arrived. They ushered everyone out of the room and began taking pictures. They wouldn't say what had happened or what the writings meant. In the end, of the twenty party-goers who had been affected, eighteen were sent to local hospitals. All are expected to make full recoveries. By the time the boy and his family were allowed back into their home, the entire place had been cleaned.

"It was like nothing had ever happened," he says. "There was even a new cake waiting for me. They  took my great-grandfather's record, though."

What exactly happened when Winn's composition was played backwards? Did it somehow inspire over a dozen youths to spontaneously create. Were they channeling some strange energy?

For now, no one is saying anything. The boy's parents did not want to be interviewed for this piece, nor did any of the victims or their families. For now, this will have to remain just another unsolved mystery.

Stay safe out there, Maine!

Alien Research Facility

Welcome back MMers! We were recently approached by a freelance journalist who said she had a scoop on something big going on up in Calais. This journalist who wanted to go by Nadia, said that she had been undercover at this secret government facility right on the border between Maine and Canada. She said that one of the things being investigated at this facility was alien life. 

Nadia recounted her experience to us, “Before I became a journalist I got my bachelors in Biomedical Engineering, sadly some family issues brought be back home to Calais, and I started working on my blog to pay the bills. I had heard rumors of this strange top secret government facility from the old timers in town. And after a few weeks of investigation I managed to get myself a position their based on my history in biomedical engineering.” 

“Security was tight, we couldn’t have personal phones, but I managed to sneak it in a few times. In order for it to seem less conspicuous I downloaded tiktok on it, and would do the popular dances in front of things I wanted to record. I felt like an idiot doing the renegade in front of tank full of weird tentacles, but I did it so that if they eventually caught me I could play it off as just being a dumb kid you know, someone who was a little airheaded and cared more about social media than keeping my job at a government lab.” 

What Nadia says the tanks looked like 

Nadia says that eventually her tiktoks were found out and she was forced to leave. “They took my phone, which sadly had all the evidence on it, because the lab is on a disconnected network and wouldn’t let me post to the internet from inside. They interrogated me for a week down there, kept me in a holding space until they were sure I wasn’t a foreign agent of some sort. They terminated me and then eventually let me go back to my home without my phone or any reasonable evidence.”

If we have a facility like this in our own backyard, I can’t imagine what other shady things the government is up to. We would like to thank Nadia for her dedication in discovering the truth. Watch out for big brother, and don’t let the aliens bite, stay safe out there, Maine!

Bitter Pill to Swallow

What's up, MMers? This story comes to us from Melinda Hardy, a nurse at Stephens Memorial Hospital. She tells us that one of the women she worked with for five years, another nurse (who wished to remain anonymous) told her this story. "[She] was totally the most honest person I have ever met. She wouldn't lie to save her soul," Melinda told us. 

The story starts about ten years ago, somewhere around 2010 or 2011. A patient came to see a doctor at a private practice where the other nurse worked before coming to Stephens. This patient suffered from chronic pain due to a motorcycle accident a year prior. He had recovered from his injuries, but the pain still lingered. Ibuprofen wasn't cutting it anymore, so he went to the doctor to get some relief. They tried a number of different prescription pills, but nothing seemed to take. In the end, the doctor gave him something different.

What did "Billy's" doctor prescribe him?

"My friend told me she hadn't seen pills like that before," Melinda said. "She didn't recognize the name, but that's not that uncommon. There's always new varieties coming out. She just assumed it was some new brand that a pharmaceutical rep had given to the doc."

The patient, we'll call him Billy, took the pills. He called the doctor's office two days later claiming he felt better than he had in months. The pain was gone. The doctor was pleased with the treatment and had Billy come back in a month later for a check up.

They continued a treatment of the medication, but the nurse was surprised that Billy kept coming into the doctor's office to get his medication. "Usually a patient gets a prescription filled at a pharmacy, right?" Melinda told us. "Doctors don't usually give out medication directly, but my friend, I guess for as weird as the situation was, she just trusted her doctor."

Two months go by, with Billy taking these pills. Maybe they're experimental, maybe generic, but maybe - as this nurse was beginning to suspect - it was something more illegal. "But the treatment was working, and when you're in healthcare long enough, you start to realize that whatever works is the best medicine," says Melinda. "He tells them that the pain is gone. He feels great, but that he feels a little numb, like he can't feel anything at all. Well, this alarms the doctor, who tells him that loss of feeling could be a possible side effect. He suggests Billy keep taking the medication unless something doesn't feel right, and that at his three month check up, they'll determine whether or not the numbness has gone away and how to treat that."

But Billy never showed up for his three month appointment.

It wasn't until a month later, that the nurse, now concerned because Billy had always been punctual, decided to call the police for a wellness check. They found Billy in his house; he had been dead for over a month.

"It wasn't an overdose, no siree," Melinda told us. "When the police got there, they could tell something was wrong. They call it in or whatever and when they go inside, there's blood all over the kitchen. They find a rotten leg in the kitchen sink."

It was Billy's leg. They found his other leg in the living room. In the bathroom they found his left arm. They found fingers from his right hand in a trail leading to the bedroom. Billy was on the bed. He had finally bled out. They found the battery operated carving knife he used to sever his limbs.

"He couldn't feel anything, you see?" Melinda told us. "The medication, it made him numb. It took away his pain, but it took away all his pain. He couldn't feel a thing, so when he took the knife to his leg, there was nothing. So he just kept going. 

"At least," she added, "that's the way my friend told it to me.

Pretty wild story. It has just the perfect touch of campfire ghost story to it. So, of course, we at Malevolent Maine did our research. It was a little difficult to find out much without specific names. However, we were able to trace Melinda's nurse friend back to a now closed doctor's office. Using that region as our search bubble we came up with one police report of a thirty-something male being found dead in his home. There was no mention of cause of death. A little more digging did uncover reports of a motorcycle accident about two years before the reported death. There weren't any names attached to the news stories, but again the area and physical descriptions seem to match.

So what do you think, MMers? Could there be some sort of pill out there that makes you feel so numb you could hack yourself apart? It's a a bit of a tough pill to swallow, but our guys are telling us it's probably true.

Be careful what you put in your bodies, MMers

Stay safe out there, Maine.