Secret Cypher?

Here we are, MMers. We're back with another strange story. This time from Norway... Maine that is, up in Franklin County. Anyways, let's dive right in. So, Charlotte was cleaning out her dad's house about ten years whens he came across something strange taped to the back of his computer. Charlotte's father worked for years at National Semiconductor and in the last decade of his life worked for the government, though he was never too clear on what department, exactly. 

"Dad died unexpectedly on the job. They couldn't tell me a whole lot because it was classified," Charlotte told us. "They did let me know it was an unfortunate accident and that my dad was an exemplary employee and man. There was a pretty large severance too, which was nice."

Charlotte wound up inheriting her father's home and with all the expenses paid, she all but forgot about it for a few years. She finally found the motivation to sell the old place, but before she did that, she had to clean it all out. "I wouldn't say my dad was a hoarder or anything but he didn't like to throw out anything that was still useful in his eyes. Different parts and pieces of tools and machines. He always thought he'd be able to fix them back up. Why, I don't know; it's not like he needed those things or couldn't afford new ones. That's just Dad for you, I guess. I was cleaning out his computer room - what kind of electrical engineer still had a computer room in 2012, right? and he had this big, boxy desktop computer. I went to unplug it, figuring it was all trash. That's when I found it."

Taped tot he back of the computer tower was a piece of paper folded into quarters. It was old and had been mended with tape in a few places. Written on the paper were the words, "For when I'm gone," in her father's handwriting. "I about freaked when I saw it," Charlotte said. "I mean, who knows what it could have been. And sitting there this whole time?"

What it was, however, was another matter entirely. When eh unfolded the piece of paper she saw that it was a series of numbers and letters arranged in groups. "It looked like nothing to me," Charlotte said. "Like some sort of weird code or something." Charlotte thought it might be some sort of serial number or password, but something about it just seemed odd to her: "The way it was written. All those numbers and letter jammed onto the page? It just didn't feel like my dad. There's a pattern there, but I can't figure out what is."

Whatever the strange message meant, Charlotte hung onto that piece of paper for ten years, trying to solve the riddle. It wasn't a serial code, not to anything that existed in the public world. It wasn't a password to any of the electronics her father had. Charlotte thought it might be some sort of coded message, but no amount of deciphering has made any sense to her. In frustration, she reached out to us at Malevolent Maine."

"Look, I know my dad did some top secret work for the government, but I don't really know what he was into. Maybe this is something to do with his work. But the message on the back... 'For when I'm gone,' that tells me that Dad knew something could happen to him, and he wanted someone, the right someone to get one final message. I just wish I knew what it was."

So how about it, MMers? Charlotte sent us a pic of the strange message and we've posted it below. What could it be? Some technical code? A secret cypher? Is it related to his mysterious death? Get sleuthing, and stay safe out there, Maine.

What could this coded message mean?

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!