Specimens in the Shed

Imagine you are eleven years old, you and the kids from your small town are out exploring the woods because there isn’t much else to do. In your journeys you come across an old shed and curiosity gets the better of you. What is inside leaves you so unnerved that as soon as you can you move away from the place your family has called home for over 100 years. This is exactly what transpired when Adelaide McPherson, Addie for short, and her friends stumbled across an old shed in the woods nearly forty years ago.

Garfield Plantation in Northern Maine

Garfield Plantation is a tiny town in northern Maine, the population as of the 2010 census was a whopping 81 people. As you can probably guess it is a place that appreciates a slower pace, one where you can lose yourself in the natural beauty of our state. Addie remembers her time growing up in Garfield Plantation fondly. Except for what she and her friends discovered in the woods all those years ago.The children of Garfield Plantation formed a close bond, they would always ride the miles between their houses and meet up to play in the woods. Addie walked us through what it was like “Its not like kids are today where they are always on their iphones, or playing nintendos, we made our own fun. We girls would pick flowers, and bake ‘mud pies’, one time Jimmy Erickson chipped a tooth on one cause it had a rock inside it. We laughed a lot when that happened.”  

The shed was on the border of the property of the Erickson family she told us, and they didn’t even like the kids playing back there. “They were worried about us playing on the rusty old farm equipment that was parked out beyond the back field in the tree line, but I think deep down they knew that something else was going on out there.”  The kids stumbled upon the shed one day in mid-summer, and were quickly intrigued by it, “Jimmy didn’t even know about it, or why it was there, and it was basically on his family’s property” Addie told us. “Carl who was the bravest of us, probably the dumbest too, but no one minded cause he was the one who dealt with all the gross stuff, nests of snakes, big old cobwebs, and the like. Well Carl he runs right up to the shed and tries to open the door, it had this big iron door, which was odd, but it was basically rusted right to the frame. So he goes around to one of the windows, they were this thick tinted glass, like thicker than the bottom of an old fashioned coke bottle, and peeks inside.” The kids quickly gathered around him and what they saw inside the shed was shelves up shelves of jars, filled with liquid and all sort of odds and ends that were hard to identify through the thick tinted glass. 

The door was rusted shut, like this

“We hatched a plan right then” said Addie. “Carl and Jimmy were going to grab some tools from their dads and the next day we were going to get into that shed and see what it was all about. On the way home the boys wouldn’t stop talking about it, guessing what the shed was for, the top theory was it was an old moonshiners shed, and they were thrilled at the prospect of getting a taste of moonshine from one of those jars.” 

The next day the kids all gathered together, “Jimmy had brought a hammer and a screwdriver, hoping to pop the hinges off the door. Carl had brought a crowbar, so he could try to pry it open, or worst case break a few windows and climb in.” But when the kids reached the shed the door was already ajar. Slowly, one by one, with Carl in the lead they entered the shed and gawked at the shelves upon shelves of jars. 

Addie says the jars were similar
to this type

Each was about three quarters filled with “a thick green liquid” Addie said. But the contents besides the liquid in each jar were completely different. “Lots of parts and pieces from animals and things. I shiver just thinking about it. Little tiny eyes, bones, tufts of fur. But there was bigger stuff too. This one jar had a big piece of antler, a long white feather, and what looked like a finger, but I really hope it wasn’t. Another was a bit odd as it had a metal bolt in it, what looked like the ear of a wolf or a big cat, and an eye that looked just a little too human for my taste.They boys were in awe though, they couldn’t stop oohing and awwing, one would pick up a jar and slosh it towards the other, and the other would push them away, and it would start all over. Jimmy was about to scare Carl with one particularly nasty jar full of what looked like teeth, but he dropped it and it shattered all over the floor. After that we booked it away from the shed, I never wanted to go back. I didn’t want to think about the kind of person that would have a shed like that, why would they collect all those things?”

Addie never felt comfortable in her home town again, not knowing if a neighbor she knew and loved was the one collecting weird trophies, or if there was some madman who lived in the woods. “The boys went back to the shed a few times after that but they said by the end of the summer all the jars had been taken from the shed, the only evidence they had ever been there was the stain the green liquid had left and little shards of glass.” 

Is there a mad scientist, or scientist wanna be in the woods of northern Maine, was it a disturbed neighbor, a naturalist who didn’t like visitors? Who can say what it was, but it is definitely odd. If you have stories similar to Addie's please reach out, we would like to know if this phenomenon continued. Stay safe out there, Maine!

Arctic Cat

Welcome back MMers! We know our motto is: We believe you, but this one is a little bit out there. This one comes to us from Martin, an old timer up in Millinocket, he's  been snowmobiling up there for more than forty years. Marty has met a lot of people in his clubs, and on long rides, but one man in particular always sticks out in Marty’s mind. “He never introduced himself” Marty said, “we passed him on the trail one time back in ‘79, we stopped to talk but he didn’t seem interested in anything but our snow machines.” Marty tells us that the man spent a long time studying and asking questions about his Arctic Cat snowmobile. “I walked him through how it worked, he asked me to rev the engine for him, and every time I did he would shake his head. He muttered a lot to himself. Said he liked the idea but the sound was all wrong. Then he just walked off.” 

The Arctic Cat Marty owned back in the day

Marty didn’t see the mystery man again for several years. Although his white hair had grown long and lanky, Marty quickly recognized the man the next time he appeared besides the trail. “He was pretty easy to recognize, he's got this big hooked schnoz, one of his eyes was a bit wonky, and he had more wrinkles than I have now” Marty said laughing. “He wanted to show us his new snow machine, and boy was it a beaut.” It was similar in style to Marty’s Arctic Cat but was larger, and when the odd man revved the engine it sounded much different than your average snowmobile. “He was proud of it that was sure, he followed us down the trail all day, but he was still standoffish, he didn’t introduce himself this time either, didn’t really talk to us except to ask questions, wouldn’t really say where he got the machine or what made it sound like it did. It made this real guttural sound, like a growl, sounded like a howl when it was wide open, only thing mechanical sounding was the reverberation from the straight pipe he had on it.”

Sketch of the old man

But this wasn’t the last time Marty saw the strange man, “After he parted way with us that second time, didn’t even say bye, I didn’t see him for another couple years. When I did I was riding solo along the trail and I saw smoke in the distance. It was the strange man’s snow machine and he wasn’t anywhere nearby. Being the good guy I am I stopped and gave it a look see. But the insides of that thing weren’t like anything I’ve ever seen before, I popped the hood and under a sheet of metal there was hardly any metal parts, it was mostly this kind of fleshy stuff. It was warm to the touch and felt just like skin. If I held my hand against it for too long, I could feel this rapid thumping in it, almost like a pulse but faster than any living creature should have. As I held my hand there it gave a growl like I had heard when he was riding it the few years before. Scared the bejesus out of me, sounded like a cougar or one of them lions from National Geographic. Then I heard a shout behind me and I stepped away from it. There was that man coming down the hill with what looked like a doctors bag, and a bunch of tools under his arm. He shouted at me again, told me to get the hell away from his Arctic Cat, and I didn’t need more motivation to get the hell out of there, so I booked it.”

Like we said, this is a weird one, one that is hard to wrap our heads around, but it is our duty to give our readers the benefit of the doubt. Marty says he hasn’t seen the man since, but the look and feel of the engine of that snowmobile still make him nauseous to this day. Who was this man, what did he do to create that snowmobile, has he done anything else as weird or frightening, is he still out there? If you see a man like Marty described, please avoid him or approach with extreme caution. Stay safe out there, Maine!

Houlton Wild Man

MMer Jim and his buddy Carl from Houlton, were out bear hunting in early November last year when they encountered something that wasn’t a bear at all. Jim walked us through what happened, “We are pretty close to this lady who owns a bakery, she lets us take the day old donuts and other pastries for real cheap. We take those out into the woods, find a nice little clearing and spread ‘em out, then all we have to do is wait for the bears to find the pile.” As they sat in their blind, something covered in thick matted black hair stumbled through the underbrush and investigated their bait.  

Woods near Houlton

“Carl raised his rifle right away, he ain’t never got a bear before and was eager. But I waved him off and pushed his barrel down as quietly as I could. This was one scraggly bear, it was real thin and small, and had a funny walk to it. It took me a minute to realize it was some really hairy guy running around on all fours.”

Jim quickly got out of the blind and approached the man who was stuffing his face with the day old pastries. At the noise Jim caused shuffling through the leaves and bushes the wild man quickly turned and faced Jim head on. “As I got closer to him I didn’t know how we ever thought it could be a bear, but he was covered all over with this long black matted hair. His eyes were big, and so brown they were almost black. He growled at me, real low and deep, and bared his teeth which were all chipped and sharp.”  The wild man scurried towards Jim and from the blind there was a shot as Carl tried to protect his friend.  The man ran off into the woods, “There were a few drops of blood on day old pastries” Jim said.  “But we don’t know if we hit him, or if he was already injured. Either way we ain’t going back to that spot again.”  

Wild Men have been a common sighting around
the world for hundreds of years

If you are ever in the woods near Houlton, make sure you watch out for the wild man, from the encounter reported by Jim it seems he can be aggressive or at the very least territorial. Whether this is a small Sasquatch, or simply a mentally ill man it should be avoided, stay safe out there, Maine!