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.

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?

Unanswered Questions - October 2020

 We've got a new feature for you, MMers. In Unanswered Questions we pose a series of questions we don't have answers to. There's a lot of spooky and unexplained out there, and we'll highlight as many as we can. So without further ado...

• What's up with that factory in Rumford that only seems to be operating after midnight? There's never any cars in the parking lot or people on the grounds and yet the smokestacks keep firing between 12 and 3 AM. What could they possibly be making there?

• Who are the bodies at the bottom of Silver Lake? How did they get there and how come no one's taken them out?

• What crept into Lori Connor's barn and slaughtered all of her sheep while she slept? She didn't hear a sound and they were torn to shreds. A wolf can't do that, right?
• Whatever happened to Perry Madison? He hiked down of Cadillac Mountain and no one ever saw him again. Where did he go?

• Why doesn't the Air Force base in Fort Kent shoot down the UFOs seen flying overhead? What do they know about these visitors that we don't?

• When did Larry Crendall come from? He's claimed 1897 and 2042. When is he really from? Head to Madawaska and ask him yourself!

• How do we shake the feeling that someone is watching us when we go to the library in Gray? We've heard rumors that three kids died in the building in the 50s' and 60s. Any truth to this? Let us know.

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!

Sit down with the Midnight Magician

 Okay, MMers, we've got a lot going on this week, so let's dive right in.

It took us awhile but we were finally able to track down the Midnight Magician, Malachai Blackstone, or more accurately, he tracked us down. Before we get to that, however, we have to tell you how hard it was to learn anything abut this guy.

Marty's Magic Shoppe

Our research brought us into contact with one Martin Ellison, owner of Marty's Magic Shoppe in Dover, New Hampshire. Marty was an accomplished magician in his younger days, performing under the name the Magnificent Marty. After he retired from the traveling scene in 1987, he opened Marty's Magic Shoppe to service all the regional magicians. Marty's is a one stop shop for costumes and magic tricks, as well as training, books on the craft, and just a general place for magicians both up and coming and well-established, to come and share secrets. It was Marty that gave us our first real clue about contacting Malachai Black.

Marty Ellison

"He's an odd one, that guy," Marty told us, his voice still thick with a New York accent. "Yeah, I know him. Knew his parents too, God rest their souls. They said it was one last effect - a magic trick if you will - that did them in. The Blackstones were the best in their day - Prospero and Evanora. Kinda goofy names if you ask me, but what I can say, I called myself Magnificent Marty."

Marty didn't know much about Blackstone's current whereabouts, but he did tell us that from time to time Blackstone has had use of Marty's shop. He explained to us the old means of contacting a magician:

"They say in the old days if you need a witch or a warlock, you left a coin outside your house, on a fence post or windowsill, with the face side scratched with an x. After a day or two, the coin would disappear and soon after you'd be contacted by the wizard. Complete rubbish if you ask me, but Blackstone seems to use that trick. I don't know how he does it, but it's worked for me the few times I've needed him."

It seemed ridiculous (and we're guys who hunt for Bigfoot and write about ghosts for a living!) but we were desperate, so we tried. He carved an x into a quarter and left it outside our office. Sure enough, the next day, the coin was gone. Inside, on our desk, we found a black slip of paper with an address, a date,  and a time written on it in the same silver ink we had seen on the black envelopes.

We went to the location, which we're keeping secret for now, at the assigned time (11:45 at night). We knocked on the door and after a moment a mysterious figure opened it. For the first time, we were face to face with Malachai Blackstone.

Not quite Malachai Blackstone, but pretty close

He was taller than expected. Thin, but strong. He wore a black dress shirt and black pants, but honestly, he would have looked just as comfortable in a black hooded robe. There was an aura about him that was hard to explain. Icy was the best way to describe it. Or like that feeling in the air right before it snows. Except this wasn't going to be a shake of the snow globe kind of storm, this was going to be a blizzard that dumps over a foot of snow and knocks out power to half the state. There was an air of mystery about him, but a dangerous type.

He gestured for us to take a seat in a high-backed velvet chair. Two had been set up in the middle of the room, which was large and completely dark except for the small circle that illuminated the chairs. Where that light came from, we never knew; there were no visible light sources anywhere. He wouldn't allow us to record his voice, but we can tell you it was deep and yet soft at the same time. His voice was like a cobra waiting to strike.

We asked him about the Black Tarot and he scoffed. He claimed no knowledge of them despite his initials appearing on the cards, though he did admit that "the tarrocchi are often a useful tool for the true adept." We asked him about the people who received the cards. Again he maintained he knew nothing of them. This wasn't getting us anywhere, so we asked him to tell us something about himself.

"I was a practitioner of the arts before I ever knew it. My parents, as you know, were some of the finest artists the world has ever known, but from a young age, I knew I was different. I could hear it. You don't understand, but it whispered to me. This world is too confined. There are tremendous and treacherous things beyond. If we could pierce the veil, lift the shroud that covers this world, we could see it all. I'm doing that. With my rituals, I am showing the world beyond. Az'azouzis."

When asked what he meant by that word,  he explained it meant, "the end is not the end." It was a phrase he had learned from his masters. 

"I'm changing this world," Malachai Blackstone told us. "I am opening the forgotten doorways. I'm bring it through. You don't understand, but you will. I will remake this world into the infinite and we will see plain what stares at us from beyond."

Readers, we have to warn you, what we're about to describe is 100% impossible. This blog is pretty comfortable with the unexplainable, the mysterious, and whatnot. What happened next does not fall into this category. It is something else entirely. After he spoke, Malachai Blackstone turned to water. His body rippled like a current on a river, and then he simply collapsed, as if a water balloon had suddenly been popped. One minute he was whole and solid and sitting across from us, the next his entire form turned to water and washed away. There was nothing left except a now wet chair where he had once sat.

We're still processing everything we saw and heard, but we do have one small addendum. We finally heard back from a linguistics professor who claimed to have some knowledge of the strange word that had been carved into the stone monolith in Crannog's Field and that Malachai Blackstone had said to us. When we told Professor Carter Derwent what Blackstone said Az'azouzis meant, he had this to say:

"He's lying. Or he's wrong. It's an ancient word, predates the Babylonians, but it most certainly does not mean, 'the end is not the end.' It roughly translates to, 'dark watcher from beyond the stars,' but it probably means something more like Satan or the Devil. It is the name given to the great adversary of mankind."

Az'azouzis, dark watcher from beyond the stars

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!

Desert of Bone

Good evening MMers! We hope you all have sweet dreams tonight, unlike several of our readers have been having lately. Normally weird dreams aren’t something to write to us about, but we have been getting reports from all over the state of people having the same strange dream. 

“It starts with me waking up in a desert,” Katie from Freeport told us. “The sky is grey, the sand is this really deep red and feels really scratchy. All over the sand are these white trees, or at least they look like trees that are this bleached white color. I feel like I walk for hours in this dream and never get to where I am supposed to be, and the whole time I just feel scared.”

The desert and trees have a similar feel to this

Joe from Standish has reported a similar dream, “Its been happening for a few weeks now, I go to sleep and almost immediately wake up in this freaky desert. The sand is coarse and gets everywhere, and there are these white pillars everywhere. At first I thought they were trees, but when I got close they were bleached bone. And not regular bone, it was covered in these tiny spurs almost like there was something wrong with whatever died and left them.”

What does Javier see in the distance?

Javier from York reported that he has had these dreams for months now. “I get a little further towards my goal every time. I have no idea what ‘the goal’ is, but I feel like I’m getting very close. I saw something in the distance last night, but the heat coming off the horizon kept it obscured, whatever it was was dark and huge.”

Whatever this dream is, it seems to be affecting a large amount of people, we can only hope it is something innocent and not a portent of something dark looming on the horizon. If you or anyone you know is experiencing these dreams please write to us. Stay safe out there Maine!