The Saco River Curse

A few weeks ago, some friends of mine, fellow ufologists and folklorists, were discussing a rarely mentioned in the media, type of alien race known collectively as "Amphibious Aliens" (A term I myself coined several years ago). There were about 20 of us in the conversation, which started thus:

Person #1): "Here goes nothing: The Amphibian ET are not beneficial for humanity. They wish for humanity to pass away. Once the world cleanses it self. They wage a war of deception, wow and yes they do eat humans........woe man I cant believe this."

Person#2): "I hadn't heard of amphibian ets...interesting!"

Person#3): "I thought "Amphibian" meant that it lives in the water - but can breathe on land-Which EBE is this?I guess im lost on this one..."

As the conversation went on it became clear that most of them had never heard of Amphibious Aliens while the few who had, had some very strange beliefs regarding them.

I interrupted to explain to them that, I am the world's top authority on Amphibian Aliens, I literally wrote the book on them (the ONLY book there is about them actually), and sent them to my web page about them here: http://www.squidoo.com/amphibious-aliens

Sightings of Memegwesi, or water dwelling tricksters are common through out New England and New York, and have occurred for over 2,000 years. The most famous Memegwesi are of course: The Saco River Demon of the Saco River Curse, The Dover Demon, The Loveland Frog, and Joseph Smith's White Salamander.

This turn of the conversation suddenly baffled them. They had all at least heard of The Dover Demon, The Loveland Frog, and Joseph Smith's White Salamander, but none of them had ever heard of the most infamous Amphibious Alien sighting in history: The Saco River Demon of the Saco River Curse.

Though my ufologist friends know the area to be a supernatural hot spot, named the most haunted sight of New England, with yearly sightings of ufos, cryptid creatures, ghosts, and to date no less than 3 deaths per year since 1547, they did not know the story of the original very first sighting to occur in this spot in 1547.

A quick search online, told me that while there was mention of the Saco River Curse on a few random sights, none of the mentions were written by any one who lived in Saco, Maine, let alone had ever even been to Saco Maine at all, and most of the information found online, does NOT match the local history of the story. And so, being a native of York Hill, and being a descendant of the Native American Indian family whom the "curse" is a credited to, it seemed only appropriate that I be the one to create a web page about the history of The Saco River Curse and how it came about.

For those who don't already know: I live on York Hill btw, it is where I conduct most of my studies. And studying Amphibious Aliens is, well, it's kind of all I do. Everything else sort of takes a back seat to it.

The Saco River Curse is a local legend based on a strange and unexplained series of deaths that have occurred at the Saco River Delta where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean.

The history of the Saco River Curse goes like this:

The York family moved to Saco (Maine) and built a house on the tiny 1/2 acre island overlooking a huge waterfall where the Saco River dumps into the Atlantic Ocean. They named the place York Manor of York Hill.

On the other side of the river was Saco Island (today known as Factory Island at the Memorial Bridge Crossing). On Saco Island lived a tribe of Indians who worshiped or rather feared a local river demon, a type of Memegwesi, or water dwelling trickster.

On the mainland just a few hundred yards away, was the port where sailors docked (and still dock to this day - and is where I park my Volvo when you hear me talk of parking on York Hill).

One night, in 1547, three drunken sailors rowed across the river to Saco Island, kidnapped a baby from the Indian tribe, than rowed across to York Hill, where they threw the baby into the waterfall, claiming that Indians were born able to swim, thus it would survive the fall. The baby's mother followed after them, and jumped into the falls trying to save her baby. Both the mother and the baby were crushed to death on the rocks below.

The husband/father was also the tribe's medicine man/witch-doctor/shaman/holy man. Infuriated at the white men for killing his wife and child, he went to the waterfall and called up the river demon asking it to punish the white men, by killing three white men in the waterfall of York Hill, every year so that no one would ever forget what these men had done.

To date, no year has passed since with less than 3 deaths in the waterfall at the Saco River Delta on York Hill.

In the early 1800's a huge mill factory was put on Saco Island, and the death toll skyrocketed, as a transvestite serial killer took advantage of the curse and took to raping mill girls and than tossing them in the waterfall. The most famous of these murders was the Bean Murder of Factory Island, which resulted in he capture of the abortion doctor who had made a habit of pretending to be a mill girl in order to kill all the women who'd had an abortion. He pleaded that he had been possessed by the river demon and got off with hardly any punishment.

In the late 1800's York Manor was torn torn by terror crazed locals who were convinced that the house was haunted by the ghost of the father/husband. They believed that tearing down the house would end the curse. The remains of the house were saved, however and the house was rebuilt elsewhere in Saco, where it stand today, in it's giant Victorian apartment building form, ironically, next door to the Saco Ward of the Mormon church on Smith Street, behind the Amato's, beside the RiteAid, across the street from Thorton Academy. That big yellow Victorian, is what was once, many years ago, known as the York Manor of York Hill.

In the mid-1900's with the death toll now toppling the thousands, locals decided that the only way to end the curse was to destroy the waterfall. Which they did. Today where the waterfall once was, there is now a huge dam and a hydro electrical power station now sits where once sat York Manor at the peak of York Hill.

Today the Saco River Dam at York Hill is considered the most haunted river/dam in the world, with a higher death toll than any other dam/waterfall in the world. At a rate of no less than 3 men drowned every year for over 500 years, the death toll is now over 2,000 men killed at York Hill. No year has passed with less than 3 white men killed by falling into the dam, and most years 5 death occur, while some years there have been as many as 10 deaths.

And that is the Saco River Curse

Throughout the years since 1547, there have been thousands of sightings here on York Hill, of a tiny white skinned man with webbed hands. He is known by locals as "The White Monkey" or as the French locals call him "le'Etiole" (man from the stars). Sightings have occurred up and down the coast of Maine and Massachusetts, with a few occurring in Hew Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and Quebec. While some speculate that there are many creatures being seen, the times, dates, and places suggest that only one creature is in fact being seen, and being seen as he travels from one river to the next. Sightings in multiple places have never occurred simultaneously.

The two most famous sighting were the Dover Demon sighting in the late 1970's and the White Salamander sighting in the 1820's, by the than 12 year old Joseph Smith. Unfortunately years later Smith changed his story to match with the than nationally popular Saco River Curse, (made popular by Abraham Lincoln's visit to the sight) and claimed he had seen the ghost of an Indian instead. As Smith grew older his story would change 3 more times, until eventually it would evolve to the "First Vision" story he published in 1842, claiming that he had met not one white haired man, but now 2 men who were in fact God and Jesus, resulting in his founding the LDS/Mormon church. It should be noted that Smith's family lived on York Hill in Saco Maine, many years before Joseph's birth. The time period when they lived there, was when local belief had changed to say that the ghost of an Indian was haunting York Manor, resulting in it's being torn down, and why the aforementioned irony of the fact that years later the LDS/Mormon Saco Ward should sit right next door to the building which inspired Joseph Smith's "first vision" to begin with. (I myself am a Mormon, by the way, have been for 35 years, and this is why. I believed the 12 year old boy's ORIGINAL story, because it matches so many other sighting stories to come from families that have lived on and around York Hill.)

This unidentified creature, be he called Moroni, Memegwesi, or Etiole, is the original source of the extraterrestrial alien species termed Amphibious Aliens, and all other Amphibious Alien sightings are compared with how well they cross reference to sightings of Etiole. It is said that Etiole was the River Demon of The Saco River Curse.

You can find out more about Etiole and The White Monkey sightings here: http://www.squidoo.com/amphibious-aliens