PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 8, 2021
Ed Smith has walked Wells Beach for years but has never seen anything like it. A mysterious black substance that settles on the sand near the shoreline and stains the feet of anyone who ventures too close. According to Steve Dickson, a marine geologist with Maine Geological Survey, the black substance was the collective carcasses of dead insects. Millions of them. The bugs float in the ocean but when waves wash ashore, they settle on the beach and stay there when the tide goes back out.