In October of 2011, 29-year-old Portland art director Brittany Roberts set out on a lonely hike in Acadia National Park, Maine.

She was supposed to return in 2 days, but she didn’t.

Eight years passed before the forest finally gave back what it had been hiding.

Her body was found under a rock on which someone had carved a human face.

On October 15th, 2011, 29-year-old art director Brittany Roberts from Portland arrived in Acadia National Park, Maine.

She often traveled alone, looking not so much for a vacation as for new shots for her photography blog.

A few days before, she posted a short message on social media.

I’m going where no tourist has gone before.

Maybe I will find something that no one has seen.

According to employees of the coastal stopandgo gas station in Bar Harbor, Britney drove in around noon.

She was wearing a bright firecolor jacket and filmed a short video on her phone saying she was going in search of the secrets of the park.

The cashier, Cindy Morrison, later recalled that the girl was friendly and a bit distracted, joking that she was only bringing a camera, a compass, and coffee.

This was the last confirmed evidence of her route to the park entrance.

According to official park service records, Britney did not sign in at the visitor log posted at the Jordan Lake trail head.

This later made the search much more difficult.

Her blue Jeep Wrangler was left in a small parking lot a mile off the main trail.

From this spot, a littleknown unmarked trail led off, lost among the pines and into a protected part of the forest where tourists usually did not go.

According to a local tourist, Harry Miller, he met Brittany that same day around in the afternoon.

She stopped at a fork in the road and asked where exactly the old trail that’s not on the map began.

The man showed her the direction and then she walked deeper into the forest.

Miller noted that the girl looked confident, had a large backpack and tripod and a camera hanging around her neck.

This witness was the last person to see Britney alive.

When she didn’t get in touch at the appointed time, her younger sister Jessica started calling her friends and reported her missing to the police.

Communication with Britney was cut off in the evening of the same day.

Her cell phone was last connected to the network near the outskirts of Jordan Lake at around in the evening after which the signal disappeared.

The official search operation began only a day later.

It involved rangers, volunteers, and dog handlers.

The dogs picked up the trail from the parking lot and moved confidently along a narrow path where the damp air smelled of moss and pine resin.

The trail led deeper into the forest, but ended suddenly on the bank of the SA stream.

Here, among the slippery stones and fallen trees, they found a frayed shoelace that had caught on a stone.

There were no other belongings.

The water in the river at that time was cold and swift, especially after several rainy days.

The accident version seemed the most likely.

Brittany could have tried to wade through the stream.

She could have been swept away by the current, but the body was never found.

Search teams combed the banks for several days using boats and rope systems.

A helicopter flew over the riverbed and the area from the lake to the coast, but no signs of a person were found.

On the third day of the search, the temperature dropped and early frosts began.

The rangers found only a few fresh bootprints that matched the model worn by Britany and a broken branch near a stone outcropping.

But these findings did not yield anything concrete.

The police officially recorded the disappearance as a possible accident related to crossing a water barrier.

No signs of a crime were found at the scene.

No signs of a struggle or foreign objects.

The Rangers report stated that the girl could have died of hypothermia or drowned.

Despite this, the family disagreed with the findings.

Jessica Roberts, the younger sister, began her own search, but that’s another part of the story.

In October of 2011, Aadia swallowed up another person, and it seemed like forever.

Several months had passed since Brittany Roberts disappeared in the fall.

In the winter of 2011, the search was finally called off.

National Park Service reports stated, “Probable death due to an accident while crossing a water barrier.

No body found.” The wording was dry and final, but for the Roberts family, it was only the beginning of a long silence.

The younger sister, Jessica, then a 22-year-old college student in Boston, disagreed with the official version.

She came to Acadia whenever she could.

In the police photos, she remembered the cliffside near the S stream, the place where investigators said the dog’s trail had disappeared.

She returned there again and again.

In an interview with the local newspaper, the Bar Harbor Times, Jessica said, “My sister didn’t do anything stupid.

She knew how to hike mountains.

Something else happened there.” In the winter of 2012, the case was officially archived.

Operational activities were stopped.

In Bar Harbor, only a few posters of the missing woman remained, slowly fading in the snow and wind.

Britney’s Jeep, which the family initially refused to take, was eventually transported to Portland.

Nothing new was found inside, just an old map and an empty water bottle.

Jessica began her own investigation.

She posted new flyers, talked to local guides who knew the park better than anyone.

One of the rangers working in Acadia at the time later recalled, “She came almost every month.

She brought coffee for the searchers asked about trails that were not marked on maps.

She did not believe that her sister had been washed away.

” In the spring of 2013, Jessica joined several online communities dedicated to the disappeared in national parks.

It was there that she first came across stories similar to Britney’s.

Hikers who had followed the official trail, wandered off a few hundred yards to the side, and never returned.

Some forum users claimed that there were abandoned sections of old trails in the Acadia area that had been removed from maps after the war years because they were associated with injuries and accidents.

Jessica began to collect her own database.

She saved all the posts, coordinates, screenshots, even excerpts from old travel diaries.

In June of 2013, she wrote to the main geological survey archives and received several copies of old maps showing rocky areas near Jordan Pond that are now closed to tourists.

In the margins of these maps were small markings, crosses next to the captions facecliffe and old quarry ridge.

It seemed to her that one of these points might coincide with the place where her sister was headed.

Among Britney’s belongings recovered after the investigation was a notebook, a plain notebook with yellow pages.

Half of the pages were soaked with moisture, but one of the surviving pages read, “We have to find the rock where the face is carved.” They say there is a silence there that does not echo.

Jessica did not know when it was written down, but this line became an obsession for her.

According to family friends, the girl spent more and more time in the park.

She spent the night in a tent near the northern entrance, participated in volunteer walks, and took pictures of old trails.

The locals remembered her as the one looking for ghosts in the woods.

One of the campsite owners said that Jessica often talked to him about the old legends of Acadia, about stone faces on the rocks that allegedly appear after disappearances.

Gradually, Britney’s case began to attract the attention of journalists.

In the summer of 2014, an article about her was published on a popular website dedicated to the disappeared in the wild.

The author of the article described the chronology of events added photos from the search site and quoted Jessica’s words.

I’m not looking for a body.

I’m looking for the reason why the forest took her.

After the publication, the girl received several emails from unknown persons.

One of them contained the phrase, “There is a rock.

It looks to the east.

Be careful.” The sender was never identified.

The letter was recorded in police reports, but no official investigation was conducted because there was no evidence that the message was genuine.

For Jessica, it was another sign that the story was not over.

She continued to look for any mention of the place where her sister might have been.

Meanwhile, for everyone else, the case remained closed.

There was no new information in the police reports, and she was listed as probably dead in the lists of missing persons.

But on each anniversary of her disappearance, someone would leave a small bouquet of dried flowers and a photo of Britany on the side of the road near Jordan Lake with the caption, “You’re still there.

” The silence that descended on the Robert’s case eventually became part of the Acadia landscape itself.

The forest was silent, but it seemed to hold some kind of answer that Jessica was getting closer to with each new step.

October of 2019 was cold and wet in Maine.

After several weeks of rain, most of the trails in the Acadia Wilderness area had turned into narrow ditches covered in moss and clay.

It was then that a group of biology students from the University of Maine set out on a field expedition to collect samples of a rare species of moss that grows only in constant shade.

The goal of their route was a remote area of forest beyond the official park boundary, a place where tourists did not go due to the difficult terrain.

Student Lisa Morton, who later testified to the police, recalled, “We were climbing a steep slope, and it was slippery underfoot.

When I looked back, I saw Tom stumble and fall to his knees.

He thought he had tripped on a rock, but something shown under a layer of moss.

It turned out that it was not a stone.

It was the edge of an old khaki backpack protruding from the ground.

The material was so covered with soil and roots that it could be mistaken for part of the landscape.

The backpack lay on a slope about 10 mi from Jordan Lake and more than half a mile from the nearest stream in a place where the current could not physically carry any object.

When the students carefully unearthed the backpack, it made a dull crunching sound.

The zipper was rusted and the fabric had crumbled in places.

Inside they found the decayed remains of clothes, a bottle without a cap, and something that resembled a notebook.

Lisa Morton said that at first they wanted to take the item to the university, but when they saw the initials BR still on the cover, they decided to immediately notify the authorities.

2 days later, the backpack was officially handed over to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office.

During the initial examination, experts confirmed that the found object was of considerable age.

The nylon fabric had undergone serious biodegradation, and the zippers were covered with rust.

There were several things inside that were identified.

A rotten notebook, a folded map of the Acadia National Park, an empty bottle with the signature of a travel brand, and a small portable charger.

The notebook attracted the most attention.

The paper had softened and stuck together.

Some of the pages had disappeared, but handwriting could be made out on a few.

At the state crime lab, they managed to read a fragment that read, “Further from the trail, east slope, stone with features.

The place is not like the others.” This record was the first concrete indication that Britney Roberts, who disappeared in that area in 2011, was deliberately heading deep into the woods and not lost by accident.

The map found in the backpack was folded in half and had a clearly outlined route in red ballpoint pen.

The line started at Jordan Lake, went through several littleknown branches, and ended with a cross at the exact spot where the backpack was found.

On the back of the map, someone left a short inscription.

If you find it, don’t go any further.

It was not possible to establish who made this inscription and when.

After the official identification of the items, the police contacted Roberts’s family.

The missing woman’s sister, Jessica, came to Bar Harbor to familiarize herself with the materials.

She recognized the backpack immediately, the same one that was in Britney’s travel photos.

The photo shows a distinctive khaki patch and a trace of burnt thread.

For the family, this was the first confirmation in 8 years that Britney had indeed reached the area she was going to.

For several days after the discovery, the site was surrounded by tape and forensic experts worked on the slope.

According to the sheriff’s office, no animal tracks or remains were found around the backpack that could indicate a human presence nearby.

The only thing that caught their eye was the strange location of the object itself.

It was lying in a small natural depression, almost under the roots of an old pine tree, as if someone had deliberately placed it there and covered it with earth.

A county police spokesman said in a press release, “The discovery changes the previous version of events.” Investigators believe that Ms.

Roberts continued inland and was not affected by the river’s current.

Her route, as recorded on the map, indicates a deliberate attempt to reach a specific location, which she had marked herself.

Geographic information system specialists created a digital model of the area based on the found coordinates.

The analysis showed that the last mark on the map was located at the foot of a steep rock massie that was not shown on modern tourist maps.

It was this fact that interested the investigators.

If Britney had simply gotten lost, she would not have left a clearly defined end point of the route.

For Jessica Roberts, the discovery of the backpack was proof that her sister had not drowned, that her path did not end at the river.

It ended further deep in the forest.

But what exactly happened there remained unknown.

A few weeks after the discovery of the backpack, the police gathered materials to reopen the case of the disappearance.

The evidence included soil samples, parts of the fabric, and copies of notes from the notebook.

The experts report stated the backpack had been in place for at least seven or eight years.

There were no signs of movement by the current or animals.

It was probably hidden by a person.

The question of who exactly put it under the roots of the tree and why remained unanswered.

But this discovery was the first real trace in a case that had long been considered closed.

And for the first time in many years, the forest gave a voice again.

Quiet but clear from the depths where the shadow of the missing path still remained.

November of 2019.

Cold, wet autumn has already turned into pre-winter.

The slopes of Acadia were covered with thin ice, and thick fog hung between the pines, lingering in the hollows, as if the forest itself were trying to hide its wounds.

It was then that a new expedition was organized using the coordinates from Brittany Roberts notebook.

Its goal was the place marked with a cross on the map she had found, the point where her route stopped 8 years ago.

The team consisted of six people, three park service rangers, two volunteers, and one climbing instructor.

They were joined by a representative of the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office, who was responsible for officially recording the search.

All of them had experience in mountainous conditions, but even they recognized that the terrain the map was leading to was exceptionally difficult.

There were no roads and the shortest route was through an old logging area overgrown with blackberries and windbreaks.

The search began in the morning.

The temperature did not rise above zero.

The air was clear but damp.

According to the memoirs of one of the expedition members, Ranger Paul Donahghue, the ground held ice under the top layer of leaves, and every step sounded like we were walking on glass.

Guided by GPS, they moved up the slope where the contours of Britney’s map and topographic data were to meet.

After several hours of climbing, the forest gradually thinned out.

Instead of clay, fragments of stone covered with a thin film of frost began to appear underfoot.

It was here, according to Donahghue, that they first saw the ledge, a narrow horizontal strip of gray stone among the rock mass.

It looked like a natural terrace formed by old landslides.

From a distance, the surface shown as if covered with a thin layer of ice, which is why this place was later called the ice ledge.

Climbing up to it turned out to be dangerous.

It was necessary to attach ropes and drive hooks directly into the frozen rock.

When the first two reached the edge, they noticed a dark spot among the stones that looked like a torn cloth.

It was a tent.

It was old, half rotten, but still standing.

Its aluminum arches were bent, but the shape was preserved.

The entrance was partially covered with earth and fallen leaves, but the clasp remained closed.

Several items were found inside, a rusty tourist tire, two empty cans, a piece of tarpollen that had once served as a bedding, and a sleeping bag.

The fabric of the bag was better preserved than expected.

The cold and lack of direct sunlight stopped the rotting process.

There was a metal tag with the initials BR on the zipper.

Around the tent was a small area no more than 10 ft wide.

It bore traces of ancient life, a stone ring for a fire, charred remains of wood, two stones arranged in the shape of seats.

At the edge of the terrace, we found the remains of a rope thrown over a tree branch, which was probably used to collect rainwater or dry things.

Everything looked like someone had been living here for several days, maybe longer.

Upon further inspection, Donahue noticed the back wall of the rock that formed a natural barrier behind the tent.

The surface was damp and dark, but there was something on it that did not belong to nature.

Looking closely, the rangers saw a rough carving on the rock, the profile of a human face.

The features were carved inaccurately, but recognizably forehead, nose, lips, empty eye sockets.

Around the outline, the stone was of a fresher color without a touch of moss.

The carving marks looked relatively new, as if they had been made not decades ago, but much later.

Geology experts later confirmed that the surface of the stone in the places of the incisions had not had time to undergo natural darkening.

After discovering the carvings, the team immediately notified the sheriff’s office.

A second team with photographic equipment arrived at the site.

All objects were documented and distances were measured.

The face measured approximately 2 ft high and 1 ft wide.

It was carved at the height of human height which excluded accident or erosion.

The official report signed by expedition leader Thomas Brennan stated, “The site shows all the signs of a long stay of a person.

The conditions of the site exclude the possibility that an animal left the parking lot or that the items were dropped there spontaneously.

Natural features do not explain the origin of the stone carvings.

On the same day, all the found objects were packed for transportation.

The tent, sack, and coercion were sent for examination while the rock carving was left untouched.

It was fenced off with signal tape, and security was assigned until the arrival of forensic experts.

The Bar Harbor evening news carried a short story about a discovery linked to a long-standing case of a missing tourist.

The name of Brittany Roberts was not officially mentioned, but the town’s people understood who it was.

For them, the story of the girl who was taken by the forest had long since become a legend.

The next morning, when the fog cleared, the rangers took panoramic photos of the ledge.

They showed that the terrace was surrounded by steep walls and virtually inaccessible without special equipment.

The height was over 100 ft and from below the place was completely covered by dense tree crowns.

The terrace where the tent was set up seemed like the perfect hiding place, safe and secluded at the same time.

And yet amidst the tranquility of the mountains and the silence of the forest, the carved face on the stone gave the impression of something alien, foreign to this place.

No one could explain who left it here and why.

Two days after the discovery of the terrace with the carved face, a team of rangers returned to the site with forensic experts.

The weather had changed dramatically.

A cold wind was blowing in from the ocean with stinging rain, and the slopes of Acadia were covered with a thin layer of ice.

The ascent to the ice ledge became more difficult.

The ropes slipped on wet stones and metal hooks froze to the rock.

Despite this, the expedition had the task of examining in detail the rock on which the face was carved.

The official report of the National Park Service later stated that during the second inspection, experts noticed a large stone block at the foot of the terrace.

It had an unusual shape with sharp edges on one side and a smooth surface on the other, as if someone had moved it.

The boulder was not in its natural position.

Its base was on a layer of fine soil that looked fresher than the surrounding moss and lykan.

Ranger Paul Donahghue was the first to notice this.

In his testimony, he said, “It seemed to be empty under the stone.

When I stood on it, I heard a dull sound like a wooden box being hit.

We decided to check it out.” The five men managed to move the boulder only a few inches.

They then used metal crowbars and gradually shifted the weight of the stone to open a narrow opening a little over a foot wide.

Cold and damp smells wafted out of it.

Under the light of the lanterns, a depression behind the stone was visible.

A small grotto of natural origin.

The opening had been widened enough to allow them to crawl inside.

The first to descend was forensic inspector Richard Bole.

He described what he saw in the report.

The space is about 8 ft wide and about 5 ft high.

The walls are covered with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs.

On the floor is a dark-coled sleeping bag.

There are human remains inside.

The body was in a relaxed position as if the person was just sleeping.

The top of the bag was half zipped.

The right arm was along the body and the left arm was pressed to the chest.

Due to the low temperature and humidity, the body was partially mummified.

The skin on the face and hands was fragmented.

The hair remained in place, dark brown, medium length.

The clothes, a thermal sweatshirt, windbreaker, and hiking pants were clearly recognizable by the brand worn by Britney Roberts.

Next to the bag was a camera a digital camera in a protective case.

Despite the moisture, the case looked intact.

It was removed immediately after the photo was taken.

But the most frightening discovery was waiting on the walls and ceiling of the grotto.

When the experts turned on additional lighting, it became clear that the entire interior surface of the cave was covered with carvings.

Dozens of faces carved roughly but with amazing attention to detail.

Eye sockets, nose, cheeks, corners of the mouth.

Some of the features were similar as if they repeated the same pattern.

Geology expert Simon Hail, who was present during the examination, noted in the report.

The carving marks are of varying depth and freshness.

Some were made a few years ago, some earlier.

These are not natural formations.

The stone was processed by hand, probably with a sharp metal tool.

Witnesses said that when the light of the lantern slid across the walls, it seemed that the faces were watching people.

One of them, the largest, about 2 ft tall, was carved right above the place where the sleeping bag had been lying.

The features of this face were almost identical to those carved on the outer rock.

After the discovery of the remains, the site was immediately closed to the public.

The state’s forensic scientists were brought in and spent several days surveying the site with a laser scanner, measuring every inch of space.

According to the analysis, the body had been in the grotto for many years.

There were no signs of animal movement or traces of outside interference after death.

The medical experts report noted that the bag was zipped from the inside.

This meant that the person had laid down inside and closed himself.

The cause of death could not be established on the spot.

It was necessary to conduct an examination in the laboratory.

An important detail was the location of the camera.

It was lying to the right of the head with the lens facing forward as if the owner had made a last move to reach for it.

Small scratches were found on the body, but the memory card was removed intact.

Apart from the bag and the camera, there was nothing in the grotto.

no food, water, or equipment.

This indicated that Britney had either left the camp with minimal belongings or someone had moved her body after her death.

However, there was no evidence of movement.

The rangers who participated in the excavation mentioned a strange atmosphere inside the grotto.

The air was dry but heavy, saturated with the smell of dust and old clay.

When the remains were being removed, a spotlight hit one of the smallest carved figures and the outline of a woman’s face with short hair could be distinguished.

One of the experts privately suggested that the sculptor was trying to recreate the appearance of Britney herself.

In its official comments, the park service refrained from speculating.

The press release only said, “Numerous objects of anthropogenic origin are present in the area where the remains were found.

Their nature and origin are being established.

The work is ongoing.

For the locals, the story has once again acquired a mystical connotation.

They began to call the place the cave of faces.

No one could explain who created the carvings or why Britney Roberts’s body ended up there under the rock where the stone looked at the world with her own carved profile.

The camera found next to Britney Roberts’s body became the main evidence in the case.

In December of 2019, it was transferred to the Main State Crime Laboratory.

The device was better preserved than expected.

The case was scratched, but the electronics were intact.

The memory card had corrosion around the edges, but the data was partially recovered.

Experts worked on the images for several weeks using technologies that allow them to recreate deleted or damaged files.

The first results came in late December.

The card contained about a 100 pictures taken between October 14 and 15, 2011, the very days Britney went on her last hike.

The first photos looked quite familiar.

Shots of forest trails, Jordan Lake, sun glare on the water.

Several of them featured a selfie of a smiling Brittany in a brightly colored jacket.

She stands in front of a rock, smooth and light, without any traces of carvings.

Another shot shows her backpack laid out on the terrace next to a small fire with a cauldron hanging over it.

These photos gave the impression of an ordinary hiking trip, lonely but peaceful.

The problem started with the last series of images.

The researchers noticed that there was a gap in time between the images.

According to the metadata, several hours had passed between the last landscape and the next photo.

When they recovered the damaged file, they could see a terrace with a tent.

In the foreground, there are scattered things, and in the background, between the tree trunks, there is a shadow of a person.

The figure is blurred, but the outline of a man in dark clothes is visible.

He stands motionless, not looking at the lens as if watching from behind the trees.

According to experts, the distance to him did not exceed 20 yard.

The magnification showed only a blurred outline of the head and shoulders.

The face could not be recognized.

This particular frame was labeled photo of an unknown person in the report.

The file sequence was followed by a sharp break.

The image with the shadow was followed by a series of four blurry shots apparently taken in a hurry.

One showed a fragment of ground, another a blurred image of tree roots, then a dark spot that looked like part of a shoe or tripod.

The last file was a continuous moving blurred background.

Experts assumed that the camera had fallen to the ground during a movement or struggle.

Traces on the lens confirmed this.

Small scratches and sand particles remained on the glass.

The technical report stated that the lens had been damaged at the time of the last shots.

Further analysis revealed another detail.

Fragments of deleted files were found in the devices memory.

Data remaining in the buffer.

These could be pictures that someone tried to erase without completely formatting the card.

They were partially recovered.

Several fragments contained repeated images of a rock with a carved profile, but the lower metadata contained a date that was after Britney’s official disappearance.

This means that these photos were taken when she or someone else was still using her camera.

After the results of the analysis were made public, the sheriff’s office press service confirmed that the camera had indeed detected the presence of another person.

This was the first indisputable proof that Brittany was not alone on the day of her disappearance.

The investigator’s report states, “There is reason to believe that a third person was on the terrace with or near the victim at the time of the last photograph.” The FBI specialists involved in deciphering the images tried to reconstruct the silhouette of the unknown person using three-dimensional pixel analysis technology.

However, the low resolution and light glare made it impossible to determine either his age or facial features.

The expert’s conclusion was unequivocal.

The person has not been identified, but the presence of a person at the scene is undeniable.

This information changed the nature of the investigation.

If earlier the case was considered a possible accidental death, now it has moved to the category of criminal.

The main suspect was the unidentified man in the last photo.

The police began to check all the evidence received in 2011.

Particular attention was paid to reports from local tourists who then mentioned a strange hermit who allegedly lived in the northern part of the park.

One of the witnesses, a resident of Bar Harbor, recalled seeing a middle-aged man with long hair and a backpack cutting wood near an old stone quarry.

In those years, the police did not attach any importance to this.

Now, all the old testimonies have been reviewed again.

Experts also examined fingerprints on the camera body.

Several partial traces were found on the surface, but due to the long time and humidity, they were not suitable for comparison with databases.

The only clear print belonged to Britney herself.

Despite the limited evidence, the photographs were decisive.

They showed that the moment of the meeting in the forest was unexpected.

Judging by the angle of the shot, Britney could have been simply taking pictures of the landscape when the figure of the observer came into view.

Subsequent footage suggests that she was probably trying to run away or divert attention.

Her death no longer looked accidental.

The official report released in January of 2020 concluded with the words, “Photographic evidence confirms the presence of a third person at the scene of the disappearance of Citizen Roberts.

The actions of this person may be directly related to her death.

The investigation is ongoing.” And for the first time in 8 years after the tragedy, the Acadia forest came to life again.

This time not with the rustle of the wind, but with the rustle of photographs that brought back what the forest itself had tried to hide.

February of 2020.

The snow in the mountains of Acadia lay in a dense layer, and the wind from the ocean cut through the treetops, creating a deafening, almost human groan.

It was at this time that the investigation into Britney Roberts’s death entered a new phase.

After analyzing the images from her camera, the police had a single but important image, a fuzzy silhouette of a man among the trees.

This was the beginning of the largest operation in Hancock County in recent years.

FBI investigators and local police conducted a series of interviews in Bar Harbor, Ellsworth, and surrounding villages.

They showed an enlarged fragment of the photo, a blurry figure in dark clothes with a light stripe on his shoulder, and asked if anyone had seen a similar person in the park area.

The owners of tourist shops, rangers, loggers, no one recognized the face.

One of the senior rangers, Howard Lynch, said, “Sometimes you see hermits here, people who don’t want to be found.

We’re used to the forest being inhabited by people who are running away from society.

His words were included in the report as a characterization of the area, a territory where you can disappear forever.

At the same time, forensic scientists began studying the artifacts from the rock.

The carved face from the ice ledge was scanned in three dimensions to determine the tool used to create it.

The analysis of the micro cuts showed that the blade was narrow with a curve, not like a regular knife or axe.

It was a cutter for small wood or stone work.

Experts from Boston University noted in their conclusion, “The type of tool and technique indicate the hand of a person with carving experience.

This is not a random attempt by a tourist, but the work of a master who is used to working with the material.” The details of the pattern turned out to be the same for all the images in the grotto.

short repeating notches, a sequence of movements that showed that the author acted deliberately without haste.

This suggested that the carvings were part of a ritual or habit, not a flash of madness.

The investigation began to look for a connection between this master and known cases of strange activity in the area.

A short report from March 2009 was found in the Ellsworth Police archives.

A hunter named Jeffrey Melton reported a strange man who allegedly lived in the woods north of Acadia.

The report stated, “Solitary, middle-aged, bearded, thin, claimed to be making wood figures to calm the spirits.

” The police then went to the scene but did not find anyone.

The case was left without continuation and received the unofficial name Carver report.

The Carver Report.

This document was a turning point.

The description given in the report partially matched the silhouette in Britney’s camera photo.

The coincidence was so striking that the head of the investigation team, Captain Larry Donovan, ordered a review of all archives for the past 10 years related to strange incidents in the main woods.

For several weeks, FBI analysts reviewed old reports about empty campsites, abandoned tents, and cases of missing hunters.

Several of them repeated a similar detail.

People saw wooden figures or crude carvings of faces on tree trunks near the scenes.

At the time, this was not given any importance, considered a strange coincidence.

Now, these findings have become part of a single chain.

Photos from the archives showed the same style.

Empty eye sockets, distorted mouths, short lines carved from left to right, as if the author was left-handed.

Experts confirmed that it was the same handwriting as the stone in Britany Cave.

Local newspapers quickly picked up the story.

In February, the Banganger Daily News ran a headline, “Who is the woodarver?” The article mentioned that rumors were circulating in the area about a hermit who creates faces for trees to see instead of him.

The police did not comment on the rumors, but confirmed that this line of investigation exists.

At the same time, the search for a possible suspect has turned into a real expedition.

The territory of the northern forests was divided into squares, each of which was combed by groups of rangers and volunteers.

They used thermal imagers, drones, and dogs, but there were no results.

The hermit, if he really existed, knew how to disappear without a trace.

In March, the sheriff’s office released new information.

The remains of an old hut were found a few miles from the ice ledge.

It was dilapidated, but there were fragments of wooden shelves with carved pieces of wood on them.

They were covered with moss, but their shape resembled human faces.

Experts confirmed that the technique was the same as that seen on the rocks.

On one of the fragments, the word face was carved in charcoal.

For the police, this was another proof that the forest carver was not a legend.

His presence in these places was confirmed by physical evidence, but they failed to identify him.

All attempts to find a person who lived in the area permanently ended in vain.

The rangers assumed that he could have moved between seasonal campsites using old hunting trails not marked on maps.

Some believed that he might have known the park inside out better than anyone else.

Perhaps a former employee who had deliberately disappeared from society.

An FBI report in March of 2020 introduced a new official hypothesis.

the possible involvement of an individual known by the code name the woodcutter in the death of citizen Roberts.

The person may reside or hide in the northern part of the national park.

The level of threat to civilians is high.

Following this document, Aadia Park was partially closed to visitors.

Local media published warnings about an unknown person who may be prone to aggression.

The police did not officially confirm the suspicion of murder, but everyone understood that this was no longer an accident or a myth.

In the midst of the winter silence, the forest seemed deserted, but the rangers on duty near the ice ledge sometimes heard branches cracking in the dark.

They said that someone was walking there, and perhaps the one they were looking for was watching them, just as he had once watched Brittany.

April 2020.

After three months of fruitless searches, when raids, thermal imagers, and drones yielded no results, the Britany Roberts case began to fade again.

Just when it seemed like everything had stopped, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office received an anonymous call.

A man’s voice, deaf and uneven, said he knew the place where the man people called the woodcutter lived.

According to official reports, the caller was a former logger who worked in the Acadia area in the years 2010 to 2012.

He called himself Richard Hayes, although it later turned out that this was probably a fake name.

According to him, while they were cutting down trees near a mountain stream a few miles from the ice ledge, he came across a camp that didn’t belong to a tourist.

Hayes said he saw a man living alone and doing wood carving.

He said he was carving faces so that the forest would not be lonely, the witness was quoted as saying during a brief conversation recorded on a dictaphone.

After that, the logger never saw him again, but he remembered the place.

He sent the coordinates by email and disappeared from the network.

A special group of seven people, including rangers, survival experts, and forensic scientists, went to the location.

They had to walk for 2 days through inaccessible areas.

The stream that the witness spoke of was located in a land between two stone massiffs where no official route led.

On the map, this area was marked as a prohibited flora observation zone.

The first signs of the camp appeared suddenly.

Old traces of wooden planks were visible in the damp ground, and then there was an almost invisible entrance to the cave, disguised as an embankment.

It was dry inside.

Charred pieces of hand huneed wood hung from the ceiling.

Along the walls were narrow shelves with cans of canned food, several metal cups, and a kerosene lamp that had long since gone out.

Among the belongings were an axe, three carving tools, and a saw wrapped in a cloth.

On the ground were fragments of wooden figures, mostly faces.

All of them had the same expression, empty eyes and stretched mouths, as if frozen in a silent scream.

The main find was waiting for us.

On the cave wall was a gallery of carved faces, dozens, perhaps hundreds.

Some were old, covered in dust.

Others looked fresher.

The lanterns illuminated their shadows, which moved in the light, making it seem as if the wall was breathing.

One of the faces was larger than the others, almost human-sized, and had familiar features, the same proportions, the same expression as the carvings on the rock where Britney was found.

When the experts began to describe the inventory, they found a leatherbound notebook in a metal box.

It was a diary.

The entries were made in uneven but neat handwriting.

The first dates are from the summer of 2010.

The author described everyday life.

The traps are checked.

There are fish.

I added a new face to keep them alive through the night.

Then there were strange phrases.

They look at me when the wind changes.

Or the silence becomes lighter when I carve.

The last entries are dated October 2011, the same time Britney Roberts disappeared.

The page that closed the diary had a short, clear text.

A lonely girl in blue.

She was setting up a tripod near my stone.

She saw me.

I couldn’t let her go.

Now her face will look at the forest forever.

Experts recorded every line.

DNA analysis later showed traces of male DNA that did not match any individuals in the FBI database.

Everything pointed to the fact that the author of the diary was the same hermit who was once called the woodcutter.

He himself was not in the camp.

The traces showed that he had left recently.

There were fresh ashes from the fire, several empty canned foods, and water covered with thin ice in a bucket.

Near the exit, they found bootprints leading in the direction of the forest and lost among the stones.

That day, the area was examined until the evening.

Drones flew over the mountain range, but no traces of a person were found.

The search continued for several more days, but to no avail.

The forest carver disappeared the same way he appeared, without a trace, without explanation.

The diary, tools, and several wooden figurines were sent to a laboratory in Portland.

The analysis confirmed that the entries were genuine and the carvings were made by the same person over many years.

On some pages, researchers found traces of blood mixed with wood dust.

After the release of this data, the case of Britney Roberts was officially classified as a murder, but the suspect was never found.

Official reports ended with the phrase, “The whereabouts of the unknown person allegedly involved in the crime have not been established.

” Over time, the story became a legend.

Locals began to call the rock on the ice ledge the face in the stone.

Tourists, despite the ban, came there secretly to see the carved features.

It was said that sometimes at night, when the wind blows from the ocean, the face seems to glow in the dark.

Acadia with its cold rivers and stone ridges has once again become a place where silence has its own voice.

And it sounded through a face carved in stone.