Maine has a rich supernatural history and ghost stories from the state are as varied as they are prolific. Freelance writer and reporter Tom Verde first became interested in such eerie occurrences while researching first-hand encounters with ghosts for a series of public radio programs. This book recounts some of the spine-tingling tales he uncovered in his research, including: *The dagger-wielding shade who terrorized a Portland couple *The murdered Indian who revisited Means's Tavern *Famed diva Lillian Nordica, whose voice still echoes through the Farmington auditorium named in her honor *The hostile spirit who tried to frighten the tenants out of an Orrington house *Even an entire phantom ship, bound eternally for Freeport These are not fictitious creations of literary imagination. People from all walks of life-including many who were positive they would never believe in ghosts-attest to these encounters.

The Believer is the weird and chilling true story of Dr. John Mack. This eminent Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer risked his career to investigate the phenomenon of human encounters with aliens and to give credibility to the stupefying tales shared by people who were utterly convinced they had happened. Nothing in Mack's four decades of psychiatry had prepared him for the otherworldly accounts of a cross-section of humanity including young children who reported being taken against their wills by alien beings. Over the course of his career his interest in alien abduction grew from curiosity to wonder, ultimately developing into a limitless, unwavering passion. Based on exclusive access to Mack's archives, journals, and psychiatric notes and interviews with his family and closest associates, The Believer reveals the life and work of a man who explored the deepest of scientific conundrums and further leads us to the hidden dimensions and alternate realities that captivated Mack until the end of his life.