Why Are People’s Feet Turning Black After Going to Southern Maine Beaches?

The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry (DACF) says that the stain is from millions of dead bugs. Wait, what?

News Center Maine talked to a couple of people who were at York, Wells and Ogunquit Beaches and left with their feet stained a bluish, blackish color!

The staining was not easy to wash off. For some only baby wipes took care of it, where soap and water wouldn't do a thing.

Alyssa Mewers, who lives in York and has been to the beach all of her life has never seen anything like it. And the coloring was different for her family. Some had black stains with a greenish hue and others were blue-tinted.  That's when York got serious and called the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) who went to beaches in Wells, York, and Ogunquit to figure out what it is.

Here's what it's not - according to the DEP, they don't think it's oil or a petroleum-based product that has washed up. A Maine DACF spokesman told News Center Maine they think the coloring was caused by...

pigment from the bodies of flying insects deposited on the shore by waves.

Alyssa Mewers is glad they are looking into it because they just want to make sure it's nothing harmful. The Portland Press Herald interviewed a marine geologist with the Maine Geological Survey and he said it was, the collective carcasses of millions of dead insects that float in the water and settle on the shore when the tide goes out. And he's never seen or heard of it in his 35 years as a marine geologist.

Well, that's concerning. They are now trying to figure out where did all these bugs come from. The good news is they don't expect it to happen again. I'm sure that's what they said about the Spanish flu too...