Maine town transfixed by ‘Wessie,’ a 10-foot python

To Maine police, a large snake on the loose is no joking matter.

Like the opening act of a B-movie creature feature, the sightings of the snake now known as “Wessie” have played out in glimpses. The first report, toward the end of June, was that a snake as long as a truck with the head the size of a softball slithered past a children’s playground in Westbrook, Maine. It disappeared into the nearby Presumpscot River.

The police warned people to stay away, though the sighting attracted a handful of inquisitive souls to the playground.

A few days later, two officers with the Westbrook Police Department also spotted a snake of unusual size. “The snake,” as the police department wrote on its Facebook page, “was eating a large mammal, possibly a beaver (not joking).” As it swam away, the officers estimated it to be 10 feet in length. It was 3:30 a.m., the darkness foiling the officers’ attempt to take a video.

Given the 10-foot-long estimate, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologist Derek Yorks concluded it was likely a python or constrictor, neither of which are native to the area. “We don’t have anything big enough to eat beavers, that’s for sure,” Yorks told the Bangor Daily News. His theory was that the animal was a pet that had outgrown its owner’s ability to keep it.

Interest in Wessie hit a fever pitch. City officials called in an unnamed animal tracker, though the self-proclaimed cryptozoologist rescheduled twice and has yet to appear.

Like many wild critters that end up in the spotlight, the snake enjoyed a healthy fandom on social media (what isn’t set in stone is a last name: it’s Wessie P. Thon on Twitter or Wessie the Presumpscot Python on Facebook). Wessie buffs took to the animal with a zeal usually reserved for sasquatches, goat-men and other cryptids. Wessie earned itself a folk song as well as a locally-brewed IPA in its name.

After a flurry of activity in June, Wessie seemed to have vanished. There had been no sign of Wessie since the police report. But Saturday, evidence of a large snake appeared yet again. This time, it took the form of a giant snake skin, discarded near the boat launch by the Presumpscot River.

Auburn University herpetologist David Steen is skeptical. On Twitter, he wrote that “it looks like the skin was just placed there by someone,” later comparing how neatly the snakeskin was displayed to a limbless person setting out a jacket and pants.

Unfortunately for Wessie, if the animal does exist, its chances of making it through a subzero Maine winter are not good.