There’s been more monster hunting at the University of Maine.

The big potato takedown is back in Aroostook County.

Bigfoot, frankly, has had a mixed year here, but at least we can finally reveal where the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization led its summer expedition. Farmington, maybe start locking your doors at night …

Below, updates to some strange, unexplained and intriguing stories of the last two years.

Kornfield’s MonsterQuest debut

UMaine Prof. Irv Kornfield has used his state-of-the-art DNA lab to test the remains of an alleged Canadian sea monster and an alleged Turner beast. Now he’s branched into alleged chupacabra.

Kornfield tested hairs from Puerto Rico and Texas believed to belong to the goat-blood sucker of folklore for the History Channel’s “MonsterQuest.” The episode aired July 23.

He taped the show in an anthropology lab at New York University.

“A very interesting setup, quite unlike a standard research lab: Everything black aside from strategically placed lights that cast shadows of skeletons on the walls of the lab,” Kornfield said.

The results? Drum roll…Dog.

“A number of my former students e-mailed to let me know that they saw the piece on TV. The most interesting incident involved a fellow who works in my building on the UMaine campus. One weekend he was in his kitchen and heard my voice, recognized it and then suddenly said, ‘What is Irv doing in my house?’ A TV was on in another room in the house airing a re-run.”

Crypto tin cup still out

Loren Coleman will spend the first half of December on the road raising money for his International Cryptozoology Museum.

In June, Coleman revealed that he and the museum had been the subjects of an arduous Internal Revenue Service audit.

He wanted to raise $30,000 by the end of the year for expenses like moving his collection of crypto-artifacts to different digs.

Coleman declined to say how far he is from that goal, but that a comedy “Bene-foot” last month in Portland was “a major disaster.”

Monster mash

After about a 10-year hiatus, the Maine Potato Blossom Festival got its mashed potato wrestling back.

The annual event, featured once in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!, was suspended when insurance costs spiked. In 2008, Fort Fairfield changed insurance carriers and the town turned 150.

“We thought it would be a good year to bring it back, it was such a popular event,” said Janet Kelle, executive director of the Fort Fairfield Chamber of Commerce.

Setup was the same: gym mats laid outdoors, surrounded by hay bales and covered with a giant tarp. A load of dry potato flakes was tossed in. The fire department added water.

Sixty-four people signed up to wrestle in the spuds.

“Even some father-son matches,” Kelle said.

Bigfoot hiatus?

After 15 years looking for Bigfoot in the Maine woods, Chris Julian is taking a break. The Maine Bigfoot Research founder has moved to New Hampshire.

The quest became more aggravating than it was worth, he said.

“It’s one of those fields where everyone has an opinion. . . . You’re continually defending yourself,” he said.

It’s not made any easier when someone trots out a gorilla costume filled with frozen opossum and claims it’s a bagged Bigfoot.

“The second I heard it I giggled my ass off,” Julian said. He knew immediately the Georgia carcass was a hoax. Stunts like that make it tough for people genuinely looking and not trying to make a buck, he said.

Julian said he’ll still search on his own time, in a low-key way. If he finds anything, he’ll holler.

‘My whole life is a paranormal experience’

The Unicorn Cove School of Metaphysics is still looking for a building larger than its former funeral parlor in Westbrook and Unicorn Rangers Psychic Police are still considering a jump to reality TV.

“I did have to go to North Carolina to investigate a place called the ‘devil’s tramping ground’ for a pilot show which was quite the experience,” said Ahura Z. Diliiza.

Unicorn Cove offers classes like beginning belly dance and the art of reading. The Rangers visit homes to dispatch malevolent entities and right the energy. Diliiza, a burly man with long, blond dreadlocks, leads both.

Brain Box Entertainment is working on the reality front. The demand, he’s heard, is for something closer to A&E’s “Paranormal State” or Sci-Fi’s “Ghost Hunters.”

“I found it strange that they would be more interested in a group of plumbers that have no real experience in paranormal affairs and a college student simply because he is in college and says that he had an experience as a child so that qualifies him,” Diliiza said.

“My whole life is a paranormal experience.”

Growls in Mt. Blue

The expedition was fun, but not quite what Nick Maione hoped.

The Rhode Island man led the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization’s first Maine expedition in June. Fourteen people joined the three-night trip, some paying $300 for the experience.

After months scouting the state, Maione ultimately picked Mt. Blue State Park. (A secret at the time to avoid pranksters.)

There were rainy days and black flies, and no solid evidence but several stick structures and one curious run-in. Maione said he had the experience driving up the side of a mountain.

“I kind of got this weird feeling to get out of the car,” he said. So he did.

“As I was walking toward this snapped branch, this growl came from the woods. I backed away. It sounded pretty vicious.”

In January or February, BFRO will decide whether to lead a second expedition to Maine next summer.

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