LEWISTON — All across the Twin Cities on Thursday people were crinkling their noses and fanning their faces.

“What’s the horrible smell all over Lewiston today?” one man demanded to know on Facebook. “Smells like a sewer backed up all over town.”

“It is disgusting,” declared a woman from the city.

Theories as to what might be causing the stench — most not fit for print — were all over the place. In the end, the answer was simplicity itself: Manure was being spread across some school athletic fields, and with a brisk wind blowing the smell of it offended many a nostril.

But there was a twist: A farmer on Penley Corner Road in Auburn reported that he had spread hen manure, leading many to wonder which side of the Androscoggin River stank the worst. Other farms were said to be doing the same, so the smell was coming from multiple directions. In addition to that, there were reports that a truck carrying chicken manure had accidentally dumped the entire load in one spot along Penley Corner Road.

Lewiston School Superintendent Todd Finn acknowledged that fertilizer was being spread at the new Robert V. Connors Elementary School and at Lewiston High School off East Avenue. He didn’t know that early in the day, though. Like everyone else, he just went outside, sniffed and wondered what the stink was all about.

“To me,” Finn said, “it smelled like Parmesan cheese.”

That was the most generous description of the day. Most people compared the stench to more unsavory things, like human waste or dead animals.

At the Public Works Department on Adams Avenue, just down the hill from the schools, workers got a strong whiff of the aroma — so much so that they had to close their windows and shut off air conditioners. One Public Works official said she thought it smelled like chicken manure, but she couldn’t say for sure. All day, she said, people were calling Public Works asking about the source of the smell.

The reek wasn’t only evident in the area around the schools. People on the outskirts reported the stench wafting out there, as did a few in Auburn. The smell was said to be particularly pervasive on the turnpike.

All over the Twin Cities, it seemed, people were shutting their doors, closing their windows and even checking their shoes to make sure the source of the stink wasn’t there. Schoolchildren complained about the odor when they went out for recess — and not only at Connors and Lewiston High.

The smell was first noticed late in the morning. By 3 p.m., it seemed a little fainter, but if the wind shifted just so, one would still experience the aroma at full power.

“I’m a gardener and I understand how manure works,” said Diane Fuller of Lewiston, “but I find it hard to believe anything good can grow from this smell. Someone please make it stop!”

One woman who was expecting to attend field hockey games at the Lewiston fields Friday night said she planned to bring a scarf to cover her face in an attempt to ward off the smell.

The stink was expected to dissipate with time — a few people expressed concerns that the smell would linger into Friday, when hundreds pour into the area as part of the yearly Dempsey Challenge. Others were more dismissive of that idea. It would take a lot more than an unpleasant scent on the air to disrupt the yearly event.

“The Dempsey Challenge happens no matter what the weather brings or which way the wind blows,” said Nancy Audet, communications director at the Dempsey Center, which offers services for people who have been affected by cancer. The Dempsey Challenge is a fundraiser involving biking and walking.

The smell of chicken manure, which is relatively cheap and high in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, can linger for days. The stuff stinks because of the gases it releases, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The stinky gases include hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia.

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