My cousin Nate is in the Coast Guard, and he has been for over a decade.

He's not the kind of guy to lie or make things up.

He's one of the most straightforward people I know.

Real grounded and not superstitious,

not into horror, just a practical guy who likes boats and order.

He told me this story in the summer of 2022.

I asked him to repeat it more than once because of how messed up it was, and every time the

details stayed the same.

This happened back in 2017 when he was assigned to a lighthouse off the coast of Maine on

a two-week maintenance rotation.

The place was called Matinicus Rock, and it's way out there.

You can only get to it by boat or helicopter.

It's nothing more than a jagged, rocky island with a single lighthouse and one auxiliary

building that stores

fuel and maintenance equipment. There is no power grid, no plumbing, and barely any cell signal.

The lighthouse itself is automated, but it still requires occasional manual upkeep,

which is why the Coast Guard sends people out to it every year or so. Usually it's a solo assignment,

but there had been strange electrical failures the year before, so for this trip they decided

to send two people, Nate and another guy named Russell. The first few days were fine, windy,

boring, and repetitive. During the day, they'd check the beacon mechanics, test the emergency

batteries, refill the diesel generator, and scrape off layers of salt corrosion from the metal

interior. At night, they'd read, eat simple meals, and kill time playing cards. It was isolation,

...