On Monday, Brunswick Town Councilor Kathy Wilson was surprised and disturbed to find a cryptic, anonymous flier on her car’s windshield with what appeared to be an anti-homosexuality message.

“I thought, ‘Wow. It’s been years and years since this kind of stuff happened,’” said Wilson. “And then I thought, ‘What the hell are they trying to say?’”

The flier claims to be from “The Forest Brothers,” and depicts what appears to be a rainbow flag, an equal sign and a Soviet ham- mer and sickle.

On Monday morning, Wilson went to the 9/11 ceremony on the Mall in Brunswick, parking on the corner of School Street and Park Row. Following the ceremony, she returned to her vehicle to find the single page flier neatly stuck under her windshield.

At first, she thought it might have been a parking ticket. Instead, Wilson found the cryptic message on plain white copy paper. Looking at other cars parked in the area, Wilson was unable to find any other fliers.

“Clearly my car was chosen, and I believe it was chosen because I have a rainbow sticker on the back, because I am gay,” said Wilson.

Despite the unclear message of the flier, Wilson said she felt singled out and threatened.

“I definitely took it as an expression of hate and I definitely took it as a threat in a way,” she said.

Wilson reported the incident to the Brunswick police, who are looking into the matter. An identical flier was found at the Brunswick Burger King on Sept. 6, said Brunswick Police Cmdr. Mark Waltz.

“If anyone has had a similar flier left for them, please let us know,” said Waltz.

A representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center based in Alabama, which tracks hate groups in the United States, said that they had never heard of a group called The Forest Brothers before. Historically, the Forest Brothers were anti-Soviet guerrilla groups that operated in the Baltics during World War II. It’s unclear if there is meant to be any connection between the historical group and the anonymous individual or group distributing fliers in Brunswick.

Whatever the flier’s origin, for Wilson, messages of hate are nothing new.

“It’s actually not a whole lot different than it’s been my whole life. I’ve experienced this before years ago. I’ve been called things and yelled at,” she said.

“Whoever it is, he/she is a friggin’ coward. If you want to hate me, give me a call. I’ll meet you downtown — let’s talk about how much you hate me and I’ll listen to why you do,” she added.

Wilson sits on the Human Rights Committee in Brunswick, and she said the committee will look into the incident. While there’s not much they can effectively do about it, she admitted, it’s important to bring these incidents into the public eye.

“It doesn’t belong in Brunswick,” she said. “It doesn’t belong anywhere. I firmly believe that this needs to be exposed. This is happening in Brunswick of all towns.”

nstrout@timesrecord.com