It’s Valentine’s Day, which means Portland is showing its heart once again.

The anonymous band of cupids collectively known as the Valentine’s Day Phantom, or sometimes the Valentine Bandit, swept through the city in the dark of night before dawn Friday, leaving shop windows and buildings decorated with bright red hearts.

It’s a beloved tradition that began in the mid-1970s. The guerrilla-style love letters to Maine’s largest city have grown more sophisticated over the years, with red heart flags appearing atop tall buildings and even in the middle of Casco Bay.

In 1986, the U.S. Coast Guard nearly caught the bandits red-handed after their small boat was almost struck by a ferry. The Coast Guard reported that a 12-foot boat was loaded with seven people. They eluded capture after hanging a giant heart banner on Fort Gorges.

The tradition has clearly been a team effort over the years, given the Phantom’s ability to spread the love across so much of the city every 14th of February. But just who is behind the annual lovefest has been a carefully guarded mystery for decades.

The identity of one leader of the effort became public knowledge in 2023 after the death of Kevin Farnham, a big-hearted Falmouth man who was 67 when he died.

Farnham’s family unmasked him as a driving force behind the tradition and they later launched a charitable foundation in his honor. Farnham led the effort for a number of years, his family revealed, although he wasn’t its founder.

That person’s identity still remains a mystery.