The Queen Mary
I've been to the Queen Mary on several occaisions, and
encountered
more
than one of the phenomenon aboard.
The most accessible haunted area is near door 13 in the
engine room,
where a young man was crushed trying to escape a fire. He was
only
17
and had lied about his age in order to get the job. We've
heard
knocking
from the pipes around the door on more than one occaision,
once
it
progressed in a circle all the way around our group. Another
time,
two
of our group saw a bright light with smoke in front of it as
with
a
fire. The woman also felt heat from the doorway, when she
touched
it. We
had not informed them of the haunting before.
Another of the accessible haunting areas is the front desk
of what
is
now the hotel portion of the ship. Sightings include a
mysterious
woman
in white who will be sighted walking until blocked from view
by
a pillar
and never coming out from behind. Also, a couple has been seen
walking
down the hall to either side of the main entry to the first
class
rooms,
but are never seen in the hallways themselves.
Some other areas that you have to take the behind the
scenes tour
to get
to include the engine room number 2. Many stowaways died every
time
they
would fire up the boilers to leave port, and sometimes a
feeling
of vast
despair can be felt on the catwalk and sometimes also on the
shuffleboard deck above. Also, I've noticed that when I'm
there,
the
room feels much larger than it is. I can also occaisionally
feel
the
ship sway, which it doesn't do now that it's moored.
There are several hauntings related to the pool, including
two different
children, one girl who asks after her mother or her doll, and
a
boy. The
girl is thought to have been a precocious child from third
class
who
liked sliding down bannisters and was doing so when the ship
hit
a swell
and pitched so that the bannister went straight down and she
hit
the
wall, breaking her neck. There have also been complaints about
a
smell
that would be from when the ship was in use to move troops
during
WWII,
and many of them were triple bunked in the pool itself, and
many
of the
soldiers were prone to seasickness. The third is a 'vortex'
that
is
located in the hallway of the changing rooms. It has been
featured
on
tv, and it's location was once confirmed by an employee, who
correctly
moved the chair back to the position where the psychic from
the
tv show
had placed it. The position of the vortex is almost directly
beneath
the
revolving door that was originally used as the entrance to the
pool
area. My group encountered something in this area when we went
through
it. I and the guide had gone around rather than going in,
while
my
husband, and our two friends went through the hallway. About a
minute
later, (it only takes about ten seconds to get from one end to
the
other) I looked in and saw the three of them. My husband was
almost
all
the way through, one friend was in the middle, where the
vortex
is, and
the third was just behind her. When I pulled back from
looking,
our
female friend screamed and the three of them hustled out of
the
hall. My
husband said that he had looked and seen three people behind
him
at
about the same time I had looked in from the other side, and
he
had
assumed that I was with them (I hadn't told them I wasn't
going
through
with them). The woman with us told us that at the site of the
vortex,
she couldn't move and tried to scream but couldn't, then felt
a
touch on
her shoulder, screamed, and they came out of the hallway. The
other
man,
her boyfriend at the time, had followed behind them and when
she
stopped
moving, he was going to nudge her forward, and that's when she
screamed,
when he touched her shoulder. He saw when I looked in to see
what
was
keeping them, and he also saw three others in the hallway,
thinking
that
our guide was one of them. Both my husband and he described
the
mystery
person as about 5'6" with medium length, curly hair.
The girl at the pool is also commonly seen around the third
class
stairwell, near the door to the old nursery.
We once took the ghost tour, four years ago, Halloween, and
they
no
longer have that tour, which is a shame.
It included all of the places mentioned above as well as
two others.
One
is for to the fore of the ship and is characterized by a man
screaming
for help and sometimes just by his moaning in pain. This comes
from
during WWII. The ship wouldn't publish it's sailing patterns
to
avoid
possible attack from German submarines. During one of these
trips
heading to Europe, the Queen Mary hit another, much smaller
ship,
broadsiding it. The other ship was cut nearly in two by the
force.
The
Queen Mary itself sustained little damage. When the ship
reached
port,
it was sent to dry dock to repair the hull, the outer section
of
which
had been badly torn. When the drained the water, the found the
body
of a
man who had been thrown through a hole torn in the hull above
the
water
line from the other ship and had died of exposure. Many techs
who
work
in that area don't like to go alone, or at night.
The other is a cabin. For this one, the guide turned out
the lights
of
the room and just used her flashlight. She had the entire
group
enter
(there were eight of us) and closed the door. While she told
us
the
story of the room, I could feel the ship swaying heavily and
actully
had
to catch my balance at one point. The story behind the room is
that
during one crossing, a man checked in at the desk, and his
luggage
was
stowed. That night he asked one of the stewards if they could
find
a
female companion for the night and gave the steward a small
wad
of
bills. The steward found a willing companion and she and the
passenger
retired for the night. The next morning when the man didn't
come
to the
dining room for breakfast, the steward knocked at his room.
After
receiving no answer, he fetched the head steward who opened
the
room.
The walls and bed were covered in the blood of the woman, who
had
been
murdered. A check of the registrar revealed that there had
been
no
passenger assigned to the room, and when they looked for his
luggage,
there was none to be found, even though many people remember
it
being
checked and stowed. I was distinctly uncomfortable during the
telling,
and almost panicky by the time she turned the lights back on.
by andara@mindless.com
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