Ghost Hunting in California

There's a group of us that occasionally ghost hunt in and around southern California. We try to keep open minds while disproving anything that we can, discarding images and sounds that we can not conclusively show evidence of spirit activity, and what's left over we display.
Some of recent hunts have been at the famous Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, Oak Park Cemetery in Claremont, California, and the Suicide Bridge in Pasadena California.

Queen Mary, Long Beach, California
The back story.
I have been a fan of the Queen for a very long time, and used to take trips there just to walk around the ship long before I ever heard about it being haunted. Back "in the day" it was free to board her, if you knew how to do it, and a couple times a month I'd go down there just to walk her decks, her allure being almost magical. Top to bottom, day or night, I could board and go pretty much anywhere I pleased. You can't do that these days, but we do have a member of our group who's a financial contributor to the Queen, and thus pretty much free access any time.

In about 1990 or 1991, I saw an "Eye on L.A." piece that publicized the "fact" that the Queen Mary was haunted, but I took that with a grain of salt, not really believing in that sort of thing. I'd always been of the mind set that if I actually saw a ghost, then maybe I'd believe they existed, but until then such stories were more or less entertainment. I'd have a chance to change my mind in a few years.

In 1996, I took a trip down to the queen with a friend of mine. As he'd never been aboard, I thought it best that he take the guided tour so that he could get as much information about Her Majesty as he could. I went on the tour too, and even though I'd been on tours of the queen many times in addition to my lone travels, I knew that I'd probably pick up info I hadn't heard before.

What's interesting about the guided tours is that each time you take one, you'll almost certainly be introduced to a part of the ship you'd not seen before, or get a piece of information you didn't already know. The ship is so large, and under nearly constant renovation, that there are new things available season to season. They keep the tours fresh, in other words.

On the 1996 trip, the tour ended in the engine room area, just forward of the rudder control box. The guide finished her spiel, and invited all in attendance to feel free to mill around, explore the rest of the ship as we pleased, or disembark if we wanted. In this area there are hundreds of gauges, switches and levers, and being a sort of a freak about these sorts of things, I began toying with several dozen of them. So caught up with absorbing the history of these switches and levers and their uses, I failed to realize that everybody had left the area. I was completely alone, save for one pair of legs disappearing down the port side passageway toward the aft.

The guide had led us into this area down the starboard passage around the rudder control box, and I noticed that when we went into this area, the port side passage was both roped off with a courtesy rope, like you might see forming lines at a bank or a theater, and it was dark, illuminated only by red emergency lights above the passage. The same was true on both the forward and aft entrances to this passage. At the time I thought nothing of it, that maybe they were doing work back there, so roped off meant No Entry. When I realized that I was totally and utterly alone, a chill came over me, as I watched the legs disappear. I did a double take, taking notice that the courtesy rope on the forward end of this passage was now hanging slack, no longer barring entry to the port side passage. "Cool," I thought, "They've opened it up! It must be OK to go through there now. I saw somebody enter." I knew better, deep inside. A tourist had simply unhooked the rope and entered. I didn't listen to that little voice though, because I wanted to know what was down that passage. That, and I was suddenly uneasy standing there all alone.

My decision made, I walked into this dark passage, lit only by the overhead red lights, and reflecting back, I should have realized that not all was well, as the pair of legs I saw vanish down that corridor didn't seem to belong to anybody. There was nobody else in this long passage. I suppose, at the time, I thought that they must have run through and already exited. Wrong. Also, I felt very uncomfortable, like I was being watched, but I ascribed this feeling to simple paranoia, exacerbated by the dark conditions.

As I walked through this passage, I passed through a doorway. Not knowing anything was sinister about this area until much later, I passed through just as I would any door. Just as I went through, I spotted somebody on my right, toward port, OFF the walkway to my right, 3 to 4 feet away.
He was NOT happy. Eyes wide, leering and bearing his teeth, hands splayed to either side of his face as if he were going to jump me, his dive would be coming from an elevated position. I'm 6' 2" tall, and his head must have been at about 7 feet high, so either I was being jumped by a white NBA star, or he was standing on something that would definitely allow him to clear the railing as he leaped over the railing that he was on the other side of. "Oh great, I'm going to be fighting for my life in a small, confined area" I thought. "This must be the person who's legs I saw walk down this passage, luring me to get jumped," flashed through my mind as I spun into a fighting stance.

I reacted pretty quickly, spun to my right with the railing to my back, pistoning my right hand back while making a fist, and bringing my open left hand into a defensive position sort of in front of me. I reasoned in the instant that I assumed this posture that if his dive was off to my left, I'd be able to deflect him off to my left, pushing him over the railing that was to my back, while landing a blow with my right fist that would likely keep him from grappling me and pulling me over with him on his trip to the bilge. If he hit me dead on with his leap, I would spin him to the railing, or push him off so I'd have fighting space. If he dived off center to my right, he'd be greeted right between the eyes by my now cocked and ready right. As I finished bringing my right hand back a prepared to shift my weight forward in anticipation of the blow I was sure was coming, I blinked. "Huh?"
My assailant was gone. I blinked again, then a third time, looking to my left, then to my right. "Where'd he go?," I quietly thought. I stood there looking and listening for four or five seconds, and no sounds betrayed any movement, so I got while the getting was good. I didn't run, but walked briskly the rest of the way through the passage. I wasn't going back the way I came, even if it was closer to relative safety than continuing down this passage alone. For one, I'm stubborn and dislike backtracking, for two, I was not going to be going through any more doors. As I fast-walked though, I spun to my rear time and again, hands at the ready in case he were to "pop up" again, but nothing that I could see followed me out. Had somebody run up behind me and yelled "BOO," I probably would have soiled myself.

When I reached the aft area where the escalators or stairs are (it doesn't much matter, as I pretty much flew up these) I hurried up to the next deck. I found my friend, and most of the group we'd been with, and when he say me walking up (fast), he said "What's a-matter? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Perceptive bastard.

"Yeah, I think I did" I deadpanned. "Come on, left me show you" I said as I led him back to the scene of the almost crime while describing the circumstances. I had no problem returning there with someone else, especially this guy. He's an enormous bear of a man, much larger than me, so the two of us would have no problem dealing with anything natural there. I still wasn't too sure about the supernatural.

When we got back to where I'd had my fright, we noticed that there was nothing but air on the other side of the railing toward port for somebody to stand on in which to elevate and or to leap from. Also, there was an (about) 8" to 10" white pipe that came up right there from under the walkway / catwalk we were standing on, and had I swung first, I probably would have broken my hand on it.

My friend asked if the pipe is what I saw. "No, pipes don't have close set eyes, mouths, teeth, hands and combed back hair, and pipes don't disappear."
"Hmph. OK. Well let's go" he said. What-a-guy.

On May 27, 2001, I returned to the Queen with my wife and family, with a friend of my step-daughter's in tow. We took dozens of photos around the ship, caught dozens of orbs (in daylight conditions, which is unusual), many of which were obviously in motion at high speeds, as they were elongated. Most of the time orbs are nothing but dust or insects being picked up in low light conditions, so catching any in broad daylight is unusual. It also happened to be the 65 anniversary of the Queen's maiden voyage.

We also went to the infamous water tight door 13, which I now new a little about. John Peddar was crushed by this door in 1966. Thinking that it was probably John I'd seen back in 1996, I decided to try and bait John into showing himself as we shot picture after picture down the passageway. We only caught one thing this time in that area, and that was a picture of a very angry entity rising out of the walkway, pivoting at the waist, like somebody somebody sitting up in bed. His face was covered in angry colors of red, violet, blue. Apparently my baiting worked. Later I saw a person's rendition of John, or at least a witness's drawing of what's thought to be John's ghost, and it's definitely NOT the ghost I looked at straight in the eyes in 1996. I'll have to get back there in the near future and apologize to John for baiting him in such a rude manner.

All of this is just personal experiences, which means little without evidence, so take it as you will.

Below are photos taken and EVP captured by our group on the afternoon 12-04-2008.

The Queen Mary. These are the low rez. versions.
Our group was just entering into the area of the engine room when Scotty took this picture. Partially obscured behind the pillar on the left, to the right of it, you can clearly see somebody leaning against the railing, as if they are facing looking to the right part of the picture. There was nobody down there with them. This prompted us to look at the next picture in the series, which looks at the same area from the perspective of the left side of the pillar, taken about 3 seconds later. That's the following picture.


This is the picture taken just seconds later, from the left side of the pillar. There's a lot of stuff in this picture. See if you can spot anything odd before scrolling to the more detailed pictures below. Hint - the person standing in the previous picture is now unseen, but there's another man standing in the back, in the shadows. Again, nobody was down there with us.


Here is a blow up of the area of interest. You can see the bearded man leaning against the railing on the right, and you can see the railing through him. He appears to be wearing a naval looking uniform, white a white shirt and dark tie. You can also see light glinting off his forehead, and you clearly make out his brow ridge, beard and hair.
To the left of him, from our perspective, are three other anomalies, which are a lot harder to pick out. In the next picture we have them circled.


Left circle: what looks like a child sitting on the railing. To the left of the child looking thing is a bald headed and very angry face peeking out, as if from behind.
Middle circle: I think you can only really make this out in a very high res version blown up really large, but it almost looks like an angel, with wings and a crossed breastplate. Right circle - the bearded man at the railing.

Queen Mary EVP's recorded 12-4-08. In attendance is Justin, who asks most of the questions, Scott, heard a couple of times, Perry and Bridget, who are mostly silent witnesses.