Geekstalt
At Rest in the Setting Sun
As we close in on the end of this virtual Ghost Tour there are a few other incidents of hauntings worth mentioning about the Queen Mary. Unfortunately these hauntings take place in areas which I either didn't visit or have no photos for.
During WWII the Queen Mary acted as a troop ship and was nicknamed The Grey Ghost because of her grey wartime paint scheme. Up to 15,000 troops travelled on the Queen Mary during each troip, and the story goes that the food was so poor on one of them that a riot broke out among the troops being carried to the front. The cook responsible (or more likely just some poor guy working in the kitchen) was found and things got out of hand: the cook was stuffed into an oven and burned alive. I don't know if this story is true, but it's said that you can still hear his ghastly screams in the kitchen, which are also a site of strong poltergeist activity.
Sounds of children can be heard in the forward storage room, where the ship's archives are kept. The morgue is supposed to be haunted as is the bosun's locker. The ghosts in the ship's morgue could have a number of identities. Sixteen crew members, two GI's and thirty-one passengers have died on the ship.
The bosun's locker is the area of the hull that sliced through the Queen Mary's escort ship Curacoa as she was zig-zagging to avoid subs during one of her wartime convoy runs. The Queen Mary was under orders not to stop so she was unable to save any survivors. 338 crewmen froze or drowned in the waters of the North Atlantic as a result. It's said that in the bosun's locker you can sometimes hear the sound of tearing metal, rushing water, men screaming and the pounding of their fists beating frantically against the hull. You can also hear them in the Engine Room near the stern of the ship. Perhaps that's because many of them died when they were dragged under by the tow of the ship and were shredded in her propellers.
Finally, Senior Second Officer William Stark is said to haunt the Queen Mary. He was accidentally poisoned in 1949, when Stark drank tetrachloride that either the crew or the captain kept in an old gin bottle.
And that's that! Thanks muchly for following along to everyone who has been reading this virtual tour. I hope you all enjoyed it. If you ever get the chance to go to see the Queen Mary, even if it's just to take an afternoon to walk her decks, I strongly advise you do it. This tour was put together as a Halloween treat, but there's much more to see on the Queen Mary aside from hunting her ghosts! Over the next few weeks I'll be posting images from the QM that aren't related in any way to ghosts, including shots of the beautiful Art Deco Observation Lounge and shots of details from the ship, but for the next while I'll be taking a little break as this virtual tour has literally doubled the number of shots I have on Flickr, and getting it all out in a week has been a bit of a strain with a string of long nights - which is probably why I've been jumpy recently. Some of these stories and memories are pretty creepy, especially at midnight! Besides, I have to catch up on all of your photostreams!
So thank you one and all, and hope you had a great Halloween!
At Rest in the Setting Sun
As we close in on the end of this virtual Ghost Tour there are a few other incidents of hauntings worth mentioning about the Queen Mary. Unfortunately these hauntings take place in areas which I either didn't visit or have no photos for.
During WWII the Queen Mary acted as a troop ship and was nicknamed The Grey Ghost because of her grey wartime paint scheme. Up to 15,000 troops travelled on the Queen Mary during each troip, and the story goes that the food was so poor on one of them that a riot broke out among the troops being carried to the front. The cook responsible (or more likely just some poor guy working in the kitchen) was found and things got out of hand: the cook was stuffed into an oven and burned alive. I don't know if this story is true, but it's said that you can still hear his ghastly screams in the kitchen, which are also a site of strong poltergeist activity.
Sounds of children can be heard in the forward storage room, where the ship's archives are kept. The morgue is supposed to be haunted as is the bosun's locker. The ghosts in the ship's morgue could have a number of identities. Sixteen crew members, two GI's and thirty-one passengers have died on the ship.
The bosun's locker is the area of the hull that sliced through the Queen Mary's escort ship Curacoa as she was zig-zagging to avoid subs during one of her wartime convoy runs. The Queen Mary was under orders not to stop so she was unable to save any survivors. 338 crewmen froze or drowned in the waters of the North Atlantic as a result. It's said that in the bosun's locker you can sometimes hear the sound of tearing metal, rushing water, men screaming and the pounding of their fists beating frantically against the hull. You can also hear them in the Engine Room near the stern of the ship. Perhaps that's because many of them died when they were dragged under by the tow of the ship and were shredded in her propellers.
Finally, Senior Second Officer William Stark is said to haunt the Queen Mary. He was accidentally poisoned in 1949, when Stark drank tetrachloride that either the crew or the captain kept in an old gin bottle.
And that's that! Thanks muchly for following along to everyone who has been reading this virtual tour. I hope you all enjoyed it. If you ever get the chance to go to see the Queen Mary, even if it's just to take an afternoon to walk her decks, I strongly advise you do it. This tour was put together as a Halloween treat, but there's much more to see on the Queen Mary aside from hunting her ghosts! Over the next few weeks I'll be posting images from the QM that aren't related in any way to ghosts, including shots of the beautiful Art Deco Observation Lounge and shots of details from the ship, but for the next while I'll be taking a little break as this virtual tour has literally doubled the number of shots I have on Flickr, and getting it all out in a week has been a bit of a strain with a string of long nights - which is probably why I've been jumpy recently. Some of these stories and memories are pretty creepy, especially at midnight! Besides, I have to catch up on all of your photostreams!
So thank you one and all, and hope you had a great Halloween!