Mind Your P's & Q's On The Queen Mary

As many people already know, from television and newspaper reports and the like, the Queen Mary is an ocean liner that is docked in Long Beach, California, and is one of the most haunted places "in" the U.S. I'm here to tell you my experience. I hope you enjoy it....I did. This took place in 1996.

I was living and going to school in Los Angeles, and during one of my breaks, my mom came to visit me from out of state. I'd heard recently about the Queen Mary and what a luxurious (and haunted) boat it is, and that it offered guided tours, and discovered it wasn't very far from where I was living. So, I talked my mom into going down to Long Beach for one of those tours.

We drove the long way down the 405S to the harbor, with me yammering excitedly about the ship and how cool it would be to see a ghost, yada yada yada.... We got there with my mom barely able to stand me at that point, paid the entrance fee and immediately took off on a guided tour.

Pretty boring up to this point right? Well, let me just say that not much happened for the first half of the tour. We learned about the different compartments and levels of the ship, the dining rooms, the division of class on the ship during it's heyday, etc. Occasionally, I felt a rolling sensation, like we were out to sea and riding some pretty gnarly waves, but other than that, not much. I did find out, when the tour guide asked if I was OK (guess I was turning a little green around the gills), that a few people who are supposedly sensitive to the paranormal, might experience that rolling sensation.

But I digress. As I said, the tour was pretty paranormally uneventful for the first half. It wasn't until we headed down into the bowels of the ship that I started getting unexplainably uneasy. And then it happened.

As we entered the first class pool area, I could feel the temperature drop a good 10 degrees. I reasoned with myself that it could be because there were no windows/portholes, no light, and therefore no heat source, but I found out differently very quickly.

There was a group of 3 teenage boys standing in front of me, trying to be cool and nonchalant about this "lame ship". Throughout the whole tour they'd been obnoxious and annoying, talking constantly, messing around with each other, pushing and shoving each other in mock fighting, etc, and their conduct in the pool area was no different...at first.

The guide was telling us about the pool, how deep, who could use it, who maintained it, whether it was still in use, when these guys started snorting and snickering about how they'd heard on Unsolved Mysteries about the Queen Mary's haunted first class pool. As I glared at the back of their heads, I saw.....I SAW "something" tug the backs of each of their shirts. Not just a subtle tug, but a big yank that nearly bent all three backwards....at once. As they straightened, they whipped their angry gazes around at me and took an offensive stance. "What??" I asked, dumbfounded and amazed. They muttered something nasty and indecipherable and turned to continue their antics, only to be yanked back again...each of them at the same time. But this time, they knew it wasn't me, (I'm guessing this because they all turned sheet white) nor could it have been anyone else as no one else was behind them, and they quickly and permanently straightened up and caused no more problems, moving hurriedly to the front of the tour group, close to the exit.

No one but me seemed to notice what had happened to these young guys, which is why I suppose whoever/whatever had been tormenting these kids whispered close to my ear, "Gotta force respect out of some people these days". I turned my head to see the barely visible figure of an older woman standing behind the tour group, hands folded in front of her, and a look of determination on her face. She was dressed in clothes that were very clearly out of date, early 1900s, I think. As I started to gape and grab my mom's hand to turn her attention. The woman's expression softened, she smiled at me and then simply vanished.

Now, I've become accustomed to having strange experiences like this, as it's happened all my life, but never during a tour in broad daylight....nor in such a matter-of-fact way. All I can say is if you're planning on touring the Queen Mary, do it with proper respect and deference, or you might wind up on the business end of an old lady's demand for it.

Thanks for reading!!!