Repeatedly called one of the "most haunted places in the world,"
the RMS Queen Mary is practically custom made for spooky campfire
tales. Strap in as we separate fact from fiction in this terrifying true story.
Ocean liners don't get much attention in this century unless they run into legal trouble or
the toilets stop working, but back in the day, they were a symbol — a signal of prosperity,
ingenuity, and the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of nature.
Massive amounts of work went into the creation of the RMS Queen Mary. All told,
it took nearly four years to complete construction, and Shipping Wonders of
the World says a river had to be widened just so that she could launch in September of 1934.
If that date seems uncomfortably close to World War II to you, though,
then you are on to something. The floating behemoth only had a few years of service as
an ocean liner before she wound up conscripted into military service.
She spent the bulk of the war transporting troops and had her exterior painted a uniform Navy grey,
landing her the nickname "The Grey Ghost." She was big, fast, and difficult to track,
making her the perfect way to get soldiers from point A to point B.
"The gallant vessel continues to play an important role in the war!"
But it didn't always go according to plan.
The Queen Mary was prized for her ability to hold a ton of passengers,
while still being able to move quickly and quietly.
It made her the perfect transport ship — and also the perfect target for enemy attacks.
Tragically, though, Queen Mary's biggest brush with death
wasn't caused by German torpedos, but rather by a simple accident.
Ships crossing the Atlantic traveled in convoys for protection,
often utilizing a zig-zag pattern — a serpentine movement designed
to perplex enemy submarines which might be waiting beneath the surface of the water.
On October 2, 1942, Queen Mary was maneuvering beside it's escort ship,
the HMS Curacoa. Each ship thought they had the right of way. The result was a disaster:
the Queen Mary struck the Curacoa at full speed, splitting the smaller ship in half.
Under orders not to stop for risk of attack, the Queen Mary sailed away,
leaving the sailors of the Curacoa to fend for themselves. By the time a rescue party
finally arrived hours later, there were only 101 survivors left — and 337 men had perished.
In 1966, 18-year-old crewman John Pedder was taking part in a routine drill aboard the Queen
Mary when horror struck and he was accidentally crushed to death by the number 13 bulkhead door.
It wasn't long before reports began surfacing that Pedder's ghost was
haunting the ship. Over the next several years, Pedder was reportedly
seen by security personnel going about his spectral business just outside of Door 13.
Of course, the veracity of those reports is questionable,
especially since they were hyped up for an on-board "Ghosts and Legends" tour
of the ship aimed at making the Queen Mary a tourist attraction.
"We have our ghosts tour, we have our ghost encounters tour."
That may also be the genesis for some of the other supposed hauntings on the vessel. Supposedly,
for instance, the spirit of former captain John Treasure Jones can be found wandering the decks.
The tipoff? The smell of his ever present cigar. Of course, Jones didn't die on the ship at
all — he left the Queen Mary in 1967, and passed away more than a quarter century later in 1993.
So there's no good explanation why he would be haunting the ship.
At least Captain Jones was a real person, though. That's more than
anyone can definitively say about the ship's final famous spirit. Or is that... spirits?
According to legend, there once was a little girl who drowned in the ship's pool. It's said that her
name was Jackie, and beyond that, the details get murky. No one can agree on how old Jackie
was when she died, which is sort of a red flag, but the gray areas of the story don't stop there.
According to Queen Mary Shadows, sometimes the story claims it was two girls that drowned,
rather than just the one. Sometimes they died in the second class pool, sometimes
they died in first class. Sometimes the girl or girls even died at the hands of a murderer.
Nobody seems to be sure, which is another strong hint that this one might be made up.
"A little girl, probably about eight or nine, loves to be mischievous. We hear her giggling."
Still, Ghost Adventures found it credible enough to do an episode where the titular
adventurers caught a blurry image in the vague shape of a person while they stumbled
around in the dark shouting "Jackie!" so, big props to Zak Bagans for everything he does.
Post war, the Queen Mary saw plenty of love. She was refitted, repainted, and made fancier
than ever. For the next several years, she was the most high-class way to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
But the good times can't last forever, and by the time the 1960s rolled around, there weren't a lot
of people left who were interested in taking a frigid three day trip across the ocean when
one of them newfangled airplanes could do the trick in half a jiffy and throw in free peanuts
to boot. The ship made her final journey in 1967, and was permanently moored in Long Beach,
California, as a floating hotel, museum, and tourist destination, which opened in 1971.
Strange though it may sound, the marketing pitch of "come check out our boat that doesn't go
anywhere" didn't seem to pan out for any of the Queen Mary's owners over the next few decades.
According to the New York Times, she was bounced from one proprietor to another,
even spending some time as part of Disney's planned "Port
Disney" theme park back before that plan was also scuttled.
In 2019 the city of Long Beach warned the company running the ship that they needed
to keep up the maintenance better, as the ship was becoming dangerously unseaworthy. In 2021,
though, the company filed for bankruptcy, leaving the future of the Queen Mary up in the air.
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