Ship or sea
Flying boxes, voices behind a bolted hatch, and a spinning compass at sea
A caller who says they were a Navy cook describes events during temporary duty aboard the USS Independence in the mid-1980s. They report music with no source and boxes flying in a galley storage void. They report muffled banging and voices pleading [quote withheld] behind a bolted hatch. They report instruments blanking and a compass spinning on the bridge. They say a shipmate told them the voices were those of sailors drowned when a torpedo hit a jet fuel tank in wartime. The host remarks that electromagnetic disturbance is fairly common, and the call ends.
Unexplained knocking on a signal-shack hatch aboard a Navy oiler
A caller from Albany, Oregon, who identifies as a former Navy signalman, tells Art Bell about something they say happened around 1983 or 1984. The caller was stationed in the Indian Ocean aboard an aging oiler. They report that they and another signalman heard repeated knocking on a hatch of their signal shack in the middle of the night. They found no one when they opened it, and the knocking returned twenty to thirty minutes later. They searched from both access doors and found no one. The caller says they never found a cause.
A barefoot footprint at an Arctic creek and a legend of an immortal shaman
A caller from Anchorage tells Art Bell they found a single large barefoot human footprint in fresh sand at an abandoned gold-mine creek near Teller, Alaska, in 1961. The caller says their Eskimo companions, [name withheld] and a cousin, walked away in apparent fear. [name withheld] later told the caller a legend of a huge shaman from the turn of the century who was said to be immortal and “still here.” The caller finishes the legend, and Art thanks the caller and comments that sailors would not put to sea under such conditions.
Unseen hand presses sailor’s shoulder before hoses fall on USS Savannah
A first-time caller who identifies as a former Navy member tells Art Bell about an incident aboard the USS Savannah AOR-4 in the Tonkin Gulf in 1973. The caller reports that an unseen hand pressed firmly on their right shoulder three times at their refueling station. After they moved about eight feet away, a rack of fuel hoses and aluminum saddles collapsed onto the spot where they had been standing.
Rummaging sounds and a hair pull in USS Enterprise switchgear rooms
A caller from Tampa, Florida, who says they joined the Navy in 1980 as a nuclear power electrician, describes standing mid-watches in the switchgear rooms of the USS Enterprise after being told the spaces were haunted. The caller reports hearing someone rummaging in a back room that turned out to be empty. Later, the caller says, they felt their hair yanked while they pretended to doze off on watch. The caller ends by saying others on the ship could verify it and that they personally were never much bothered.
Ghost sailor reported aboard the icebreaker Glacier
A letter read on air, signed by a retired US Coast Guard man named [name withheld] of Shelton, Washington, reports a ghost he says he encountered aboard the icebreaker Glacier. He describes a knock and a “sailor” at his stateroom door directing him to the B-1 engineering room, a hatch that closed and locked by itself, and a woman who reportedly saw a translucent sailor pass through a bulkhead. The letter ends with his sign-off and the host's thanks.
Coast Guard member reports glowing three-masted ships in the Gulf of Mexico
A caller from Jacksonville, Florida, tells Art Bell they served as an ASM in the US Coast Guard, stationed in the Gulf of Mexico out of Houston. The caller says that in 1980–1983 they and others several times saw what they called “ghost ships,” glowing three-masted, schooner-type vessels that did not show on radar and then vanished, generally around the time of a harvest moon. The caller says they were sent for a psychological evaluation twice and were given official explanations that they do not adopt themselves: an electrical effect of gravity, and a fluorescent effect of the ocean. The call ends with the host saying he believes the caller and moving to the next caller.
Man in blue coveralls vanishes from a catwalk above the Queen Mary pool
The caller, [name withheld], from Bakersfield, tells Art Bell a “true story” from 1984. A friend took the caller on a tour of the Queen Mary in Long Beach, and they slipped past a rope railing down to the empty swimming pool. The caller reports seeing a man in blue coveralls, with red hair and a red beard, walking on a catwalk above the pool. The man was gone when the caller looked back. About a year later, the caller says, a TV special showed an actor playing a spirit who looked exactly like that man and who had been crushed to death. Art closes with his own remarks about souls who die unexpectedly.
Letter: A mother’s phone warning before a 1975 carrier collision
A letter read on air by the host, signed “jerry,” describes the writer’s 1975 service aboard the USS Roosevelt on a Mediterranean cruise. According to the letter, their mother answered a USO phone call from Sicily in distress and made them promise not to sail again. They arranged to travel overland to Naples. The carrier later collided with a Liberian freighter in the Messina Straits and collapsed the berthing area where they say they would have been sleeping.
Letter read on air: USS Independence correction and a chief’s ghost aboard USS Ranger
Art Bell reads a letter from a listener named [name withheld], who gives a last name that Bell declines to read. [name withheld] corrects a previous caller’s claim about the USS Independence. They then say the carrier they liked best, the USS Ranger, had the ghost of a chief who wanders through the ship’s galley. The chief was killed in a fire in main machinery room number three.
Perfume smell aboard a Navy ship at the reported time of an aunt’s death
[name withheld], a caller from Manhattan Beach, California, describes a wartime experience aboard a Navy attack transport near Okinawa. The caller woke suddenly around 3 a.m. to a sweet floral powder smell that they recognized as their Aunt [name withheld]’s. They say they later learned by letter that she had died that day. They say that after a time conversion, her death matched the moment they woke. The story ends with the host’s comments on visits from the dying.