Queen Mary Paranormal Tour

In October 2006, my 9 year-old son and I accompanied my good friend Chris to Los Angeles to pick up a travel visa for his upcoming trip abroad. Since the visit in the office was very short, we had extra time to kill before heading back home (a couple of hours away). We decided to do something fun, so using his cool GPS system in his rental car, we looked up attractions in the area and saw the Long Beach Aquarium and agreed to go there.

As soon as we were in sight of the aquarium, I changed my mind about going there as soon as I saw the Queen Mary just across the water. It was a magnificent sight! I had seen a documentary about the Queen Mary on television which chronicled its ghostly history. It didn't take much to talk Chris into changing direction and at least stopping by for a quick tour. My son was a little terrified to go there as soon as I mentioned it being haunted, but he would prove to be a good sport on our trip.

We parked and headed into the Queen Mary, it was the first ship of that size that I had ever been on. The Queen Mary was not just a tourist stop, but also a hotel. We ventured into the lobby and saw a schedule of events. We were there on a Thursday, which was one of three days of the week that offers a "Paranormal Ship Walk Tour". We got there a little after 4 p.m. And the tour wouldn't start until 8 p.m. On a whim, we decided to spend the night there at the Queen Mary and buy tickets to the tour (they were $50 a pop, but well worth the cost!). It was a highly detailed tour which lasted a little over two hours.

We went to do a little shopping in Long Beach (as we were so totally unprepared for an overnight stay) and grab some dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory. We came back at about half past 7 pm, checked into our room and waited in the lobby for our host, rather a "paranormal host" by the name of Erika Frost.

She was a petite and pretty lady. She'd been a psychic since a near death experience when she was younger. Since then, she says she's had the ability to communicate with spirits.

There were about 15 people in our group, including Ms. Frost and her two assistants. My son was the youngest in the group, there were two teenagers, and the rest of us were adults. We each received a flashlight and a compass to carry with us during the tour. Luckily for me, I happened to bring my digital camera. We started the tour with my son glued to my hip.

In one of the first rooms we entered, I had a scene flash in my mind. In this room, I saw a lot of tables, like a cafeteria. When the scene passed and I was able to take a good look at the room, it was dark and dusty and crammed with old furniture, it was essentially a large storage room. Within a few moments, Ms. Frost explained that the room had been a lunch room long ago. Wow! How about that? A small chill ran up my back, this was going to an awesome tour, I could already tell!

A few minutes later we entered a larger room. It was in this room that you could hear voices saying "HELP ME!" You had to really pay attention to hear it. The voices sounded almost mechanical and it was difficult to tell where they were coming from. It was kind of creepy, but it didn't make me get chills or anything. Ms. Frost said that some tours are really dull with inactivity, but she said that this night was especially noisy because we could all hear the voices in any place we stood in that large room.

A while later, we entered the 1st class swimming pool area, the "hottest" place on the ship as far as ghostly activity was concerned. If I remember correctly, young woman was killed in the swimming locker room (which is considered to be a vortex to another dimension or something). The other story I more vividly remember is of a little girl named Jackie who actually drowned in the 2nd class swimming pool, but prefers to haunt the 1st class pool instead. Smart kid!

By the way, there is a ghost cam that is on 24/7 in the swimming pool area. On occasion from my home computer, I can see strange shadows lurking on the cam.

It is in the 1st class swimming pool area that the meat of my story lies. Now, before I tell you, I have to say that if Agent Scully and Agent Mulder had a daughter, then it would probably be me. I love to believe in the paranormal, but I tend to find rational explanations for the unknown because I like to believe that I'm a fairly level headed person. Now, on with my story. Ms. Foster brought along a couple of divining rods, like what someone would use to search for underground water. She asked for a volunteer and no one offered. Oh what the heck! So I stepped up. I had no idea what she was going to do until after I had taken the divining rods from her. She showed me how to hold the rods on my hands and I stood there for her instructions. She told the group that she was going to call Jackie, who was a very playful spirit. Oh boy, I didn't expect this! But, I thought I'd be a good sport and play along. Everyone was quiet (even my son, which was so unlike him, ha ha ha).

I held on to the rods and waited for something to happen as Ms. Foster called out to Jackie. Nothing was happening. I must have held those rods for a good couple of minutes before I felt a tingle. It was just a slight tingle and it made the divining rods turn slightly but, then it went away. Ms. Foster was going to end the session and move to another room when my son started calling Jackie. He was really excited, he really wanted something to happen. Just then, after he'd enthusiastically called out to Jackie several times the tingle sensation came back. The sensation began to envelope me. It didn't start in any one particular location, I felt it in my feet, in my stomach, in my head. It was like butterflies fluttering in my body, it was like a gush of warm wind, it was like a blob of energy, it was breathtaking, it was like being lifted in the air. It was the oddest thing I've ever felt. I tried to keep calm in front of everyone, but couldn't help gasp a time or two in complete amazement. I was so involved in this experience that I didn't realize that I had closed my eyes. I opened them and saw the divining rods spinning around my hand. I kept my hands as calm as they could be considering the momentum that was building within me. The experience must have lasted only a couple of minutes, once it began to subside, the divining rods slowed and eventually stopped. Ms. Foster and the group were really surprised at what had happened. Chris was pretty concerned at my reaction, he kept asking me if I was OK. Ms. Foster had said that not too many people were open enough to have this happen to them. My son was so excited, he was just having fun with it all. I really can't explain what that sensation could have been (I believe in Jinns, not ghosts/spirits of dead people), but I wasn't scared at all. What I felt was in no way evil.

Just before we finished the tour, we had another session with the divining rods at another hot spot. I seemed to have added the much needed spice to our tour, because this time there were several volunteers. Unfortunately, the divining rods didn't really move for anyone else. However, all of our compasses were acting crazy.

I took many pictures during the tour, and I noticed a good number of ORBS in them. I would take one picture twice, one right after the other and notice that the first had no ORBS, and the second one had ORBS. This was really interesting to see and I freaked out a lot of my friends when I showed them the pictures. However, I have read that a rational explanation for ORBS, that they are just dust particles that have a reflection on them, via the flash of the camera. Hmmm.

Last by not least, after the tour we retired to our room. As Chris was kind enough to go fetch a pail of ice for me, my son and I said our prayers together in our bed in the corner of the room. A minute or two into our prayers, we heard a loud bang on the inside of the closet. The closet was one of those large bureaus the laid against the wall. The sound was so loud that I expected the closet doors to fly open. It scared the snot out of us and definitely interrupted our prayers. My son let out a slight gasp and I told him to continue with the prayer. We did, and only a few seconds later we heard another crash that sounded like someone throwing an object on top of the dresser filled with small ceramic objects. The top of the dresser was actually empty of anything that could have made all that racket, in fact, I had laid our clothes, neatly folded, on it. The dresser was in the other corner of the room near the foot of our bed. Nothing that we could see could have made that noise in that location. I seriously doubt that we had thin walls and were just hearing our neighbors. We finished our prayers and a few minutes later Chris came back. The rest of the night was uneventful, although I had a dream that Jackie was calling me to play with her. The next morning, I took some pictures of our room. There was an ORB floating above the head of the bed that my son and I slept on.

I think I definitely received my $$$ worth during that trip.