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Ghost On Uss Theodore Roosevelt

 

My first tour at sea was onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) which was located in Norfolk Naval Shipyard when I checked onboard in March, 2000. I had always heard that ships were haunted and given my previous experiences, figured I'd have at least one run in while stationed there.

The first few months went by without incident, but there were a couple of guys who delighted in screwing with the "New Guy" so I was always getting prank phone calls to muster here, or that someone needed something delivered there, etc... So it was nothing new when I was told that there was a mess that needed to be cleaned up in one of my division's fan rooms, that it was somehow my fault and that it needed to be taken care of yesterday.

I gathered the usual cleaning gear and made my way to the space, grumbling as usual and upon opening the door, I noticed the lights were out. I wasn't familiar with the space so I had to fumble around in the dark for a few seconds before finding the switch. When I switched it on, I saw a white sailor roughly five and a half feet tall with what looked to be thick rusty-red to auburn hair in the far back corner behind the cooling unit. He was wearing a dungaree uniform wearing a dixie cap standing at attention facing the bulkhead (wall) opposite of me.

My initial thought was that these guys were screwing with me again and just trying to scare me, but then I started to realize that something wasn't right with the situation. First, while we were still phasing out that particular uniform, we had long ago switched to ball caps vice the white dixie cap. What really grabbed my attention though was that although I couldn't see his full face, I could make out a full beard trailing down the side of his face. I didn't know when, but I knew beards hadn't been authorized for at least a decade.

As if sensing my fear rising, the figure started a slow "about face" turn to face me, but by then, fear had the best of me and I had run from the fan room back to my shop. The guys there admitted to screwing with me and the wild goose chase, but knew nothing about what I'd seen. On top of that, both of them were there and couldn't have possibly beaten me back to my shop.

To this day, no one else has seen what I did that day so it may have been an isolated incident, or possibly tied to the shipyard instead of the ship itself. Others, as well as I did have ominous feelings of being followed or watched sporadically through out their time onboard, but that was the only time I ever saw a visual manifestation. I'm not positive, but I've seen another poster (and I think I know and worked with him) on this site who was stationed with me during that time frame who might be able to corroborate or elaborate more on their own experiences while onboard.

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The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, medarisj, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

wheelmanstan (3 posts)
 
11 years ago (2013-08-28)
Scratch that, I meant LT. Not Chief.

AND one of these may be the man you saw:
March 13, Airman E3 Ronald E. Krauss, assigned to Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 124, was killed by C-2 propeller during flight operations.

March 26, An E-2C, assigned to Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 124, crashed into Ionian Sea, about a mile from the carrier, shortly after "waved off" from a landing attempt on the TR, due to a "foul deck". All five crewmembers were lost at sea.

On July 12, a loadmaster for C-2E was blown overboard and lost at sea. CVN 71 returned to Mediterranean on July 15.

August 9, An F/A-18C, assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 105, crashed at sea. Lt. Craig M. Munsen was killed.

February 4, 1997 An S-3B Viking, assigned to Sea Control Squadron (VS) 22, crashed approx. 87 miles west of Haifa, Israel, around 6 p.m. Local time, while on a routine training exercise, 47 miles from the Theodore Roosevelt. Lt. Cmdr. Mark A. Ehlers, Lt. Mark J. Eyre, Lt. Mike Weems and AW3 Wendy L. Potter were lost at sea.

On the morning of March 13, the Egyptian navy reported finding a body of Lt. Joseph Irvin in the water near Port Said Lighthouse, that was reported missing from the USS Theodore Roosevelt on March 8. Irvin, temporarily assigned to CVN 71, was a crewmember of USS Vella Gulf (CG 72). At the time of the incident, the carrier was transiting the Mediterranean Sea on its way back to Norfolk.

March 9, Ship's Serviceman 3rd Class George Earl Thompson Jr., assigned to the "Big Stick", died in Shands Trauma Center in Jacksonville, shortly after arrival, from a severe head injury he received when the aircraft carrier encountered heavy seas off the coast of Florida.

Http://www.uscarriers.net/cvn71history.htm
wheelmanstan (3 posts)
 
11 years ago (2013-08-28)
I was on that ship in early 2000's. I was in the darkest voids you could imagine and often. Luckily I never heard a ghost story and didn't really believe in ghosts, so I never once let fear come over me. BUT I had a female shipmate tell me that more than once a male shipmate ghost had gotten into her bottom rack with her. She was very serious about it but not afraid as she said she had grown up with spirits all her life.
While doing my time working in cargo I will say this, we would work 20 hour days moving tons of food to store rooms and freezers so we would take quick catnaps at the bottom of ladderwells (freezers are where they store the dead bodies) and we would often hear what felt/sounded like footsteps running up and down. We never once brought up the word ghost, this was pre "t.v. Ghost craze" and we didn't want to look weak I guess. But anyway I remember one chief who killed himself on that ship, jumped into the suez canal with a preserver on and snapped his neck, a female shipmate was murdered by another, she was a beautiful girl, and another tried to hang himself but my shipmate saved him. Cursed ship? I don't know. 159 days without a port can be rough. But I remember every inch of that boat like it was yesterday, thousands of people on that boat, but it has some of the loneliest rooms you could ever set foot in.
Aidylasia (5 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-05-05)
oh yeah, and I could share some stories from the TR with you - the cursed ship it's called for more than one reason, did you know that?
Aidylasia (5 posts)
 
12 years ago (2012-05-05)
which divisional space was this? I server onboard the TR back in '04-'06, and being in CS3 I'd been to a lot of the spaces on the ship
dreamergal72 (6 stories) (793 posts)
 
14 years ago (2010-02-25)
I can almost picture him as a skul with beard whew! But glad you ran out!
medarisj (2 stories) (4 posts)
 
14 years ago (2010-02-24)
Our uniforms have name tags on each piece; I tried to read the one on his pants (when I thought it was one of my shipmates, but it was obscured by the piping that ran through the space. Like I said, by the time he started turning, I was already half way out the door.

I hadn't done any real research into it aside from asking around, but no one had ever seen him before and from the looks of it, the ghost was from a time before any of us were stationed there. At the time (10 years ago) having the access to the internet was unheard of for a seaman who lived onboard.
MissHill (6 stories) (67 posts)
 
14 years ago (2010-02-23)
ever tried to do research, find out who he was? It would be very interesting to find out
DeviousAngel (11 stories) (1910 posts)
 
14 years ago (2010-02-23)
Oh man, the thought of him moving to a slow about face gave me goosebumps... The picture in my head was really scary! It's almost a little bit of a shame that you didn't see him though, because you may have been able to do some research on who he might have been.
MsAngelsndemons (guest)
 
14 years ago (2010-02-23)
Nice story. Scary too. Thank god you didn't wait around for the figure to turn it's face. 😨

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