Dark City

18. HAUNTED: The Queen Mary's Luxurious & Ghostly Legacy

• Leah & April • Season 1 • Episode 18

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Long Beach, CA | Unlimited champagne at brunch and unlimited ghostly encounters at night.  We are diving (sorry for the super cheesy pun) into the Queen Mary's history: from its glamorous heyday as a floating palace to its secretive role during World War II to the restless spirits and scents that still haunt the ship today. 

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Top Sources for this Episode Include:
Strickland, N. (2024). Haunted queen of the seas: The living legend of the RMS Queen Mary (4th ed.). KayliMax Books.
Ellery, D. (2021). RMS Queen Mary: 101 questions & answers about the great transatlantic liner. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
Cosgrove-Meurer Productions. (1988). The unexplained: Queen Mary (Season 1, Episode 4) [TV series episode]. In Unsolved Mysteries.
The Queen Mary: Greatest ocean liner. (2016). [Film]. Prime Video.

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👏 Special thanks to our talented partners:
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Mario Cintra for Logo Design (instagram.com/alacarala/)


Speaker 1:

Hey, dark City fans. This is April and this is Leah. She was nicknamed Grey Ghost, carried the biggest stars and politicians of her time, was the place where Winston Churchill planned the invasion of Normandy, was part of a crash where 330 men lost their lives, and is the home of more ghost stories than you may think possible. Today, we're talking about the ocean liner the Queen Mary. This is Dark City Season 1, los Angeles. Leah, I have to tell you something. I've been waiting to tell you this and I don't know if you've been on Goodreads lately, but I finally read the Britney Spears book.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you did. Oh good, I mean also. It's so sad, but ironically I just updated my Goodreads. I hadn't updated it in like a year or something. That's so funny. I didn't see your update, but yeah, what did you think?

Speaker 1:

It was really interesting. I can't believe, like all of the I don't know, just all of the horrible stuff that happened to her and like even her upbringing. I know From the outside it appeared like she was from this wholesome, happy family and it was completely the opposite. No wonder she had so many issues.

Speaker 2:

Right. I think I can't remember if I assigned it to my book club or if everybody just read it anyway, but I remember doing the debrief that was the impression everybody had coming away from. It was just, you really don't know what's going on in a person's personal life at all and I just think of, like, in our little dark world of true crime and cults, how many um, like families like you see the picture and they all look great and they look so happy but it turns out like the wife murdered the husband or the husband murdered the wife and the kids and you just really don't know.

Speaker 2:

And social media and media in general is just, you know you're getting like a very like curated snapshot into someone's life. It's very select things. Yeah, before we dive into the episode, I just wanted to remind everybody to share Dark City, share the love with your friends, your family, anyone who you think might like it To share it. I think it's pretty consistent across whatever platform you're on, whether it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify, but usually either on the episode or the show itself, there's those three dots in the top right part of the screen on your iPhone. Well, at least looking at the stats, almost all of you are listening on an iPhone, don't?

Speaker 2:

worry I don't really know much more than locations and devices. On those devices, usually, like when you click those buttons, you will have an option to either copy the link or share by text or social media or whatever. We would love it if you could spread the word With that. I'll turn it back over to you.

Speaker 1:

April but that I'll turn it back over to you, april. Okay, so let's get into the story of the queen mary. The queen mary was part of the cunard line of ships and was tasked to be built by john brown and company near glasgow in scotland. The building of this ocean liner is often referred to as job number 534, as the ship had yet to be named. Construction started in 1930 and lasted until early 1932, when work stopped for 27 months due to the Great Depression. Almost 14,000 people that worked either directly or indirectly on the Queen Mary were out of work. Finally, in 1934, work resumed on the Queen Mary thanks to a British government loan. This became a step in the right direction for the British economy, increasing share prices in London Stock Exchange and not to mention all of the jobs that it created. Again, the cost of building the Queen Mary itself at the time was around £5 million. The cost of building the Queen Mary itself at the time was around 5 million pounds, as David Ellery's book the RMS Queen Mary explains. As of 2021, the amount of money was equivalent to roughly 335 million pounds, or for us in the United States, 464 million dollars. So this next part I had to look up, and that was the designation RMS in front of the Queen Mary, which stands for Royal Mail Ship. This was because the Queen Mary at one time transported mail between Britain and Halifax, canada, and then, I think, eventually maybe into the US as well.

Speaker 1:

Like there are with so many historical accounts, there are multiple versions of how the ship was named. Both that we'll talk about had individual stories or even a melding of them, depending on what source it came from. So they might all hold some credibility, but this first one I thought was the most fun. The ocean liner Queen Mary was originally going to be named Victoria. A delegation from the Coonard line, whose head was Sir Ashley Sparks, was given permission to visit King George V for approval. When proposing the name, sparks said that they wanted to name the ship after England's greatest queen Present on this day was Queen Mary, and apparently she said I would be delighted. So I thought that was kind of funny.

Speaker 1:

The other story I came across in the Naming of the Ship takes part prior to the launch of the Queen Mary. On Wednesday September 26, 1934, the ship was launched into the River Clyde in Scotland. In honor of the launching there were numerous dukes and duchesses and British royals. The other version of the naming of the ship is that the king did not tell anyone the name of the ship and when Her Majesty Queen Mary the person cut the satin cord and smashed a bottle of Australian wine on the bow, she said I am happy to name this ship Queen Mary. I wish success to her and to all those who sail in her.

Speaker 2:

I like both of the stories where she's just like thanks, this is named after me now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, when you're the Queen of England you can pretty much do whatever you want. In the book Haunted Queen of the Seas the Living Legend of the RMS Queen Mary, the author Nicole Strickland writes no one knew about her decision until she stepped up to the microphones and disclosed the vessel's new name to the world. I'm not sure if this is her way of saying that any other source that says it happened another way was wrong, but she says this three different times in three different ways in that section. So she was very adamant about that. There is video footage of Her Majesty Queen Mary on this day giving her speech. That was in part of the documentary that I watched, so I kind of, you know, saw it for myself, so that part is true.

Speaker 1:

Interestingly, the spillway that they used to launch the Queen Mary they had to basically like butter it up. They used 150 tons of tallow, which is fat from animals like cattle and sheep, and 50 tons of hard soap to like launch it into the river. Isn't that weird that is. So my question is did that not affect any of the animal or plant life in or around the river?

Speaker 2:

but yeah, I don't know, mean, I'm sure it did.

Speaker 1:

I don't think they were quite as conscious of those things. So at this point the Queen Mary was not actually finished being built, it was more just like the shell of it had been put together. It took another 18 months to make the ship into the luxury liner it became. She took her actual maiden voyage on May 27, 1936. So the Queen Mary was pretty extravagant in her time and had three class sections aboard. The first class section could accommodate 776 passengers. The second class section had 784, passengers, the second class section had 784 and in the third class section 579. She had 12 decks, first and second class swimming pools, and the first class swimming pool, I think, was sometimes open to the third class passengers for like a brief time, and so in a lot of references they call it the first and third class swimming pool, but just for the sake of not having to say that every time, I'm just going to call it the first class swimming pool.

Speaker 2:

I love that I'm going to go take a swim, but in the third class swimming pool.

Speaker 1:

I'm not special enough for the first class, but you can't just call it the first class pool Anyways. So she had the swimming pools, she had a first class and second class gymnasium. Movies were shown in the first class lounge and the third class smoking rooms. There was a resident orchestra on board and wireless equipment that was able to broadcast radio programs from 38 speakers in differing locations. The main dining area was larger than the New York Waldorf Astoria Grand Ballroom. So this was a pretty big ship and it was bigger and it was faster than the Titanic. So if you think about kind of the grandeur of that ship, this one definitely rivaled that.

Speaker 2:

I was hoping to take a tour of it before we recorded today and I just didn't get it on the calendar. But I've at least seen it in Long Beach, where it's currently reciting Well, you should wait for me.

Speaker 1:

I don't know when I'm coming to see you, but I really want to go.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if you can wait for me, but I I may not be able to. I could go back. You know why? Cause there's not just one tour, like the tour company.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, there's so many. We'll talk about all the stuff that they do to kind of at the end. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's so much cool stuff. I know it's crazy Like to me. I know it's crazy Like to me.

Speaker 1:

I would never want to go on a cruise. I think I would do it. I would go on a cruise long before I would sleep in the Lizzie Borden house. What you could talk to me talk me into going on a cruise way more easily.

Speaker 2:

I don't know, you could talk me into sleeping at the Lizzie Borden house.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it depends on the crowd on the cruise ship, that's all I'm saying. I'm just saying a dead woman what if it was no kids? A dead woman who may or may not have murdered her parents several centuries Maybe it wasn't several centuries it's like less scary to me than like Seriously, I don't know. There's something about it where I Like do you feel trapped? I do feel trapped. I also can get motion sickness, so that idea I just don't like. Like If they're big enough, I think you don't feel it as much.

Speaker 2:

Probably not. And you know I did an overnight from Estonia to Sweden to Stockholm and that was fine. I had no issue with that. Yeah, see, you could totally go on a cruise, but not like that was just overnight, but extended for several weeks. I don't know there's something about that that just makes but extended for several weeks. I don't know there's something about that that just makes me feel very trapped, although I do like the idea that you can cover so much ground and see so many different things, because it's this vessel you just go around on, but I might skip the Carnival Cruise.

Speaker 1:

Other luxuries on the Queen Mary included a rooftop club, deck games first, second and third class shopping that ranged from spacious and high quality shops for the first class to the third class store that sold a variety of regular items. It was probably more like drugstore type items.

Speaker 2:

I love this like first versus third class thing.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, they're like you don't. Yeah, you can't come here.

Speaker 2:

Is there like pretty woman where they're like?

Speaker 1:

absolutely Big mistake.

Speaker 2:

Excuse me, ma'am, I think you should be in the third class store shopping.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, there were bank branches in various locations of the ship, barbers and hair salons in each class and a dog walking service for those traveling with their pets. And okay, get this, the dogs were kept in kennels on the sports stack. So okay, and they by the ship's butcher.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that sounds absolutely awful.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure they weren't eating their animals because someone would notice, and I think they had higher standards than that, but I just feel like, was that the best choice?

Speaker 2:

I don't know there's something about that that does not pair nicely, and like if Little Muffin went missing't know there's something about that that does not pair nicely, and like if little muffin went missing.

Speaker 1:

You know she ran overboard with a dog was walking her. I highly doubt they ate their dogs.

Speaker 2:

But oh, my, that's not okay, okay.

Speaker 1:

It was just a strange choice, I had just had to throw that in. Yeah, so really, the amenities go on and on. They had laundry services, a print shop, a gardener, a water softening plant, catholic and Protestant chapels, a synagogue, rotary Club meetings which I don't really know what the Rotary Club is chefs and various restaurants. Chefs and various restaurants. The Queen Mary also had a working fireplace located in the first-class smoking room, which is a really risky luxury, because fire on board a ship is like very serious. It could be the ruin of everyone.

Speaker 2:

It's crazy to me, even maybe it was up until like the 80s where people could smoke on airplanes. That's just, oh, yeah, that's just nuts to me, that, yeah, it was like that yeah, it's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that I'm sure everything will be fine like any good cruise ship.

Speaker 1:

Now she had designated children's areas. I thought this was pretty cool. It was true then and it's true now, because sometimes you just need a little time away. You know, all three classes had their own designated area on the corresponding decks. So the first class children's area had a built-in slide with three caves beneath it, a log hut and a movie area where the kids could watch cartoons. The second area had an airplane that ran on a wire to make it look like it was flying overhead and a large model train that ran around three walls of the room.

Speaker 1:

And the poor third class kids Sorry, the third class children's area. The room was much more simple and it was said to look more like a classroom than a playroom, which is kind of sad to me. Oh my gosh, I know right. Of course, all three had other toys and games in them too, so it's not like they were limited by what they had. Yeah, none of these playrooms exist on the Queen Mary today because of the many overhauls that were to happen in the upcoming years, and we'll kind of talk about that.

Speaker 2:

I really want to see the caves.

Speaker 1:

I know there's pictures, okay. So yeah, there's pictures out there, cool. So the decor on board was predominantly art deco, with just a little bit of art Nauvoo. And when I read this, my brain instantly went to the movie. There's Something About Mary, do you remember?

Speaker 2:

this movie. I just love that. The movie is there's Something About Mary.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, I didn't even make that correlation.

Speaker 2:

Sorry that's cheesy, but still Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so here's where it all ties together. So Cameron Diaz's character is named Mary and she's dating this private investigator played by Matt Dillon Ben Stiller is kind of the main character in the movie and he hires Matt Dillon, or Matt Dillon's character, to investigate Mary before he tries to reconnect with her. But Matt Dillon, as the investigator, falls in love with her and for whatever reason, he poses as an architect, and so on one of their dates they go to an architectural art show and she asks him if the art show is more Art Deco or more Art Nouveau, and so it just clicked. So I completely broke from investigating the history of the Queen Mary and I did a little bit of deep dive on Art Deco and Art Nouveau and I'll give you just a brief summary and afterwards you'll be able to answer that question which one is it?

Speaker 2:

Okay, good Life skills.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So Art Nouveau came first and was popular in the 1890s to 1910s. It was inspired by more natural forms like flower and plant stalks, insects', wings and sometimes aquatic themes. This artistic style utilized long lines that swirl or curve, and art pieces were asymmetrical. This was an intellectual movement against earlier art forms and sought to unify art seen in furnishings, architecture and decorative things. So it was more like beauty in nature and not in the new industrialism that was kind of coming about at that time, in the new industrialism that was kind of coming about at that time.

Speaker 1:

Art deco started in Paris in 1910, but gained popularity in Europe and the US in the 1920s and 30s. Art deco utilized metals with pointed edges, rounded and arch tops. Objects were symmetrical and there was a simplicity to them. So think of like the Chrysler building, the Empire State Building or the style of the movie the Great Gatsby. It was meant to highlight glamour, luxury and technological progress. This art style grew as Art Nouveau was thought to be old-fashioned. So, just like the skinny jeans era has transitioned into the mom jeans era, there you are, oh my gosh, I wonder if they call them mom jeans.

Speaker 2:

Hey, gen Zers, they do, they do. Yes, they're mom jeans. So why are they wearing them?

Speaker 1:

Because they weren't alive when they were out of fashion.

Speaker 2:

That's why they didn't see the Saturday Night Live skit. Make them mom jeans, oh gosh. Make them mom jeans, oh gosh. I'm like, oh, I am so glad they're starting to go out of style and I am so beyond thrilled because I feel like they make you look worse not you, but like me, that's all I'm saying yeah that's our best advice, but as a side note I still wear skinny jeans, so that means we're old in the fashion world.

Speaker 2:

I do very much like, though. Um, I like the boot cut and I like like the wide like pants that are coming back. I think those are really cute, basically, and they're comfy and it needs to be mid-rise. Oh, I was going to say one thing about Art Deco before we move around. So, like Los Angeles City Hall, that's one of the more well-known buildings in the skyline here in Los Angeles, but that's Art Deco. I personally hate Art Deco. I do not like it Really. Oh, I think it's kind of cool. Oh, I don't like it.

Speaker 1:

I think I like hints of it. I don't know if I'd like everything in that style, but, like I don't know, earrings that are designed like 1920s art deco, like jewelry, I think is really super cool, okay, yeah, so just not in architecture.

Speaker 2:

I don't like it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like if my whole house was that way. I don't think I'd like it. Yeah, yeah, like if my whole house was that way.

Speaker 1:

I don't think I'd like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. So to further speak of the grandeur of the ship, there were a slew of interior designers, artists, sculptors, painters and other craftsmen that completed murals and paintings, wood paneling, carvings and installation of other opulent decor. Celebrities were often aboard the ship, and here are a handful. Okay, let's see who you recognize Leah, Winston Churchill, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Elizabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo, Walt Disney, Jimmy Stewart, Harpo, Marx and Laurel and Hardy.

Speaker 2:

I recognize almost all of those. I'm guessing they were not in the third class with the plebeians.

Speaker 1:

With the plebeians? No, they were not Okay. So for the rest of you, if you don't know who they are.

Speaker 1:

Google it Out of everyone. I'm sure everybody knows who Walt Disney is, but I also really hope that you know who Winston Churchill is. I need to say a special thank you, though, to my mom, who, about 10 years ago, gave me the complete DVD collection of Laurel and Hardy for Christmas, so I know who they are. Okay, we're going to get a little more serious here. In the documentary the Queen Mary Greatest Ocean Liner, there were also stories of Jewish families that fled from Europe to America as Hitler rose to power. One particular story gave me goosebumps, and I listened to it a couple of times and then like writing this out and rereading it. Every single time it gives me goosebumps. It's just a good story, okay. So here it is.

Speaker 1:

There was a family that had bought last minute tickets for the Queen Mary, but the family had to travel from Germany to France to be able to board the ship. They traveled via train, and when they got to the border of Germany and France, the train stopped and the Gestapo boarded. Passports were checked and, of course, there were problems with the family's papers. Eventually, that evening, the family was let go, but this stop in the trip made the family too late to be able to get onto the Queen Mary in time in time. The father of this family went to the person in charge on the train and begged him to telegraph the captain of the Queen Mary and tell him what happened and ask him would he wait for them? By this time there were 2000 passengers already on the Queen Mary and it was pretty much ready to leave. The captain waited six hours for that family to be able to board, and so one of the sons in the family told the story and he was, I guess, six years old at the time, and in the documentary he says unbelievable miracles happen. The guy that was telling this story described seeing the Statue of Liberty and he he said when the family saw it they felt free. It was just, I don't know, kind of heartwarming.

Speaker 1:

World War II changed things for the ship. On September 2nd 1939, the ship was ordered to go on full war alert and the next day when the war officially started in Europe, all UK ocean liners were ordered not to use any routine trade routes. When these orders came in, the Queen Mary was still out to sea. By September 5th the ship had pulled into Pier 90 in New York City without any danger Due to the war, it was fated to sit for six months in the same place. There was not only fear of attack from German submarines in the Atlantic, but also some intelligence reports pointed to Nazi operatives in New York planning to set fire or blow up the ship. During the war, hitler even offered a reward for any German U-boat captain that could sink the Mary.

Speaker 1:

Finally, the British Ministry of War Transport summoned the ocean liner to assist with duties associated with the war. In order to make the ship ready, she was painted gray as a means of camouflage. This earned the ship the nickname of the Gray Ghost. The inside had to be converted as well. Artwork and extravagant furnishings were removed and covered up in order to add toilets, sinks, bunks, showers and other necessities on the ship. The observation deck housed bunks that were five beds high.

Speaker 1:

The sun deck gained guns, rocket launchers and other defensive weaponry, including a degaussing strip which makes a ship basically invisible to magnetic mines. The main technique used in defense came from the ship's speed, which she was known for. The Queen Mary had won the blue ribbon for speed more than once. The primary role of the Queen Mary at this time was to carry British and Australian troops from one place to another to aid in the war effort. At times there were 15,000 troops on board. By the time the war was over, the ship had carried almost a million soldiers, including women from the Women's Army Corps, and after the US entered the war, the Queen Mary also transported American troops.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know that's how it got the nickname the gray ghost.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I didn't know that either until I.

Speaker 2:

I figured it probably was a reference to one of the many ghost stories.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, yeah. So so far things have been going pretty well for the Mary. But on October 2nd 1942, the Queen Mary and six other destroyers were being escorted to Scotland by another ship, the Curacaoa. On this date there were 15,000 aboard the Mary and 439 aboard the Curacaoa. Because of the slower speed of the Curacaoa and the Mary, sailing in a zigzag pattern to confuse enemy ships, the Queen Mary ended up surpassing her escort ship and the captain of the Curacaoa didn't know exactly when the Queen Mary was going to change course, according to author Nicole Strickland. To add to this, the Queen Mary's compass was off by two degrees, which altered each of the captain's calculations. So at 2.14 pm, the Queen Mary hit the Curacaoa and sliced it in half. Now, at this time, the Queen Mary had strict orders to stop under no conditions, because if they did, they'd be a sitting target for the German U-boats.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's horrific. I can't imagine for everybody on that ship.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so the other destroyers and their convoy were contacted to help in an effort to pick up survivors, but ultimately the Queen Mary did not stop, so the Curacaoa was sunk within five minutes of the crash.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's horrible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and the Queen Mary only had damage to the bow that was later repaired, like with concrete, and that I think eventually they fixed it again. But 338 men died as a result of the crash and 101 men survived.

Speaker 2:

That's horrific.

Speaker 1:

Isn't that awful, and it was just like miscalculation. And this incident was covered up well, until the war was over too, so a lot of people didn't know about this when it happened. So after the war was over, troops were brought home on the Queen Mary. That was one of her jobs. But also coming home on the Queen Mary not at the same time, though, but also coming home on the Queen Mary not at the same time, though were 22,000 war brides and their children, so the ship was again repurposed to accommodate the new population on board.

Speaker 1:

Following this time, the Queen Mary was again refurbished and restored to her former glamorous self Feeding. Ahead to 1965, the majority of transatlantic travel was by airplane, and travel by ocean liners was not as popular of an option. It took more food, more time, more gas. In 1967, the Queen Mary took her final voyage from Southampton. There is much debate over the fate of the Queen Mary, but in the end the city of Long Beach paid $3.45 million for the Queen Mary to be used as a museum and hotel, and then I'm pretty sure the city spent even more money trying to refurbish, repair, just because the ship was as old as it was.

Speaker 2:

Oh sure.

Speaker 1:

So it really turned out to be much more than that, and then now I think there's a foundation for it. Today, the Queen Mary is open for tours. You can book a stay in the portion set up as a hotel. You can book events like weddings and meetings, and there are a number of dining options. And, very importantly, when I do come out and I visit the ship and you come with me, they have a Royal Sunday brunch with quote free flowing champagne.

Speaker 2:

Oh done.

Speaker 1:

I love champagne, so let's do it, they also have.

Speaker 2:

oh, go ahead, I'm in. I don't care how many ghosts are on the ship.

Speaker 1:

Me too. I just want to go there. That's like I feel like that's really big for me to say that, but I really want to go. Okay, they also have wine and paint nights, karaoke, margaritas on the merry, which is like a happy hour. They just have so many cool events. That's not even all of them. I just really want to go there and hang out. They have all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 2:

I didn't realize they had that much stuff. I just knew about all the ghosts.

Speaker 1:

There is so much history on this ship and really that's an understatement. As always, there was so much more information that I just couldn't include. But how do you have this much glitz and glamour, joy, excitement and tragedy without leaving some of that energy behind? Enter the ghost stories of the Queen Mary.

Speaker 1:

So this is going to sound completely ridiculous, but as I was researching and reading books on the Queen Mary, I came across a picture of the first-class swimming pool and I knew instantly that I had seen it before and I remembered it from this episode of Unsolved Mysteries from when I was a kid. I Googled it because I had to find out and I don't know why it stuck with me. I think because ghosts have always like terrified me, but also like I can't look away, kind of thing. From this episode I remember the look of the pool. It had, like the two staircases coming down the side. There was a story of a little girl that was a ghost, that like they recreated in the show, that like would play and splash in the water, and then there were these footprints like on the splash in the water and then there were these footprints like on the deck outside the pool.

Speaker 1:

Naturally, I made my whole family watch this episode with me. After I told them about how I like completely, I was like I know the swimming pool. In the episode they interviewed staff that worked on the Queen Mary and they told kind of their own stories of their own ghostly encounters. They had paranormal investigators come on and investigate on the ship. So it was really interesting to like watch it and I was like, oh my God, this is what I remember.

Speaker 2:

I do vaguely remember that Unsolved Mysteries episode, and that might've been where I got really intrigued with this ship way back in the day.

Speaker 1:

And it's so funny as I was reading about some of these like ghost stories. I knew them already but I don't know how, so I think maybe it was like from that episode because a lot of them were in that episode of the show. Nicole Strickland's book has so much great history and ghost stories within it. Not only has she had experiences herself on the ship, which she talks about in her book, but she summarizes some of the stories and she uses stories that people have directly submitted from the Queen Mary archives.

Speaker 1:

We're going to start at the swimming pool with a little girl ghost. Her name is Jackie and she's roughly around age five or six and she's been heard singing and laughing. In the episode of Unsolved Mysteries, the employee tells the story of hearing splashing and then seeing those wet footprints that we talked about that name drowning or passing away in this area of the ship. There's also a story from the archives that was similar to this account where a husband and wife were touring the ship and heard splashing sounds and then saw wet footprints, and I don't think I've said this before, but the pool has been drained for a long time just because of like the bottom was, I don't know, wearing out basically, like the bottom was, I don't know, wearing out basically, and at the time that the husband and wife were there touring it was drained.

Speaker 2:

Then, too, I don't I. There's something about child ghosts that I hate. I don't know why. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I feel like they're not going to be sinister. I don't know, though, sister. I don't know though. That's what draws you in is their innocence, and then they, they turn the tables on you. Yes, I don't know what if that was like one of her happiest memories in life, and then, when this person died, she returned to the time of her childhood, when she was on the Queen Mary swimming in the pool. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I think that's beautiful. I would just like that. Happiest memory. To know if it's true or not, but not be relived while I'm touring the boat.

Speaker 1:

That's what I want to think about it's like her happiest story is another person's, a living person's trauma.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, I hate it.

Speaker 1:

Earlier we mentioned that Winston Churchill had been a passenger passenger on the ship and in fact he traveled on the queen mary a number of times. He always stayed in the same room and that is often now referred to as the winston churchill suite. He very famously smoked cigars and people have smelled cigar smoke by his suite and other places on the ship, and then an apparition of him has been seen looking out over the sports deck Another famous story. The story is of an 18-year-old British man named John that joined the Queen Mary's crew in 1966 as a fireman and bilge cleaner in the number three boiler rooms. 1966 as a fireman and bilge cleaner in the no 3 boiler rooms. At 3.55 am on Sunday, july 10th of the same year, john was somehow trapped between the watertight door no 13 and the frame of the door.

Speaker 1:

After the misfortune of the Titanic, there was an act put in place where all of the lower watertight doors were to close in preparation for imminent collision if there was like poor visibility. On this night, the Queen Mary encountered heavy fog and the crew followed their regulations to seal the doors. This was also talked about in the Unsolved Mysteries episode and there were many staff members that commented that they have seen him. One employee was closing down the tour route through the ship when she was going up the steps and something made her turn around. She didn't really know why she did it. She described seeing a man in dirty blue overalls behind her. She stepped aside to let him go by, thinking like he was a worker on the ship, but when she did he was gone. There are other reports of an Old Spice ghost over the years in different places on the ship, where people smell the scent of Old Spice and no one is around them. Isn't that wild?

Speaker 2:

Old Spice of all things I know I was like the. Old Spice ghost, but it's a thing. I can't quite remember. The scent I think I remember not liking it.

Speaker 1:

Countless EVPs, which are electronic voice phenomenon, so like voices caught on audio recordings, have been captured on the ship. There have been sightings, smells, cold sensations and even conversations with ghosts that have happened on the ship. So I want to leave you with a ghost conversation that happened.

Speaker 2:

I was going to say what are the conversations.

Speaker 1:

Cal State Fullerton and Cal Poly Pomona had their dance on board the Queen Mary in 1998. A couple of friends went in to use the women's restroom. One of them had a conversation with another lady in the restroom that was dressed in a uniform. After a few minutes the woman had left and the friend of the girl was like what were you talking about in the bathroom? She said she was having a conversation with the other lady in there and her friend told her that she did not see anyone else in there, nor did she hear anyone else talking. She thought her friend told her that she did not see anyone else in there, nor did she hear anyone else talking. She thought her friend was just like talking, oh, that's.

Speaker 2:

Isn't that creepy? That's where you would start questioning your sanity.

Speaker 1:

But also maybe most of the ghosts on the Queen Mary are really friendly.

Speaker 2:

Maybe you know I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping some of them are more malevolent. I don't know what that says about me, but well, we do have a podcast called Dark City.

Speaker 1:

This is true, but really, all in all, it's more like they like to interact, is what it seems like. There was a story of a lady sitting at a restaurant and her friend got up and went to go to the bathroom and she turned and looked at this table that was close by her and she saw this young girl in this extravagant green gown, all glamorous, and she was like, oh my gosh, she's so pretty, look at her clothing, whatever. And then a door opened, like down a ways in the dining area, wherever she was, and she looked up over at the door to see if it was her friend coming back and it wasn't. And she looked back over at the table and nobody was there.

Speaker 1:

There was a well-known British psychic that spoke on the day of the Queen Mary's launch in 1934. Mabel Fortescue Harrison was her name and she was quoted saying most of this generation will be gone, including myself, when this event occurs. However, the Queen Mary launched today will know its greatest fame and popularity when she never sails another mile and never carries another passenger. In general, reading these books and watching the documentary researching the ship, there was great love for the Queen Mary. So, friends, stay away from the dark side, because if you don't, you may end up haunting the places you loved so much.

Speaker 2:

Well, thanks everyone for joining. Just a reminder you can find us on Instagram, Facebook and threads under the name Dark City Pod. Next time we will cover the groups in and on. It's one of the more well-known cults from the Los Angeles area. It's a group that started out to help heroin addicts recover and evolved into something much darker and disturbing from there, and in fact, many of the very, very horrific techniques of the troubled teen industry trace their roots back to this group. So it's going to be a heavier episode Until then. Until then, Bye.

Speaker 1:

Bye, thank you.