The Most Haunted Ship in the Navy

Known as the Grey Ghost, the USS Hornet is one of the most important ships in American military history. More than 300 lives were lost aboard while she was commissioned as an active ship, including, according to some, the highest rate of suicide in the Navy. Today, it's considered the most haunted ship in the Navy.

Special Guest: Faye Navarro 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky listener Discretion is advised known
as the Gray Ghost, the USS Hornet is one of
the most important ships in American military history. During World
War II, the aircraft carrier participated in some of the

(00:22):
most significant Pacific theater military action of the entire war,
including the Battle of the Philippine Sea, during which the
Hornet shot down seventy two enemy planes in a single day,
and the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle
in modern history. But with that history comes a heavy legacy.

(00:43):
The ship, known today as the USS Hornet, is actually
the eighth US naval ship to hold the name Hornet,
and the history of what came before is a lot
to bear. The previous iteration of the USS Hornet sank
in battle, taking one hundred and forty men down to
the bottom of the ocean with her. Today, the USS
Hornet is permanently docked in Alameda, California, and is a land,

(01:07):
sea and air museum. It's also widely believed to be
the most haunted ship in the Navy, full of both
friendly sailors taking care of the boat they loved and
restless spirits of those who died of horrific injuries doing
some of the most dangerous work in the world. More
than three hundred lives were lost aboard while she was

(01:28):
commissioned as an active ship, including according to some, the
highest rate of suicide in the Navy. Who is staying
behind on the USS Hornet? Why do they choose to
stay and do those lives lost on her namesake contribute
to the paranormal activity people report experiencing all over the ship.

(01:50):
The answer is, well, it's a long story. I'm Amy Bruney,
and this is haunted road. The USS Hornet was built

(02:10):
as a World War II Essex class aircraft carrier, constructed
in nineteen forty two and nineteen forty three, one of
the twenty four Essex class carriers built during and after
the war, she was nicknamed the Great Ghost, and, according
to the USS Hornet Sea Air and Space Museum's history
of the ship, was one of the most decorated ships

(02:31):
in the US Navy. She's eighth in a line of
American warships named Hornet dating all the way back to
the Revolutionary War, The Hornet and the Wasp for the
first ever ships in the Continental Navy started in seventeen
seventy five. She was intended to be named the USS Cuarsage,
but during construction the USS Hornet CV eight sank in

(02:53):
the nineteen forty two Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. One
hundred forty men went down with the ship. Its wreckage
was found off the Solomon Islands in twenty nineteen, when
that tragedy occurred, the Kuresarge was renamed the USS Hornet
in her honor. Commissioned on November twenty ninth, nineteen forty three,
the Hornet is massive in scope, eighteen hundred seventy two

(03:16):
feet long and one hundred forty seven feet wide, with
a draft of twenty eight feet and a displacement of
over thirty six thousand tons when fully loaded. Her height
above the waterline to the top of her mast is
one hundred ninety feet. During World War II, this enormous
ship could carry anywhere from ninety two to one hundred
and one aircraft and from thirty six hundred to four

(03:39):
thousand men. The main deck of the USS Hornet is
the hangar deck, where the aircraft were stored and maintained.
Above the hangar deck. The flight deck is where aircraft
would take off in land. The Hornet's airstrip is roughly
two hundred feet long. As the Hornet Museum describes, landing
an aircraft on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier
at sea is a dayangerous task reserved only for experienced pilots.

(04:03):
All aircraft built for carrier use were equipped with tail hooks,
hooks that lower from the back end of the aircraft,
designed to catch an arresting cable. Hornet's flight deck had
four arresting cables stretching across the landing area of her deck,
each one able to trap and stop an aircraft in
its tracks if the hook caught it. If the aircraft's

(04:23):
tailhooks were damaged, a barricade net would be set up
on the flight deck and the pilot would fly directly
into it, allowing it to drag the plane to a stop.
Above the flight deck rises the ship's island, which served
as the command center and held the captain's Bridge, pilot house, navigation,

(04:44):
primary flight control, and at its base, combat information center.
The captain's bridge was where the captain was based when
the USS Hornet was on the move. He could see
twenty five miles in every direction from this vantage point,
and gave orders on steering the ship from there. Below deck,
there was a mix of living and working spaces, including

(05:05):
a library, a chapel, lounges, a barber shop, and the
ship's post office. The sick bay could hold up to
fifty injured men. The mess hall had a bakery that
could bake cakes as large as a table. The sleeping
quarters weren't quite that luxurious. The men slept on thin
cots hanging from chains and stacked three deep bunk bed style.

(05:27):
I've actually slept on those bunks, although I wouldn't call
it sleep. In the deepest parts of the ship were
the machine rooms in the brig, which could hold up
to thirteen men who posed a threat to the ship's safety.
According to the ship's history, prisoners in the brig were
expected to wake up at four thirty am and do
hard labor during the day. When out of their cells,

(05:49):
they were chained together and led through the passageways by
a marine. Others in the area would have to turn
away to socially isolate them as part of the punishment.
On March fifteenth, nineteen forty four, the ship left Pearl
Harbor and steamed toward the conflict in the Pacific. As
James Martin wrote for CNET, the USS Hornet played a

(06:09):
pivotal role in virtually all of the assault landings in
the Pacific from March nineteen forty four until the end
of World War II. Her aircraft destroyed more than fourteen
hundred Japanese aircraft and destroyed or damaged over a million
tons of enemy shipping. During that eighteen months of combat,
the USS Hornet traveled extensively, sailing one hundred and fifty

(06:32):
five thousand miles or about six trips around the world.
On June nineteenth, nineteen forty four, the USS Hornet participated
in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which would become
known as the Great Marianna's Turkey Choote. During this battle,
the Hornet shot down seventy two enemy planes in a
single day. From October twenty third to October twenty sixth,

(06:55):
nineteen forty four, she took part in the Battle of
Leyte Gulf, described by the Naval Surface Force as the
largest naval battle in modern history and the last of
the Great Sea Battles. It was also the first time
that the Japanese deployed Kamikazi fighters On February nineteenth and twentieth,
nineteen forty five, the Hornet supported the amphibious landing assault

(07:19):
on Ewo Jima. According to Sea Forces dot Org. On
March eighteenth, nineteen forty five, the USS Hornet's complement of
eighteen black cooks, the highest position of black American could
hold in the Navy at the time, was completing gunnery
practice in case of emergency when one of them spotted

(07:40):
a Kamikazi plane streaking toward the ship. As Mark Hansen
wrote for the US Naval Institute, in the final five
hundred yards of the suicide bombers dive on the Hornet,
the ship's cooks, furious and ready. Gun fighters now found
their mark, blasting off the Kamikazi's right wing, igniting the
bomber in to a fireball that veered left and toward

(08:02):
the Hornet's flight deck, Passing just thirty feet from the
battle station. The Kamikaze pilot's visage was clearly discernible through
cockpit smoke. The Kamakazi continued its plunge, barely missing the
gasoline bomb and rocket laiden flight deck before splashing into
an ocean grave. All eighteen of the men were quickly promoted.

(08:24):
The Hornet was decommissioned in nineteen forty seven and became
an attack aircraft carrier and then an anti submarine warfare
support ship. During her military career, the USS Hornet endured
fifty nine air attacks but was never seriously hit. As
Seenet reported, the Hornet also has the distinction of being
hit by a torpedo, which bounced off of the Hornet's

(08:47):
hull and failed to detonate. However, though the ship was
never seriously damaged in battle, more than three hundred people
lost their lives aboard. Riding for Wired, Betsy Mason said
that the flight deck of an aircraft carrier is considered
one of the most dangerous places in the world to
work on board. Accidents included sailors walking into spinning aircraft props,

(09:11):
being sucked into air intakes, and being blown off the
deck by exhaust from aircraft. At least three men were
decapitated by snapping flight arrest cables, which fly at five
hundred miles per hour when snapped. Sailors were also burned
and maimed by the explosion of dropped munitions. On February sixteenth,
nineteen sixty four, a plane crashed on the flight deck

(09:34):
before the crew was ready to receive it, killing the
pilot and injuring two crew Many other pilots serving aboard
the Hornet never returned from their missions, having been shot
down by enemy planes. According to some, the ship also
had the highest rate of suicide in the Navy. In
the years after World War II, she participated in several

(09:55):
unique relief missions, including aiding in the search for survivors
of an airplace attack when a British commercial flight was
shot down by Chinese fighter jets in nineteen fifty four.
In nineteen sixty one, when wildfires destroyed much of the
Tony Bellair neighborhood of Los Angeles, the Hornet helped with
clean up efforts, using her generators to feed electricity into

(10:17):
the Southern California power grid. In nineteen sixty six, the
USS Hornet recovered the unmanned Apollo AS two two capsule
when it returned from its suborbital spaceflight, and she became
the prime recovery ship for the Apollo space program. On
July twenty fourth, nineteen sixty nine, she was part of

(10:37):
history again. After the lunar command module of the Apollo
eleven space missions splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, the
Hornet recovered the module with astronauts Buzz Aldred, Neil Armstrong,
and Michael Collins inside. Aldred and Armstrong. Having just been
the first humans to walk on the Moon, the astronauts
took their first steps back on Earth on the hangar

(10:59):
deck of the U. S USS Hornet, and those footsteps
are immortalized on the floor of the ship. Richard Nixon,
John McCain, and other dignitaries were aboard for this historic moment.
According to the Kennedy Space Center, due to fear of
moon germs, the astronauts were immediately quarantined aboard the Hornet
in a custom Airstream trailer along with a flight surgeon

(11:20):
while the ship steamed a port in Hawaii for five days.
The unit was then flown to Houston to the Johnson
Space Center, with the astronauts still quarantined. As the ship's
history describes, Hornet returned to Long Beach with a banner
proclaiming Hornet plus three, which declared them to be the
recovery vessel for Apollo eleven. On November twenty fourth, the

(11:42):
Hornet recovered the crew of Apollo twelve, Charles Conrad Junior,
Alan L. Bean and Richard F. Gordon Junior, from their
splashdown in the South Pacific near American Samoa. Talking to
The Mercury News, paranormal researcher Pamela Heath said she believes
most of the spirits here are spirit guides. They came

(12:05):
back to run the ship. They loved this ship, They
loved their country. A lot of them, she said, they
are back to serve. Many of these spirits have been
seen as full bodied apparitions. One has been said to
appear in dress whites, another in a khaki uniform, one
in a pea coat, and one in a pilot's uniform.
But not all of them are quite so genteel. Some

(12:26):
people have reported seeing a headless ghost in the area
of the ship's catapult, believing it to be the spirit
of a sailor who was decapitated by the cables. Mills
wrote that this apparition lurches back and forth across the
catapult room. He also described a pitiable, gore soaked monster
of a ghost in the engine room. As Mills wrote

(12:47):
in Life, he was a sailor whose arm was cut
off by the laserlike effluence of concentrated heat jetting forth
from a broken pipe. He was found later by his shipmates,
who were aghast at the realization that his blood literally
had boiled, causing his skin to peel away like a
scorched and lacerated fruit rind. He hovers about the master

(13:08):
control panel to this day. A witness who saw him
in two thousand and eight described his uniform matted with
glistening blood, his burned flesh hung in grotesque ribbons from
his bones, eyeballs bulging in stark terror. When the burn
victim phantom suddenly disappears, he leaves behind the acrid smell
of cooked viscera. Well, that's quite colorful. The USS Hornet

(13:33):
Sick Bay is also said to be haunted by the
ghost of an injured sailor. According to Mills, he was
a sailor who lost his footing on the flight deck
and slipped right into the path of a landing aircraft.
The propeller sheared off the top of his head and
laid bare his brain, while the intense heat of the
jet's engine incinerated his uniform and torched his body. Barely alive,

(13:54):
he was rushed to the sick Bay operating table, where
he died within moments, but perhaps because of the instant
and traumatic exposure of his brain matter to the elements,
he became locked in that vile moment and never realized
he was dead. The dark events didn't end when the
ship was decommissioned either. In two thousand seven, an electrician
who volunteered on board Edward Vella the Third, died by

(14:17):
suicide in one of the ship's engine rooms. In twenty twelve,
a fugitive from justice named Todd Stewart was apprehended aboard
the ship. He was wanted in connection to the death
of his mother in law, a charge for which his
wife was already in custody, and he had been living
and working on the Hornet. As reported in The Mercury News,
an education manager of the Unic's Hornet Museum, Heidi Shave,

(14:40):
was alone on the ship one day when it got
really cold. She says, I saw a man in a
blue uniform. He was clear as day, like you or I,
but he wasn't making any eye contact. He was sort
of slow moving. There was a bulkhead there and he
walked right through the bulkhead. Additional ghosts on board include
a man who was supposedly murdered doing an argument in

(15:02):
the crew's mess hall, and a hostile force in the
brig said to be the spirit of a Japanese kamikaze
pilot who took his own life there after being captured.
Reports of hostile activity date all the way back to
the Hornet's active service, when sailors in the brig would
claim to be attacked by an unseen force. One man
who submitted his experience to a Caltech website dedicated to

(15:25):
ghost encounters aboard the Hornet recalled that he fell asleep
in the brig while on an overnight tour and felt
like he was being beaten to death. Bob Rogers, a
veteran who was part of the effort to preserve the
USS Hornet as a museum, reported an experience that he
believed was due to the ship's helpful ghosts. The Mercury
News reported that in attempting to lock up the ship

(15:47):
in October nineteen ninety five, he and his crew had
run out of chain. Rogers said, very shortly, I went
through all the chain I'd gathered, and we still had
six more engineering spaces to do. I jokingly said, Hornet,
give us a chain. Then I walked down a passage
and around a corner, and here's a pile of brand
new chain in the corner. It wasn't corroded or aged.

(16:08):
It was sparkly, brand new, like it was out of
a store. I looked at it and kind of laughed
and said to the others, look, Hornet gave us chain.
Rogers and his crew made this request six times and
found new chain after each one. Well, to talk more
about the hauntings of the USS Hornet, we will soon
be joined by Fay Navarro. Fay has been working on

(16:29):
the Hornet for years as a tour guide and event manager,
so she's seen it all, including lots and lots of ghosts.
That is coming up after the break. So I am
now joined by Fay Navarro, who is the private events

(16:51):
manager at the USS Hornet and has been there for
many years and has had a lot of experiences and
has heard of a lot of experiences. So I thought
she'd be the perfect person to chat with about the
hauntings on board. So welcome, Faie, Thank you. I have
to say the Hornet holds a special place at my
heart because it was actually my first episode of ghost Hunters,

(17:14):
so that I think was when people were like first
introduced to me so many years ago, like publicly, it
wasn't technically my first episode. I had already done an episode,
but they aired it first, so that's when the world
met amy. Apparently. I also investigated there before that, just
because I was based out of Sacramento and I was
part of a team there that we actually stayed the

(17:37):
night on the Hornet and investigated, which was really exciting.
So that's why just kind of an important place to me.
Very haunted, very historic, always an experience. How long have
you been working there.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
I've been working here for five years now.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
And when you joined the staff there were aware of
the haunted reputation.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yes. I actually came on board this ship probably about
eight nine years ago for a paranormal conference. So yeah,
so people always ask why what brought me on the ship?
I said, the spirits.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Did like the ghosts actually, so which just perfect. We
investigate a lot of former like naval ships, and a
lot of them do tend to have activity, but they're
also they kind of pose an interesting investigation because there's
a lot that you have to kind of figure out
because of all the different noises and equipment. Uh, and

(18:30):
so you're there on the day to day basis. So
are there certain things that when you first came on
board seemed a little suspicious or could be paranormal, but
you've since learned are perfectly natural.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, there's there's definitely one sound that people tend to
chase after a lot, and it's like what we call
the commings or the square things that keep the ship
away from the pier. And it's worn down so it's
metal and metal so when it scratches, it kind of
sounds like an injured animal, like a dog or something.
People will go hunting for this dog and I'm like, no,

(19:02):
it's the camel. So that's one of the things definitely
I found out that was an actual sound, nothing paranormal
associated with it.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
And I always ask people those questions, Uh, do work
on ships or any anything on water basically that we investigate,
because you do become familiar with those sounds over time,
and that can be really helpful during an investigation, just
to know that ahead of time, so you're not wasting
your time for pole looking for something like that. So

(19:31):
that's good to know, but now, what about the actual activity, Like,
was there a time that you had, you know, your
first experience there where you were like, Okay, this place
is definitely haunted.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah. Actually, the first time I came on board went
during a paramal conference. We went down into the laundry room.
In the overhead, which those don't know is the ceiling.
Basically was told to watch it because it's rather low.
And I went back between the leshers and the dryers,
and I was standing there with the teammate in front
of me, probably about like four feet in front of me,
and it's just a chibus back there, and everybody else

(20:03):
was on the other side, and I'm just standing there
in the middle of this aisle basically, and all of
a sudden, I felt, because my hair is short, I
felt like a hand from the base of my head
move upward in my hair, just flipped my hair, and so,
of course I turn on my flashlight. I'm trying to
see about logic. There's no cobwebs, there's no breeze, we're
on fourth deck. There was no logical explanation, but it

(20:26):
definitely was like a hand motion. I'm like, wow, that's
really interesting. It was really cool. From my very first
experience on the ship, I didn't expect that to happen,
but it was amazing.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, I see a lot of people would have been like, Okay, this,
he's been nice. I'm leaving now.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
I find that whenever I get touched on an investigation,
it's just it's something that I have never quite come
to terms with, and I think it's just to me.
It would be like if a live person just came
up to me randomly grabbed me or something, if you know,
I can't but like get startled and go like what
is the motivation here? But sometimes the spirits are just

(21:08):
really trying to get your attention and so exactly. Yeah,
and what is the vibe on the ship? Like is
does it seem like it's mostly people trying to get
your attention? Is there anything that seems a little more
intense or is it mostly just kind of some people
trying to communicate in some way.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
I think a lot of it is communication or just
for me because I'm here so much and a lot
of times I do stay on board overnight. I feel
a lot of ways it's also let me know, like
they're there to protect me, let me know, hey, I'm
watching out for you kind of thing. Never never have
I really been like scared or styleled, but I do
at times go to different locations and the energy is

(21:46):
like yep, nope, don't go in there. So I respect
their space when I feel that, like I expect them
to expect my space when I turn into my stateroom.
So it's like kind of common you know, ground there.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
So you get an actual stateroom. Because I slept on
a bunk and it was not the best night sleep
I've ever had.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
I slept on those two when I first started coming here.
But yeah, now I have my own stateroom. It comes
in handy for those late night events. You know, you
love driving out.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
I'll never forget that. So when we investigated it was
kind of this. I feel like it may have been
a few different teams together, Like I think we might
have kind of gotten together to do this. I don't
remember the specifics of how it happened, but I do
remember that I was made to serve food to everyone
in the cafeteria, Like a part of part of my

(22:36):
job for the night was you know, in the mess
hall or whatever, Like we actually made food and served it,
which was really interesting and I feel like I was
on like corn duty. I'm pretty sure I was eating
people corn if I right. So, but it was interesting
because it actually really put us in a cool mindset
because we were experiencing, you know, what it's like to

(22:59):
live in that kind of a situation. We were actually
sleeping there, and I don't know what the tours are
like now, but it was just they were really generous
with kind of where we could go. I mean, there
were definitely like off limit places, but we pretty much
had free rain within reason to kind of go wherever.
And I, like I said, I really didn't sleep. I

(23:21):
think I finally went to sleep at like three or
four in the morning, and it was not the greatest
night's sleep, but I had a lot of experiences. Now
do you guys still do things like that or how
how do your tours work?

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Now?

Speaker 1 (23:33):
We we do.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
I mean, we offer like the three hour tour, which
I just call it a teaser trailer. There is very long.
Then we once a quarter do it overnight and teams
can come in and book a night and and do that.
We've had the YouTubers come in and do their paranormal
tours through the night, and we do. We take them
to locations they can't go back through the night, and

(23:54):
they get to you know, investigate areas. You know, we'll
take them to us myke okay, let's know when you're
ready to move on, and we'll take you to another.
And then after that they're able to do Sick Bay
all the way aft, which is about basically a third
of the ship on second deck U guide it. They
could do that all day long.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, you know, do you remember that? It was really great?

Speaker 2 (24:11):
No.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Now, with these tours and just even tours in general,
do you have people who just like, Okay, I've had enough,
I need to get off, and I don't want to
be here anymore.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
I think, like with my groups, because I love touring,
it's about teaching them and that's what I enjoy about
doing it is I've always explaining that it is scary
anywhere you go in the dark, stay when you're not familiar.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
But I've had.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
People that are interested but they are scared, but throughout
the night I reassure them, you know, and they feel comfortable,
and so by the time they leave there, they've learned
a lot and they're excited and thinking about actually coming
and do it and over night. So I feel like
I at least have done. My job is to help
teach them and you know, to communicate with the spirits
that they're willing to. But yeah, I mean I've heard

(24:59):
people through over them. I with security, we've done overnights. Oh,
you have less people to wake up because some people
left through the night. It's hard to say they could
lived close enough and figure their own beds are nicer
just like but but yeah, it's hard to say. But
the people I've worked with, they tend to be a
little bit more at ease with the explaining of what's

(25:19):
going on.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Well that's great, No, I know, you know people they
do do daytime tours obviously, and now I'm just have
experiences during the day, right, like what can what have
people reported touring the ship during the day.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
I've had people say they felt they've been touched or
they're hair massed with. That's just like a common thing
is their hair.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Being messed with.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Sometimes somebody will see like it thought they saw somebody
walk into a room and they're going in there's nobody there.
They'll swear up and down, I know I saw this
person and go, well, this is the only way in
this space. So you know, I go, maybe you saw
an apparition. That's great, but not everybody gets to witness that.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
So what kinds of apparitions do people see?

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Like?

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Are people seeing like full you know, apportions of people
in uniform, or do they see shadow figures or both
kind of both?

Speaker 2 (26:11):
I mean, I even, I mean, I see a lot
of the shadow figures here. They've never actually fully, you know,
manifest in front of me, but I had. I was
in a space with my friend and we were touring
his daughter around and I was sensing this gentleman by
the door and I kept looking over the bed. I know,
you're standing there, and we audibly heard I'm right here
because I was doing a me VP session and they

(26:32):
thought it was on the recorder when I was playing back,
and we go, no, he's right there. They look, they
saw him, you know, they saw him in the blue
dungarease and the blue button up shirt. But I didn't
see him. So I was like, still fair, But.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
That's so straight out. And you were looking in the
same direction. Yeah, you they saw him, but you did not.
He did not manifest you, no, no. Yeah, So that
brings up an interesting observation that me and a few
of my you know, fellow parramal researchers have kind of
noticed is that sometimes we wonder if certain apparitions are

(27:08):
being seen psychically, even by groups of people, like maybe
we're not seeing it with our actual eyes. Maybe somehow
we're seeing it in our minds but manifesting it in
front of us. And maybe that explains why, you know,
we don't always get things on camera even though we're
staring straight at it with our camera pointed in that direction.

(27:29):
So but you're saying, you guys all heard the voice.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
We all heard it, and I knew it was not
a you know, it wasn't on the recorder and they're
like no, and I played it back to show it
to't approved on It was not on the recorder because
I went straight to the door to make sure nobody
was there, because other than the three of us on
the ship, there was security, which was you know, in
the security post. So you know, I had to prove
that it wasn't an actual person coming up and saying

(27:54):
I'm right here when I asked you.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
But yeah, it was interesting.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
I think a lot of times for me personally, like
with that situation, I'm always telling them when I'm walking
around at my and I sometimes I help turn off
lights and stuff, and I'm always telling them please don't
scare me because I'm by myself. So I'm like, okay,
I got this. Is when you're supposed to show yourself
to me. Is when I'm with other people I'm by myself.
I have that.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Same feeling when I'm in nice places, like I am
totally willing and ready to have an experience when there's
people with me. But the second I have to like
go back and get a camera or you know, go
check something up on like a third or fourth floor
by myself, that's a time where I'm like, I don't
really want to see an apparition right now. That just

(28:37):
really to And so I've said this many times, but
my defense is always to whistle. I just like happy tune,
and I'm like, nothing back can happen. Well I'm whistling.
That's fine, so hard worked. So I'm sticking with it.
But yeah, now, okay, So we've got apperations, we've got

(28:57):
disembodied voices, we've been shina figures, people being touched. I mean,
how often is activity happening at the Hornet it happens
quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
I don't know if it's because I'm here a lot
then I witness it, you know what, I'm sensitive to it.
But yeah, they definitely have their moments. Even when we
were closed for COVID, I was still experiencing things. I
was here helping clean and do some restoration and stuff,
and I took on a project to redo the mestic tables,
to stand them down and paint them, and I had

(29:27):
to help with some groups. But during the week I
was down there by myself and you know, saw like
you know, a blue orb going from one one space
to the other in the mass deck and you remember
how big it's mass. It's huge, and then getting the
phantom cigarette smell just out of the blue, really strong
with a cigarette smell, like someone just started smoke. And
I'm like, guys, there's no more smoking a lot on board,

(29:48):
and then it would just be gone there.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
You know, you're like, no gost smoke either. We're yeah,
like messmoking a lot.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
I don't care.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
No, that's funny now, just because you're there so often, Like,
who do you think is haunting it? Do you have
you ever gotten any names specifically or do you have
any inclination like who it could be.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
We've gotten Sam, but no last name, So we get
Sam a lot. I've gotten Bill and Bob, but I
mean those are so common names for even back then.
The one thing I can't seem to get an answer
for because I tend to audibly hear a lot of
a female's voice that tends to call my name at times,

(30:29):
and I've had other people with me and hearing it,
so sot to find out who this female is hanging out.
But yeah, no real answers. I mean we've gotten you know,
we've used the flashlight method and gotten some response up
in the admirals quarters from Admiral Davis, you know, and

(30:51):
it was a really interesting conversation and I got that
on camera, actually, the interaction with that so and according
to the flashlights, with their interaction, he just comes in
visits and checks out the ship.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
So I love when you can get like actual you know,
names or historical information that kind of matches with the
activity itself. And I mean that says that whoever's there
is actually intelligent in some way. And so why why
do you think they're compelled to stay? Why do you
think these hauntings exist there. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
I think they just come and visit. Like like I
said with the one conversation with Admiral Davis, I mean
he says he just comes back and forth. He's not stuck.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
He just pops in and out.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Why. I don't know, maybe just I just kept thinking,
like I tell people, back in those days, I mean,
anybody in military, there's such a brotherhood. Even though it
was a stressful, scary time, it was still that bonding,
this family, and it was home. So I can see
them coming back to a place where it brought so Mitch,
you know, memory or good times in a weird way.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
You know, yeah, it is certainly you know, there's this
kind of sense of duty, and you know I could
see that, and especially when you have it becomes almost
kind of a living history museum because I think a
lot of those locations are gone or they're moth balled,
and so then you know, this is a place where

(32:20):
these spirits can come back to and actually see almost
exactly what they experienced in life. And you know, we
we talk about that a lot, like wondering, you know,
why are hotels haunted? Why are these you know, wy
are places like this haunted, and I do think that.
I think sometimes spirits, you know, like you were saying,

(32:40):
they're just able to kind of come back to places
that meant something to them. Like it doesn't mean they're
necessarily tethered to it or you know, like you said,
stuck in some way, but it's just it was important
to them, And I feel like the Horn is definitely
one of those places.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Now, you have obviously probably a lot of school groups
come on board, I'm sure especially I'm sure you do,
like boy Scouts and things. Right, do these kids who
have experiences I'm assuming you're not teaching the ghostly part
of things. I'm wondering if they ever come to you
with anything that they might have experienced, not knowing that
the ship was supposedly haunted.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah. I used to help out a lot with the
Scout groups before I took on the events manager position,
and you do. We would do at the end of
the night, we do ghost stories, and we would do
like thirty minutes to forty minutes of just telling them
our experiences on the ship. You know, nothing in the
areas that they're sleeping, because I don't want to scare
them any further. And I'm always telling them. They're very friendly.
You know, if you see somebody and you're scared, just

(33:38):
tell them to leave you alone. I go, they're very respectful.
And in the morning, I've had a couple of them
like would come like going. I kept seeing them at
the foot of my bed. I go, did you tell
them believe? And he goes, yeahh you know, so they
are they're witnessing this. I had one parent one time
where they were sleeping was right above when was the
rest of the aircraft restoration area. And she told me

(33:58):
the mort She goes, faith, why were people moving things around?
I go, nothing was moved around? She because I heard
airplanes moving and stuff. I go, trust me, we don't
do that kind of stuff when people are on board,
you know. It Just nothing moved. And she swore up
and down there was just all this activity above her.
She couldn't sleep.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
That was one of the experiences I had there. I
didn't hear planes. I did hear it sounded like folding chairs,
like being set up and taken down or put up,
and like it was in that big open space. I
was like, what is happening over here? Like why are
people set Like I thought somebody was setting up for
like a speech or something for the next day, and
I'm like, don't they know that we're here investigating. Went

(34:38):
in there completely dark, no one there, but it was
very clearly that sound of like folding chairs like being
set up and like thrown out and light up, and
it was so loud until like I got up there
and then it was just quiet. So I don't know
what ghost is folding and unfolding cheers in the afterlife,
but I feel like they could make better use of

(35:00):
their time.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
If it was something where Sigil. I mean, it makes
sense because they would set up chairs all the time
for different speeches, different arrangements in those areas, you.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Know, yeah, yeah, I'm sure there were very important speeches
and moments that happened in that area, So maybe something
kind of residual. But I think sometimes I'm baffled at
the experiences that you have because they just don't really
make a lot of sense. You Like, you know, you
expect to hear a voice or see a shadow or
but then you hear folding chairs. You know, you just

(35:31):
what you're going.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
To get exactly, you don't. And it varies in locations
because people are always asking where are the hot spots?

Speaker 1 (35:36):
It varies.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
I think a lot of it when we take groups
around has to deal with the energy that we are
putting off, you know, because like you're mentioning in screo groups,
we even get like high schools that come through and
do the paranormaltors and they're so full of energy and excited,
and so we get activity everywhere we go because they're
just so full of energy.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Right, And I think that that I think that people
don't realize that some times that like if you're putting
off energy that can trigger activity and not necessarily like
it's creating activity, but I think it creates an interest
in the spirits there, Like they sense that hum and
that buzz of excitement and it kind of draws them
out and they want to interact.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
And so I was.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Actually going to ask you that because people probably do
you ask you all the time, like what are the
hot spots are there? Is there any area that like
you don't like to go?

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Me personally, when we're asked to take people to like
a couple of different areas like Chapel or something, I
avoid the Chapel area more so just an anybody's personal beliefs.
You know, some people might just shone against that, so
I avoid chapel. I've never personally experienced anything in there
the times I've gone in there by myself. But but realistically,

(36:45):
there are some areas that it tent doesn't always have
a lot of hospital doesn't have a lot of activity sometimes,
and I think a lot of it does. Again deal
with the group, because by the time we get there,
you're exhausted. Everybody's a gonno going to sleep, you know. Yeah, so,
but I mean I've experienced plenty in the hospital, but
sometimes it's not.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
As active really the grass that makes sense, I mean,
it's I don't think people realize just how much ground
they're covering when you get in there, and how easy
it is to get lost. Like I can't remember if
you have it, but like I investigate the Salem here
locally a lot, and they, goodness, have this yellow stripe
of freedom that goes through Like that's that's how I

(37:24):
know my way. You follow this yellow stripe, that's that's
will lead you to an exit. I don't remember if
the Ford Head anything like that, but if that ship
did not have that stripe, I would probably still be there,
right now.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah, but that's a good idea. We don't have a stripe.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
You need the stripe.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
I'm always telling people find a ladder, get to the
anger bay.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Are good, Yes, and that's pretty I do remember that.
Like and like when we were investigating with the DVR cameras,
I would just look for the wires and I'd be like,
the wire leads to freedom, Like that's gonna take me
to center, coming on wherever it is. Yeah, And that's
actually something else is the whole idea of investigating on
these you know, big vessels, they're like they're metal, they're steel,

(38:11):
they're very thick.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Cells don't work at certain points. I know radios have
trouble at certain points, and like we talked about before,
there's a lot of noises and things that don't necessarily
make sense. It's very hard to figure out where they're
coming from directionally. Is there any advice that you give
to teams or groups on how to investigate in a

(38:34):
scenario like that.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
If I'm with them for a little bit, I'm always
trying to point out the natural sounds that people tend
to think is kind of might be something per normal.
But also, as you remember, all the wires through their
transformers and stuff. How it does I like definitely like
K two's and a lot of that stuff because of
the power it gives off. And I'm always explaining that
to people as well, like it's am I go, it's
metal you get if you're using the camera, remember, reflective

(38:57):
things reflect very easily with flashlight. It's amazing how it
bounces out that fresh light off of every surface it can.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
It really does. And if you're using like an SLS
camera or something like, it will make up figures all
over the place. And yes, and there is that kind
of constant hum because there's you know, there's transformers and
power being run through the whole thing, and you could
just hear it at all times. And like you were saying,
AMF detectors and K two's they pick up.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
On all of that.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Communication can be hard if you guys split up and
you know you're trying to cover more than one area
at once. I know we had a lot of trouble
in walks, but you know, as part of being an investigator,
like you're going to always have kind of different scenario
that you have to be creative with and work around.
And you know, ships always always bring the best out

(39:47):
of us as far as getting creative with out to investigate. Yeah, exactly,
it does.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
It does kind of limit, but yeah, it causes I
guess and ways to It also helps you open up
your senses a little bit more as well. Yeah, because
you can't really fully rely on a lot of the
equipment that you're using.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
That's true. And the other thing too is it's so contained,
like if you have a smaller group like you know,
you know, like I security, there's usually security, but they
stay in their little area. They don't go out, and
so it's not like, you know, you have tons of
outside contamination from like you know, living people. You know,
you don't have a ton of traffic going by or
anything like that. So that's that's actually helpful in that scenario.

(40:27):
But so if people do want to investigate or visit
the Hornet, what do they have to do it? Are
there are there any things coming up or any interesting
paranormal happenings that people can attend.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Well, like I said, every month, we do our it's
you know, our what we call our history Mystery Tour.
We do the three hour tour every month on every
quarter overnight we're actually working on doing a paranormal conference
August twenty six, so we'll be advertising that soon shortly.
We haven't done that since twenty seventeen, so that's going
to be exciting. And everybody can always go on and

(41:00):
they can go out of our events too if they're
interested in booking, you know, and overnight for themselves as
well as a team. Like I said, we get YouTubers
in here all the time, so anywhere between two people
to as many as they need, but it just yeah,
it varies.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
That's awesome. Well, I'm sure people will be interested. I
can vouch for it. It's very haunted. Everyone there has
always been Leslie. Like I said, I grew up in
Alameda and so the Hornet was just always there, and yeah,
one of my favorite places to visit. So thank you
so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it,
and hopefully I'll be able to visit soon.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah, well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
It's interesting to me that the Hornet is in my
hometown of Alameda, California, the place where I had my
very first paranormal experiences as a child, in our old
home just a few blocks up the street from where
the Hornet is docked now. Of course, the base was
very much in operation. Then the Hornet Museum did not exist.
But I've gone back many times to investigate her, and

(42:05):
seeing how I have very few family members still in Alameda,
the Hornet has almost become my family, the one thing
bringing me back to my childhood. For if I didn't
go there to look for her ghosts, I wouldn't really
have a reason to return to Alameda at all. Makes
me wonder if some of the spirits on board feel
the same. I need to revisit their past. Maybe not

(42:26):
all the time, but for fleeting moments, a chance to
experience and relive life events, even some that were tragic
that eventually forged who you became and truly affected your soul.
Strange that such a huge metal structure can act as
such a beacon for the living and apparently the dead,
Or maybe after everything we've learned and discussed in this episode,

(42:48):
it doesn't seem so strange. After all. I'm Amy Bruney
and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is hosted and
written by me Amy Bruney, with additional research by Taylor

(43:08):
Haggerdorn and Cassandra de Alba. This show is edited and
produced by Rima el Kali, with supervising producer Josh Thain
and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Haunted Road is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Mild from Erin Menke. Learn more about this show over
at Grimanmild dot com, and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

(43:33):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.