August 24, 2022 • 43 mins
In the Naval Park in Buffalo, New York, three majestic ships float quietly in the water, part of a large-scale tribute to the United States Military and the sacrifices made by soldiers who were wounded or killed in the name of freedom. Many believe the ships to still be haunted by the men who served on them. Eyewitness accounts detail hearing phantom footsteps and mysterious whispers, objects flying across the room, and blurred faces in photos. Some people report seeing full-body apparitions in places where there are no other living people.
Special Guest: Shane Stephenson
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised. Hey, gang,
just a reminder that I have a massive false speaking
tour approaching. I will very soon be making stops in Sacramento,
San Diego, Tucson, and Scottsdale. Then in October, I've got
(00:23):
stops in Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and more.
Get all the details and tickets at Amy dash Brunei
dot net. I hope to see you out there, my
spooky friends. Waterloo, Iowa, January Dear sirs, I am writing
(00:54):
you in regard to a rumor going around that my
five sons were killed in action in November. A mother
from here came and told me that she got a
letter from her son and he heard my five sons
were killed. It is all over town now, and I
am so worried. My five sons joined the Navy together
a year ago January third, nineteen forty two. They are
(01:17):
on the cruiser U S. S Juno. The last I
heard from them was November eighth. That is, it was
dated November eighth, U S. Navy. Their names are George T. Francis,
Henry Joseph E. Madison A. And Albert L. If it
is so, please let me know the truth. I am
to christen the U. S. S. Twassah February twelfth, at Portland, Oregon.
(01:40):
If anything has happened to my five sons, I will
still christen the ship, as it was their wish that
I do so. I hated to bother you, but it
has worried me so that I wanted to know if
it was true. So please tell me. It was hard
to give five sons all at once to the Navy,
but I am proud of my boys that they can
serve and help protect their country. George and Francis served
(02:03):
four years on the U S. S. Holvey, and I
had the pleasure to go aboard their ship in nineteen
thirty seven. I am so happy the Navy has bestowed
the honor on me to christen the U. S. S. Twassa.
My husband and daughter are going to Portland with me.
I remain sincerely Mrs Elita Sullivan, Adams Street, Waterloo, Iowa.
(02:25):
My dear mister and Mrs Sullivan, the knowledge that your
five gallant sons are missing in action against the enemy
inspires me to write you this personal message. I realize
full well there is little I can say to assuase
your grief. As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy,
I want you to know that the entire nation shares
in your sorrow. I offer you the condolences and gratitude
(02:48):
of our country. We who remain to carry on the
fight must maintain spirit in the knowledge that such sacrifice
is not in vain. The Navy Department has informed me
of the express desire of your sons George Thomas, Francis,
Henry Joseph, Eugene, Madison, Abel and Albert Leo to serve
in the same ship. I am sure that we all
(03:09):
take heart in the knowledge that they fought side by side.
As one of your sons wrote, we will make a
team together that can't be beat. It is this spirit which,
in the end must triumph. Last March, you, Mrs Sullivan,
were designated to sponsor a ship of the Navy in
recognition of your patriotism and that of your sons. I
understand that you are now even more determined to carry
(03:31):
on his sponsor. This evidence of unselfishness and of courage
serves as a real inspiration for me, as I am
sure it will for all Americans. Such acts of faith
and fortitude in the face of tragedy convinced me of
the indomitable spirit and will of our people. I send
you my deepest sympathy in your hour of trial, and
(03:52):
pray that in Almighty God you will find the comfort
and help that only He can bring. Very sincerely, yours,
Franklin D. Roosevelt. I'm Amy Brunei, and welcome to Haunted Road.
(04:17):
In the Naval Park in Buffalo, New York, three majestic
ships float quietly in the water, part of a large
scale tribute to the United States military and the sacrifices
made by soldiers who were wounded or killed in the
name of freedom. Tens of thousands of people tore the
ships every year, exploring the corridors where sailors walked, the
bunks where they slept, the control rooms where they operated
(04:38):
the ships, and the decks where they stood and watched
for approaching ships, ready for the battles that lay ahead.
All three of the boats, the U. S S. Croker,
the U. S S. Little Rock, and the U S
S The Sullivans, were decommissioned decades ago and are no
longer in use by the Navy, but many people believe
that the sailors who once manned those ships never left.
(04:59):
I witness account detail hearing phantom footsteps and mysterious whispers,
objects flying across the room, and blurred faces and photos.
Some people report seeing full body apparitions in places where
there are no other living people, including the burned face
and torso of a man who died tragically in a bombing,
the last to parish of five brothers who were all
(05:19):
killed in the attack. The second largest city in New York, Buffalo,
sits on the shores of Lake Erie, by the origin
of the Niagara River. Today, Buffalo, also known as the
Queen City, is mostly known for two things. It's intense
snowy winters. The city gets eighty five inches of snow
a year, more than three times the national average. And
(05:40):
it's intense spicy sauce that has become so popular it's
served all over the country. But once, the city of
more than two hundred fifty thousand was a booming industrial
town which experienced the same economic downturn as many Rust
Belt cities that lost manufacturing jobs to corporations moving their
plants overseas. Though a or a decade long revitalization effort,
(06:02):
Buffalo is currently experiencing an economic turnaround and population growth.
Planning began in nineteen seventy six for what would be
the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park. It
opened in nineteen seventy nine as the largest inland attraction
of its kind in the country. The waterfront park has
three large tourable ships. The U. S S. Little Rock
(06:23):
is a guided missile cruiser, the U S. S. The
Sullivan's is a Fletcher class destroyer, and the U. S S.
Croker is a submarine. In addition, the park features a
garden of war memorials, a museum of military history, and
several other exhibits, including PTF seventeen, a fast patrol boat
from the Nasty class that was used in Vietnam, plus planes, tanks,
(06:44):
and a helicopter. It brings in more than seventy thousand
visitors annually. The largest of the three tourable ships at
Buffalo Naval Park is the U. S S. Little Rock, which,
according to the history of the park, is a guided
missile cruiser. The only surviving vessel from the Cleveland Glass
of light cruisers in World War Two. The ship is
six hundred ten feet long and housed eleven hundred enlisted
(07:06):
men at a time, in addition to a hundred fifty
officers and a hundred fifty marines. Originally built as a
gun cruiser, the U s S. Little Rock is unusual
because it has two bridges as well as admiral's quarters.
Designed for a Navy admiral to stay in Built between
nineteen forty three and nineteen forty four and commissioned in
nineteen forty five, the cruiser was too late to see
(07:26):
action during World War Two, but still sailed before being
decommissioned in nineteen forty nine. During that time, the ship
saw its first major accident. On October thirty first, nineteen
forty seven, a sailor named Donald H. Butler died when
he was crushed between the ship and its booy chain.
After she was decommissioned, the USS Little Rock underwent a
major remodeling starting in nineteen fifty seven, becoming a Galveston
(07:50):
class guided missile cruiser in nineteen sixty. As the park's
history describes her work, she became a Cold War flagship
of the second Fleet and the sixth Fleet. She patrolled
the Atlantic from the Arctic Circle to South America and
was a fixture in the Mediterranean Sea. She was a
show of force during the turbulent nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies.
(08:11):
In July nineteen sixty two, a sailor named Richard Smith
died of injuries received in the Missile House Magazine from
a high pressure hydraulic line failure. A few years later,
in nineteen sixty seven, the U S. S. Little Rock
assisted the U S. S. Liberty when that ship was
attacked by Israeli ships and aircraft. She aided in evacuating
the wounded and assisted the Liberty with damage control efforts.
(08:33):
Eight wounded men were treated in the ship's infirmary. In
nineteen seventy five, the U. S. S. Little Rock was
the only foreign warship in the official flotilla at the
reopening of the Suez Canal. The next year, she helped
to evacuate civilians from Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.
That was her last major mission. The U S. S.
Little Rock was decommissioned in nineteen seventy six and donated
(08:55):
to the Buffalo Naval Park in nineteen seventy seven. Today,
spaces aboard the ship, such as the Admiral's quarters, fantail,
and forecastle, can be rented for events like parties and weddings,
and people can arrange to stay overnight in original enlisted
sleeping compartments. The second tourable boat at the Buffalo Naval
Park is the USS Croker, a three hundred eleven foot
(09:16):
long submarine that is one of seventy seven Gaeto class
submarines ever constructed. Eighty one sailors served on board the boat,
which the park describes as part of the most lethal
submarine class of World War Two. Commissioned in nineteen forty four,
the USS Croker conducted six war patrols in the Pacific theater,
sinking eleven Japanese vessels, four of which were capital or
(09:37):
military vessels, and seven auxiliary or support vessels. Its first
successful torpedo strike was just seven days into its first patrol.
After World War Two, she was converted to a hunter
killer submarine with added sonar, radar and quieting capabilities to combat.
After World War Two, she was converted to a hunter
killer submarine with added sonar, radar and quieting capability to
(10:00):
combat the Russian threat during the Cold War, but was
soon outdated with the development of nuclear technologies. The U
S S Croaker was decommissioned in nineteen seventy one and
arrived at the Buffalo Naval Park in nineteen eighty eight.
All three ships have reports of unexplained phenomena, but by
far the ship with the most spookiness attached to it
(10:20):
is the U. S. S. The Sullivan's a Fletcher class destroyer,
the largest and most important class of US destroyers used
in World War Two. The boat, three hundred seventy six
ft long, housed three hundred ten soldiers. She has green
shamrocks painted on her main deck and forward smokestack in
tribute to the Irish American family. The boat is named
after the U. S. S. The Sullivan's is named after
(10:43):
five brothers who served on a similar ship in World
War Two. The U S S. Juno, George Francis Madison,
Joseph and Albert Sullivan were brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, who
had asked to serve together on the same vessel. According
to All Hands, the magazine of the U. S. Navy,
the tragic story of the Sullivan brothers was the greatest
military loss by any one American family during World War Two.
(11:07):
On November thirteenth, ninety two, their ship, the USS Juno,
was torpedoed by Japanese forces during the Battle of Guadalcanal.
Hit by a torpedo for the second time in less
than twelve hours, the ship sank in about twenty seconds.
While only ten of the roughly seven hundred sailors aboard lived,
many more of them survived. The initial sinking estimates put
(11:29):
the number of survivors in the water anywhere from one
hundred to two hundred men, but they were left behind
by the two American ships nearby. Those boats fled without
searching for survivors, assuming that no one could be left
alive and fearful of future attacks. Almost all of the
men who hit the water eventually died, primarily from hypernatremia
(11:49):
caused by drinking seawater and from shark attacks. Among the
survivors was George Sullivan, the eldest brother, who survived on
a raft for several days. Another man, Allan Heind, shared
that raft with Sullivan and was rescued after nine days
at sea. According to an article published by the National
World War Two Museum, Hein recalled how he shared a
(12:10):
raft with the eldest Sullivan brother, George, who was desperately
calling out for his deceased kin and stricken by inconsolable
grief and slowly losing his mind due to lack of
water and shock. Four days after Juno sank, George stripped
off all his clothes, declared to Hind that he was
going below to take a bath, slipped off the raft
and swam away. Hind watched as George swam and suddenly disappeared,
(12:34):
another victim of the sharks. According to Dan Kerzman's account
of the sinking, left to die, George initially swam from
raft to raft, using toilet paper to wipe off the
men's oil blackened faces, to see if they were his brothers.
Some survivors would later say that they believed either Albert
or Joseph had survived the initials sinking, only to perish
(12:54):
in the water. George had apparently told his mother, Alida Sullivan,
that if they went down, they would all go out together,
a statement which sadly came true in November nineteen forty two.
The family was not officially notified of their deaths until
January eleventh, ninety three due to military secrecy, although according
to a history of Elita Sullivan, one of the survivors
(13:16):
had already written to their mother that I am afraid
all hope is gone for your boys. After the victory
at Guadalcanal was secured, the Navy acknowledged that the Juno
had gone down, but the true horror of the disaster
wasn't revealed until after the war was over, when survivors
shared their stories. After the death of the Sullivan brothers,
their only remaining sibling, sister Genevieve, joined the Waves women
(13:40):
accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services, a unit of the Navy.
In nineteen forty three. The Sullivan Brothers became national icons,
with recruitment posters of their five smiling faces aboard Juno
on her commissioning day over the slogan they Did Their Part,
distributed nationwide that same year, then be dedicated the U.
(14:01):
S S the Sullivan's, the first ship ever commissioned that
honored more than one single person. The boat was launched
on September thirtieth, nineteen forty three, with the brother's mother, Alita,
christening the ship. A film version of their story the
fighting Sullivan's was released in nineteen forty four. The movie
ends with a scene of Alita christening the U. S. S.
The Sullivan's and saying to her husband, tom our boys
(14:24):
are afloat again. The USS the Sullivan saw action in
the Pacific Theater, shooting down eight Japanese planes bombarding Iwo, Jima,
and Okinawa, as well as rescuing American pilots and crew
from burning her sinking vessels. She also saw action during
the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and was
used as a training ship for the sixth Fleet after
the Korean War. The U. S. S. The Sullivan's was
(14:47):
decommissioned in nineteen sixty five and donated to the Buffalo
Naval Park in nineteen seventy seven. With all of that
wartime service and tragic history attached to the ships, it's
no wonder there are so many accounts of un usual
phenomena in Buffalo Naval Park, but at the park those
phenomena are largely considered a normal part of operations. John Browning,
(15:07):
the superintendent of Buffalo Naval Parks, set on a local
newscast that he wasn't scared of the hauntings. It's just
former crew members. We're all shipmates. They're going about their business.
I'm going about mine. They leave me alone, I leave
them alone. That's the way I look at it. People
who visit the U. S. S. Little Rock have said
they've heard phantom footsteps and mysterious whispers aboard the ship.
(15:28):
A water tap and a sink is said to turn
itself on, and people have reported seeing shadow figures in
full bodied apparitions, including a figure dressed in an admiral's
uniform who is said to walk the deck. The ghosts
of two sailors are believed to haunt the USS Little Rock.
One is said to be lonely and often follows female
visitors around the ship, and the other one likes to
play tricks on guests. People also believe there is a
(15:51):
spectral security guard aboard. According to Haunted houses dot Com,
people who are within earshot but not in the same
room as their belongings have heard our bags being unzipped,
someone rummaging around in their bags, and then zipped again.
While some claim that these phantoms are due to injured
sailors from the U S. S. Liberty dying aboard the ship,
the U. S. S. Little Rock took only eight of
(16:12):
the walking wounded, and it doesn't appear that any of
them died. Aboard the U. S. S. Croker, shadow figures
have been reported, and female visitors report being touched by
unseen hands, especially in the submarines bunk rooms. Visitors have
heard instruments playing in radio transmissions, as well as footsteps
and disembodied voices, as Haunted Houses dot Com describes them.
(16:33):
The disembodied voices maybe the spectral crew still serving their country.
One male spirit is very clear with his voice and
interacts with the living like the phantom security guard aboard
the U. S. S. Little Rock and unseen Force also
zips and unzips bags aboard the U. S. S. Croker,
enforcing the submarines strict rules against contraband even in death.
(16:54):
Aboard the U. S. S. Croker is a ghost named
John who is an angry spirit who pulls people's hair
and breathes down next according to those who have experienced
the phenomena. According to Haunted Rooms dot Com, he sometimes
even blocks passageways and refuses to let people pass. Stomping
sounds on the deck, as well as spectral growls have
been attributed to John. Many believe that he was a
(17:16):
sailor who died while serving on the U. S. S. Croker,
and who resents non Navy people coming aboard his submarine.
The most haunted of the three by far, though, is
the U. S S. The Sullivan's. According to Michael Swain's
Haunted World War Two, paranormal reports aboard the U. S. S.
The Sullivan's started soon after the ship was decommissioned. As
(17:37):
he wrote, one of the first documented supernatural reports circulated
soon after the ship was retired in nineteen sixty nine.
According to one account, workers saw a heavy wrench levitate
off a table and sail across the room. George Sullivan,
the eldest brother and the one who survived the longest
after the U. S. S. Juno Sank, is said to
haunt his namesake boat, searching for his four brothers. According
(18:00):
to Haunted Buffalo, it is also said that when you
attempt to photograph the Museum of the Sullivan Boys, George
will not come out in the photo. It's said that
if your camera batteries don't die before you can take
the shot, a mysterious mist will cover his face. Journalist
Phil Nye wrote an article on the Haunted Battleships of
Buffalo saying, one tour guide reported being below decks and
(18:21):
having a porso with a burned, disfigured face approach him
at a fast rate of speed. The figure was floating
above the ground, and the employee believed it to be
the ghost of George Sullivan. It's also thought that his
brothers sometimes join him. Some accounts describe five luminous forms
in passageways. Moaning, footsteps, and knocking have been heard aboard
the ship at night, and guards work in the night
(18:43):
shift have also reported hearing a voice that says, hey you.
According to Haunted World War two, other employees say the
ghosts on the U s as the Sullivan's, who many
presume are one or all of the Sullivan's, can get physical.
One worker woke up on the hard deck of the ship.
It's certainly not a place to sneak a nap during
his shift. He had no idea how he got there
(19:03):
and believed some mysterious and invisible force knocked him unconscious.
Sometimes instruments aboard the ship continue to operate even when
the power has been shut off. Haunted World War two
describe the account of one staff member, Eddie Kirkwood. He
claimed that during a party on board the ship, the
guests began to thank him for putting on a little
bit of an extra show for them. Kirkwood was confused.
(19:25):
He had no idea what they were talking about, but
he played along. They then pointed to a spinning radar dish.
It made for a pretty cool party effect, they all agreed. Kirkwood, however,
didn't consider this naval version of a spinning disco ball
entertainment at all. He knew that he had turned off
the circuit breaker that killed the power to the radar.
An elderly couple on a tour once praised the helpfulness
(19:46):
of an officer who gave them directions, only to be
told no officer was on board the ship that day.
According to Haunted Buffalo, a group of girl scouts staying
overnight on the ship also woke to find that all
pictures in the ship's museum had fallen to the ground.
Probably not what they signed up for With all those stories,
we should probably talk to someone in the know at
(20:06):
the Buffalo Naval Park. Up next, I've got Shane Stevenson
joining us. He is the director of museum collections at
the park, and he's no stranger to the paranormal reports
there that's coming up after the break. All right, So
(20:38):
now I am joined by Shane Stevenson, who is the
director of museum Collections at the Buffalo Naval Park. So
thank you for joining me, Shane. I super appreciate it. Oh,
you're very welcome. Amy happy to be here. So before
we get started, I'm just dying to know because I
watched this in the news over the last few months,
what is happening with the U s s the Sullivan's,
(20:59):
Like I saw she was taking on water. The pictures
looked really scary, So what's the status there. The pictures
didn't make it scary, but the actual event made it scary.
So yes, it was all in all a really trying
a month and a half two months, but we rustled
up many different organizations, the coast Guard, a salvage company,
(21:21):
a local marine company, an environmental company, and we all
worked towards a pumping her out. She had sank at
our pier which it was about eighteen feet of water,
and she had about a million gallons of water on
board and about forty thousand gallons of product or oil
(21:43):
on board left over from her service uh and from nine.
So we all worked slowly and diligently, and we pumped
the water out in a way that didn't put any
extra stress on her hull, and we were to raise
her and then patch her and repair her. And so
(22:04):
right now she's stable, she is upright and floating, and
now we're developing next steps for her to secure her
for the next fifty or seventy five years. That's amazing.
The photo that I saw, I mean, like you said,
she was, she was sunk. Just I have such great
memories of investigating there with ghost hunters. I was just
I was so impressed by just the the collections and
(22:29):
these ships themselves, and just I really liked my time there.
And I saw that, my heart just sunk. So I'm
really glad that you were able to at least get
her floating again. I'm I'm sure there was damage to
the collections inside and whatnot, but it sounds like you
guys have assembled a great team to kind of get
things hopefully put back together. Yeah, thank you. As my job,
(22:52):
you know, sometimes vernacularly called the curator, it was my
job to pull off all of the artifacts that were
displayed on board, recattle logged them. See if we can
get preservation and conservation team here to make sure that
they can be preserved as best as possible. So that's
what my summer has been. And I've been working with
a conservator and You've developed a really strong volunteer program
(23:15):
that's all been trained and so we are slowly preserving
all that can be preserved from that ship. And thank
you for being here in the past. Oh yeah, I'm
always championing the Buffalo Naval Park online, always retweeting all
your tweets. I always tell people to go there. Um,
I just think it's a really important spot. And so
that being said, you know my time there, obviously we
(23:37):
were there for the ghosts, but you know, we always
try to be very respectful to whenever military history is involved,
um in our investigations. But you know, I did have
some pretty wild experiences there, which I think a lot
of people report. I think mainly I remember hearing a
lot of voices. Adam and I heard many voices. We
were in the submarine, which I'm hugely claustrophobia, and every
(24:00):
time I go into a submarine, I'm just amazed and
how people lived in those for months at a time.
And uh, and then I remember also we had a
major experience with footsteps going overhead. So are those just
kind of things that happened there on the regular? Yeah,
I would say absolutely. The footsteps I have not heard
(24:21):
as much, but certainly voices we have heard throughout each
of our ships. And it is extremely eerie, as you know,
you know, to be here overnight, and when you believe
you're the only people on board, you know, it's it
can be a very unique, interesting experience for sure. Well,
I think that when we investigate any vessel on water,
(24:44):
it does create this kind of host of unusual circumstances
and sounds that we're not completely familiar with, and so
we have to kind of, you know, take that into
consideration as we investigate. But the voices were pretty clear,
and it's strange because they do sound just like male voices,
um sometimes kind of stern or sometimes I remember I
(25:05):
was hearing some chatter in another room. It sounded almost
like they were laughing. And when we investigated with ghost Hunters,
it would be Adam and me, a camera operator and
a sound person and so you know, it's four of
us on that entire ship, and so to hear voices
is really eerie. It is your you know, there's some
(25:27):
things that you can chalk up amy too, just being
a ship that's in water that wrote you know, that
moves and rolls and pitches with the wind and the water.
But when you have an experience that is real enough
to where it actually changes your behavior, then for me,
that's what my experience has been. Like I would spent
(25:49):
the night on board the various ships multiple times in
my working career here and there's a potential moment where
I hear something and I actually respond to it, like
I called back or I stopped, and that is that's
I usually can differentiate pretty quickly, just even unconsciously, when
(26:13):
you're walking through oh that's a creek. That's a creek,
and you just keep going. Then when there's something that
I actually stop and start talking to and then you
realize that you know, there's no one else there, so
it changes your behavior. And that's something that's really startling
to me, is that I was potentially so affected by
(26:33):
it that I called back out or I stopped walking
or you know something, you know because of just that
unconscious you know, noise that you just normally here on board. Yeah, Now,
were you a believer in ghosts before you took the
position at the Buffalo Naval Park. Um, I hadn't quite
figured it out yet fully, I mean, ultimately I haven't either,
(26:57):
for what it's worth, I think, and some people when
I have conversations about this, it's you almost have to
go down, you know. Then you have to answer like
almost like religion. And I don't know how far you
want to go. But you know, if I say, if
I'm a nonbeliever in an afterlife, if I have experiences,
(27:18):
then I have to say, oh, well, now I have
to start believing in some sort of higher being. Right.
And sometimes people tell me, you know that you don't
have to get to that point, but no, I mean,
I'd never really had anything on before working here that
would have led me to believe like, oh, there's something
in the afterlife, right, I mean, And it sounds like
you know, you you come at it from like a
(27:39):
pragmatic viewpoint, you know, And I'm very similar where even
in all that I do, I will never tell people
that ghosts are real. Like I know, I've seen and
experience very strange things. I believe it could be the
spirits of people who have passed on and are still
here for whatever reason. But I don't absolutely know. Yeah,
that's always I guess the best way of tackling an
(28:02):
amy is uh if and when there's ever definitive proof,
you know, maybe some people claim there is definitive, but
you know when I started there was I started working
here in two thousand eighteen, you know. There for the
people that were on board many years before me, they
just say, oh, you know, you might hear something, you
might see something, but just know that there benevolent and
(28:24):
you're you're carrying on their story and their tradition, and
so you're pretty all set. That's a good way to
handle it. What was your first experience where you were like, okay, this,
there's something to this. Just using the terminology. Hallways on
ships are passageways, right, So so I was walking down
a passageway which connected to larger rooms or spaces, and
(28:49):
they both have those water type doors on either side,
so you have to spin the wheel, unlock one, then
you batten it down and then you walk through this
little darkened passage way and then you unseal the other one,
and then you walk through to the other space. So
for that thirty seconds or whatever that where you're in
the dark space, the darken space, I could swear I
(29:12):
heard some scratching and like almost like a growl, which
was interesting. And again talking just how I mentioned a
few minutes ago, it made me alter my behavior, so
it didn't sound like a natural thing with the ship
moving and creaking and you know, I mean they're seventy
seventy nine years old, all of our ships, so uh,
(29:35):
you know in there prone to the elements. But I
stopped and I said, you know, in my head, I said, wow,
what was that. I didn't have a flashlight with me
or anything, so I just kept going. And that would
have been my first experience. Have people come to you,
like maybe visitors or whatever and described some sort of
(29:56):
wild experience they had where you were just left completely
scratching your head. Uh. It is very interesting, and I'm
not an expert in it, but there's some people that
you know, just reading and researching this, that people you know,
have sensitivity and there's a spectrum of sensitivity levels. And
(30:17):
I have talked to many people that exhibit or you know,
mentioned that they have a sensitivity to spirits or the unknown,
so to speak, and they really have very interesting experiences
that I don't have. Right, if they have a sensitivity
to it, they will experience stuff almost throughout the whole ship.
(30:37):
They say, I don't have anything specific, but it's just
talking to people on board. They say, oh my god.
You know, I was walking through the Little Rock or
the Sullivan's and almost every space that I went into, uh,
I felt something. And I say, well, I don't have
that sensitivity, so it's just a room to me, so
to speak, or a space or something. But for someone
(30:58):
that has that sensitivity, they say, they experience a lot
of different things on board. So yeah, I mean I
could imagine that. I guess I don't have that sensitivity,
but I mean I feel like probably there's a lot
of residual energy and that kind of spectrum probably left
in those kinds of places. A lot happened there over
the years, so it makes sense. Has there ever been
(31:19):
an experience either you have had or someone has come
to you with that made you at all nervous? One
other experience that I've had was probably right when the
It's not related to the Sullivans, but we've heard many
things about the Sullivan's. I have not experienced them. I
have been on board alone at night on the Sullivan's
(31:40):
and I have not experienced anything. But people mentioned, certainly
in the mess decks where the crew eight, they can
see a face by the what's called the scuttle butt,
which would be like the water fountain, and there's some
degradation to the face, for lack of a better word,
either part of it has been burned. I had not
experience that, but that could obviously, that could be a
(32:02):
pretty scary experience for someone if they see a face
that has been burned with fire is kind of floating
and appearing in front of them. Another experience I had
on the Little Rock, and that's why I brought in
the Sullivan's, was it was right around when the sullivan sank,
and so all of the crew was working on the
(32:23):
Sullivan's on the main decks and things like that, and
so I was the only person on board the Little Rock.
And again in one of those passageways, I was in
my office and maybe about fifteen feet away there's a door,
just a regular what we call a panel door, but
it looks like a door in your house, right, And
it opened and shut, and I did one of those
things again change my behavior. I called out, I said,
(32:46):
I'm in here if anyone needs me, just thinking that
they were walking around, you know, and maybe someone was
looking for me. So some you know, a coworker crew.
So I called out, I said, you know, I'm in
my office if anyone is looking for me. And then
thing So then I get on our rocky talkies and
I say, hey, is anyone else on the little rock
besides me? And Everyone's like, no, We're all on the
(33:07):
Sullivan's doing work. And so I was like, okay, that
can catch you off guard, especially when you're completely alone.
You're like, okay, if you can move that, what else
can you move? Right? And again I don't think of
it in those terms of they're moving objects in the
physical world. But it's really tough to, you know, say
what else that could have been. I mean, if it
(33:28):
more opens and shuts on board, I mean we're probably
moving that day. And you know, sometimes the doors move
an inch this way or an inch that way based
on our swaying and you know, moving starboard deport a
little bit, just rocking with the waves, but not something
like that. Did you notice an uptake in any paranormal
(33:50):
activity when the Sullivan's sank. Did anybody report anything extra
when that happened? I do not have a recollection. That
would have been prime time. There was a lot of
the responders were down below, you know, surveying and analyzing
and stuff. I don't remember hearing any stories from them now.
(34:13):
That would have been their first time on board right well.
And also there was It's probably just a flurry of
of things you were all doing, you know, It's one
of those things sometimes you don't notice the paranormal unless
you're kind of sitting in silence for whatever reason, which
I assume everyone was working pretty fervently to try to
get things fixed at that point. You know what, Amy,
(34:33):
that's true, That's absolutely true. Now. One of the areas
that was really took a lot of damage was the
mess deck, where I say, people have seen their face
that has been burnt. Even today, there's no electricity on board,
so someone goes down below, it's dark. I have been down,
you know, collecting the artifacts and taking them off board
(34:54):
and taking them to our conservation room. But your mind
is really focused on other things, and uh, you're scrambling
and scurrying, and you know, maybe just at that moment,
those moments were not being as sensitive as we may
be to that situation. Maybe Kindred Spirits needs to come investigate.
It's a it's a hollow ship right now. And you
(35:17):
know there's there's one death from one sailor and in
World War two and the family is very involved here
and it would be interesting to see, you know, of
course with the five brothers, and they're untimely passing altogether. Uh. Certainly,
(35:38):
any warship brings that sort of traumatic human experience where
things can not go according to plan, I guess so
to speak. Yeah, I mean it makes sense. Which of
the ships would you say is like the most haunted?
To me, I would say the Little Rock, our cruiser
USS Little Rock is certainly it's the large. It did
(36:00):
have the most, uh, sailor deaths on it, and it
was only I think three during her service, but Sullivan's
was one. USS Croker had some injuries, but no sailors
passing or perishing on board. So the Little Rock with
three sailors during her service perishing on board, and even
(36:23):
we had someone passed when he was visiting. He was
an old Little Rock sailor and he was spending the
night on board and unfortunately had a heart attack on
board and passed away while he was in his bump. Wow,
that's I mean, that's kind of a full circle moment. Now,
do you guys do ghost tours or anything still or
(36:44):
nighttime tours? Well? I think with the COVID pandemic that
really slowed that sort of event on board. Um, but
we're slowly bringing it back. Yeah, for those that are
interested in being here. One of the things that we
believe can cause hauntings is sometimes just objects themselves. You know.
(37:05):
Sometimes things will be brought from other locations that might
have some sort of tragedy associated with them. Um. Is
there anything like that on display there that might have
come from someplace that could maybe have some energy with
it that might be causing some of your activity. That
is a great question and one that I would be
hard to come right off the top of my head.
(37:26):
I know, certainly we have diaries of men that had
bad experiences during World War Two. We do have a
POW uniform from Vietnam that's on display. For those that
are still m i A from the Vietnam conflict. They
create bracelets, and so we have bracelets on display with
(37:48):
their names and the last date of when they were
not missing and when they were still with their platoon
or whatever. So I believe those few items in the
Vietnam exhibit can probably have that bad essence to it.
I think we found that a lot with places that
display a lot of kind of military memorabilia, you know,
(38:10):
depending on where it came from or you know, sometimes
it's not necessarily the location, it's the items themselves, and
so you know, maybe just over time as things happen,
maybe pay attention to where or what they might be around.
And maybe it's not even something associated with someone who
served on the ship. It could be someone completely different.
(38:30):
That is uh. That definitely excuse my thinking in a
different direction, which I hadn't considered before. So I appreciate that. Yeah,
I should see, you know, around our Vietnam exhibit, you know,
we have a jacket from someone that was killed the local.
We have a jacket from the local nurse that was killed.
Right off the top, we have three or four items
of people that perished in Vietnam that are on display
(38:54):
their personal effects in their items. So I'll try to
be more sensitive to that. I always thinking outside the box,
like what else could it be? You know, because sometimes
we're investigating places that don't really have a lot of
death or tragedy associated with them particularly, but like we'll
have a ton of activity going on, and so it's
kind of our job to narrow it down. You know,
(39:15):
look what else happened in the area, or are there
items here that it could be our emotions running high
for other reasons. You know, there's all sorts of theories
out there. So but that being said, if people want
to visit the park, what should they do? Is it
open year round or they are better times to visit
or yeah, sure, thanks Amy. We are open because we're
(39:36):
in Buffalo. Were only open for a spring, summer, and fall,
so we usually open up, you know, the last weekend
in March, and we run right through about Thanksgiving, so
around roughly around the last weekend in November, and then
we do shut down for the winter. Our website is
(39:56):
Buffalo Naval Park all one word dot O r G
or dot org Buffalo Naval Park dot org, and they
can purchase tickets online, they can search through some photographs
and really learn about our park right from our website,
and certainly we're on social media with Facebook and Instagram
(40:17):
and our YouTube Channel as well, so I remember being
there and it was very cold, so that's kind of uh,
it's kind of the m O with our shows. We
go usually when things are kind of off season, so
I wouldn't be surprised if it was winter when I
went there, because I have a picture of me standing
on the little rock in a great, big winter coat,
(40:39):
so that makes absolute sense. It could have been in
the fall when we're beginning to wind down, and yeah,
the the ships themselves get as hot, and what for
those areas that are not heated or air conditioned, they
get as cold as it is outside or they get
as hot as it is outside, depending on the season.
So very much worth of visit. I highly recommend it
(41:01):
to everyone. I really appreciate you taking the time to
chat with me, and we'll have to chat offline and
maybe we can arrange a visit soon. I think that'd
be really great. Great. Thank you so much, Amy. I'm
happy to be here and I hope your viewers and
listeners enjoy it. Investigating places like the Buffalo Naval Park
(41:25):
is tricky because you want to get to the bottom
of the haunting, but you also want to be incredibly
respectful of the people who served and sacrificed so much
for our country. I urge anyone investigating a location steeped
in military history to do your due diligence before doing so.
Remember this is not a novelty. Most likely, any spirits
(41:45):
you encounter feel they are still performing what they consider
to be a sacred duty. Nevertheless, seeking spirits are not
I highly encourage a trip to the Buffalo Naval Park.
I really enjoyed my time there, and I know you
will too. I am Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Rode.
(42:16):
Haunted Road is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney,
with additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn and Cassandra day Alba.
This show is edited and produced by rema El Kali,
with supervising producer Josh Thayne and executive producers Aaron Manky,
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is a production
(42:36):
of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Learn more about this show over at Grimm and Mild
dot com, and for more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised. Hey, gang,
just a reminder that I have a massive false speaking
tour approaching. I will very soon be making stops in Sacramento,
San Diego, Tucson, and Scottsdale. Then in October, I've got
(00:23):
stops in Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and more.
Get all the details and tickets at Amy dash Brunei
dot net. I hope to see you out there, my
spooky friends. Waterloo, Iowa, January Dear sirs, I am writing
(00:54):
you in regard to a rumor going around that my
five sons were killed in action in November. A mother
from here came and told me that she got a
letter from her son and he heard my five sons
were killed. It is all over town now, and I
am so worried. My five sons joined the Navy together
a year ago January third, nineteen forty two. They are
(01:17):
on the cruiser U S. S Juno. The last I
heard from them was November eighth. That is, it was
dated November eighth, U S. Navy. Their names are George T. Francis,
Henry Joseph E. Madison A. And Albert L. If it
is so, please let me know the truth. I am
to christen the U. S. S. Twassah February twelfth, at Portland, Oregon.
(01:40):
If anything has happened to my five sons, I will
still christen the ship, as it was their wish that
I do so. I hated to bother you, but it
has worried me so that I wanted to know if
it was true. So please tell me. It was hard
to give five sons all at once to the Navy,
but I am proud of my boys that they can
serve and help protect their country. George and Francis served
(02:03):
four years on the U S. S. Holvey, and I
had the pleasure to go aboard their ship in nineteen
thirty seven. I am so happy the Navy has bestowed
the honor on me to christen the U. S. S. Twassa.
My husband and daughter are going to Portland with me.
I remain sincerely Mrs Elita Sullivan, Adams Street, Waterloo, Iowa.
(02:25):
My dear mister and Mrs Sullivan, the knowledge that your
five gallant sons are missing in action against the enemy
inspires me to write you this personal message. I realize
full well there is little I can say to assuase
your grief. As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy,
I want you to know that the entire nation shares
in your sorrow. I offer you the condolences and gratitude
(02:48):
of our country. We who remain to carry on the
fight must maintain spirit in the knowledge that such sacrifice
is not in vain. The Navy Department has informed me
of the express desire of your sons George Thomas, Francis,
Henry Joseph, Eugene, Madison, Abel and Albert Leo to serve
in the same ship. I am sure that we all
(03:09):
take heart in the knowledge that they fought side by side.
As one of your sons wrote, we will make a
team together that can't be beat. It is this spirit which,
in the end must triumph. Last March, you, Mrs Sullivan,
were designated to sponsor a ship of the Navy in
recognition of your patriotism and that of your sons. I
understand that you are now even more determined to carry
(03:31):
on his sponsor. This evidence of unselfishness and of courage
serves as a real inspiration for me, as I am
sure it will for all Americans. Such acts of faith
and fortitude in the face of tragedy convinced me of
the indomitable spirit and will of our people. I send
you my deepest sympathy in your hour of trial, and
(03:52):
pray that in Almighty God you will find the comfort
and help that only He can bring. Very sincerely, yours,
Franklin D. Roosevelt. I'm Amy Brunei, and welcome to Haunted Road.
(04:17):
In the Naval Park in Buffalo, New York, three majestic
ships float quietly in the water, part of a large
scale tribute to the United States military and the sacrifices
made by soldiers who were wounded or killed in the
name of freedom. Tens of thousands of people tore the
ships every year, exploring the corridors where sailors walked, the
bunks where they slept, the control rooms where they operated
(04:38):
the ships, and the decks where they stood and watched
for approaching ships, ready for the battles that lay ahead.
All three of the boats, the U. S S. Croker,
the U. S S. Little Rock, and the U S
S The Sullivans, were decommissioned decades ago and are no
longer in use by the Navy, but many people believe
that the sailors who once manned those ships never left.
(04:59):
I witness account detail hearing phantom footsteps and mysterious whispers,
objects flying across the room, and blurred faces and photos.
Some people report seeing full body apparitions in places where
there are no other living people, including the burned face
and torso of a man who died tragically in a bombing,
the last to parish of five brothers who were all
(05:19):
killed in the attack. The second largest city in New York, Buffalo,
sits on the shores of Lake Erie, by the origin
of the Niagara River. Today, Buffalo, also known as the
Queen City, is mostly known for two things. It's intense
snowy winters. The city gets eighty five inches of snow
a year, more than three times the national average. And
(05:40):
it's intense spicy sauce that has become so popular it's
served all over the country. But once, the city of
more than two hundred fifty thousand was a booming industrial
town which experienced the same economic downturn as many Rust
Belt cities that lost manufacturing jobs to corporations moving their
plants overseas. Though a or a decade long revitalization effort,
(06:02):
Buffalo is currently experiencing an economic turnaround and population growth.
Planning began in nineteen seventy six for what would be
the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park. It
opened in nineteen seventy nine as the largest inland attraction
of its kind in the country. The waterfront park has
three large tourable ships. The U. S S. Little Rock
(06:23):
is a guided missile cruiser, the U S. S. The
Sullivan's is a Fletcher class destroyer, and the U. S S.
Croker is a submarine. In addition, the park features a
garden of war memorials, a museum of military history, and
several other exhibits, including PTF seventeen, a fast patrol boat
from the Nasty class that was used in Vietnam, plus planes, tanks,
(06:44):
and a helicopter. It brings in more than seventy thousand
visitors annually. The largest of the three tourable ships at
Buffalo Naval Park is the U. S S. Little Rock, which,
according to the history of the park, is a guided
missile cruiser. The only surviving vessel from the Cleveland Glass
of light cruisers in World War Two. The ship is
six hundred ten feet long and housed eleven hundred enlisted
(07:06):
men at a time, in addition to a hundred fifty
officers and a hundred fifty marines. Originally built as a
gun cruiser, the U s S. Little Rock is unusual
because it has two bridges as well as admiral's quarters.
Designed for a Navy admiral to stay in Built between
nineteen forty three and nineteen forty four and commissioned in
nineteen forty five, the cruiser was too late to see
(07:26):
action during World War Two, but still sailed before being
decommissioned in nineteen forty nine. During that time, the ship
saw its first major accident. On October thirty first, nineteen
forty seven, a sailor named Donald H. Butler died when
he was crushed between the ship and its booy chain.
After she was decommissioned, the USS Little Rock underwent a
major remodeling starting in nineteen fifty seven, becoming a Galveston
(07:50):
class guided missile cruiser in nineteen sixty. As the park's
history describes her work, she became a Cold War flagship
of the second Fleet and the sixth Fleet. She patrolled
the Atlantic from the Arctic Circle to South America and
was a fixture in the Mediterranean Sea. She was a
show of force during the turbulent nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies.
(08:11):
In July nineteen sixty two, a sailor named Richard Smith
died of injuries received in the Missile House Magazine from
a high pressure hydraulic line failure. A few years later,
in nineteen sixty seven, the U S. S. Little Rock
assisted the U S. S. Liberty when that ship was
attacked by Israeli ships and aircraft. She aided in evacuating
the wounded and assisted the Liberty with damage control efforts.
(08:33):
Eight wounded men were treated in the ship's infirmary. In
nineteen seventy five, the U. S. S. Little Rock was
the only foreign warship in the official flotilla at the
reopening of the Suez Canal. The next year, she helped
to evacuate civilians from Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.
That was her last major mission. The U S. S.
Little Rock was decommissioned in nineteen seventy six and donated
(08:55):
to the Buffalo Naval Park in nineteen seventy seven. Today,
spaces aboard the ship, such as the Admiral's quarters, fantail,
and forecastle, can be rented for events like parties and weddings,
and people can arrange to stay overnight in original enlisted
sleeping compartments. The second tourable boat at the Buffalo Naval
Park is the USS Croker, a three hundred eleven foot
(09:16):
long submarine that is one of seventy seven Gaeto class
submarines ever constructed. Eighty one sailors served on board the boat,
which the park describes as part of the most lethal
submarine class of World War Two. Commissioned in nineteen forty four,
the USS Croker conducted six war patrols in the Pacific theater,
sinking eleven Japanese vessels, four of which were capital or
(09:37):
military vessels, and seven auxiliary or support vessels. Its first
successful torpedo strike was just seven days into its first patrol.
After World War Two, she was converted to a hunter
killer submarine with added sonar, radar and quieting capabilities to combat.
After World War Two, she was converted to a hunter
killer submarine with added sonar, radar and quieting capability to
(10:00):
combat the Russian threat during the Cold War, but was
soon outdated with the development of nuclear technologies. The U
S S Croaker was decommissioned in nineteen seventy one and
arrived at the Buffalo Naval Park in nineteen eighty eight.
All three ships have reports of unexplained phenomena, but by
far the ship with the most spookiness attached to it
(10:20):
is the U. S. S. The Sullivan's a Fletcher class destroyer,
the largest and most important class of US destroyers used
in World War Two. The boat, three hundred seventy six
ft long, housed three hundred ten soldiers. She has green
shamrocks painted on her main deck and forward smokestack in
tribute to the Irish American family. The boat is named
after the U. S. S. The Sullivan's is named after
(10:43):
five brothers who served on a similar ship in World
War Two. The U S S. Juno, George Francis Madison,
Joseph and Albert Sullivan were brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, who
had asked to serve together on the same vessel. According
to All Hands, the magazine of the U. S. Navy,
the tragic story of the Sullivan brothers was the greatest
military loss by any one American family during World War Two.
(11:07):
On November thirteenth, ninety two, their ship, the USS Juno,
was torpedoed by Japanese forces during the Battle of Guadalcanal.
Hit by a torpedo for the second time in less
than twelve hours, the ship sank in about twenty seconds.
While only ten of the roughly seven hundred sailors aboard lived,
many more of them survived. The initial sinking estimates put
(11:29):
the number of survivors in the water anywhere from one
hundred to two hundred men, but they were left behind
by the two American ships nearby. Those boats fled without
searching for survivors, assuming that no one could be left
alive and fearful of future attacks. Almost all of the
men who hit the water eventually died, primarily from hypernatremia
(11:49):
caused by drinking seawater and from shark attacks. Among the
survivors was George Sullivan, the eldest brother, who survived on
a raft for several days. Another man, Allan Heind, shared
that raft with Sullivan and was rescued after nine days
at sea. According to an article published by the National
World War Two Museum, Hein recalled how he shared a
(12:10):
raft with the eldest Sullivan brother, George, who was desperately
calling out for his deceased kin and stricken by inconsolable
grief and slowly losing his mind due to lack of
water and shock. Four days after Juno sank, George stripped
off all his clothes, declared to Hind that he was
going below to take a bath, slipped off the raft
and swam away. Hind watched as George swam and suddenly disappeared,
(12:34):
another victim of the sharks. According to Dan Kerzman's account
of the sinking, left to die, George initially swam from
raft to raft, using toilet paper to wipe off the
men's oil blackened faces, to see if they were his brothers.
Some survivors would later say that they believed either Albert
or Joseph had survived the initials sinking, only to perish
(12:54):
in the water. George had apparently told his mother, Alida Sullivan,
that if they went down, they would all go out together,
a statement which sadly came true in November nineteen forty two.
The family was not officially notified of their deaths until
January eleventh, ninety three due to military secrecy, although according
to a history of Elita Sullivan, one of the survivors
(13:16):
had already written to their mother that I am afraid
all hope is gone for your boys. After the victory
at Guadalcanal was secured, the Navy acknowledged that the Juno
had gone down, but the true horror of the disaster
wasn't revealed until after the war was over, when survivors
shared their stories. After the death of the Sullivan brothers,
their only remaining sibling, sister Genevieve, joined the Waves women
(13:40):
accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services, a unit of the Navy.
In nineteen forty three. The Sullivan Brothers became national icons,
with recruitment posters of their five smiling faces aboard Juno
on her commissioning day over the slogan they Did Their Part,
distributed nationwide that same year, then be dedicated the U.
(14:01):
S S the Sullivan's, the first ship ever commissioned that
honored more than one single person. The boat was launched
on September thirtieth, nineteen forty three, with the brother's mother, Alita,
christening the ship. A film version of their story the
fighting Sullivan's was released in nineteen forty four. The movie
ends with a scene of Alita christening the U. S. S.
The Sullivan's and saying to her husband, tom our boys
(14:24):
are afloat again. The USS the Sullivan saw action in
the Pacific Theater, shooting down eight Japanese planes bombarding Iwo, Jima,
and Okinawa, as well as rescuing American pilots and crew
from burning her sinking vessels. She also saw action during
the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and was
used as a training ship for the sixth Fleet after
the Korean War. The U. S. S. The Sullivan's was
(14:47):
decommissioned in nineteen sixty five and donated to the Buffalo
Naval Park in nineteen seventy seven. With all of that
wartime service and tragic history attached to the ships, it's
no wonder there are so many accounts of un usual
phenomena in Buffalo Naval Park, but at the park those
phenomena are largely considered a normal part of operations. John Browning,
(15:07):
the superintendent of Buffalo Naval Parks, set on a local
newscast that he wasn't scared of the hauntings. It's just
former crew members. We're all shipmates. They're going about their business.
I'm going about mine. They leave me alone, I leave
them alone. That's the way I look at it. People
who visit the U. S. S. Little Rock have said
they've heard phantom footsteps and mysterious whispers aboard the ship.
(15:28):
A water tap and a sink is said to turn
itself on, and people have reported seeing shadow figures in
full bodied apparitions, including a figure dressed in an admiral's
uniform who is said to walk the deck. The ghosts
of two sailors are believed to haunt the USS Little Rock.
One is said to be lonely and often follows female
visitors around the ship, and the other one likes to
play tricks on guests. People also believe there is a
(15:51):
spectral security guard aboard. According to Haunted houses dot Com,
people who are within earshot but not in the same
room as their belongings have heard our bags being unzipped,
someone rummaging around in their bags, and then zipped again.
While some claim that these phantoms are due to injured
sailors from the U S. S. Liberty dying aboard the ship,
the U. S. S. Little Rock took only eight of
(16:12):
the walking wounded, and it doesn't appear that any of
them died. Aboard the U. S. S. Croker, shadow figures
have been reported, and female visitors report being touched by
unseen hands, especially in the submarines bunk rooms. Visitors have
heard instruments playing in radio transmissions, as well as footsteps
and disembodied voices, as Haunted Houses dot Com describes them.
(16:33):
The disembodied voices maybe the spectral crew still serving their country.
One male spirit is very clear with his voice and
interacts with the living like the phantom security guard aboard
the U. S. S. Little Rock and unseen Force also
zips and unzips bags aboard the U. S. S. Croker,
enforcing the submarines strict rules against contraband even in death.
(16:54):
Aboard the U. S. S. Croker is a ghost named
John who is an angry spirit who pulls people's hair
and breathes down next according to those who have experienced
the phenomena. According to Haunted Rooms dot Com, he sometimes
even blocks passageways and refuses to let people pass. Stomping
sounds on the deck, as well as spectral growls have
been attributed to John. Many believe that he was a
(17:16):
sailor who died while serving on the U. S. S. Croker,
and who resents non Navy people coming aboard his submarine.
The most haunted of the three by far, though, is
the U. S S. The Sullivan's. According to Michael Swain's
Haunted World War Two, paranormal reports aboard the U. S. S.
The Sullivan's started soon after the ship was decommissioned. As
(17:37):
he wrote, one of the first documented supernatural reports circulated
soon after the ship was retired in nineteen sixty nine.
According to one account, workers saw a heavy wrench levitate
off a table and sail across the room. George Sullivan,
the eldest brother and the one who survived the longest
after the U. S. S. Juno Sank, is said to
haunt his namesake boat, searching for his four brothers. According
(18:00):
to Haunted Buffalo, it is also said that when you
attempt to photograph the Museum of the Sullivan Boys, George
will not come out in the photo. It's said that
if your camera batteries don't die before you can take
the shot, a mysterious mist will cover his face. Journalist
Phil Nye wrote an article on the Haunted Battleships of
Buffalo saying, one tour guide reported being below decks and
(18:21):
having a porso with a burned, disfigured face approach him
at a fast rate of speed. The figure was floating
above the ground, and the employee believed it to be
the ghost of George Sullivan. It's also thought that his
brothers sometimes join him. Some accounts describe five luminous forms
in passageways. Moaning, footsteps, and knocking have been heard aboard
the ship at night, and guards work in the night
(18:43):
shift have also reported hearing a voice that says, hey you.
According to Haunted World War two, other employees say the
ghosts on the U s as the Sullivan's, who many
presume are one or all of the Sullivan's, can get physical.
One worker woke up on the hard deck of the ship.
It's certainly not a place to sneak a nap during
his shift. He had no idea how he got there
(19:03):
and believed some mysterious and invisible force knocked him unconscious.
Sometimes instruments aboard the ship continue to operate even when
the power has been shut off. Haunted World War two
describe the account of one staff member, Eddie Kirkwood. He
claimed that during a party on board the ship, the
guests began to thank him for putting on a little
bit of an extra show for them. Kirkwood was confused.
(19:25):
He had no idea what they were talking about, but
he played along. They then pointed to a spinning radar dish.
It made for a pretty cool party effect, they all agreed. Kirkwood, however,
didn't consider this naval version of a spinning disco ball
entertainment at all. He knew that he had turned off
the circuit breaker that killed the power to the radar.
An elderly couple on a tour once praised the helpfulness
(19:46):
of an officer who gave them directions, only to be
told no officer was on board the ship that day.
According to Haunted Buffalo, a group of girl scouts staying
overnight on the ship also woke to find that all
pictures in the ship's museum had fallen to the ground.
Probably not what they signed up for With all those stories,
we should probably talk to someone in the know at
(20:06):
the Buffalo Naval Park. Up next, I've got Shane Stevenson
joining us. He is the director of museum collections at
the park, and he's no stranger to the paranormal reports
there that's coming up after the break. All right, So
(20:38):
now I am joined by Shane Stevenson, who is the
director of museum Collections at the Buffalo Naval Park. So
thank you for joining me, Shane. I super appreciate it. Oh,
you're very welcome. Amy happy to be here. So before
we get started, I'm just dying to know because I
watched this in the news over the last few months,
what is happening with the U s s the Sullivan's,
(20:59):
Like I saw she was taking on water. The pictures
looked really scary, So what's the status there. The pictures
didn't make it scary, but the actual event made it scary.
So yes, it was all in all a really trying
a month and a half two months, but we rustled
up many different organizations, the coast Guard, a salvage company,
(21:21):
a local marine company, an environmental company, and we all
worked towards a pumping her out. She had sank at
our pier which it was about eighteen feet of water,
and she had about a million gallons of water on
board and about forty thousand gallons of product or oil
(21:43):
on board left over from her service uh and from nine.
So we all worked slowly and diligently, and we pumped
the water out in a way that didn't put any
extra stress on her hull, and we were to raise
her and then patch her and repair her. And so
(22:04):
right now she's stable, she is upright and floating, and
now we're developing next steps for her to secure her
for the next fifty or seventy five years. That's amazing.
The photo that I saw, I mean, like you said,
she was, she was sunk. Just I have such great
memories of investigating there with ghost hunters. I was just
I was so impressed by just the the collections and
(22:29):
these ships themselves, and just I really liked my time there.
And I saw that, my heart just sunk. So I'm
really glad that you were able to at least get
her floating again. I'm I'm sure there was damage to
the collections inside and whatnot, but it sounds like you
guys have assembled a great team to kind of get
things hopefully put back together. Yeah, thank you. As my job,
(22:52):
you know, sometimes vernacularly called the curator, it was my
job to pull off all of the artifacts that were
displayed on board, recattle logged them. See if we can
get preservation and conservation team here to make sure that
they can be preserved as best as possible. So that's
what my summer has been. And I've been working with
a conservator and You've developed a really strong volunteer program
(23:15):
that's all been trained and so we are slowly preserving
all that can be preserved from that ship. And thank
you for being here in the past. Oh yeah, I'm
always championing the Buffalo Naval Park online, always retweeting all
your tweets. I always tell people to go there. Um,
I just think it's a really important spot. And so
that being said, you know my time there, obviously we
(23:37):
were there for the ghosts, but you know, we always
try to be very respectful to whenever military history is involved,
um in our investigations. But you know, I did have
some pretty wild experiences there, which I think a lot
of people report. I think mainly I remember hearing a
lot of voices. Adam and I heard many voices. We
were in the submarine, which I'm hugely claustrophobia, and every
(24:00):
time I go into a submarine, I'm just amazed and
how people lived in those for months at a time.
And uh, and then I remember also we had a
major experience with footsteps going overhead. So are those just
kind of things that happened there on the regular? Yeah,
I would say absolutely. The footsteps I have not heard
(24:21):
as much, but certainly voices we have heard throughout each
of our ships. And it is extremely eerie, as you know,
you know, to be here overnight, and when you believe
you're the only people on board, you know, it's it
can be a very unique, interesting experience for sure. Well,
I think that when we investigate any vessel on water,
(24:44):
it does create this kind of host of unusual circumstances
and sounds that we're not completely familiar with, and so
we have to kind of, you know, take that into
consideration as we investigate. But the voices were pretty clear,
and it's strange because they do sound just like male voices,
um sometimes kind of stern or sometimes I remember I
(25:05):
was hearing some chatter in another room. It sounded almost
like they were laughing. And when we investigated with ghost Hunters,
it would be Adam and me, a camera operator and
a sound person and so you know, it's four of
us on that entire ship, and so to hear voices
is really eerie. It is your you know, there's some
(25:27):
things that you can chalk up amy too, just being
a ship that's in water that wrote you know, that
moves and rolls and pitches with the wind and the water.
But when you have an experience that is real enough
to where it actually changes your behavior, then for me,
that's what my experience has been. Like I would spent
(25:49):
the night on board the various ships multiple times in
my working career here and there's a potential moment where
I hear something and I actually respond to it, like
I called back or I stopped, and that is that's
I usually can differentiate pretty quickly, just even unconsciously, when
(26:13):
you're walking through oh that's a creek. That's a creek,
and you just keep going. Then when there's something that
I actually stop and start talking to and then you
realize that you know, there's no one else there, so
it changes your behavior. And that's something that's really startling
to me, is that I was potentially so affected by
(26:33):
it that I called back out or I stopped walking
or you know something, you know because of just that
unconscious you know, noise that you just normally here on board. Yeah, Now,
were you a believer in ghosts before you took the
position at the Buffalo Naval Park. Um, I hadn't quite
figured it out yet fully, I mean, ultimately I haven't either,
(26:57):
for what it's worth, I think, and some people when
I have conversations about this, it's you almost have to
go down, you know. Then you have to answer like
almost like religion. And I don't know how far you
want to go. But you know, if I say, if
I'm a nonbeliever in an afterlife, if I have experiences,
(27:18):
then I have to say, oh, well, now I have
to start believing in some sort of higher being. Right.
And sometimes people tell me, you know that you don't
have to get to that point, but no, I mean,
I'd never really had anything on before working here that
would have led me to believe like, oh, there's something
in the afterlife, right, I mean, And it sounds like
you know, you you come at it from like a
(27:39):
pragmatic viewpoint, you know, And I'm very similar where even
in all that I do, I will never tell people
that ghosts are real. Like I know, I've seen and
experience very strange things. I believe it could be the
spirits of people who have passed on and are still
here for whatever reason. But I don't absolutely know. Yeah,
that's always I guess the best way of tackling an
(28:02):
amy is uh if and when there's ever definitive proof,
you know, maybe some people claim there is definitive, but
you know when I started there was I started working
here in two thousand eighteen, you know. There for the
people that were on board many years before me, they
just say, oh, you know, you might hear something, you
might see something, but just know that there benevolent and
(28:24):
you're you're carrying on their story and their tradition, and
so you're pretty all set. That's a good way to
handle it. What was your first experience where you were like, okay, this,
there's something to this. Just using the terminology. Hallways on
ships are passageways, right, So so I was walking down
a passageway which connected to larger rooms or spaces, and
(28:49):
they both have those water type doors on either side,
so you have to spin the wheel, unlock one, then
you batten it down and then you walk through this
little darkened passage way and then you unseal the other one,
and then you walk through to the other space. So
for that thirty seconds or whatever that where you're in
the dark space, the darken space, I could swear I
(29:12):
heard some scratching and like almost like a growl, which
was interesting. And again talking just how I mentioned a
few minutes ago, it made me alter my behavior, so
it didn't sound like a natural thing with the ship
moving and creaking and you know, I mean they're seventy
seventy nine years old, all of our ships, so uh,
(29:35):
you know in there prone to the elements. But I
stopped and I said, you know, in my head, I said, wow,
what was that. I didn't have a flashlight with me
or anything, so I just kept going. And that would
have been my first experience. Have people come to you,
like maybe visitors or whatever and described some sort of
(29:56):
wild experience they had where you were just left completely
scratching your head. Uh. It is very interesting, and I'm
not an expert in it, but there's some people that
you know, just reading and researching this, that people you know,
have sensitivity and there's a spectrum of sensitivity levels. And
(30:17):
I have talked to many people that exhibit or you know,
mentioned that they have a sensitivity to spirits or the unknown,
so to speak, and they really have very interesting experiences
that I don't have. Right, if they have a sensitivity
to it, they will experience stuff almost throughout the whole ship.
(30:37):
They say, I don't have anything specific, but it's just
talking to people on board. They say, oh my god.
You know, I was walking through the Little Rock or
the Sullivan's and almost every space that I went into, uh,
I felt something. And I say, well, I don't have
that sensitivity, so it's just a room to me, so
to speak, or a space or something. But for someone
(30:58):
that has that sensitivity, they say, they experience a lot
of different things on board. So yeah, I mean I
could imagine that. I guess I don't have that sensitivity,
but I mean I feel like probably there's a lot
of residual energy and that kind of spectrum probably left
in those kinds of places. A lot happened there over
the years, so it makes sense. Has there ever been
(31:19):
an experience either you have had or someone has come
to you with that made you at all nervous? One
other experience that I've had was probably right when the
It's not related to the Sullivans, but we've heard many
things about the Sullivan's. I have not experienced them. I
have been on board alone at night on the Sullivan's
(31:40):
and I have not experienced anything. But people mentioned, certainly
in the mess decks where the crew eight, they can
see a face by the what's called the scuttle butt,
which would be like the water fountain, and there's some
degradation to the face, for lack of a better word,
either part of it has been burned. I had not
experience that, but that could obviously, that could be a
(32:02):
pretty scary experience for someone if they see a face
that has been burned with fire is kind of floating
and appearing in front of them. Another experience I had
on the Little Rock, and that's why I brought in
the Sullivan's, was it was right around when the sullivan sank,
and so all of the crew was working on the
(32:23):
Sullivan's on the main decks and things like that, and
so I was the only person on board the Little Rock.
And again in one of those passageways, I was in
my office and maybe about fifteen feet away there's a door,
just a regular what we call a panel door, but
it looks like a door in your house, right, And
it opened and shut, and I did one of those
things again change my behavior. I called out, I said,
(32:46):
I'm in here if anyone needs me, just thinking that
they were walking around, you know, and maybe someone was
looking for me. So some you know, a coworker crew.
So I called out, I said, you know, I'm in
my office if anyone is looking for me. And then
thing So then I get on our rocky talkies and
I say, hey, is anyone else on the little rock
besides me? And Everyone's like, no, We're all on the
(33:07):
Sullivan's doing work. And so I was like, okay, that
can catch you off guard, especially when you're completely alone.
You're like, okay, if you can move that, what else
can you move? Right? And again I don't think of
it in those terms of they're moving objects in the
physical world. But it's really tough to, you know, say
what else that could have been. I mean, if it
(33:28):
more opens and shuts on board, I mean we're probably
moving that day. And you know, sometimes the doors move
an inch this way or an inch that way based
on our swaying and you know, moving starboard deport a
little bit, just rocking with the waves, but not something
like that. Did you notice an uptake in any paranormal
(33:50):
activity when the Sullivan's sank. Did anybody report anything extra
when that happened? I do not have a recollection. That
would have been prime time. There was a lot of
the responders were down below, you know, surveying and analyzing
and stuff. I don't remember hearing any stories from them now.
(34:13):
That would have been their first time on board right well.
And also there was It's probably just a flurry of
of things you were all doing, you know, It's one
of those things sometimes you don't notice the paranormal unless
you're kind of sitting in silence for whatever reason, which
I assume everyone was working pretty fervently to try to
get things fixed at that point. You know what, Amy,
(34:33):
that's true, That's absolutely true. Now. One of the areas
that was really took a lot of damage was the
mess deck, where I say, people have seen their face
that has been burnt. Even today, there's no electricity on board,
so someone goes down below, it's dark. I have been down,
you know, collecting the artifacts and taking them off board
(34:54):
and taking them to our conservation room. But your mind
is really focused on other things, and uh, you're scrambling
and scurrying, and you know, maybe just at that moment,
those moments were not being as sensitive as we may
be to that situation. Maybe Kindred Spirits needs to come investigate.
It's a it's a hollow ship right now. And you
(35:17):
know there's there's one death from one sailor and in
World War two and the family is very involved here
and it would be interesting to see, you know, of
course with the five brothers, and they're untimely passing altogether. Uh. Certainly,
(35:38):
any warship brings that sort of traumatic human experience where
things can not go according to plan, I guess so
to speak. Yeah, I mean it makes sense. Which of
the ships would you say is like the most haunted?
To me, I would say the Little Rock, our cruiser
USS Little Rock is certainly it's the large. It did
(36:00):
have the most, uh, sailor deaths on it, and it
was only I think three during her service, but Sullivan's
was one. USS Croker had some injuries, but no sailors
passing or perishing on board. So the Little Rock with
three sailors during her service perishing on board, and even
(36:23):
we had someone passed when he was visiting. He was
an old Little Rock sailor and he was spending the
night on board and unfortunately had a heart attack on
board and passed away while he was in his bump. Wow,
that's I mean, that's kind of a full circle moment. Now,
do you guys do ghost tours or anything still or
(36:44):
nighttime tours? Well? I think with the COVID pandemic that
really slowed that sort of event on board. Um, but
we're slowly bringing it back. Yeah, for those that are
interested in being here. One of the things that we
believe can cause hauntings is sometimes just objects themselves. You know.
(37:05):
Sometimes things will be brought from other locations that might
have some sort of tragedy associated with them. Um. Is
there anything like that on display there that might have
come from someplace that could maybe have some energy with
it that might be causing some of your activity. That
is a great question and one that I would be
hard to come right off the top of my head.
(37:26):
I know, certainly we have diaries of men that had
bad experiences during World War Two. We do have a
POW uniform from Vietnam that's on display. For those that
are still m i A from the Vietnam conflict. They
create bracelets, and so we have bracelets on display with
(37:48):
their names and the last date of when they were
not missing and when they were still with their platoon
or whatever. So I believe those few items in the
Vietnam exhibit can probably have that bad essence to it.
I think we found that a lot with places that
display a lot of kind of military memorabilia, you know,
(38:10):
depending on where it came from or you know, sometimes
it's not necessarily the location, it's the items themselves, and
so you know, maybe just over time as things happen,
maybe pay attention to where or what they might be around.
And maybe it's not even something associated with someone who
served on the ship. It could be someone completely different.
(38:30):
That is uh. That definitely excuse my thinking in a
different direction, which I hadn't considered before. So I appreciate that. Yeah,
I should see, you know, around our Vietnam exhibit, you know,
we have a jacket from someone that was killed the local.
We have a jacket from the local nurse that was killed.
Right off the top, we have three or four items
of people that perished in Vietnam that are on display
(38:54):
their personal effects in their items. So I'll try to
be more sensitive to that. I always thinking outside the box,
like what else could it be? You know, because sometimes
we're investigating places that don't really have a lot of
death or tragedy associated with them particularly, but like we'll
have a ton of activity going on, and so it's
kind of our job to narrow it down. You know,
(39:15):
look what else happened in the area, or are there
items here that it could be our emotions running high
for other reasons. You know, there's all sorts of theories
out there. So but that being said, if people want
to visit the park, what should they do? Is it
open year round or they are better times to visit
or yeah, sure, thanks Amy. We are open because we're
(39:36):
in Buffalo. Were only open for a spring, summer, and fall,
so we usually open up, you know, the last weekend
in March, and we run right through about Thanksgiving, so
around roughly around the last weekend in November, and then
we do shut down for the winter. Our website is
(39:56):
Buffalo Naval Park all one word dot O r G
or dot org Buffalo Naval Park dot org, and they
can purchase tickets online, they can search through some photographs
and really learn about our park right from our website,
and certainly we're on social media with Facebook and Instagram
(40:17):
and our YouTube Channel as well, so I remember being
there and it was very cold, so that's kind of uh,
it's kind of the m O with our shows. We
go usually when things are kind of off season, so
I wouldn't be surprised if it was winter when I
went there, because I have a picture of me standing
on the little rock in a great, big winter coat,
(40:39):
so that makes absolute sense. It could have been in
the fall when we're beginning to wind down, and yeah,
the the ships themselves get as hot, and what for
those areas that are not heated or air conditioned, they
get as cold as it is outside or they get
as hot as it is outside, depending on the season.
So very much worth of visit. I highly recommend it
(41:01):
to everyone. I really appreciate you taking the time to
chat with me, and we'll have to chat offline and
maybe we can arrange a visit soon. I think that'd
be really great. Great. Thank you so much, Amy. I'm
happy to be here and I hope your viewers and
listeners enjoy it. Investigating places like the Buffalo Naval Park
(41:25):
is tricky because you want to get to the bottom
of the haunting, but you also want to be incredibly
respectful of the people who served and sacrificed so much
for our country. I urge anyone investigating a location steeped
in military history to do your due diligence before doing so.
Remember this is not a novelty. Most likely, any spirits
(41:45):
you encounter feel they are still performing what they consider
to be a sacred duty. Nevertheless, seeking spirits are not
I highly encourage a trip to the Buffalo Naval Park.
I really enjoyed my time there, and I know you
will too. I am Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Rode.
(42:16):
Haunted Road is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney,
with additional research by Taylor Haggerdorn and Cassandra day Alba.
This show is edited and produced by rema El Kali,
with supervising producer Josh Thayne and executive producers Aaron Manky,
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is a production
(42:36):
of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
Learn more about this show over at Grimm and Mild
dot com, and for more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Death, Sex & Money
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.