Since Halloween is right around the corner  I wanted to do a story on a reported haunted location in Southern California.  This location has been known as one of the most “Haunted Locations” in the United states, and one of the “Top Ten most Haunted Hotels” in the United States.

This location is an extremely active location and I must say, one of my personal favorites. It is a beautiful transatlantic ocean liner that was once turned into a troopship during WWII. At the time it was one of the largest and fastest troopships and could easily carry as many as 15,000 men in a single voyage. When she became a troopship her hull, superstructure and funnels were painted navy grey. She was also given a very interesting nickname; the “Grey Ghost.”

After WWII, she was refitted for passenger service, and continued sailing the Transatlantic until her retirement in 1965. She  arrived in the city of Long Beach on Dec. 9, 1967.

Since then the RMS Queen Mary has been stripped of its machinery and is now used as a hotel, a museum, and a very popular tourist attraction bringing tourists from all sides of the globe.

Since it’s docking in Long Beach, rumors of the Queen Mary being haunted started to surface and tourist attractions are now being offered.

The Queen Mary is full of rich history and it is rumored by the late psychic Peter James, that over 600 souls call the Queen Mary their home.

I, myself, am a believer in the paranormal, and with the help of Johanna Felix (media/Press contact), I, along with my photographer Lalig, and her friend Perry, were given permission to take one of the attractions at night tours. I believe in ghosts, but Lalig and her friend Perry do not, so I was curious to see if anything would happen.

The tour started around 9:30 pm, and we all met  on the fourth floor of the Queen Mary’s passenger information booth. Other guests had attended the “Dining with the spirits” event, and were sitting down in the lobby waiting for the remaining guest to join them. Our tour guide by the name of Bradford, introduced himself, and we headed downstairs where a report in the 80’s had an actual apparition manifested itself in front of a few hotel workers.

Our small group was of about 10-12 people, and as we headed downstairs, I could see a couple of ghost enthusiast using their smart phones as a method  of communicating with the spirits.

Being inside the dark room was very interesting. We were able to walk around for a while and were encouraged to take some photographs and record some electronic voice phenomenon, (EVP’s).

While my photographer Lalig took some photographs, I walked around the room and tried to feel cold spots. I felt a couple cold spots (mostly around the left corner of the room), and instructed my photographer to snap pictures while I looked for more cold spots nearby.

After we left the dining room we were taken down another flight of stairs to the third class nursery room. As we stood by the door our tour guide Bradford talked about different types of haunting, and mentioned that the nursery room was full of paranormal activity. Mostly residual hauntings, (repeated playbacks of auditory, visual, events that attributed to a traumatic event).

The nursery room is now a storage closet but both visitors and hotel workers have heard children crying and laughing at all hours of the night.

Our next stop was the ships bow. Usually on haunted night tours they exclude the bow but offer the first class swimming pool and the boiler room for visitors to see. Unfortunately, because of Dark Harbor, we were not able to visit those haunted locations and were offered the bow instead.

On Oct. 2, 1942 the Queen Mary was 60 km north of the coast of Ireland when she accidentally hit and sank the HMS Curacoa killing 239 of the 338 passengers on board. It has been rumored that those who lost their lives on that tragic night still haunt the Queen Mary’s lower Bow.

As we went down the stairs I instantly realized that the room had changed temperature. It has much hotter than before, and while it was hot I still could feel chills run up and down my body. Bradford said that the night before a woman had been touched and had to be taken upstairs because she did not feel comfortable continuing the tour.

Bradley took out some dowsing rods from his coat pocket and I was the first person to hold them in my hands while Bradley began asking questions. The rods slowly moved but I was convinced that maybe a female would have better luck, so I passed them down to a female standing next to me.

Bradford continued asking questions again and the dowsing rods began answering yes and no questions. It was very interesting because we had no wind and the rods were moving by themselves.

After the first female guest was done with the dowsing rods, she passed them down to another female guest by the name of Jeanette Gonzales, of Corpus Christi Texas.

Jeanette had flown from Texas to Long Beach for her surprise 25th birthday, and she had no idea that within a few hours she would be holding these dowsing rods and would be communicating with spirits.

After answering a couple of questions, Jeanette passed the dowsing rods to my photographer Lalig, and as I recorded her holding the rods, I noticed fast little balls of light traveling in all directions. Were these orbs?

After we stopped talking to the spirit with the dowsing rods we headed towards the stairs and I kept my eyes on Jeanette since she was the “popular” guest with the spirits so far that night.

As we were about to climb the upstairs my photographer was drawn to a corner and as she snapped pictures by herself alone in the dark, she felt an unwelcoming feeling and rushed out of that area.

The next room we visited was the room B340. Out of all of the  rooms we visited, this room was the one with the most activity. We all stepped inside and Bradford closed the door. In the darkness I started feeling pain in my stomach and almost felt like throwing up. I thought I was alone on this nauseous feeling, but Bradford and Jeanette and others started to complain as well.

The dowsing rods were used again, and we communicated one more time with the spirits. After we all were feeling ill, we decided to move to our next location and headed towards the door. Opening the door I realized that other people had left the room before we did and as soon as we stepped into the B deck hallway, we all felt much better.

Our last stop was the Isolation Ward. This area of the ship was reserved for those who were sick or were near death. Walking into this location gave me the chills and we tried to communicate one more time using the dowsing rods. It was difficult because we had a maze nearby, but we still managed to communicate. After a couple of minutes of investigating on our own, we decided to call it a night and walked back upstairs to end the tour.

After the tour was over I caught Jeanette one more time and asked her a couple of questions.

She definitely was a believer in ghosts and believed the Queen Mary was haunted. The room she felt the most activity in was room B340, and as luck would have it, she was spending the night on the B deck.

She is a traveler who has traveled to Chicago, Saint Louis, and New Orleans. Out of all of those places, she said that the Queen Mary was without a doubt the most active, and that she would definitely come back.

So now for the million dollar question. Do I think the Queen Mary is haunted? Yes.

There are several tours that can be purchased online.

For $129 per person you can dine with the spirits and do a paranormal investigation around the ship. The hours for this tour are every Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and it lasts four hours. (two hours to dine, and two to explore the Queen Mary).

They also have more attractions at night that include Paranormal Spirit Box, Paranormal Spirit Walk, Paranormal Investigation, and lastly, Paranormal Ship Walk.

The tour for the Paranormal Spirit Box is available every Sunday at 10  p.m and the price is $75 per person. During this tour guests are strongly encouraged to bring cameras and digital voice recorders and handheld investigation equipment. Guest will also be introduced to a unique handheld investigation equipment called the “Spirit Box”, that might give guest answers from another dimension.

The Paranormal Spirit Walk (as well as the spirit box and the Paranormal Investigation) are led by  paraXplorer project founder Matthew Schulz. Guest are taken into the Queen Mary to investigate Queen Mary’s most haunted hot spots including some that are not offered to the general public. Guest participate in contacting spirits using investigation equipment, and help conduct experiments on board the Queen Mary.

The hours for this tour are Saturdays at 11 p.m. The price is also $75 per person.

The paranormal Investigation is also a tour that allows guest to take part in contacting spirits using investigation equipment.  The tour is also led by Matthew Schultz a lead paranormal investigator from paraXplorer. The hours for this tour are Fridays at 11 p.m. and the price is $75 per person.

Don’t have $75 to spend? don’t worry, the Queen Mary has you covered.

Take the Paranormal Ship Walk tour and learn about the Queen Mary’s exciting history, as well as explore reportedly haunted locations. The hours for this tour are every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. The tour is $39 per person and reservations are strongly recommend. Walk-ups are welcome, but not guaranteed. All tours have a 30 person limit due to safety reasons and guest must be at least 16 years of age.

Lastly, because Halloween is around the corner, join in on the fun and purchase Dark Harbor tickets starting at $20 per person. Dark Harbor is available for 17 nights starting October 3, with different themed mazes, horrifying freak shows and lots more.

You can purchase tickets online at www.queenmary.com or by calling 877-342-0742.