The haunted Charles W. Morgan

[Story]

Researchers Investigate Ghost Sightings on Ship

AP

MYSTIC, Conn. (April 23) - Specialists in paranormal research are investigating whether a historic whaling ship might be home to the ghost of a long-ago seafarer.

A five-member team from the Rhode Island Paranormal Research group visited Mystic Seaport on Friday night to spend time on the Charles W. Morgan, a wooden whaling ship where several visitors have reported seeing the apparition.

The 165-year-old craft made 37 ocean voyages in search of whales during the 60 years it was in use. About 1,000 men worked on the Morgan over those decades.

The ship, due for a $3.5 million restoration next year, one of the main attractions at the Mystic Seaport maritime museum.

The Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group became interested in the Morgan after receiving reports from three different groups of people about the apparition.

The visitors said that while touring the ship last summer, they saw a man in what appeared to be 19th-century clothing working below deck. They said the man, who had a pipe in his mouth, nodded at them but did not speak.

When they went returned to the main deck and asked a museum interpreter what the man was doing, they were told that no one was down below and that no one was assigned to be on the boat that day.

"I automatically questioned it, but they insisted they saw something down there," Andrew Laird, founder of the paranormal research group, told The Day of New London.

He said that when he asked the three groups for more details, they responded with the same accounts. The three groups were from Massachusetts, Arizona and New York and did not know each other.

They visited within a week's time of each other.

"The fact that we had three reports that were the same made everyone's eyebrows go up," Laird said.

He said that he also received about 40 other reports of possible paranormal activity before those groups related their experiences.

Museum officials gave the group permission to conduct the investigation.

"We're interested in what they find out," said museum publicist Mike O'Farrell, who attended Friday night's investigation. "It's not so much we believe in ghosts and spirits, but it's a chance to do something fun."

Laird and the other investigators said their few hours on the ship convinced them that there was enough evidence of paranormal activity in certain areas to warrant a return visit with more sophisticated equipment.

Renee Blais, who described herself as a "sensitive" who uses touch and smell to connect with a place's energy, said she felt the presence of a seaman named Gerald.

She also described a sense of "sickness, death and despair" among about 15 men as they rode out a large storm in their cramped sleeping quarters.

Some museum employees might not be surprised by the speculation that the whaling ship is haunted. Dawn Johnson, a longtime museum interpreter who used to be assigned to the Morgan, said she used to hate to go down below and close up for the night.

"It was creepy down there at night," she said. "It's cold and clammy. You hear moans and creaking, and you wonder what it is."

Laird said that 90 percent of the time, his group finds a natural explanation for what people are experiencing, whether it's an animal making noise, something structural in the house or a hoax.

"We mainly go in to investigate. We're not saying a place is haunted. We go in with an open mind," he said.

The group also recently investigated reports at Ledge Light in New London Harbor, and believes the brick lighthouse is haunted by a woman and group of children. They plan to return there on June 3.

04/23/06 06:49 EDT

[Story]

Things Go Bump In Seaport Buildings Too

TheDay.com ^ | April 22, 2006 | Joe Wojtas

Mystic — Mystic Seaport interpreter Juanita Babcock was teaching a hearth cooking class in the Buckingham House on the museum grounds about 15 years ago when she held up a glass of mulled wine and made a toast.

“I wonder what Mrs. Buckingham would think about us drinking wine in here,” she said, referring to the matriarch of the Congregationalist family that lived in the house and likely would not have allowed liquor.

As soon as Babcock uttered those words, she felt something slap the back of her hand. The wine glass went flying into a wall 4 feet away and shattered on the floor in front of a group of people.

Babcock said she was being very careful with the glass and is sure she did not drop it.

“I actually felt a hard slap against my hand. It was so weird,” she said. “I don't know if it could have been Mrs. Buckingham. Maybe it was someone before her.”

Babcock's experience is not unique at Mystic Seaport, where other staff members have their own stories about strange occurrences in the historic buildings of the recreated 19th-century whaling village. In addition to strange sightings aboard the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship, there were reports of unexplained screaming from the Buckingham House in 1997 during the filming of the movie “Amistad.” A member of the film crew told of being tapped on the shoulder and turning around to find no one there.

Then there are the workers in the membership building who describe a number of strange happenings that they attribute to the work of the late Mildred Mallory, who began the museum's membership program. Mallory's portrait hangs on the wall over a fireplace.

Dawn Johnson, whose desk is just to the side of Mallory's portrait, said that when she started working in the membership building three years ago, staffers told her that sometimes the clock would ring at 2:20 p.m. One day not long after, it happened. She said the museum worker who looks after the clocks was at a loss to explain why the clock would sound at 2:20 p.m. and then return to its usual pattern of ringing on the hour.

Johnson said that several times the phone in the building has rung, although it seemed no one had placed a call to it. When Johnson picked up the receiver on such occasions, a person whom she knew picked up the phone on the other end at precisely the same moment. The other person said “hello” just as Johnson did. Sometimes the other person was someone Johnson hadn't talked to in a while.

“They'll say, 'You called me,' and I'll say, 'No, you called me,' ” Johnson said. “It's like someone wanted to connect us.”

At other times, Johnson has opened the door to the building in the morning to find that such items as flowers and candlesticks on the mantle under Mallory's portrait have moved overnight.

“Mildred doesn't like things out of place,” she said. “We have a running joke when it happens. We say 'Mildred is acting up again.' ”

Babcock said staffers say they sometimes hear footsteps in the small room above the circa-1695 kitchen in the Buckingham House. She said she hopes the investigators from the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group check it out.

“When I go up there now I say, 'Is anyone here? Don't bother me,” she said. “It's not spooky up there, it's actually tranquil. But there's something about that room.”

[Story]

I come old friend from hell tonight

Across the rotting sea

Nor the nails of the cross

Nor the blood of christ

Can bring you help this eve

The dead have come to claim a debt from thee

They stand outside your door

Four score and three

Did you keep a watch for the dead man’s wind

Did you see the woman with the comb in her hand

Wailing away on the wall on the strand

As you danced to the turkish song of the damned

[Matty Bottles]

Let me just say that cheerful New England has churned out some weird cats. H. P. Lovecraft, anyone? Let's not forget Amityville, either. And M. Night Shamylan from Philly seems really well adjusted, too. Perhaps there is more unexplained activity there...