Case file · Apparition · Ship or lighthouse

RMS Queen Mary

Also known as Queen Mary, The Grey Ghost, Hull 534

The retired Cunard liner moored at Long Beach since 1967, now a hotel whose paranormal tours tell of a drowned girl, a crushed crewman and wartime dead.

The Queen Mary was built as Hull 534 by John Brown & Company at Clydebank, Scotland, launched by Queen Mary herself in September 1934, and sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton on 27 May 1936. For three decades she was one of the great Atlantic liners, carrying film stars, politicians and ordinary emigrants between Southampton, Cherbourg and New York, and twice holding the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing.

War gave her a harder history. Painted navy grey and stripped for trooping, the “Grey Ghost” ferried hundreds of thousands of Allied servicemen, once carrying more than 16,600 people on a single voyage. On 2 October 1942, zig-zagging off the Irish coast under orders never to stop for fear of U-boats, she sliced through her escort, the cruiser HMS Curacoa, which sank with the loss of 338 lives. After the war she returned to passenger service until falling demand ended her career; in 1967 the City of Long Beach bought her, and she sailed around Cape Horn to be permanently moored there that December.

Gutted below decks for a museum and refitted as a hotel, the ship opened to visitors in 1971. Over the following decades she passed through a string of operators – Wrather, Disney, a non-profit foundation and several hotel groups – and suffered serious corrosion and neglect before closing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The city took back direct control in 2021, funded urgent repairs and reopened her fully in April 2023.

Ghost stories began to circulate once the ship had settled into her new life as a hotel, and operators have made them a central attraction. The most retold concerns John Pedder, an 18-year-old engine-room crewman killed in 1966 when he was caught by a watertight door during a fire drill; visitors say a figure is seen near the door. Others tell of a little girl named Jackie heard giggling around the empty first-class swimming pool, children heard playing in the old nursery, and a stateroom on B deck that guides say is haunted after a murder. The ship’s own paranormal attractions name Jackie as its most famous resident spirit, though no documentary evidence for her has been published.

Many of the dead associated with the ship’s ghosts are better documented: the sailors of HMS Curacoa, and the passengers and crew who died aboard from illness or accidents over her long career. Tour guides commonly give a figure of around fifty deaths aboard during her years at sea. The ship was investigated by Ghost Adventures in 2014 and has appeared on many other paranormal programmes.

What people report

Visitors and staff describe the sound of a child giggling around the drained first-class pool, children playing in the empty nursery, a figure near the engine-room watertight door, pockets of cold air on the lower decks, people in 1930s clothing who vanish, and the sensation of being touched on the shoulder.

Where and when

The first-class swimming pool, the engine room and its watertight door, the children’s nursery, the lower decks, and a B-deck stateroom often numbered B340; the after-midnight Graveyard Tour and the Paranormal Ship Walk visit areas otherwise closed to the public.

Timeline of the haunting

27 May 1936
Maiden voyage Southampton, England
Under Sir Edgar Britten, the Queen Mary sailed for New York, arriving on 1 June to begin three decades of transatlantic service.
2 October 1942
HMS Curacoa is cut in two Off the coast of Ireland
Carrying thousands of American troops and under orders not to stop for fear of U-boats, the liner struck and sank her escort cruiser; 338 of Curacoa’s crew died.
1966
Death of John Pedder Aboard the Queen Mary
An 18-year-old member of the engine-room crew was killed by a watertight door during a fire drill. He is the best known of the ship’s named ghosts.
9 December 1967
Arrival at Long Beach Long Beach, California
After her final voyage around Cape Horn, the ship arrived at her permanent mooring, bought by the city for about $3.45 million.
8 May 1971
Opened to tourists Long Beach, California
The converted ship opened as an attraction; the hotel followed in 1972, and ghost stories soon became part of its appeal.
4 October 2014
Ghost Adventures investigates Long Beach, California
The Travel Channel series broadcast an overnight investigation aboard, one of many paranormal shows to film on the ship.

What could explain it?

A moored steel ship is never silent: the hull flexes with tide and temperature, mooring lines strain, and pipes and fittings bang and groan throughout the night.
Acoustics: hard surfaces in the empty pool hall and lower decks carry and distort sounds from elsewhere on board and from the port outside.
Commercial storytelling: the ship’s operators sell several paranormal tours and themed shops, and named ghosts such as “Jackie” are part of the attraction’s branding.
Unverified detail: specific claims, such as a murder in a B-deck stateroom or a girl drowned in the pool, have not been matched to published records.

Ghost tours, books and screen

The Queen Mary appears in films including The Poseidon Adventure (1972), on paranormal shows such as Ghost Adventures, and in many “most haunted hotels” lists. Its Halloween event and daily Haunted Encounters, Paranormal Ship Walk and Graveyard tours draw large crowds.