[00:00:04] Speaker A: Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Welcome back to Mallory's Weird World Adventures, the podcast. I'm your host, Mallory, and I'm here to show you just how weird this world of ours really is. If this is your first time tuning in, please make sure you follow mallory's
[email protected] check out weird World Adventures on Amazon prime today. The first season, consisting of six episodes, is available now. And this series of podcasts we're on right now is highlighting the release of season two, which will be available this fall 2025.
And today's episode we're going to highlight our time in Long Beach, California. We had an episode where we went through Las Vegas and California and we stopped at the Queen Mary. And right now I am in Nags Head and we're sitting out a hurricane. So all of the crazy winds and rain had me think of ships and boats and I'm like, you know, the, the perfect episode to feature today is the Queen Mary.
So please listen in. I'm going to follow this little talk here with some of the interview that I had on board the Queen Mary with some really fun insights and ghost stories.
So before we follow up with our interview, I just wanted you to know that the Queen Mary is an ocean liner that served as a luxury liner and also a troop ship before becoming a hotel and attraction in Long Beach.
It is really exciting because it is from the era of the Titanic. It's one of the oldest ships still around from that time period. And it's actually larger than the Titanic slightly. So you get to go kind of immerse yourself in this Titanic like feel for a day, which is really exciting for a lot of people.
And it was called the Gray Ghost during World War II because it was painted a stealthy battleship gray for camouflage and served as a high speed troop transport ship moving large numbers of soldiers across the Atlantic very quickly, much like a ghost ship appearing and disappearing from view. So not only was it once this beautiful luxury liner, like what you would see in Titanic, but it was also, it served this important part of history when it was the Gray Ghost.
Now it's a hotel, like we said, a hotel and attraction where you can come and have a drink and enjoy the lounge and kind of get to stay the night and imagine what it would have been like to stay on the Titanic.
So here's a little bit from our interview at a sneak peek and make sure you turn into season two of Weird World Adventures to hear more. Enjoy.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Well, these handrails that you see are not part of the original design, you know, they really relied on her length and her weight. She's 1,019 and a half feet long and 81,237 gross tons. She's twice the size of Titanic.
In fact, this alleyway that you're looking at is 880ft long, and that is the length of titanic.
Titanic was 880ft long and 46,000 tons. The Queen Mary, as I said, is 1019 and a half and 81,000.
So her first couple of winter crossings were pretty turbulent in 1936. And then as she pulled into New York Harbor, 24ambulances were lined up for all of the broken bones and cranial fractures of people being thrown back and forth. They quickly installed these handrails. They were of a new material, baked like plastic. They're worn to the touch. They're at the right angle.
There are 10 miles of these through the ship.
If you notice as we look back, the ship is built like a big banana.
This is a design feature called sheer to the deck. This will allow the ship to flex in heavy seas as she's beginning to move through those rough, mountainous waves in the North Atlantic.
So, but this being such a long corridor, some people will be up here and they can only see the lower half of a person walking. They think they've seen a ghost. No, actually, the bow, the stern goes up. So they're seeing as they walk closer. Pretty soon their head appears.
Now, the staircase we came down past the gymnasium, that was the first class main staircase. This is the tourist or third class main staircase. A little more humble, but many, many people crossed in tourist class. In 1936. It was $300, so it was a little $700 cheaper.
And these knobs were put in to stop children from sliding down the banisters. Because as we are close to the bow, the plunge here there was a continual rise and fall as she broke through the waves. Now, I've seen three apparitions in my life. And the third one was here on board.
Second Officer William Stark. I saw him up in the wheelhouse. Now, it was August of 1981. And I just finished talking about the three wheels, and I looked up and there's an officer standing in the door.
Now, back then, we only had shoulder boards. We didn't have stripes. And I looked at him, I blinked, and he was still there. And I kept looking at him. When I went to move the chain, he was gone. So I called down to the tour desk going, are there supervisors listening to us today? And they said, no, why? I said, I think there's, I think there's somebody up here.
And Karen Lawley was her name. She said, how many stripes? I said, I don't remember why? She said, well if it was two, it's officer Stark, it's four, it's the captain. I said, well, how many people are up here?
Are we just knee deep and go, well, actually we are.
So Second Officer William Stark is seen in the wheelhouse in the officer's quarters, and oddly enough in this bathroom.
And the reason being, did you know there's boy and girl sides to a ship?
The girl side is the starboard side. And that's all of the stewardesses were housed all the way to the stern on the starboard side. And that's why in the original areas of the ship, the girls bathroom is on the starboard side, the boys bathroom is on the port side.
And we stored, our stewards were all the way forward on the bow.
So in 1970, as they were getting the ship ready for all of her gracious guests, this area was tourist class, hairdressing and the barber. But they figured we may not need a barber here, so they expanded these bathrooms and changed genders.
So Second Officer Stark, bless his heart, his story is he was up on the wheelhouse. There are four officers in the wheelhouse while we are at sea. And they'd had a quite a squall and he was at the end of his six hour shift and the staff captain was watching him and said, hey Stark, why don't you come down to the officers quarters and have a drink with me before we go to dinner? Well, Officer Stark, that was thought that was a grand idea. Went down to the officer's quarters and there's a little pantry there. And the officer so enjoyed that because in that pantry the captain's tiger, he was his personal servant. That comes from the colonization of India when your personal servant wore bright silks and so forth. We didn't make the captain's tiger on board wear bright silks, but in that pantry he could make sure that the captain could get a cup of tea or a sandwich or some consummate.
And they really enjoyed it because the closest place to eat was six decks beneath them and two football fields behind them.
So that little pantry was pretty delicious. So Second Officer Stark comes barreling in there and says to the captain's tiger, might you have a bit of gin?
I would so love to have a shot before I meet the staff captain. So they start looking. The steward left, but Officer Stark is opening drawers open pantries and then found a footlocker and opened it and there's a big bottle. He unscrewed it, poured a big glass, knocked it back. But the burning in his mouth as the steward came in with a bottle of gin. And Stark himself said, I think I've poisoned myself. Well, he had. It was carbon tetrachloride. It's a cleaning fluid, which is like pouring boiling water across paper towel. It just began to destroy his intestinal system. He d two days later. But. And what a horrible way to go. And that's why he really doesn't understand that he's dead. So he's seen in the officer's quarters. He's seen in the wheelhouse where I saw him. He's also seen in this bathroom because, bless his heart, during his time, that's a boy's bathroom.
So we get reports at the front desk frequently. There's a man in the girl's bathroom, poor guy. And that's how he's spending eternity.
Now, this area right here when the body was found, right here, you can tell that this is a very steep staircase. This is about a 45 degree angle with the continual pop and roll as this ship begins to go through the seas, especially with bad weather. If they had enough time. Now, I was a flight attendant for a long time and I made a similar announcement, but there would be a chime. Ping ping. Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has let us know we're heading into some inclement weather. We advise that you stay in your cabin and a crew member will be along with further instructions. Thank you. Which was a nice way of saying stay in your cabin because it's going to get a little turbulent. If you can imagine a 15 to 30 degree roll while she's rolling here. Within the plunge, we've had water wash up to the wheelhouse and break windows and then wash even higher to the forward smokestack in the plunge, meaning all of tourist class here would be underwater in that plunge. And then within her recovery, she roll back. That will make this staircase almost 90 degrees.
So the body that was found here, we do know his name, we have a little bit of information on him. But he's seen as the man in black, not Johnny Keshe, coming up here. But his head is not there.
He starts at his shoulders down. And that's the other thing about ghosts. Ghosts are incomplete.
So bless his heart, he either hit his head here and had cranial fractures or maybe broke his neck during the plunge and. And was found here. But he has seen coming up the stairs. I've seen a very blurry photograph, but he does use the handrail, which I really appreciate. So we're going to go down the deadly stairs this way.
Now, we talk a lot about the paranormal and the metaphysical on board, but she's a deeply spiritual ship. You see, she had two Catholic chapels on board. They offered an Episcopal church service and the captain himself offered a non denominational church service to all passengers in the first class main lounge. It was amazing to see how many people from second and third class suddenly had to go to church on Sunday morning to get into that beautiful room. This ship was also the first ship in the world to offer a kosher kitchen and a synagogue on board. And the synagogue was behind that door. And many, many people found that a great comfort and completely loyal to Cunard and also the Queen Mary for that acknowledgement. This is also the third class children's playroom. You know, it was a different time.
You know, drop your children off there and you can have a full day. You can sit in a deck chair, you can go watch a movie. But we have an imprint here that's truly sad. In 1952, a man in London was in a terrible marriage. In fact, his wife beat him frequently and their four year old daughter. And he had decided one day, that was it.
He booked passage and tourist class aboard the Queen Mary, picked up his little 4 year old, left the flat and came on board and came to America, which I think is a sweet story, but he forgot about the radio telephone service.
Now what happened on sailing day is it was very confused. People are coming on, people are getting off, there's a lot of confusion. So they did something very cool. All three classes would open the children's playroom, drop off your sweet thing there, go close the trunks, go close the suitcases, make sure you tip out your stewards, then come and pick up your precious and leave the ship. And that's what this gentleman did. Came through the doors there to come pick up his sweet little daughter. Picked her up and was holding on to her when the authorities came through this door. And a terrible scene ensued as they wrenched that little girl out of his arms and arrested him for kidnapping.
So he was handcuffed in front of her and it was quite an ugly scene. And she was crying for her father and he was led into downtown New York and she was returned to England by herself at four.
So on rainy nights and sometimes when it's very foggy, you can hear it, a little girl calling for her father in that corner.
Well, she has lots and lots of information. I'll tell you.
We're always discovering new bits. In fact, Captain James and I, I was getting ready for a tour. First one in the morning, 10 o' clock in the morning. And we have a video lounge that we show a new video that we've put together with historic clips. And as I go by, there's a guy already sitting in there wearing a baseball cap, a blue windbreaker and cargo pants. And I went, there should be nobody in there. I'm the first tour. And why is the video already ended? So as I got to the door to look back through the clear window in the door, there's nobody there.
Wow. So Captain James tends to be a bit of a skeptic. So he said, captain James, guess what? I saw a ghost. He goes, really? I said, up in the video room. He had a ball cap on, a blue Windbreaker and cargo pants. And the color drained from his face.
He said, I know who it is.
I said, you do? He said, before the pandemic, this was the Scottish Heraldy store. You could buy bibs and bobs from Scotland and also research your own plaid. He said, that's Guy. He was the manager of that store. I said, you knew him? He said, I did his service. We buried him at sea off Newport Beach.
Easy Guy. As much as possible.
It must have just been the right day. Now also, this is the location. Uribe is our night watchman. And he was walking down this hallway about 3:40 in the morning, looking at his phone like a good employee. And he looked up and there was a little boy about 4 years old standing in this doorway. Now he has kids at home. And he thought, where does this child belong? We have 347 hotel rooms. The closer he got to him, he realized he could see through him and the pattern in the carpet. And when he acknowledged that, the kid looked at him and jumped and disappeared overhead. And now your reb work stays.
Oh, it's so much more comfortable in first class, don't you find?
This area was where the barbershop and beautician for first class was. You could. A gentleman could get their hair cut for about 75 cents and women could get a perm for about $10.
You bet. Everybody needs to neaten up. Before you go down to dinner in the evening, I draw your attention to this beautiful photograph of the Queen Mary in dry dock. But there's a sad story that I use to use this to illustrate. You see, when she was a troop carrier, her whereabouts could not be known. It was very classified. She's carrying troops. And even though she's the fastest ship in the world, it takes her about four hours to get the steam up to really begin to rip across the Atlantic. So she's very vulnerable Coming in and out of port off the coast of Northern Ireland in 1942. She has two escort boats that can fend off the Nazi submarines and. But somehow word did not get down to the starboard side to the HMS Kurosawa, because suddenly this monstrous bow wheeled to the starboard side, reared up and crushed the little 4,000 ton Kurosawa. It took seven minutes for the two flaming pieces to go underwater. And the bow killed 338 people. Now, if they were not killed by the bow, they were chewed up in the propellers.
So that story didn't come to us till the late 70s because it was classified.
But I've had engineers tell me, and I've gone all the way up in the bow and if you're quiet, you can hear the rush of water or the crush of metal or people screaming. It's also in the prop box.
So in fact, we have time. Do you want to go to the bow? Yes, definitely. Come with me.
This area originally would not have been a passenger area. This would be a crew area.
But we now share it with 57 ghosts, which is an entertainment seance and also the Gray Ghost project, where you too can explore with electronic devices. I call this the hall of Death because there are 56 different photographs of the people who've died on board.
Wow.
This last photograph is particularly poignant. He was our last death on the last great cruise. When she came to Long beach, the ship was as marvelous and phenomenal is she's not air conditioned.
So as they went around Cape Horn, not being air conditioned, this black hull heated up. He died of a heat stroke in the kitchens because it was so hot. He was the last one to die on board.
Fear of death is prominent for most people. I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid to suffer.
But as my grandfather taught me, no one's guaranteed breakfast.
We're gonna step through these curtains into a little holding area.
This is part of the 57 Ghosts trip. But this would have been crew area.
This would be where some of the stewards had their cabins.
This is the rope locker. This is some of the rope that was used to tie her off when she came here to Long beach, where all the way forward, if you come forward and use your light into that area, that is the actual bow of the ship.
We're all the Way forward here.
Now, this is when you're very quiet, you might hear them.
I still find this room a little intimidating. And then when I use my imagination to realize it was continually moving, looking up takes you all the way to the bow or to the top there. And all the way down is. Takes you to the bottom of the ship. This is the boatswain's locker. It goes all 10 decks from the exterior bow all the way to the bottom. And I always warn folks, careful of your iPhone. You drop it, it's gone now. When she was being used as a troop carrier, there was discussion of storing some of the POWs up in this area, which it would not have been comfortable.
We don't have an accurate count of how many we lost during the military years. That information has been kept confidential. But we do know at least 57 people during her active career perished on board.
But I think it's many more than that. But they just. They just hadn't discussed it.
But that's always.
People are a little nervous about it.
But it is the one guarantee we all have.
Plus, I've worked in comedy. I've died on stage and had to walk to my car. It's far worse.
Oh, that's his light. I thought I saw a shadow person. I was gonna say look. Quick.
Thank you, gentlemen. We're actually gonna slip through the seance room.
We have some haunted dolls and such.
Yeah, we have one that. She terrifies me. I don't like her at all.
This is our seance room for 57 ghosts.
There's a doll in that box.
Oh.
That I've walked in, and she's been standing looking out that window.
Yeah, she's a little disconcerting.
Featured Annabelle a few times. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Met more times than I'd like to admit.
These are all haunted objects that AA have collected.
I actually asked about this clown because I don't kind of cotton to it. It was part of a circus fire.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: I said, oh. And they said it survived so well because the bodies that fell on top of it kept it safe from the fire.
Yes, indeed. These girls move a lot.
They either turn to look at each other or they're looking out the sides of.
I got one of those as a Christmas present when I was seven.
I pushed on the head. It began to jump. I ran out of the house. I was.
Yeah, it was not my favorite either.
Now, have you heard about B340? Yes, the haunted stateroom.
It's around the corner.
I believe it is rented. Oh, it's not. It's rented tonight, but we actually try to keep the drapes open so people can have a glance because it is so famous about being our most haunted stateroom now when you look in, they've recently rehabbed it and I kiddingly say, well, this is the haunted stateroom from the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland. Because we didn't have brass bedsteads on board, nor did we have Victorian furniture. But it is so popular, we've had a lot of complaints about a lot of activity in there. So they took it off the the regular roster for rooms. But we even have people who will lay here on the floor or there's always a group of people waiting so they can look into the room. But we just recently on Friday on it was Friday the 13th in September. We returned it to the open inventory and it's booked almost a month out for B340.
Somebody asked me, is there anything scary in there? I said, yes, the comforter.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: I hope you've enjoyed our sneak peek of season two, everyone. Until next time, stay weird.
