Weird California - By Joe Parzanese
USS Hornet
Pier 3, Alameda Point,
Alameda, California
94501
Picture taken from Wikipedia
During 27 years of service, an estimated more than 300 lives were lost on board this air craft carrier. Most during combat, some during accidents, and even some from suicide for which the ship had the honor for having the highest rate in the Navy.
Now the USS Hornet is rumored to be haunted.
Entry is a work in progress.
Comments:
- Anonymous of Bremerton, Washington on 2010-02-03 said:
- When the Hornet was in mothballs here at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard I went aboard a few times to salvage reuseable gear for other ships, although I never saw or heard anything weird, many people refused to go aboard, having seen apparisions of sailors walking down passageways and wrenches flying through the air. Stories of lights in the bridge seen by drivers passing by were many, also lone sailors on watch on the flight deck. This was in the 1980s-90s.
- James conn of Logansport, Indiana on 2009-02-27 said:
- I served on the USS Hornet from 66 to 68. I watched the show on the ghost hunters and thought I could add some information. We had one man discharged he section 8 will on watch. Swore while on watch in elevator pumproom he encountered another human form with him. I personally had equipment lite off by theirselves. If I remember right, did you know there's a reefer room under the mess decks where we stored the body bags. I was a member of the walking blood bank in which we gave direct transfusions in sick bay.Better than a field hospital but limitted on land base technologies. Plenty of suffering was experianced but lives saved. Further more in I think 68, 4 or more yardbird lives were lost while in the ships voids.The airsupply they were breathing was full of carbon monoxide.I was on that detail. The air compressor pumping the air was on the dock. At lunch time a truck pulled up next to it and the intake sucked up the air from the exhaust pipe. Luckily my crew was out of the voids at the time. After lunch we found them.There were ghost on ship when I came aboard and I'm sure we left some when I left her. Not sure what you guys do but thought the information might be helpful.
- Ernie Pitts of Ontario, CA, California on 2009-01-22 said:
- I decided to take the tour of the Hornet docked at NAS Alameda. The base is full of old off limits buildings, hangers and already has a creepy abandoned feel to it. Once on the Hornet there is not much supervision on the ship. The docents are mostly far and few between and it is easy to slip off into lonely parts of the ship. The ship is still in the process of being restored. There are many rooms you can explore on your own and many areas that are chained off. As soon as I entered the hospital infirmary of the ship the hair on my neck began to stand up. A central corridor runs through the ward with different rooms accessible through hatchways off the corridor. There is a strong feeling of foreboding in the ships infirmary. Much of the original hospital equipment remains. I had the feeling of many presences in the ward. There are many cold spots and it is a very quiet part of the ship. The entire area has a strong smell of old rubber and the atmosphere feels suffocating and is dimly lit. In one room a green surgeons chair covered in dark green vinyl awaits with a table full of surgical knives and instruments gleaming next to it. From this room I had the strongest feeling of wanting to flee and that at all costs you did not want to sit in that chair. It was very hard to look into that room as I felt something in there really did not want me in that room. The corridor that also leads aft from the ward in the middle of the ship is not lighted and fades into an un-restored area of the ship. Even though the corridor was not chained off for some reason I did not want to go explore down that corridor and quickly hurried by it. Again I had the feeling that i had to leave the infirmary, NOW!. In the port corridor heading forward from the infirmary is a fire control panel with many levers and dials. I also had the feeling of a presence at the panel and a feeling of great sadness. According to the docents farther aft from the hospital ward down the corridor I didn't want to explore was the morgue.
Outside Links:
Outside References:
- Ghost Hunter's Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area (2005) by Dwyer, Jeff, p: 102 - 103
- Ghost Stories of California (2000) by Smith, Barbara, p: 159 - 160
- Haunted Northern California (2009) by Stansfield Jr, Charles A, p: 53 - 55
- Ghost Stories & Legends of Alameda, Berkeley & Oakland (2010) by Zimmerman, Karen, p: 20 - 29
Last Edited: 2006-06-10
