Speaker 1: Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky listener Discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: It was ninety two and I was twenty two years
Speaker 1: old and a seaman in the Merchant Navy on the
Speaker 1: Queen Mary. We were returning to Glasgow from New York,
Speaker 1: which was a four to five day journey. The Queen
Speaker 1: Mary was carrying thousands of American troops to join the
Speaker 1: Allied forces. She was known as a hornet's nest in
Speaker 1: the war, as there were lots of nationalities on the ship.
Speaker 1: There were two of us on the deck on the
Speaker 1: aft of the ship, and we were manning the six
Speaker 1: inch gun in case we came under attack. What good
Speaker 1: we could have done with one gun, I've no idea.
Speaker 1: A cruiser called the h M S. Curaso met us
Speaker 1: two hundred miles off the coast to escort us into Grenock.
Speaker 1: I could see her clearly as I was on the aft.
Speaker 1: We could see our escort zig zagging in front of us.
Speaker 1: It was common for the ships and cruisers to zig
Speaker 1: zag to confuse the U boats. In this particular case, however,
Speaker 1: the escort was very very close to us. I said
Speaker 1: to my mate, you know, she's zig zigging all over
Speaker 1: the place in front of us. I'm sure we're going
Speaker 1: to hit her. And sure enough, the Queen Mary sliced
Speaker 1: the cruiser into like a piece of butter, straight through
Speaker 1: the six inch armored plating. The Queen Mary just carried
Speaker 1: on going. We were doing about twenty five knots. It
Speaker 1: was the policy not to stop and pick up survivors,
Speaker 1: even if they were waving at you. It was too
Speaker 1: dangerous as the threat of U boats was always present.
Speaker 1: This is the personal account of an Alfred Johnson, taken
Speaker 1: from an article in World War Two. Today, it's just
Speaker 1: one bit of history from the Gray Ghost, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot more to tell. So let tad to Long Beach,
Speaker 1: California and stroll the decks of the mighty Queen Mary.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Brunei, and welcome to Haunted Road. The Queen
Speaker 1: Mary was built in nineteen thirty and Clyde Bank, Scotland
Speaker 1: by Kunard Line, a British cruise line based at Carnival
Speaker 1: House in Southampton, England. The project was initially known as
Speaker 1: Job number five three four and due to the economic
Speaker 1: setback induced by the Great depression. The ship's construction was
Speaker 1: finished in three and a half years and cost three
Speaker 1: point five million pounds sterling, which is equivalent to four
Speaker 1: point eight million in today's US dollars. Connard decided to
Speaker 1: name the ship after Queen Victoria, but as legend has it,
Speaker 1: Canard directors went to ask King George for his blessing
Speaker 1: of the ship's proposed name. We have decided to name
Speaker 1: our new ship after England's greatest queen, says the Queen
Speaker 1: Mary website. But King George's reported response was, my wife,
Speaker 1: Queen Mary, will be delighted that you are naming the
Speaker 1: ship after her. I'm nineteen thirty six the Queen Mary
Speaker 1: set sail on her maiden voyage, departing from Southampton. The
Speaker 1: ship was constructed with five dining halls and lounges, two
Speaker 1: cocktail bars, two pools, a grand ballroom, a squash court,
Speaker 1: and even a small hospital. The Queen Mary had set
Speaker 1: the bar for transatlantic travel, catering to the rich and famous,
Speaker 1: who were typically the only people who traveled at that time. Again,
Speaker 1: according to the Queen Mary website, the day the Queen
Speaker 1: Mary was christened in nineteen thirty four, a well known
Speaker 1: English psychic by the name of Lady Mabel Fortescue. Harrison
Speaker 1: predicted the Queen Mary will know her greatest fame in
Speaker 1: popularity when she never sails another mile or carries another
Speaker 1: fair paying passenger. For three years after her maiden voyage,
Speaker 1: the Queen Mary was the grandest ocean liner in the world,
Speaker 1: carrying Hollywood celebrities like Bob Hope and Clark Gable, Royalty
Speaker 1: like the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and dignitaries like
Speaker 1: Winston Churchill. During this time she even set a new
Speaker 1: speed record, which she held for fourteen years. Queen Mary
Speaker 1: made her last peacetime voyage from Southampton on August nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty nine. Upon arrival in New York, the ship was
Speaker 1: birthed in the relative safety of the U s Port
Speaker 1: while World War Two commenced in Europe. She remained there
Speaker 1: until the end of the year as the war escalated
Speaker 1: and British Admiralty decided what role the ship would play
Speaker 1: in the coming months and years. Having been joined in
Speaker 1: New York by Normandy and the newly launched Queen Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: For a brief period, three of the world's largest transatlantic
Speaker 1: liners sat idle together in the harbor. The trio were
Speaker 1: also joined by the second more to Ya. According to
Speaker 1: maritime historian Chris Kunard. In March nineteen forty, Queen Mary
Speaker 1: was called into military service. She sailed from New York
Speaker 1: bound for Sydney, Australia, to prepare for her wartime duties.
Speaker 1: Upon her arrival in Australia, she was sent to dry
Speaker 1: dock and work commenced to convert the ship into a
Speaker 1: troop carrier. Queen Mary's luxury fittings and interior were removed
Speaker 1: and safely stored. In their place, thousands of bunks and
Speaker 1: hammocks were installed, while the ship's large public areas were
Speaker 1: rearranged into mess halls and offices for military purposes. To
Speaker 1: protect the ship, small caliber guns were fitted on the
Speaker 1: Queen Mary, including anti aircraft guns on her open decks,
Speaker 1: but it was the Queen Mary's speed that would be
Speaker 1: her main protection against possible attack. To that end, the
Speaker 1: liner was ordered to sail at high speed when carrying
Speaker 1: troops to avoid danger from the enemy. On May four,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty, Queen Mary departed Sydney with troops of the
Speaker 1: Australian Imperial Force on board. Bound for the River Clyde, Scotland.
Speaker 1: After operating on this route and various others, Queen Mary
Speaker 1: concentrated on voyages between Australian ports and Singapore to the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Suez. When the United States of America entered
Speaker 1: the war on the side of the Allies in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one, Queen Mary's trooping capacity was increased to over
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand people. Following further refurbishment, she entered service in
Speaker 1: her new role as a mass transport of troops on
Speaker 1: the North Atlantic. It was on this service that Queen
Speaker 1: Mary carried the most people ever transported by a ship,
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand, six hundred eighty three people in one voyage,
Speaker 1: a record she still holds to this day. Keep in
Speaker 1: mind the original capacity for the Queen Mary was just
Speaker 1: over two thousand passengers and eleven hundred crew. It was
Speaker 1: during the Queen Mary's tenure as a group transport for
Speaker 1: the U S Army that the ship gained her nickname
Speaker 1: the Gray Ghost. Hitler even put a two d fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollar bounty out on her and her sister ship,
Speaker 1: the Queen Elizabeth, But the speed of an average U
Speaker 1: boat was eleven knots surfaced and seven knots submerged. Even
Speaker 1: later in the war, when it was increased to seventeen
Speaker 1: knots of twenty four knots, they couldn't come close to
Speaker 1: the twenty eight not average of the Queen Mary. According
Speaker 1: to the book Ghosts of the Queen Mary, many a
Speaker 1: submarine skipper would get the ship in his sights, only
Speaker 1: to watch it steam out of range over the horizon
Speaker 1: long before the order to fire could be given. It
Speaker 1: was during her service that the Queen Mary was involved
Speaker 1: in a horrendous accident with the Curaso. As sighted in
Speaker 1: the beginning of this episode. On that day in ninety two,
Speaker 1: the Queen Mary was on a standard zigzag course. It
Speaker 1: may have been difficult for HMS Curaso to interpret what
Speaker 1: phase of the zigzag she was on when they met,
Speaker 1: or it may have been that the HMS Curaso just
Speaker 1: didn't have the speed. The two ships found themselves on
Speaker 1: a collision course. Both captains were informed, and both believed
Speaker 1: the other would take evasive action. The consequences were tragic.
Speaker 1: The Croso was sliced in half and sunk, with the
Speaker 1: loss of three hundred thirty seven men. As per protocols.
Speaker 1: In such situations, the Queen Mary did not stop and
Speaker 1: did not slow down protocol or not. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: how haunting that must have been for all on board.
Speaker 1: At the end of the war, Queen Mary was used
Speaker 1: in the urgent and time consuming task of repatriating thousands
Speaker 1: of servicemen. Following this duty, the ship was utilized on
Speaker 1: the War Bride Service, thirteen voyages that eventually carried twenty
Speaker 1: thousand brides who had met and married their husbands while
Speaker 1: they were serving across the Atlantic, now to be reunited
Speaker 1: in America. Queen Mary and her sister ship, Queen Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: were essential in the wartime effort, with Winston Churchill declaring
Speaker 1: without their aid, the day of final victory must unquestionably
Speaker 1: have been postponed. After the war, the Queen Mary had
Speaker 1: a second or third act. According to Ghosts of the
Speaker 1: Queen Mary, her whole was scraped and repainted. Thousands of
Speaker 1: workers labored day and night to remove the many scars
Speaker 1: left by her time at war. All of her public areas,
Speaker 1: as well as her cabins, were completely restored. Her decks
Speaker 1: and railings were resurfaced, New carpets installed throughout the ship,
Speaker 1: and all of the exotic woods and artworks that had
Speaker 1: been languishing in warehouses during the war were now back
Speaker 1: to where they could be enjoyed again. All the crew
Speaker 1: cabins were updated and improved. Probably the largest change came
Speaker 1: in changes to passenger cabins. The new configuration consisted of
Speaker 1: seven hundred eleven first class staterooms, seven hundred seven second
Speaker 1: class staterooms, and five hundred seventy seven cabins for third
Speaker 1: class passengers. Following their refit, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth
Speaker 1: dominated the transatlantic passenger trade as Nard's White Stars to
Speaker 1: ship weekly express service through the latter half of the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties and well into the nineteen fifties. They proved
Speaker 1: highly profitable for Kunard. In nineteen fifty eight, though, the
Speaker 1: first transatlantic flight by a jet aircraft began a completely
Speaker 1: new era of competition for the Canard Queens, With a
Speaker 1: London New York travel time of just seven to eight
Speaker 1: hours now possible. With the new aircraft, demand for a
Speaker 1: sea crossing of the Ocean fell away markedly on some voyages. Winters,
Speaker 1: especially Queen Mary, sailed into Harbor with more crew than passengers.
Speaker 1: Though both she and Queen Elizabeth still averaged over a
Speaker 1: thousand passengers per crossing into the mid nineteen sixties. By
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, the entire Conard fleet was operating at
Speaker 1: a loss. In April nineteen sixty seven, the Queen Mary
Speaker 1: was offered for sale, and the city of Long Beach
Speaker 1: submitted the winning bid of three million, four hundred fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Canard's grandest ship made a thirty nine day
Speaker 1: voyage from her homeport in England across the Atlantic and
Speaker 1: around Cape Horn to southern California. A more direct route
Speaker 1: was impossible she was too large to fit through the
Speaker 1: Panama Canal. In nineteen sixty seven, construction began to convert
Speaker 1: the former ocean liner into a floating hotel and tourist attraction.
Speaker 1: The transformation required connecting the ship's utilities and plumbing to
Speaker 1: the land, as well as converting her to American electrical standards.
Speaker 1: The largest project involved clearing out almost everything below our deck,
Speaker 1: boiler rooms, the forward engine room, both turbogenerator rooms, stabilizers,
Speaker 1: and the water softening plant to make way for a
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand square foot museum. Fittingly Grand banquets. Spaces
Speaker 1: were created within the main lounges and dining rooms. The
Speaker 1: Mary opened to an enthusiastic public in May nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: She was placed on the National Register of Historic Places
Speaker 1: in Ninete. Today, the Queen features three D fourteen staterooms,
Speaker 1: including nine sweets on three decks. Other than the Curroso incident,
Speaker 1: there were deaths on board the Queen Mary. According to documentation,
Speaker 1: at least forty one passengers died on board over the years,
Speaker 1: and sixteen crew members. Of course, accordingly, the ship is haunted.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most famously haunted locations in the world.
Speaker 1: Regularly encountered happenings include shadow figures, apparitions in full period dress, voices,
Speaker 1: balls of light, the sounds of children giggling, and people
Speaker 1: being touched. Over the years, many ghostly characters have developed.
Speaker 1: Whether any of them actually coincide with documented deaths on
Speaker 1: board is hotly debated. Probably the most famous ghost reported
Speaker 1: is that of a little girl dubbed Jackie, who was
Speaker 1: regularly seen in the first class pool area. She has
Speaker 1: also been cited in one of the boiler rooms. Others
Speaker 1: report someone named John Henry reportedly Henry worked in the
Speaker 1: boiler room, and it was there that his remains were found.
Speaker 1: Folks regularly reports seeing Henry's shadowy figure, some claim to
Speaker 1: have actual conversations with him. Room B three forty is
Speaker 1: reported to be the most notoriously haunted suite on board,
Speaker 1: and you can even book it as such, with stories
Speaker 1: told of a third class passenger who passed away in
Speaker 1: the room, and then years later a woman waking to
Speaker 1: a man standing at the foot of her bed. Again,
Speaker 1: years later, guests have reported staying in the room and
Speaker 1: hearing knocking on the door and seeing lights mysteriously turn
Speaker 1: on and off. But Room B three forty fun fact,
Speaker 1: Disney was looking to turn the Queen Mary into an
Speaker 1: extension of their empire. At one point, to demonstrate this,
Speaker 1: they decked out an entire room with haunting things like
Speaker 1: faucets that turned on and off, floorboards that creaked, a
Speaker 1: holographic crew member, and more. However, the project was abandoned
Speaker 1: and the room was left closed for many years. They
Speaker 1: thought they had disconnected all those special effects. When they
Speaker 1: reopened it to the public, they hadn't, and from there
Speaker 1: the room took on a life of its own. That
Speaker 1: Room B three forty. Speaking of special effects, I want
Speaker 1: to chat with someone next to may surprise you. Aidan
Speaker 1: Sinclair is a world renowned magician who, after beginning a
Speaker 1: magic show on the Queen Mary encountered things even beyond
Speaker 1: his explanation. He'll also fill us in on the possible
Speaker 1: future of the ship. She's been in the headlines a
Speaker 1: lot lately, having closed due to the pandemic with no
Speaker 1: guarantee of reopening. That is all coming up after the break. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I am sitting here with one of my favorite
Speaker 1: people in the world, a person who it has been
Speaker 1: way too long since I saw them. Thanks Pandemic of Magic.
Speaker 1: Shin Aiden Sinclair. Hello, Aiden, thanks for having me, of
Speaker 1: course happy to you know. I often think back to
Speaker 1: when I met you, and I remember it was years ago.
Speaker 1: We were at the Stanley Hotel, and I feel like
Speaker 1: it was Grant who introduced us, Grant Wilson, and I
Speaker 1: just remember at one point it was I was having
Speaker 1: a Strange Escapes event there and I descended the staircase
Speaker 1: one day to see this crowd in the lobby around someone,
Speaker 1: and as I got closer, I see this gentleman, you
Speaker 1: like literally doing card tricks, and everyone's just like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, you just just entertaining a crowd of like
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty people in the lobby, and everyone, including myself,
Speaker 1: we were just transfixed. So and never since I think
Speaker 1: I had you on some strange escapes events after that,
Speaker 1: and now you're doing like massive, just beautifully Victorian themed
Speaker 1: Seyance type magic shows. They're just dreamy and you're doing
Speaker 1: them at all these haunted locations. So I love watching
Speaker 1: your work. It's been a ride, I view, and granted
Speaker 1: thing though for taking me from a kind of magician skeptic,
Speaker 1: which is pretty typical in the magic community, to going
Speaker 1: out and investigating and seeing things that I have no
Speaker 1: explanation for, which is a way cooler way to live.
Speaker 1: It's been really neat to be able to investigate and
Speaker 1: kind of dabble there, let's see all those things that
Speaker 1: kind of make you wonder. Oh yeah. What I love
Speaker 1: is that you have that kind of magician mindset where
Speaker 1: like you know how things can work and look unexplained.
Speaker 1: It was kind of neat, Like when we had Dave
Speaker 1: Tango on Ghost Hunters. You know, he's like a hobbyist magician,
Speaker 1: but there's an eye there that the rest of us like,
Speaker 1: we don't have that that kind of like I don't
Speaker 1: want to say trickery, but you just know how things
Speaker 1: can happen, not necessarily in a paranormal sense, and so
Speaker 1: I find it to be very useful. It's been cool.
Speaker 1: It was at the first Strange Escapes at Liberty and
Speaker 1: the Bell Formal Winery was the first time I had
Speaker 1: a paranormal experience. Was because of you. Oh well you're well,
Speaker 1: you're short of person. And Dave Schrader was one of
Speaker 1: the people that were supervising the group, and you teamed
Speaker 1: me up with Trader just to kind of make sure
Speaker 1: nobody got lost. So we went to the morgue and
Speaker 1: there was this sweet young lady there who had three
Speaker 1: K two meters laying out and we get into the
Speaker 1: morgue and this girl looks at Dave Trader and says,
Speaker 1: we're talking to a boy. And t Trader was really
Speaker 1: great with this girl and just kind of says, well,
Speaker 1: how do you know that, and she goes, well, we're
Speaker 1: getting this k too interaction, and then he describes how
Speaker 1: a K two meter works and he was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, just because it's lighting up doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: a ghost. It could be someone's cell phone or radio.
Speaker 1: And you know, you have three K two meters laying
Speaker 1: really close to each other, so if they're all lighting up,
Speaker 1: then they're all receiving the same signal. And this girl,
Speaker 1: without missing a beat, looks at him and the eye
Speaker 1: and goes, I know, and then says, can you show
Speaker 1: Mr Schrader that you can touch just the right one?
Speaker 1: And these things are like six inches apart, and the
Speaker 1: right K too meter fires off like solid red, and
Speaker 1: the other two nothing, you know, and knowing how those
Speaker 1: things work, you're like, that shouldn't happen. So I look
Speaker 1: at Trader, and Trader raises his eyebrow and looks at
Speaker 1: the girl, and she goes, good job, thank you. Can
Speaker 1: you do the one on the left now? And that
Speaker 1: one goes, and then she goes the one in the middle,
Speaker 1: and I look at Trader and Trader looks at me
Speaker 1: he goes, I got nothing. But I thought about that
Speaker 1: for weeks afterwards, of like that that shouldn't happen, that
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a thing. And I watched it. I saw
Speaker 1: it happen. So that put me down the rabbit hole
Speaker 1: of just maybe there are other things. And the next
Speaker 1: time I got to do a strange escapes and you
Speaker 1: were like, do you want to go do a group
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, please, can I go do it? Well?
Speaker 1: I love it. I love that. Now your shows are
Speaker 1: really based in a lot of haunted locations, one of
Speaker 1: the biggest being the Queen Mary. So can you tell
Speaker 1: me just kind of like how you affiliated with the
Speaker 1: Queen Mary, how your show is set up there, because
Speaker 1: I find that fascinating. I was doing the show at
Speaker 1: the Stanley Hotel and the hotel management company that manages
Speaker 1: the hotel on the Queen Mary, not to be confused
Speaker 1: with the company that managed the Queen Mary, they came
Speaker 1: out and saw the show and made an offer, and
Speaker 1: we moved the show from the Stanley out to the
Speaker 1: Queen and built this really cool kind of speakeasy room.
Speaker 1: It only sat fifty people, and I wanted this really
Speaker 1: intimate experience, and we designed a show that was able
Speaker 1: to tell the story of the Queen Mary, but also
Speaker 1: the idea of hauntings. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people that are outside of the paranormal world, when they
Speaker 1: hear the word haunted, they think bad. It's just murder, suicide,
Speaker 1: something bad must have happened. And when we built the
Speaker 1: room on the Queen Mary, we wanted to convey that,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a ship that sailed for twenty years,
Speaker 1: thirty years, and any ship that big with that many
Speaker 1: people inevitably people pass on. But it's also a place
Speaker 1: where people got married and fell in love and had
Speaker 1: their very first kiss. So if bad things make ghost,
Speaker 1: maybe good things to too, you know, that would to
Speaker 1: me explain some of the interactions that are found on
Speaker 1: the Queen. So we did a bunch of historical research
Speaker 1: about the people who did pass on and kind of
Speaker 1: picked a few of those to tell stories with. And
Speaker 1: in the concept of doing this, we also created what
Speaker 1: has become a paranormal experiment. Initially it was just a show.
Speaker 1: The idea is to have the audience create a ghost.
Speaker 1: Everyone would imagine a shadow, and I would randomly pick
Speaker 1: somebody and say is your shadow an adult or a child?
Speaker 1: Give it no gender, just a size, and someone would
Speaker 1: answer that question, and then we would ask the other
Speaker 1: people in the room, you know, who else was thinking
Speaker 1: of a child? And you'd see these hands go up
Speaker 1: and we'd use those hands to create the ghost. We'd
Speaker 1: basically say, is it a boy or girl? What colors
Speaker 1: their hair or colors their eyes? How old are they?
Speaker 1: Tell me something that this person likes, tell me something
Speaker 1: this person doesn't like, and finally we would say what's
Speaker 1: their name. So we start doing this, and in very
Speaker 1: short order we realized that people are describing the same
Speaker 1: person night after People are giving that ghost the same
Speaker 1: name night after night. So you see it happened once,
Speaker 1: it's cool the second time, maybe a coincidence, but when
Speaker 1: it happens twelve or thirteen times, you can't not watch
Speaker 1: that happen and go like, where is that answer coming from?
Speaker 1: Is there something here that is actually subconsciously manipulating people
Speaker 1: to respond to us. So that's how it kind of grew,
Speaker 1: and it's cool to be able to do that in
Speaker 1: a place that's filled with a lot of legend and myth.
Speaker 1: But after maybe a month, we found ourselves doing a
Speaker 1: lot more investigating after the shows, and also doing a
Speaker 1: lot of kind of educating people. There's resident paranormal investigators
Speaker 1: that have gone to the Queen for a long long time,
Speaker 1: and they've gotten to the point where they've made up
Speaker 1: stories about things that never happened, and once those things
Speaker 1: go out on the internet, they become true for people.
Speaker 1: So that's also a challenge of to be able to
Speaker 1: go like, hey, nothing that ever happened in that space,
Speaker 1: or you know, the Jackie story is probably the most famous,
Speaker 1: and so Jackie is the little girl right in the
Speaker 1: pool room, like, I've heard that story for years. It's
Speaker 1: an amazing story if people have these interactions with a
Speaker 1: little girl. The name Jackie comes up in estes method now.
Speaker 1: But the story because there's these interactions of this child
Speaker 1: has always been a negative story. People like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: a little girl that drowned in the pool. Well, the
Speaker 1: Queen Mary kept really good records and that never happened, right,
Speaker 1: there's no record of the drowning at all. The person
Speaker 1: who first started telling that story a long time ago
Speaker 1: was somebody who was a psychic, and they said that
Speaker 1: that's what happened, so it became true. The kicker is
Speaker 1: when you say that no little girl drowned in the
Speaker 1: pool is people who go like, well, there's a Jackie,
Speaker 1: And to say that she didn't drown doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: she doesn't exist. It just means that she didn't die
Speaker 1: that way. Right, you know, So we would tell her
Speaker 1: story a great deal, and because it interacts as an
Speaker 1: intelligent haunting, I wouldn't want to think that an intelligent
Speaker 1: child would remain in the place where such a horrible
Speaker 1: thing happened. So we would tell her story and then
Speaker 1: kind of convey to people if you were to think
Speaker 1: back to your childhood, do you remember what it was
Speaker 1: like the first time you ever dove, first time you
Speaker 1: dove and you got it right, and how happy you
Speaker 1: were and that moment of joy And for some people
Speaker 1: maybe that's the happiest moment they ever have. Or you know,
Speaker 1: maybe Jackie was playing marco polo with a little boy
Speaker 1: in that pool, you know, on some voyage, and twenty
Speaker 1: years later, maybe that little boy in her got married.
Speaker 1: So there are other reasons for her to be drawn
Speaker 1: to that place. We talk about that a lot. Actually,
Speaker 1: our theory a lot is that these imprints can happen
Speaker 1: not necessarily from tragedy, like you can feel just as
Speaker 1: strongly about a tragic moment as you can about a
Speaker 1: happy or positive one. And then there's also the idea
Speaker 1: and I I don't know how you feel about this, but
Speaker 1: the idea that maybe Jackie has been kind of willed
Speaker 1: into existence from so many people believing in her. You know,
Speaker 1: we've seen that before too. I've been investigating the Queen
Speaker 1: Mary for a very long time. I don't want to
Speaker 1: say like it's been a long time, and I know
Speaker 1: I have sat in that pool room. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it's open or going to be open again to
Speaker 1: the public, but I have sat in there in the
Speaker 1: dark trying to talk to Jackie, just really wanting to
Speaker 1: hear from Jackie and thinking about Jackie and what happened
Speaker 1: to Jackie. Multiply that by, however, many thousands of people
Speaker 1: go into that space thinking that, and you might just
Speaker 1: get a Jackie even if there was never a Jackie.
Speaker 1: And we found that with is it be three forty?
Speaker 1: You know, you guys did an STA session in there
Speaker 1: on your Last Strange Escapes, and the New Kirks did
Speaker 1: a session in there. That room is crazy active, like
Speaker 1: there's people have stuff happening there, And there's always been
Speaker 1: this legend of like, oh, somebody was murdered in b
Speaker 1: three forty, or something bad happened in Big three forty.
Speaker 1: The true story would be three forty is that when
Speaker 1: Disney owned the ship. It was a haunted attraction, and
Speaker 1: they put special effects in that room, things that would
Speaker 1: open doors and knock, and you know, it was kind
Speaker 1: of a spook show kind of experience. And then Disney
Speaker 1: left the ship, and when they left the ship, they
Speaker 1: did not turn any of that off. They literally just left.
Speaker 1: So the new company comes in and people book this room,
Speaker 1: and weird stuff is happening, and so many people are
Speaker 1: being asked. You know, they're basically saying, I'm not staying
Speaker 1: in this room. The doors keep opening, this is happening,
Speaker 1: this is happening. So they decided to close the room
Speaker 1: to the public, and this ledgend grows at the rooms
Speaker 1: truly haunted. And then they got the room. They take
Speaker 1: all of the you know, the drywall off the walls,
Speaker 1: and they find all this stuff control panels and special
Speaker 1: effects and realized that this was all made by man.
Speaker 1: But now nobody wants to stay there. So a few
Speaker 1: years ago they redesigned the room and they make it
Speaker 1: a room once more and go, hey, come stay in
Speaker 1: the famous haunted b three forty and now real stuff
Speaker 1: is happening there. All the special effects are gone, but
Speaker 1: people go in there for lots of different reasons. And
Speaker 1: I hate to say this, but like once a night
Speaker 1: I would meet somebody on the ship that would book
Speaker 1: three forty or book some other room on B deck
Speaker 1: because of its reputation. And they were people that were
Speaker 1: recently bereaved, people that lost a loved one and had
Speaker 1: this idea of, like, you know what, the Queen Mary
Speaker 1: has haunted, I'm going to go stay in this haunted
Speaker 1: room and then maybe I can talk to my husband,
Speaker 1: my wife. And it's heartbreaking to meet those people. But
Speaker 1: so many people have now gone into B three forty
Speaker 1: and brought stuff with them. I think that's part of
Speaker 1: the reason why there's those interactions is not that something
Speaker 1: bad happened there, something good happened there. It's that every
Speaker 1: person who stays in there brings stuff with them, you know.
Speaker 1: And oh yeah, and I can tell you it has
Speaker 1: such a reputation. Like I know my friend Julie Tremaine,
Speaker 1: who I let her have that room to write a story.
Speaker 1: She's a writer. She helped write my book, and I
Speaker 1: let her stay in that room one night after Strange
Speaker 1: Escapes was done with it so she could write a
Speaker 1: story about staying and B three forty and she was like,
Speaker 1: obviously it was scary, but she said her favorite part
Speaker 1: of it was scaring people all night because people would
Speaker 1: come and stand outside the door and they'd be like,
Speaker 1: this is the room and they wouldn't realize someone was
Speaker 1: in it, and she would bang on the door and
Speaker 1: they go running down the hallway, And so they should
Speaker 1: advertise that part of it too, because that sounds equally
Speaker 1: as fun. Yeah, it's so, what is the status of
Speaker 1: the Queen Mary right now? It's been in the news
Speaker 1: so much like, do you know what's happening there? It's
Speaker 1: really good news. We know more than we're allowed to say.
Speaker 1: So the upside is is that's a good thing is
Speaker 1: that they're working on getting our back open. Right now,
Speaker 1: they're removing all of the lifeboats from the Queen and that's,
Speaker 1: you know, caused a little bit of uproars some votes
Speaker 1: because they want the boats to stay there. But those
Speaker 1: boats were designed to hang the hats for as long
Speaker 1: as they've been there, and the weight of them is
Speaker 1: extreme and it's starting to pull the davit out structure.
Speaker 1: So before the ship can reopen, they're doing some repairs
Speaker 1: on her. They're taking those lifeboats off, they're going to
Speaker 1: be replaced with a lightweight replica, so the Queen will
Speaker 1: still have her look. But a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: realize that of all the lifeboats that are hanging on
Speaker 1: the Queen only two of them are original to the
Speaker 1: Queen Mary. The rest of them came from other boats,
Speaker 1: and the two original ones are being preserved and they'll
Speaker 1: be put on display inside the Queen Mary, so you'll
Speaker 1: actually still be able to visit them, and they'll still
Speaker 1: be there um and that history won't go away. But
Speaker 1: before people can go back and visit, and you know,
Speaker 1: she has to be structurally sound and safe. She's been
Speaker 1: closed for two years, and unfortunately she's not like a
Speaker 1: building where you just unlock it and turn on the lights.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of little things that they have to
Speaker 1: do to get it open, and it will probably take
Speaker 1: you a little bit of time to rehire everybody back
Speaker 1: and get the place up and running again. You know,
Speaker 1: as someone who has been kind of in the bowels
Speaker 1: of that ship, I feel like common areas, what you
Speaker 1: can see in the public is pretty well polished, but
Speaker 1: when you start getting down into areas that are not open,
Speaker 1: you can really see just how much deterioration has happened,
Speaker 1: and like you know it, it makes you realize, like
Speaker 1: what they are up against. So I think it's a
Speaker 1: feat that she's reopening, and I think it's important, what
Speaker 1: an important piece of history. And I did want to
Speaker 1: talk about my wildest paranormal experience that I had there
Speaker 1: and get your take on it. This was years and
Speaker 1: years ago. I was in the boiler room, and this
Speaker 1: was before they had kind of made the boiler room
Speaker 1: a spot on the tour. So this was before there
Speaker 1: were any walkways. It was like you went down there
Speaker 1: at your own risk and there were no lights, nothing,
Speaker 1: And so I went down there. We were doing an event.
Speaker 1: This was years before even Strange Escapes, was before I
Speaker 1: was even on TV or any of that. I went
Speaker 1: down there with another investigator and we were basically just
Speaker 1: kind of trying to plan the investigation and like the
Speaker 1: path that was the safest for our attendees because it
Speaker 1: was kind of treacherous down there, and so we you
Speaker 1: were making our way back out and I had some
Speaker 1: sort of light, so it's like a lantern in my flashlight,
Speaker 1: and I saw distinctly the figure of this man walk
Speaker 1: right by us. But it wasn't a whole person. This
Speaker 1: was like a partial apparition, Like it literally kind of
Speaker 1: went like part of his head, part of his torso
Speaker 1: and like his right arm down to like his right hip,
Speaker 1: and the rest of him was not there. But he
Speaker 1: was walking very purposefully, did not see me. He was bald.
Speaker 1: I could literally see sweat on the back of his
Speaker 1: head and like brown overall type jumpsuit thing he was wearing.
Speaker 1: And he just walked by and I went I was
Speaker 1: like in shock, and I asked the person with me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, did you just see that? He's like, what
Speaker 1: the hell was that like? And I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what that was. I've never seen anything like
Speaker 1: that in my life because we just had like the flashlight,
Speaker 1: but it was so distinct and the most bizarre thing.
Speaker 1: Now I realized it was like a partial apparition, but
Speaker 1: it just had such a defined cut off. And so
Speaker 1: I then heard after this happened that there is a
Speaker 1: spirit there. I feel like I can't remember the names
Speaker 1: either Henry or Harry or like this report of a
Speaker 1: man who potentially died. Have you heard about this as
Speaker 1: anyone else seen this thing? Because we're lucky that I
Speaker 1: am still an investigator after experience. It's actually like the
Speaker 1: appearance of apparitions on the ship is a pretty common thing,
Speaker 1: Like people see stuff like that all the time. I
Speaker 1: think it's diminished in the boiler room since it's become
Speaker 1: open to the public. Right, it's weird to me, Like
Speaker 1: I think the Stanley is the same way. In the summer,
Speaker 1: when the hotel is really busy, the activity goes way
Speaker 1: way down, but when it's quieter, it seems to go up.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why that is, but you're not
Speaker 1: the first to see it or encounter it. And I
Speaker 1: think it's something that because it's in this pattern of
Speaker 1: always walking back and forth and people kind of see
Speaker 1: him in the same spot that I do think it's
Speaker 1: more of a residual thing of someone that's still going
Speaker 1: about their job because there's never been really intelligent interactions
Speaker 1: down there. Yeah, we get very frustrated because there's so
Speaker 1: much stealing the ship. We always want to go do
Speaker 1: st just down there, and you can't get a there's
Speaker 1: no radio, you know, you canignal down there. But it's
Speaker 1: an amazing place, So I'm not surprised that you had that.
Speaker 1: And I think it's pretty cool that you had the
Speaker 1: experience of actually getting to see it. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it was shocking. The same thing kind of happens in
Speaker 1: B three forty when you're talking about doing like the
Speaker 1: Method or the spirit Box experiment. It's like this kind
Speaker 1: of you get very little radio feed in there. It
Speaker 1: is mostly white noise, so when you hear a voice
Speaker 1: coming out of it, it's very distinct and very strange.
Speaker 1: So just wild. Where you did your show on the ship,
Speaker 1: that area, Like I remember when you showed me that
Speaker 1: and you're like, I'm making this into a theater. I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know how you're doing that because
Speaker 1: that area is known to be haunted. Before you did that,
Speaker 1: like we investigated in that space, it was just not used.
Speaker 1: What was the effect of that when they were renovating
Speaker 1: that and things. Did you have things happening? Obviously you're
Speaker 1: doing a magic show, but there had to have been
Speaker 1: things that went on that you were not facilitating. No,
Speaker 1: they started probably the first week, the first week of
Speaker 1: the show. These two ladies, they were sisters, and they
Speaker 1: were sitting next to this one curtain and as they
Speaker 1: were leaving, you know, I always tried to see everybody
Speaker 1: when they leave the theater, and this woman stops and said,
Speaker 1: you know, thank you so much. That was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. And they turned to start to walk away,
Speaker 1: and she felt compelled to turn back around, and she says,
Speaker 1: you know what I like best that you did a
Speaker 1: couple of things in the show that only one or
Speaker 1: two people could see, like it was special just for them,
Speaker 1: and we don't do that, like we want everyone to
Speaker 1: see everything. So I said, what do you mean and
Speaker 1: she goes, oh, we just really appreciated the sailor. And
Speaker 1: they said excuse me, and she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: and she's like winking at me, like she, you know,
Speaker 1: is in on the secret. She goes, the guy in
Speaker 1: the sailor suit that you know, was dressed up like
Speaker 1: a nineteen thirties sailor who peeks out from behind the curtain,
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, and where she saw that there's no access.
Speaker 1: There is nobody dressed up, and there's absolutely no way
Speaker 1: for human being to get there. There's none. And my
Speaker 1: fiance and I just are looking at this woman and
Speaker 1: my fiance is about to say like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: and I just looked at her, So I'm glad you
Speaker 1: enjoyed that, and she walked away. You know, I have
Speaker 1: full body chills like at that this one section, and
Speaker 1: I would see it from the stage. People sitting in
Speaker 1: a certain part of the theater would always be turning
Speaker 1: their head and looking down this hallway, and then afterwards
Speaker 1: they would say they saw people our bartender. One night,
Speaker 1: probably the third or fourth week, at the end of
Speaker 1: the show, she came up to and says, did that
Speaker 1: guy not like the show? And we go what guy?
Speaker 1: And she goes, well, there was a guy in a
Speaker 1: gray suit that left like ten minutes into the show,
Speaker 1: and from the stage, you can't leave the room without
Speaker 1: me seeing you. And nobody was wearing a gray suit.
Speaker 1: Nobody was dressed like that, and nobody had left the
Speaker 1: theater during the show, and we were like, carry nobody
Speaker 1: left and she didn't see and you know, she saw
Speaker 1: a human being as three dimensional, as real as anybody else.
Speaker 1: But the guy didn't say anything to her, just walked out.
Speaker 1: But we started investigating in the space after that, and
Speaker 1: we kind of took every lesson that we've ever learned
Speaker 1: from you and Grant and Adam, and we put it
Speaker 1: all to work and we started really using k two
Speaker 1: ands this method in the space, and we filmed everyone
Speaker 1: because we wanted to like have we want to have
Speaker 1: a record that we could go back and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is consistent, this isn't. So we would investigate with
Speaker 1: about twelve people late at night and back on my
Speaker 1: fiance and I would we would demonstrate ESTs, and then
Speaker 1: we would try to get out of it, you know,
Speaker 1: and just let the participants do everything right. Mainly because
Speaker 1: I'm a magician, I felt like, if anything happens and
Speaker 1: I'm the cause of it, people will see it as
Speaker 1: a trick. But if you just I want them to
Speaker 1: do it. So we started doing that. But when we
Speaker 1: would do investigations, we would tell the guests nothing. We
Speaker 1: wouldn't anybody about previous experiences. We wouldn't tell them what
Speaker 1: to expect, because if you tell somebody a name and
Speaker 1: then that name suddenly comes out of estus, you've kind
Speaker 1: of spoiled the source of it, right. So we started
Speaker 1: filming these and the interactions were profound, to the point
Speaker 1: that we were having full conversations with someone and over
Speaker 1: the course of a year it became a relationship. Because
Speaker 1: this was something that we were doing at least once
Speaker 1: a week, if not two or three. It turned into
Speaker 1: something I think was a huge advantage in the sense
Speaker 1: that most paranormal investigators save up for a year just
Speaker 1: to go investigate one place and they only get a
Speaker 1: couple of days there. This was like investigating your own home,
Speaker 1: you know, so you know what's normal and what feels right,
Speaker 1: and you know what I mean, like just the vibes
Speaker 1: of the place is different. Yeah, And I mean that's
Speaker 1: a powerful tool to have that ability to kind of
Speaker 1: reinvestigate it over and over again, because, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: you do build a relationship or almost a friendship, and
Speaker 1: that might be something. I mean, I'm just speculating what
Speaker 1: life is like on the other side or for a
Speaker 1: ghost or spirit. But if they come to expect that,
Speaker 1: can you imagine like what a joy that is in
Speaker 1: their routine all of a sudden that's something new to them. Oh,
Speaker 1: I can go here at this time these nights, and
Speaker 1: these people are familiar with are there and we can
Speaker 1: have a conversation. Some of the places I've been to
Speaker 1: over and over again, I've actually gotten e vps of
Speaker 1: them saying my name not to intimate me would be
Speaker 1: like hi, Amy, like they remember me having that and
Speaker 1: the Queen Mary is like a major job perk. I
Speaker 1: would say it was heartbreaking. The first time we investigated
Speaker 1: down on the ropehold, we had somebody else in est
Speaker 1: us you know, just this. I think it was a
Speaker 1: journalist that was there just to kind of do a
Speaker 1: story on us. And this guy's in the headphones and
Speaker 1: we started asking questions and the answers that we got
Speaker 1: initially was you know, as anybody here, would you like
Speaker 1: to talk to us? And it was go away? Would
Speaker 1: you please go away? And we're like, yeah, we'll leave
Speaker 1: your space if you're not comfortable with us being here.
Speaker 1: And the next thing the guy in Esta says is,
Speaker 1: I'm sick of doing tricks. You want me to do tricks.
Speaker 1: I'm not here to do tricks. I live here. M h.
Speaker 1: It just punches you in the face because you think
Speaker 1: of how many people have walked through that space in
Speaker 1: the last twenty years, thirty years and did shaven a
Speaker 1: haircut on the bulkhead. I mean, I try to tell
Speaker 1: people that all the time. This is not a show
Speaker 1: for you. You're talking to a real human being potentially
Speaker 1: who's in a situation that we can't even begin to
Speaker 1: fathom they're not here to knock for you or perform
Speaker 1: for you. You were here to help them or bring
Speaker 1: them some comfort. I think that's the perfect analogy and
Speaker 1: way to demonstrate it. But I've seen that many times
Speaker 1: in overly investigated places, and I think it's fair, Like,
Speaker 1: I get it. I understand how that happens. People go
Speaker 1: in wanting to be scared. They think it's cool, We've
Speaker 1: all done it. It's fine, we've all been there. But
Speaker 1: it's something that I think if you're truly interested in
Speaker 1: the paranormal and ghosts, it's very smart to kind of
Speaker 1: move past that and humanize them. Well, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: guys were there for that. It was incredible because they
Speaker 1: literally was you know, Becca is very sweet. And the
Speaker 1: other thing was crazy, is like I dress, you know,
Speaker 1: in suits and ties and hats and look like I
Speaker 1: walked out of the nineteen thirties, and Becca's does the same.
Speaker 1: She wears vintage and her hairs and victory roles. And
Speaker 1: when we investigate on the Queen Mary and we're dressed
Speaker 1: that way, we have interactions. The few times that we
Speaker 1: try to investigate on like a day off and showed
Speaker 1: up in jeans and a hoodie. Nothing. Well, this is
Speaker 1: exciting for me next time I go to the Queen Mary.
Speaker 1: But it was a little cosplay involved. I love. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's just a familiar thing, but I
Speaker 1: think it helps. I think it helps, you know. I
Speaker 1: think there is something to adding that kind of humanistic triggers.
Speaker 1: They're a little more comfortable if you look like who
Speaker 1: you're supposed to look like. I love that. So now
Speaker 1: tell me how can people find you? What are you
Speaker 1: doing now? I can't keep track of you? So if
Speaker 1: people want to come see Aiden Sinclair work his magic,
Speaker 1: where do they go? Where do they find your schedule?
Speaker 1: Right now, we are at the Stanley Hotel and we
Speaker 1: have a brand new theater there called Aiden Sinclair's Underground,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of a speakeasy behind the bookcase see
Speaker 1: great theater. That's seventy people and we do shows over
Speaker 1: the winner Friday, Saturday and Sunday and over Memorial Day
Speaker 1: to Halloween. The room runs seven days a week. We
Speaker 1: bring out guest acts from the Magic Castle and from
Speaker 1: the Edinburgh Fringe Fest, so it's become this place where
Speaker 1: some of the finest magicians in the world appear over
Speaker 1: the summer and they're just incredible shows. And when we're
Speaker 1: not doing that, we're in the process of getting our
Speaker 1: room back open on the Queen Mary, which we hope
Speaker 1: to see back in business by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: So that's the little bit of news for Queen Mary aficionados.
Speaker 1: I think that you'll find yourself walk in our decks
Speaker 1: by the time of the year ends. I think it'll
Speaker 1: be a slow and staged opening and it might be
Speaker 1: a little while before the hotel opens, but she is
Speaker 1: going to come back to life and she's gonna, i think,
Speaker 1: be very happy to see people return. And then around
Speaker 1: the Halloween season we're usually around the Winchester Mystery House
Speaker 1: as well, so it's been an adventure living the dream. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm excited to hopefully see you again very soon.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you taking the time to at all
Speaker 1: things Queen Mary with us, so friends, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: please go see Aidan. I promise you will not be disappointed.
Speaker 1: He's also just one of the nicest people you could know.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much, aid and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Any time and safe travels and hopefully we see you soon.
Speaker 1: The Queen Mary certainly has it all. History, beauty, ghosts,
Speaker 1: at least one X Files episode filmed on board, and
Speaker 1: a knack for continuing to defy the odds. It's funny
Speaker 1: how often I come across places like this in my
Speaker 1: line of work, massive undertakings that stand out not just
Speaker 1: as a bit of history, but a home for ghosts.
Speaker 1: Makes me think of her right now, quietly in the harbor,
Speaker 1: no guests, no regular employees, just silence. Or is there
Speaker 1: something tells me, even without the presence of the living,
Speaker 1: the Queen Mary is very much awake and awaiting our return.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast is written and hosted
Speaker 1: by Amy Bruney. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rema Ill
Speaker 1: Kali and Trevor Young. Research by Taylor Haggerdorn, Amy Bruney
Speaker 1: and Robin Miniter. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.