"There is definitely a haunting here."
Andy Laird doesn?t make such pronouncements easily. But as director of the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group, he does make them. "As haunted sites we?ve visited go, I would say it is up there in the top two or three." One imagines Andy saying this in a hushed voice, on a dark and misty October night, as a chill wind whips the loose shudders of a creepy and abandoned Victorian.
But the actual scene was quite a bit different. Far from being chilled, Laird, a big man, was sweating. Mostly because it was a balmy almost tropical night in July, as the summer bugs buzzed in the hanging humid air, and the water lapped rhythmically against the sides of the anchored ship. Not exactly the stuff of "Nightmare on Elm Street."
Perhaps you?ve seen the story. It involves the famous former whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan. Built in 1841 and the nation?s last surviving wooden whaling ship, the Morgan lies at permanent berth in Stonington, Connecticut, where it is the centerpiece of Mystic Seaport. (Technically, Mystic is merely a zip code; who knew?) Over the past year or so, several visitors to the ship have reported sightings onboard of, well, a ghost. Only they didn?t think it was a ghost at the time.
In each case, three separate visitors, on three separate occasions, had been touring the 105-foot Morgan. All three visitors (unrelated and unacquainted with each other) came off the ship, and complimented Seaport personnel on the terrific realism of what they assumed was a 19th century interpreter/actor, who had been smoking a pipe, and quietly walking about the ship?s blubber room below deck. In each case, the bewildered Seaport personnel had to inform the visitor that there were, in fact, no costumed interpreters of any kind on board the ship.
Cue the "Twilight Zone" theme.
After receiving a letter from one of the visitors, the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group requested, and received permission from Mystic Seaport to go aboard the Charles W. Morgan, and conduct a full-scale investigation. To do some ghost-busting, if you will. (But the RIPRG folks don?t kid about this stuff.) And so they did. And they claim to have found a "discernible entity" on the ship. Several, to be exact. Apparently more than one former crew member couldn?t get enough of those cramped quarters and fetid air. But for eternity? "There is some obvious connection with these spirits and this ship," says Laird. That must be some connection.
And Laird?s group?s certainty about this haunting, while relying on something well short of scientific proof, has drawn media interest from far and wide. So there I was. On a quiet summer midweek evening, the sun nearly set over the calm and glassy Mystic River, walking up the gangway of the Morgan with Andy Laird, his colleague Dawn McLaughlin, and Mystic Seaport spokesperson, Mike O?Farrell
It must be said that O?Farrell had the smallest bounce in his step as we boarded the hulking and historic ship. This entire episode has been one of mixed feelings for Mystic Seaport. They love showing off the ship and it?s surrounding re-creation of a working early 19th century New England maritime village. What?s more, with visits to the Seaport in steep and steady decline, they cannot easily ignore this new and sudden publicity. Still, they are clearly pained to mix the Charles W. Morgan with Stephen King.
It must be said, however, that the Seaport has maintained a good sense of humor about it all. O?Farrell says he has only had to draw the line once, when he almost got "Foxed," as he puts it. A Fox TV crew tried to have an actor come on board in period dress so he could "play" the ghost. Can you imagine? Cheesy and sensationalist gimmicks by a television station? Shameful.
And so we gathered on the deck in the dusky, falling light. Both Laird and McLaughlin carried handheld ghostbuster devices. Ever seen a "Gausometer?" I hadn?t either. It looks a lot like a TV remote, but with a lighted dial. And it beeps. It may measure the afterlife, but it apparently runs on regular batteries.
We all went below, and stopped first in the stern area, around the captain?s table. Almost immediately, the team?s Gausometers started beeping in unison, sounding like dueling microwaves. I wondered just what exactly the chirping devices were telling us. "They?re measuring electrical activity," Laird informed me. Apparently a good Gausometer (don?t bother looking for one at Ace Hardware) can distinguish between your garden variety electric light (which hung above us), and your more esoteric wandering spirit.
"Oh, yeah -- he?s here," assured McLaughlin. McLaughlin, a short stocky woman in her early 40s, is what?s known as a "sensitive." Her role is to engage and make contact with "entities." She looked at her Gausometer. "He?s registering a six, but we had him last time up to almost eight." I guess even ghosts can have an off night.
McLaughlin also confided that this particular entity had been more active and cooperative with McLaughlin?s colleague, another female sensitive who had investigated the ship some weeks earlier. "Oh, he definitely likes her better," she said matter-of-factly, without a trace of hurt or bitterness.
We wandered the ship. We took extra time passing through the blubber room, and in the bow section where the crew?s bunks were. We looked about in the dim light. We listened to the Gausometers beeping. It was almost unbearably hot below deck, and Laird sweated profusely. Probably a lot like the sailors of the ship did more than a century ago, as they toiled around huge pots of boiling blubber.
We decided to wrap up and go topside for a breath of fresh air. In parting, Laird summed up. "This is probably one of the two most definitely haunted sites we?ve researched in recent years."
"No question?" I questioned.
"No question," he said.
I thought I detected poor Mike O?Farrell slumping visibly against the ship?s rail.
For the record, despite Laird?s lowdown and the chirping Gausometers, I saw nothing. I felt nothing. Not even a slight, eerie chill deep below deck. And believe me, a slight chill down there, eerie or not, would have been most welcome on that hot and humid night.
I did find myself thinking about what life onboard a 19th century whaler must have been like. Sleeping in a hammock, up before dawn, doing backbreaking work in all weather. The decks were often covered in Whale mess, and the burning pots of blubber created a heat and a stench that an observer of the time once described as "nearly like Hell itself." Voyages could last years, and did not include regular bathing.
As I stared at the empty deck, it occurred to me that, if I were a former shipmate (or the ghost of one), the last place I would want to continue inhabiting would be that ship. Maybe that?s why I didn?t see anything. Maybe the smart spirits have all gone ghosting off to comfier climes, with roomier quarters and spacious private baths. Maybe, I reasoned, the ghost that may or may not have stayed on the Morgan is some kind of spectral loser.
Or maybe there is more to it. Maybe you?ll want to go to Mystic Seaport and see, or not see, for yourself. Maybe Mike O?Farrell has outfoxed us all.
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