Rumor Doctor blog archive
Is the USS Constitution haunted?
Published: October 29, 2010
It’s Halloween, time for stories about the unexplained, the freaks of nature and all things frightening. That means for one day The Rumor Doctor becomes “The Ghost Doctor,” a combination of the Ghostbusters and the FBI agents on “The X-Files,” only without proton packs or unresolved sexual tension.
For this week’s tale of the unknown, we look at the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship afloat, now berthed in Boston. Some of her crew have witnessed otherworldly events aboard her decks and felt a presence that science cannot explain.
“We took ghosts so seriously on Constitution,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Pete Robertson, who served aboard the ship from 2001 to 2004. “Unless you were a brand new crewmember, you didn’t mess around with that stuff. You didn’t make jokes about it … You didn’t even try to scare each other because people were terrified – a lot of people were terrified to stand watch on the ship.”
Robertson remembers watching objects rolling on the deck for no apparent reason. One night, a 24-pound cannonball rolled to the left, the right, and then back from whence it came, even though the ship was completely still.
“There was no way the ship moves that way,” he said. “It was moving in ways a cannonball just shouldn’t move.”
Former Seaman Allie Thorpe, who was aboard the ship between 2002 and 2005, never saw a ghost but she definitely felt a presence.
“It would feel like there was somebody there with you,” she said. “It would feel like somebody was walking up behind you and blowing on your neck.”
It’s not only the ship where spirits allegedly dwell. About 100 yards away from the Constitution, there is an old brick barracks in the Navy yard. Each room has a rocking chair.
“The rocking chair, if you moved it to the middle of the room and left it there and just watched it, it would go from sitting completely still to a full on rock on its own,” she said.
But not everyone believes that ghosts inhabit the 213-year-old ship.
“I’ve been in all parts of the ship; I’ve been in the magazines and down in the hold and in the cabins and everything, and I’ve never felt a presence or heard anything that couldn’t be explained either by the modern equipment that we have aboard or just the natural creaks and groans of the ship,” said Margherita Desy of the Naval History and Heritage Detachment Boston.
Brian Petersen is a psychologist who works with people dealing with grief issues who believe they have encountered a loved one as a ghost. He is a former ghost hunter himself.
Historical sites such as the USS Constitution are considered sacred spaces, and people go there expecting to have some kind of connection to the past, Petersen said.
“I don’t think it’s any surprise, then, that someplace like the Constitution or a battlefield would get a reputation for being haunted, because it’s a short step from that expectation to having a sensory experience that gets interpreted as being ghostly or paranormal,” he said.
Leaving no (grave)stone left unturned, The Ghost Doctor reached out to musician Ray Parker Jr., who once famously sang, “I aint afraid of no ghosts,” to see if sailors aboard the Constitution should be similarly fearless.
Parker did not respond.
However, The Doctor did discover something truly frightening: Parker’s latest album, which is described on his website thusly: “If Jimmy Buffet grew up in Detroit, it would sound like this.”
THE GHOST DOCTOR’S DIAGNOSIS: The Rumor Doctor would be more inclined to believe rational explanations for the strange happenings aboard the Constitution, but The Ghost Doctor sees these events as a not-so-subtle reminder that there are powers at work in the world beyond human understanding and control.
If you liked this column, just wait until February when “The Love Doctor” will explore the mysteries of the heart. Fellas, nothing spells commitment like sobering up and moving out of your mom’s house.
jeffrey.schogol@stripes.osd.mil
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