The Queen Mary, Long Beach, California, USA

The Queen Mary was one of the most luxurious ocean liners in the 1930s, transporting movie stars such as Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Bob Hope. With the advent of World War II, however, the ship was repainted and used as a troopship. She became known as the "Grey Ghost", a fitting nickname for a ship that would come to be known as one of the world's most haunted.

As air travel increased, the era of the luxury liner came to an end; on Halloween, 1967, the Queen Mary set out on her final cruise, arriving in Long Beach on December 9. She has been there ever since, converted into a hotel.

With ghosts.

One crewman played "chicken" with a watertight door once too often, and was crushed when it slid shut during an emergency (to prevent water from flooding other sections of the ship). He has been seen near the fatal door, usually disappearing near or through it.

During her years as a troopship, the Queen Mary accidentally rammed a smaller ship, causing it to sink. Screams can still be heard in the bow.

The swimming pool in the First Class section is haunted by several female ghosts, many wearing swimsuits in the style of the 1930s.

Cabin B340 is so haunted - sheets flying across the room, faucets turning on and off - that it is no longer used as a guest room.

A cook who traveled in the ship during WWII was such a bad cook that he was stuffed into an oven and roasted. His screams are still audible.

There is also an eerie legend that during the ship's travels of the 1930s, a certain passenger asked a crew member to bring him some "company". Money changed hands, and a young woman was sent to the man's cabin to "entertain" him.

When the man didn't appear at breakfast the next morning, and didn't answer his door, the door was forced open. The cabin was found to be soaked in blood - the blood of the young woman. The man was never found; there was no record of any passenger being assigned the cabin in which he stayed, and no luggage for him was ever found.

Battery Carriage House Inn, Charleston, South Carolina, USA

The Battery Carriage House Inn dates from 1843. It calls itself "Charleston's most haunted inn", and this may be true.

The ghosts are a rather obliging crew, generally staying to their assigned rooms. The most haunted areas are Rooms 3, 8, and 10.

Room 10 is the domain of a specter known as "the gentleman" ghost, who has a liking for the ladies; indeed, one guest reported that she saw a figure float over to her bed and lie down on it with one arm around her! Another woman saw a shadowy form cross the room and fade through a closed door. The ghost is thought to be a 19th-century man who committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the house.

Room 3 has several presences, as witnessed by a couple who stayed there. A light emanated from the bathroom, a cell phone refused to work, and several figures were seen.

Room 8 is one the faint of heart might like to avoid. The ghost is thought to be that of a Civil War soldier. Only the torso appears, usually next to the bed. One brave guest touched the torso (clad in rough material) and the torso made a sound as of raspy breathing. Another guest claimed to have photographed the torso when aiming her camera up at the room window from the courtyard.

Happy hauntings, everyone.

The Feathers Hotel, Ludlow, Shropshire, United Kingdom

According to the New York Times, The Feathers Hotel is "the most handsome inn in the world."

According to other sources, it's one of the most haunted buildings in the U.K.

The building was constructed in 1619 as a private residence (and what a residence!) by local attorney Rees Jones. After the English Civil War, Jones' son Thomas had it converted to an inn. In 1863, The Feathers Inn became The Feathers Hotel - ghosts and all.

- In one room, a man wearing old-fashioned clothing is seen sitting in the window, a dog at his feet.

- An employee, when cleaning a lounge late at night, would hear his named called. He was the only staff member working, each time.

- Footsteps have been heard in the Prince Charles Suite.

- A couple who stayed in Room 212 were unable to remain in the room. The husband left after three hours; the two never said what had happened, but another woman claimed that King Henry VIII was there.

- A woman was pulled out of her bed, by her hair, in the middle of the night. Her husband merely felt someone stroking his face.

- The man with the dog has been seen walking through one of the rooms (in an extension to the hotel, built in the 1950s) and disappearing through the wall.

- A woman has been seen outside the hotel, crossing the street and walking through a parked car. In this case, it is believed that the apparition is that of a living woman - she is wearing the clothing of the 1960s - and that the woman in question is well aware of the appearances.

St. James Hotel, Cimarron, New Mexico, United States

Gambler T.J. Wright is one of the permanent guests at the St. James Hotel. Evidently, the gambler was shot at the door to his room, then staggered inside to die. To this day, the room is not rented overnight, and few people enter even for a few hours.

Chef Henri Lambert and his wife opened a saloon in 1872, during the wild-and-rowdy days of the Old West. Cowboys riddled the ceiling with bullet holes, sometimes from fighting, and sometimes from just high spirits.  In all, twenty-six  people - including T.J. Wright - died at the St. James, which soon became a place to stay as well as to drink and gamble.

Lawman Wyatt Earp and his brothers were guests at the hotel as they traveled west to the infamous town of Tombstone. Authors Zane Grey and Lew Wallace also enjoyed the hotel's hospitality. Outlaws Jesse James and Billy the Kid were two of the more notorious guests.

Mary and Johnnie Lambert are two benign ghosts. Johnnie, the son of the owners, died as the result of an accident in the hotel when he was three years old. He plays with the ghosts of two older girls who died in the hotel; they are supervised by Mary, Johnnie's mother.

The ghost of Wright has been seen in mirrors, and has been caught on videotape.

Then there is Melissa, who in life used to "entertain" in the hotel after Mary had gone to bed. Melissa brought her "gentlemen callers" up an exterior staircase. She has made her presence known to male guests, by touching them and/or sitting or lying on their beds.

Remember: Room 18 is not available to rent. 

Geiser Grand Hotel, Baker City, Oregon, USA

The Geiser Grand Hotel is one of the most impressive buildings in Baker City. It was built in 1889, when Baker City was a mining town. Two local men, Jake and Harry Warshauer, built the hotel on the site of the county's first schoolhouse; the cost ran high into the tens of thousands of dollars, a great deal for the time. It was indeed elegant, with almost one hundred rooms, electric lighting, and the third elevator west of the Mississippi. A few years later, the hotel was bought by John Geiser, along with his son, Albert; they changed the name from the Warshauer Hotel to the Geiser Grand Hotel.

The hotel's glory days didn't last long; the Depression hit hard, as did World War II. Finally, in 1968, the hotel closed and spent more than twenty years empty, its condition worsening with each passing year.

In 1993, Dwight and Barbara Sidway - no strangers to renovating hotels - purchased the building. They spent five years and a great deal of work and money on the restoration, and finally, the hotel was open for business once again.

Guests on the second and third floors have been known to complain about the party on the third floor. Upon investigation, nothing is to be found; the party ceases abruptly. The ghostly guests, though, have sometimes been seen on the balcony, apparently checking out the diners in the restaurant below.

Kitchen and bar staff have reported watching items move before their eyes, and beer taps activating with no visible cause.

Not long after the hotel's grand reopening, a maid checking the rooms found the bed in the Cupola Suite thoroughly unmade; pillows thrown everywhere, bedding pulled out, curtains twisted. The lock on the room also malfunctions frequently, and more than one guest has experienced the sensation of a perfume-wearing female ghost sitting next to them on the bed.

The Lady in Blue has been seen ascending the hotel's main staircase. When she reaches the top of the stairs, she disappears into the wall.

Takayoshi Nakayama, a director for the Japanese supernatural TV show Unbelievable, filmed a show at the Geiser Grand Hotel. He and his crew captured, on tape, a glass moving with no one nearby. More startling, when Nakayama returned to Japan, his three-year-old son began to laugh and talk to someone his parents couldn't see. The episode featuring the Grand Hotel was one of the most-viewed in the show's history, and Nakayama returned in September of 2010 for another episode.

Ghost hunters will be pleased to learn that the hotel offers occasional ghost hunts, as well as ghost tours encompassing the hotel and other haunted buildings of Baker City.


 

Haunted Stone Lion Inn, Guthrie, Oklahoma, USA

The Haunted Stone Lion Inn is a 1907 house that was once the residence of a large family, the Houghtons. They needed it; they had twelve children to raise.

One of the children, Augusta, would never live to adulthood, however. At the age of eight, she caught whooping cough. This may not, though, have been the cause of her death; in those days, cough syrup was a strong concoction with codeine and opium. The general belief is that Augusta was given an accidental overdose.

The third floor is where most of the ghostly activity is experienced. The Houghton children kept their toys up there, and often played with them between the hours of 10 p.m. and midnight - which is, now, the time when most of the noise is heard upstairs.

The inn is strictly nonsmoking, but sometimes, the smell of a cigar is noticed, and at times, even smoke in the air - with no visible source. An earlier guest at the inn, perhaps?

Larian Motel, Tombstone, Arizona, United States

Tombstone is one of the most haunted cities in the United States, and the Larian Motel, located in the historic district, fits right in.

Though the motel is distinctly modern, having been built in the 1950s, it is only a block from the famous O.K. Corral, and occupies land that once housed a general store and a gun store, among other businesses.

Rooms 1 through 4 are the most haunted; twin sisters once experienced an eerie feeling in the Doc Holliday room, which is Number 3. Doc Holliday died with his boots off, succumbing to tuberculosis, but Room 3 keeps his name alive and well. The sisters woke at exactly the same time on their first night, 12:30 a.m., feeling that someone else was in the room with them. They were unable to sleep for the rest of the night.

Whoever, or whatever, haunts Room 3 likes to play with the guests' belongings. One man put his glasses on a table, then could not find them just a minute later. Eventually, he gave up and went sightseeing. When he returned, the glasses were on the table where he had put them.

Old-fashioned music with no source has been heard, and the image of a man has been sensed - but not the image of a 19th-century outlaw; this man has the look of a tourist of the 1950s or '60s. An exceptionally satisfied customer of the motel?