The RMS Queen Mary launched in 1936 and was the largest ship in the world. It was decommissioned in 1967 and is now permanently docked at Long Beach in California.

In it's hay-day it carried its fair share of celebrities, artists and politicians, which included the likes of the Kennedy's and Elizabeth Taylor. It also ferried soldiers during World War 2, but today it is more of a tourist attraction and a hotel.

With its history comes a lot of paranormal activity and stories about ghosts aboard the RMS Queen Mary it attracts many ghost hunters, and today we are going to look at some of these stories!

Little Jackie

Jackie is the spirit of a young girl that has been seen the most. She is known for her lively exchanges and answering questions. She has also left wet footprints on the poolside.

Her full name was Jacqueline Torin and she was around 5 or 6 years old when she was believed to have drowned in the second class pool. 

She likes to play in the pool area which is now the Royal Theatre. Jackie has been wandering the ship for 60 years and can be heard singing, laughing and calling for her parents.

Sarah

Sarah is another young girl that drowned on the Queen Mary. She also drowned around 1949 and is believed to protect Jackie. She has been heard singing with Jackie and can be quite aggressive. 

It's also believed the two girls were actually murdered by another ghost on the ship by the name of Grumpy.

Grumpy

Grumpy the Growling Ghost got the name because they have the strange habit of growling at people in their presence. Their true identity is unknown and he can be found in the pool area, but he has been heard in the boiler room. The smell of cigarette smoke has been reported too.

Image credit: David Jones @ Flickr

Dana

Dana was a young woman that was on the ship with her family. Unfortunately, she was murdered along with the rest of her family in their room. 

The murder took place in room B-474 and she was found in the bathroom with a gunshot wound. Her mother and sister were found strangled in the room too. She has been heard calling for her mother and sometimes found with the children at the pool.

The Lady in White

She loves to dance to music that nobody else can hear in the Queen's Salon. She wears a white gown as her name suggests, and she has been witnessed floating in the lobby where she entered an elevator and disappeared.

There is also photographic proof of The Lady in White, and you can see it here.

John Pedder

John was an 18-year-old member of the crew that was crushed to death in the shaft alley at door 13. He was playing a game of chicken with a colleague when the accident happened. It is a very popular place for ghost hunters to visit, and they say he leaves greasy handprints in the places he roams in. 

Final Thoughts

I can believe that there may be spirits on the Queen Mary due to its long history. I researched this quite a bit and the stories can be upsetting, but there is not much information on the people they believe still haunt the ship.

I did find a brilliant website full of information, and there is one website full of EVP evidence. I have spent some time listening, but if you are interested you can find it here.

What are your thoughts on the hauntings? Do you believe the stories or are you sceptical? Let me know in the comments! 

The plantation was built in 1796 in Lousiana by General David Bradford, also known as "Whiskey David". A nickname he got due to his role in the Whiskey Rebellion. Originally the plantation was called Laurel Grove, and David lived alone for years until his family joined him after he was pardoned for his part in the Whiskey Rebellion.

Myrtles Plantation is a large house built in the traditional Creole-cottage style with 22 rooms across 2 floors, and it is surrounded by 600 acres of land. 

Throughout its history, Myrtles Plantation has survived the American Civil War, been through multiple ownership changes, became a bed and breakfast, and also then a tourist attraction as the Most Haunted House in America. It's also allegedly haunted by 12 ghosts, and today I am going to share some of the stories with you guys!

Image credit: Wikipedia/Bogdan Oporowski

The Legend of Chloe

The legend of Chloe is the most well known of the ghost stories told about Myrtles Plantation. Chloe was a servant for Sara and Clark Woodruff. The story tells the tale of Clark forcing Chloe into being his mistress. One day Chloe is caught eavesdropping on private conversations and as a punishment, one of her ears was removed and she began wearing a green turban.

Chloe decided to get revenge on the family and baked a cake laced with oleander leaves. Some believe that Chloe planned to nurse the sick back to health to regain her position in the family. However, if that was her plan it didn't work. After eating the cake Sara and two of her children passed away.

Chloe was then captured by the other slaves at the plantation and hung. They then dumped her body into the Mississippi River, possibly to avoid punishment themselves.

The story is sad but there is no actual proof that any of it happened. There is no record of the Woodruffs owning a slave called Chloe or Cloe, nor is there proof that Sara and her children died of poisoning. They all died after contracting yellow fever.

Regardless of there being no evidence to support this tale, people still believe a woman wearing a green turban wanders the plantation grounds.

The Haunted Mirror

Mirrors were usually covered in homes following a death, this was so the deceased's image didn't get trapped inside the mirror. However, there is one mirror in the plantation that appears to have been overlooked. It is said to hold the spirits of Sara and her 2 children. People have reported seeing them and their handprints in the mirror. 

Ghost Girl

A young girl has been seen at the plantation and is said to be the ghost of a young girl that died at the hands of a voodoo doctor in 1868. Legend has it that she appears in the room that she died in and practices voodoo on anybody staying there.

The Ghost of William Drew Winter

William Drew Winter is the only confirmed death to take place at the plantation. William was shot dead by a stranger on the front porch. Unfortunately, he only made it to the 17th step before he passed away. People say that his ghostly steps can still be heard and that they stop when they reach the 17th step.

Image credit: Mr Jason Hayes/Flickr

The Union Soldiers and Other Stories

The house is allegedly built on an Indian burial ground and visitors have reported seeing a young Native American Woman on the grounds. 

During the Civil War, the Plantation was looted of anything valuable, and one story is that it was robbed by Union Soldiers. As they were stealing from the plantation it's told that 3 of them were killed inside the house. 

There is also allegedly a bloodstain in the doorway of the Plantation that is roughly the size of a body. After many attempts to remove the stain, it would not budge.

Final Thoughts

Myrtles Plantation has been standing since 1796 and has been owned by many different people over the years. I honestly think a building with this much history could be haunted. I know there is proof of only one murder taking place, but I think that a lot of the stories could be true. 

What do you think? Do you believe in ghosts? Let me know down in the comments! Thank you for reading. 

The Silent Twins

June and Jennifer Gibbons were born on the 11th of April 1963. They were identical twins born in Aden in the Middle East to parents Gloria and Aubrey Gibbons. They moved to the UK with their family and lived in a small town in Wales.

Their Childhood

When the girls were young they would only communicate with each other and their younger sister Rose. They both had a speech impediment and were late speakers which made them hard to understand. This frustrated them so much they decided not to speak at all and it soon became a habit.

The twins were bullied relentlessly at school for being the only black children there, so the teachers started dismissing them 5 minutes early to avoid the bullies. The more they were bullied the less they spoke. This resulted in their speech becoming practically unintelligible to others, they became emotionless, and they would mirror each other's movements. For example, their walking would be synchronised, they would walk with their heads down, and whenever a person looked at them they would stop and only continue when they looked away.

This phenomenon is seen in twins a lot and is called Cryptophasia which means secret speech in Greek. It refers to the private languages used by children - especially twins - and is also known as twin talk or twin speak. Cryptophasia also includes mirrored actions and identical mannerisms.

Adolescence

At the age of 14, the girls were sent to different boarding schools in an effort to get them speaking to other people. Therapists had tried with no success and their parents felt this would help them out of their shells. However, when they were apart they became catatonic.

This only ended when the twins were reunited but they began to isolate themselves further and spent a lot of time in their room with Rose. They spent years together in their room creating plays with their dolls, giving them names, and even documenting their deaths. Eventually, they stopped talking to Rose when she got her own room.

One Christmas they were given matching red diaries and started writing. After studying a creative writing course together they went on to write several novels.

June wrote a story called Pepsi-Cola Addict that was set in an American high school about a teenager being seduced by a teacher. Jennifer wrote a novel called The Pugilist, a story about a physician that kills the family dog to use it's heart in a transplant to save their child's life. As you can see their novels were a bit on the strange side but they also wrote plays and short stories. 

As time went on the twins started to exhibit darker behaviour towards each other. On several occasions, they would fight and become extremely violent. Their fights would include scratching and strangling each other, and during one incident June tried to drown Jennifer. They both wrote regularly about their love-hate relationship in their diaries.

"Nobody suffers the way I do, not with a sister; with a husband, yes; with a wife, yes; with a child, yes, but this sister of mine, a dark shadow robbing me of sunlight, is my one and only torment."

In their teens, they met a couple of American boys and started to go out a lot. They would dabble in drinking alcohol, having sex, and experimenting with marijuana. They did this because it helped them relax and they would talk and laugh more. When the boys told them they were leaving they started to commit petty crimes like shoplifting, which slowly escalated to setting fires to buildings and vandalism. As a result of their behaviour, they were sent to Broadmoor Hospital at the age of 19.

Life at Broadmoor Hospital

Broadmoor Hospital. Credit: Andrew Smith

When they arrived at Broadmoor they wouldn't talk to anyone, so they were given tranquillisers weekly to help them communicate with people. They were kept separated and would only communicate by writing to each other. When they tried to room the twins together it resulted in fighting and they would have to be separated again. June admitted that after the fighting they still loved each other, and they would be upset when they were split up again.

Even though the twins had been talking to others they were not released, and they spent a total of 12 years at Broadmoor. It wasn't until March 9th 1993 that the twins would be transferred to a lower security facility called Caswell Clinic. Allegedly before their transfer, Jennifer announced during a visit that the twins had decided she was going to die. 

While they were being transferred Jennifer said she felt unwell and she fell into what was described as a trance. When they arrived at Caswell Clinic she collapsed. Jennifer died in her sister's lap at only 29 years old. Her cause of death was sudden inflammation of the heart muscle. Her death is classed as a mystery as she was in good health at the time of her death, and no drugs or other substances were found in her system.

June was understandably grief-stricken by the death of her sister and wrote poems about her loss. However, it was reported that she also admitted feeling a sweet release. June wrote in her diary the night of her sister's death saying:

“Today my beloved twin sister Jennifer died. She is dead. Her heart stopped beating. She will never recognise me. Mom and Dad came to see her body. I kissed her stone-coloured face. I went hysterical with grief.”

June was released from Caswell Clinic a year after Jennifer's death and is now able to talk normally. She pursued her dreams of becoming a writer but unfortunately, it never took off. She now lives a quiet life close to her family in Wales. She visits her sisters grave regularly and wrote the following poem for her headstone:

"We once were two

We two made one

We no more two

Through life be one

Rest in peace"

The story of the 'Silent Twins' is commonly referred to as odd or creepy. Personally, I think it's a sad story about two sisters that struggled a lot from a young age with bullying and racism. Unfortunately, their relationship was unhealthy and would fluctuate between a deep love for one another and violent hatred.

Have you ever heard of the Silent Twins before? What is your opinion on their story? Please share below in the comments.