Having a ghostly experience onboard the RMS Queen Mary is a special initiation into Los Angeles. It’s like witnessing Angelyne’s pink Corvette, not panicking during your first earthquake, or maintaining your pride as an actor. I’ve heard all the stories. A dead little girl in the swimming pool. A sailor crushed in ‘Doorway 13.’ Hell, I’ve even met a former cashier of the gift shop who now refuses to step onboard.

But let’s face it. You don’t believe these stories. I can tell. After all, who the hell am I? Well, for one thing, I’m a former skeptic. A former staunch skeptic. People would tell me firsthand accounts of the supernatural, and I’d say, “Oh crazy. How spooky”, but it didn’t happen to me, so I didn’t give it much credit. You still have to be a decent human to the weirdos. But in the back of your mind, you know better. People believe what they want to. If something doesn’t happen specifically to you- you’ll probably stay naysayer. Unless, of course, you believe in such things already…

That said, I know I can’t persuade the nonbelievers. That’s futile. But I know what I saw and how I felt. Nothing short of a Queen Mary employee admitting their prank is going to change my mind.

It starts in autumn, 2013. My girlfriend and I are about to hit our two-year anniversary, and to celebrate, we think it’d be fun to explore the historic ship. Why not? We’ve never been before. They offer a package of three different walking tours. We sign onto the haunted one for kicks. This is recommended to us by a friend. She, too, witnessed strange things onboard. One instance involved the distinct feeling of someone holding her hand as it dangled idly by her side. More on that later.

To be honest, nothing odd happens during 95% of our tour. It’s spooky, sure, but the ghost stories are more interesting than bone-chilling. However, once we arrive at Cabin B340, things get interesting.

As a bit of exposition, B340 is supposedly one of the more haunted spots onboard. The Queen Mary is still a functioning hotel, but they’ve since discontinued letting guests stay in this particular room for reasons known only to them. Presumably, because it’s scary as shit and you might die. They’ve even removed its number placard from the hallway so you’d walk right past.

Instantly, upon walking into B340, I feel something bizarre. As I’ve stated before, I’m a hard skeptic at the time. I don’t lend myself to the spiritual nature of life beyond science whatsoever. But when I enter that cabin, I feel instantly strange. The word I use in the moment is ‘oppressed.’ It feels like walking into a high school cafeteria filled with people who despise me. A dark cloud suffocates my mood. My intuition screams, ‘You should NOT be here.’ I’ve never felt this way before (not in any other parts of the ship), and to this day, I have not since. It’s just WEIRD.

As the guide walks us around B340, I tolerate the feeling. I then notice a trail of ants just above the baseboard of the wall. The odd thing is, once these ants reach the exact center, they scatter. They go from a straight regimented line to complete chaos, mid-wall, for no apparent reason. This is unusual in and of itself, but especially because we’re on a ship. The Queen Mary sits in the waters of Long Beach. You cross a gangplank to board. Also, the cabin, far from any of the onboard restaurants, is practically barren. Wherever these ants are headed is beyond me.

‘But whatever,’ I think. ‘There’s probably a reasonable explanation.’

The tour ends, but we have dinner reservations in an hour. We kill some time walking around, but soon my girlfriend suggests revisiting our favorite places. I humor her, we retrace our steps, but nothing happens. We then set out to find B340. It’s a challenge because of that missing placard, but when we do finally find it, my girlfriend swears that she can hear someone inside. I do too, but am slower to accuse a ghost. I know the tour guide mentioned keeping the door locked because of ghost-hunting weirdos in the past, and even witnessed him doing so after we walked out, but damn it, we can both hear shuffling. Objects are moved. There’s this guttural grunting cough like someone is trying to clear their throat but can’t. Instantly I think, ‘Well, it’s a ship. Noises come from all over.’ My girlfriend doesn’t agree. She’s officially creeped out. We walk away.

The sun goes down. Our reservation is now in twenty minutes. Still, something about that room calls to us. I figure there’s someone inside it. Maybe they hire a guy to sit there and scare chumps like us. We decide to go back, but stay quiet this time. That way, nobody inside will hear us. Just as before, no one else is in the long main corridor (a picture of this hallway is above). We’re completely alone, just like last time. Again we hear noises inside. Not constant, just every so often. Because each cabin is down a narrow hallway off the main corridor, you can see under the doors and whether or not the lights are on. Room B340 is pitch black.

As a joke, I whisper, “Go put you ear on the door” to my girlfriend. She adamantly refuses, but dares me to instead. I figure, ah what the hell, and take one single step forward, when all of a sudden, the door knob of the room goes absolutely CRAZY. I’m talking spastic. Someone isn’t just trying to use this door, someone is frantically trying to force it open like there’s a goddamn fire. It pounds against the jamb. The knob shakes so hard, it doesn’t seem strong enough to hold. And if it hadn’t been EXACTLY when I stepped forward, it maybe wouldn’t have scared me so much. But we both saw it, and we both RAN. I kept checking over my shoulder hoping to see someone, anyone, a janitor or something, come walking out. But no. No one ever did.

Deep down, I don’t want to say it was a ghost. My inner scientist hates that it’s even implied. But whatever it was, I again felt that same ineffable oppression of when I was inside, noticing those ants. It felt like a direct warning.

Since then, I’ve scoured the Internet looking for people with similar stories. I figure, if this door thing is a repeated instance, maybe it’s a gag onboard to attract more visitors. I’ve found nothing. Not on Google. Not on Yelp. Not on any travel sites. Nothing about that door. It’s worth mentioning that the general vibe of the Queen Mary is family-friendly. It’s quaint like a museum, not at all cheesy and cheap. Also, each time we walked by B340, we were the only two people nearby. The placard is missing. They don’t want you loitering, and certainly don’t make a spectacle of it. Call me naive, but they don’t seem like the type of company to pay someone to sit in absolute darkness, scaring an average of two people per half hour.

At least, I’d like to believe they wouldn’t…

Oh, and remember that friend who swore she had her hand held? Well, during our haunted tour, someone asked the guide (a practicing medium) how he could tell a ghost was present. He said it depends, but that he feels the little dead girl because she likes to hold hands. When I related this back to my friend, I thought she was going to faint.

Ah see! I knew it! You may shiver, but you still don’t believe me. You’re disappointed. Visit the Queen Mary yourself. Go on a skeptic, maybe come off a believer. Just have your anniversary dinner before the ghost-hunting. Otherwise, you’ll sit in silence, staring at your third beer and wondering if everything in this existence is a lie.