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Ghosthunting Southern California
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EXCERPTS
Star of India
When my husband and I were courting -- he lived in San Diego and I lived in Las Vegas -- we had our favorite places in each other's cities in which we hung out. We'd go out to Red Rock Canyon in Vegas and the San Diego Harbor when I visited California. When I flew in on Friday nights, we'd have dinner at one of the harbor restaurants then stroll over to the promenade where the San Diego Maritime Museum's (SDMM) armada of ships, boats and submarines are anchored.
The Star of India is the oldest active ship in the world and a California state and national historic landmark. It's difficult to imagine, but when she was conceived horses were the main method of transport. The once state-of-the-art beauty has survived many eras of technical achievement. Boarding her now, one can easily imagine the absolute freedom of travel ships once provided. She's everything and more, but there's just something unsettling about the antediluvian artifact from the mid-1800s that gives me chicken-skin when I pass her berth on a dark night.
When I moved to San Diego, we joined the SDMM and I also found a great many Meetup.com groups to meet new friends with similar interests. I joined the San Diego Ghost and Paranormal Group (SDGAP), and found Dave Hanson, Leader of SDGAP -- a great resource for this Southern California paranormal neophyte. SDGAP is also where I met several people who became core members of my own paranormal investigation team, Roadside Paranormal, and the backbone of Ghosts Happen.
Hanson is known as an expert on historic and modern ships and a man who clearly loves being on the sea. The ship's history is amazing, and if you learn it, it will help you understand what spirits may be walking her wooden planks for eternity.
The Star of India is a full-rigged iron windjammer ship built in the small city of Ramsey (pop. currently 7,309), The Isle of Man on the Irish Sea. In 1863, the ship was first christened Euterpe, the Greek Muse of music and poetry, by Lillian, the whimsical and well-read wife of Captain R. H. Brown, one of the ship's shareholders. No expense was spared when building her, as Ramsey and the investment company's shareholders were trying to establish a reputation for building large, quality iron ships.
On November 21, 1863 (historically speaking, two days after Lincoln had given the historical Gettysburg Address), there was a substantial luncheon with tables set for sixty. Great celebration was had as the 202-foot ship glided off the blocks she'd been built upon and surged into the harbor. A promising life's journey seemed to stretch all the way to the glistening horizon for the stunning Euterpe, but it wasn't long before a curse took over her future.
The Star of India has had several reincarnations, mainly because she's been on the sea for nearly 150 years and the lifetime of a company proved much shorter than those of the boats they built and purchased. During her first three decades as Euterpe, she navigated twenty-one round-the-world trips.
She began her new career sailing to India with Captain William John Storry who collided her into a brig off St. David's Head. Later that trip, members of the crew refused to work unless the ship was docked for repairs (more likely, the men had lost faith in Storry's ability to lead and wanted to jump ship). The situation soon turned into a mutiny. Storry docked, and had the magistrates jail seventeen of the thirty crewmen. The men were sentenced to two weeks of hard time to set an example, and the ship left the dock with a more cooperative crew. She was repaired at sea and her goods delivered to meet the captain's slip time.
During her next trip, also led by Storry, she was thrown by a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. Suffering substantial damage, the ship made it back to port for expensive repairs. She made four more passages to India as a cargo ship for her shareholders, and even outlived Storry...buried at sea from her deck. Then, with the death of her captain and her sale to a new company, her luck seemed to change.
The Shaw, Savill & Co. saw the ship's potential and purchased the Euterpe in 1871. She spent the next quarter of a century transporting immigrants to New Zealand, Australia, Chile and California. The long journeys were rough on crew and passengers, and often included burials at sea.
In 1897, she was acquired by the Pacific Colonial Ship Company of San Francisco and sent on voyages from the Pacific Northwest to Hawaii and Australia transporting sugar, coal and timber.
The Alaska Packers' Association, San Francisco, purchased her in 1906 and changed her name to the Star of India. She was one of the association's six iron ships and carried fisherman, cannery workers, coal, canned salmon, supplies and equipment from Alameda, California, to Nushagak, Central Alaska. As the Star of India, she spent the next twenty-three years going to and fro from Alaska to California. A slump in salmon sales proved fatal for the fleet and she spent much of her later years docked. Steam power became favored over wind, then petrol propelled engines become the standard. The Star of India became obsolete. Without the wind in her sails and the waves under her bow she fell quickly into disrepair.
Jerry MacMullen, a San Diego waterfront reporter and visionary and a group of investors purchased the ship in 1926 for $9,000. The Zoological Society of San Diego became involved and planned to turn the ship into an aquarium...that didn't work out. The idea of a ship museum for nautical artifacts of the ship's era came to mind when one of the Star of India's rooms became a dedicated library used by MacMullen. He stored the books there he bought for the sole purpose of learning how to make the ship sea-worthy again (it had been towed to San Diego from Alameda). During the course of the Star of India's resurrection, MacMullen, enamored with the ship, wrote his own book about her -- Star of India: Log on an Iron Ship (Howell-North, 1961).
Money became tight in WWII and plans of raising funds for the ship's repair failed miserably. The Star of India was again mostly forgotten and became MacMullen's pet project until 1956 when the Star of India Auxiliary formed and attracted funds for the old ship's restoration. MacMullen lived to see her become the crown jewel she is today before he passed in 1981.
Knowing a location's background is key in determining the candidates for a haunting. Perhaps the ship's ghost is Jerry McMullen himself, protecting her from harm, as he did during a good deal of his lifetime. There are the others -- Storry, the captain who died onboard during his service when she was the Euterpe. The immigrants and crew who didn't complete their journey because of illness or accident are good nominees for tormented spirits, and even a child who perished because of dehydration could be a prime aspirant.
"The ship has had quite a few deaths onboard over the course of her long career," says Hanson about the Star of India's darker past. "I work at another historic ship museum, and from what I can tell most all of the vintage ships of any size are haunted in some form or another. They vary in the amounts of paranormal activity...from residual hauntings -- non-conscious psychic imprints and ghosts -- to earthbound spirits that have crossed over, but decided to return to stay or visit for one reason or another. There is something about having moving water underneath the keel that seems to provide more energy for the ghosts to physically manifest, or otherwise make their presence known."
There is a theory about the negative ions produced by the ocean (see Negative Ion Spotlight) acting as a feeding trough for spirits who need this kind of high-level energy to manifest. Other than high negative ion count, why are ships haunted?
"Ships typically experience a number of deaths onboard," explains Hanson. "Unlike a home, deaths occurring on ships were, for the most part, unexpected and sometimes quite violent."
A violent, sometimes quick death, has a way of manifesting a spirit that may not even realize it no longer has a physical body. If you put yourself into that situation, I imagine you can feel how frustrating that would feel.
During an investigation on the Star of India with SDGAP, our group split into three smaller groups, one group for each of the ship's decks. Beginning at 9 pm, each group spent an hour or so on each deck, then switched decks until all three groups had an opportunity to investigate each deck. As a medium, I noticed quite a bit of energy around us on the ship, but trying to capture it on electronic devices proved difficult. We did hear unexplained footsteps, but it was difficult to get a bead on where they were coming from. The K-2 picked up some activity. I had several hits on the mid-level of the ship when I asked questions.
"Are you with us?" (light at 5), Yes.
"Can you leave here?" (Confused responses)
"Are there more than one of you?" (light at 5), Yes.
"Can some of you leave?" (light at 5), Yes.
"Are there some of you that can't leave?" (light at 5), Yes.
"Are you dead?" No lights.
"Are you hurt?" No lights.
"Were you a passenger on the boat?" Confused responses.
"Were you a crewman?" Confused responses.
"Are you thirsty?" (light at 5), Yes.
"Can you see me?" (light at 5), Yes.
Then the device became unresponsive.
Trying to record EVPs, we thought someone was knocking in response to our questions, but it was just the pistol shrimp snapping their claws closed and making loud sounds. In the lower decks you can hear the shrimp going all night long.
As far as collecting uncontaminated EVP's on the ship -- good luck! Chances are you will hear street noise the entire time, as the harbor is packed well into the early AM with rabble-rousers and drunks. You're also right next to an airport. Your best chance is conducting investigations on a weeknight.
During my investigation with SDGAP, the ship had an elaborate pirate exhibit on display so there were pirate mannequins everywhere, which made for a surreal lights-out investigation. There were places on the ship where I experienced a deep feeling of despair and I credit that feeling to the people who died onboard, as much of it is residual energy. In some areas of the ship EMFs were relatively high, which made using a meter nearly useless. EMF could have contributed to some of my own morose feelings I experienced on the ship on the lower decks. I also felt several entities watching us, but dodging contact.
These incidents I credit to "shadow people" (see Shadow People Spotlight). I don't believe any entities on the Star of India have malevolent intentions, but are instead, simply observing us. I had two episodes on the 'tween deck near the bow in which I felt someone poke me in the ribs and neck, although no one was close enough to me to have done so.
Hanson has conducted several investigations aboard the ship and he's encountered some unique experiences working with a medium on his team. "I've heard some unexplained sounds, but not gotten anything definitive on any of my instruments," says Hanson of not being able to catch physical evidence on the Star. "I've been present when mediums in the group have reported that a spirit is trying to communicate with me, but as I'm not very sensitive to such things, I could only take their word for it.
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