10 Most Disturbing Ghost Stories From The Haunted Queen Mary Ship

6. Portals To Other Worlds

Uhh, what? We know, 'portals to other worlds' may sound straight out of an '80s horror movie, but there have been multiple accounts on the Queen Mary of “vortexes” — small spots on the ship that emit spectral energy. They are thought to be the spaces where the spirit world connects to the human world — where the ghosts come from back to our world. Spooky stuff.

One of these vortexes is in the ship’s boiler room, around where the remains of a worker named “John Henry” were once found. Alongside supposed apparitions of Henry, a spot has been felt around the boiler room’s entrance, adjacent to the ship’s Green Room, where spiritual energy is highest. Another of these vortexes is said to be in the pool’s dressing boxes — one of the most untouched, original areas of the Mary; a medium identified these boxes as being the “centre of spiritual energy on the ship”. Not what you want to be feeling while you’re getting changed.

But that isn’t the only meaning of the term “vortex” upon the Grey Ghost. Bill Sauder, the employee who spotted a ghost by the pool, experienced what he described as being pulled back in time. Once, as he zoned out waiting for a tour to pass through the ship, he was suddenly transported back to 1966 — to the end of the Queen Mary’s life of service. While before he had been in the sunset of California, he was suddenly in the middle of winter, with snow on the deck, in New York.

Sauder describes feeling the depression surrounding the crew; the Mary was retired in ‘66, and the crew around him knew they would be losing their jobs. The experience was over in a flash, and Sauder found himself back in California, watching the last tour of the day moving up the ship to greet him. He has no explanation for the event, but swears it was true.

Is the Queen Mary the new TARDIS… ?