020 - USS Salem

​We heard a sound coming from down the hallway as we got closer, we saw what looked like the shadow of a person. Ducking into the doorway of a small room. As we approached the room, we knew it wasn't another investigator because the room was off. Limits blocked with a chain. So we asked out loud if anyone was in there and the answer we got wasn't a voice. And it certainly wasn't something you would expect to hear on a decommissioned naval ship. It was more like a grawl. I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story. One of the best parts of being a paranormal investigator that sometimes goes underappreciated is the time you get to spend at historic landmarks. During my time with rise up Paranormal, we've had the pleasure of investigating dozens and dozens of nationally recognized historic. Places everything from historic homes, museums, theaters, castles, lighthouses and on one occasion. A US naval ship? The USS Salem is a decommissioned heavy cruiser that served 10 years in the US Navy. It serves as a floating museum now in Quincy, MA and has long held rumors of haunted activities. It's been investigated by many paranormal groups, including some from the TV shows. And one night back in 2012. Rise up Paranormal had an opportunity to have the entire ship to ourselves for an overnight investigation. The USS Salem was built just after World War Two and served a distinguished career as the flagship of the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and in the Second fleet in the Atlantic. She never fought in. Any battles, but she did serve during the. Start of the cold. War being used often as a symbol of diplomacy. Hosting many ambassadors and leaders from the US and other countries. Now, that's not to say the Salem couldn't have. Held her own in. Battle the heavy cruiser was equipped with three of the world's first triple turret automatic 8 inch guns that could shoot 55 caliber armor piercing projectiles at high capacity. She also had 12/5 inch 38 caliber gun mounts on deck and 23 inch anti aircraft guns. Despite never engaging in any wars or battles, the ship was home to many sailors throughout 10 years below deck. The ship is a maze of rooms, hallways and compartments. Everything a crew needs from sleeping quarters to a mess hall activities areas, medical room, even a dentistry room. But today the USS Salem is a museum and most of the paranormal experiences have been reported in recent times by caretakers and visitors. There's no history of any soldiers dying on the ship, but the ship did reportedly store the bodies of casualties from an earthquake on the Ionian Islands in 1953, where the USS Salem served in a relief capacity. And it goes without saying that it's very possible some of the men who served on this ship had a strong attachment to it. Many of the claims on the ship are of shadows and apparitions. People have claimed to see ghosts of workers on the ship in the engine rooms and of sailors in the mess hall in the living quarters. It was dusk when we arrived to the large parking lot just outside where the USS Salem is docked. We knew the ship was going to be large, but it was still overwhelming when we saw it up close, we were greeted by the caretaker who would be on site for us throughout the night if we needed anything and we all made our way up the gangplank to the ship. For a tour. He took us through the narrow hallways, small doorways, and in and out of small rooms with low ceilings. And we also got to see the mess hall, the map rooms, and many of the lower rooms which were now a museum with hundreds of historic naval and shipbuilding artifacts and information. After about an hour or so, we headed back outside and loaded our investigation equipment onto the ship. All hands were on deck for this investigation, no pun intended. We had probably 12 to 14 investigators with us all of rise up. Paranormal was there and a few guests from other investigative teams. And spirit medium Tiffany Rice, whom we'd worked with several times before. It wasn't a regular practice for us to work with mediums during investigations, and we were very picky about which ones we would work with. But every now and then. When it felt like the right time and the right place for it, we'd invite a medium like Tiffany along with us, just as another source of information and possibly direction. As you can imagine, it took a while to set up all the equipment. There were so many floors to investigate and the ship being like a maze, it was so easy to get lost or walk around in circles. But one good thing was with so much ground to cover, we could break into several different groups and all investigate at the same time. I started off in the museum on. The lower level. With a couple of other investigators, I didn't realize just how dark it would be walking around the inside of a ship at night. I literally couldn't see my hand in front of my face. We were all very dependent on our flashlights this night, plus most of the rooms were small. The ceilings were low and a lot of the doorways were just large Oval hatches that you had to step over to go. Plus there was that feeling of not knowing where you are or how to get out. I remember the entire night feeling very claustrophobic. The museum rooms were full of different displays and objects on the floors and the corners hanging from ceilings and in the middle of the room. You couldn't help but feel like they were shadows everywhere we were standing in one of the rooms doing an EVP session. One of the other investigators was asking questions and I was checking out the displays when out of the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like a person walking by in the next room. It was as if someone had just walked from right to left across the doorway. Now I knew we were the only ones down there, so. I went in with my flashlight to see. Who it was? When I first peered into the room. I couldn't see anyone just more displays and museum pieces. Then when I turned to my left, I saw a face and jumped back like 3 steps. When I shined my flashlight on it, I realized it was just a mannequin. There were a few mannequins in the museum area displaying naval uniforms and clothing from the era. However, the mannequin still didn't explain the shadow that I saw moving across the room. We heard many strange sounds while in the museum too. Lots of bangs and pings. It just felt like someone was in the room with us at times. Obviously being on a ship in water. There's going to be movement. And plenty of objects banging around, but. These sounds were different. We kept hearing what sounded like whispering too, but we could never figure out where it was coming from. And there was always these footsteps making noise in the rooms next to us or on the floors above us. There was just no shortage of activity on this ship. A little later on in the investigation, a large group of us were in one of the sleeping quarters. It was a large. Room with a bunch of metal. Bunk beds where sailors would sleep. I remember I was sitting on one of the bottom bunks with my audio recorder next to me, hoping to pick up some audio or spirits communicating with us. Some of the other investigators also had audio recorders and video recorders going, and someone had placed a K2 meter in the middle of the room. AK-2 meter is a small handheld device that can be used to detect electromagnetic fields or EMF. EMF's are all around us, but in some places these fields can be. Higher or lower. And it's believed that spirits somehow use the energy from EMF's to manifest in order to speak to make noise or to move. And some investigators believe that spirits can manipulate these EMF's in a room to make K2 devices light up. So we sometimes use these as a way to communicate with spirits. We'll ask yes or no questions and ask the spirit to light up the K2 meter once for yes and twice for no. But the thing about K2 meters and other devices is sometimes we rely a little too much on our tools and not enough on our own senses. As we were doing, the K2 meter session we were getting some interesting results. Someone would ask a question and the meter would light up, but other times it would light up when we weren't asking questions. Sometimes it would light up as we were asking questions. It almost felt as if there was more than one spirit trying to communicate with us. Eventually Spirit Medium Tiffany Rice joined us in the room. And the good thing about having a reliable medium with you is that sometimes you can find out information that will help you with your investigation more than any box with colorful lights on it can do. Here's Tiffany explaining what she experienced in the living quarters.
 
I remember walking down into. I believe it was the basement of the US of Salem and there were a bunch of people down there and they had all different pieces of equipment out and they were watching for some sort of communication. Something to happen, whether a light goes off or sound goes off. And when I got to the bottom of the stairs, I noticed that there were five men in spirit. There, so I started to converse with them and I started to ask questions and immediately I was shunned. By the group. The group was like what what? Are you doing stopped? Like that we are paying attention to the devices. The devices are working. We don't understand why you're asking questions, so I had to actually explain myself to them and say, well, I'm a spirit medium. I communicate with people that have passed. I thought what better way than bring the emotional side to these. Thoughts and ideas? And so it brought in another piece of the puzzle, so we're not just looking at devices, but we're actually using our own body as a radar so we can communicate with spirit.
 
So as it turned out, we had at least five spirits in the room with us. And with the help of Tiffany, we were able to determine that they were sailors who once served on the ship and that they were wondering what we were doing there. While devices are great for sometimes picking up on yes or no questions, Tiffany was able to at least get a feeling for the mood of the spirits and what their feelings were. Thankfully, they seem to be OK with us being there. It was a long night on the ship. Everyone was tired. It must have been two in the morning when myself and another investigator decided to go out on one more quick investigation before wrapping up for the night. We went down a level or two and was just roaming some of the hallways when we heard what sounded like a metal door closing, so we headed down. The hallway to check it out. That's when we could hear what sounded like footsteps just ahead of us. So we would stop walking. We'd hear a few of those footsteps and then they would stop. So we would walk a little further. And then we'd hear the footsteps again, so we'd stop again. The footsteps would go a. Few more in stop 2. It was almost as if something was playing a. Game with us. Suddenly we heard a bang and out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow darting down the hallway. It was tall, it moved quickly away from us. So we quickly followed it down the hallway and ended up at the doorway to one of. The engine rooms. Now this room was closed off to visitors and had a big chain going across the doorway. And out of respect to the USS Salem, we decided not to go in the room. But we stood outside the doorway shining our flashlights, looking to see if anyone was in there. The room was filled with lots of machinery. There wasn't much room to hide in there. So we decided to sit in the doorway and do an EVP session, hoping maybe our recorders would catch a spirit voice on audio. I placed my recorder down on the floor on the other side of the doorway and started asking questions. We took our time. We would ask a question and then we would listen. Then we would ask another question and listen, and we kept hearing what sounded like breathing coming from the room. I was tempted to go in for a closer look, but I wanted to follow the rules so I stayed outside the doorway. We continued to ask questions and wait for responses, and during one of our moments of silence. We both heard something we never expected to hear on a Navy ship. Wasn't a knock or a footstep and it wasn't a voice. It was a grawl. But not like any animal I've ever heard before. Here's how it sounded on my audio recorder. Here it is again. We slowly backed away from the room not knowing what we had just heard, but both of. Us feeling like. It didn't want us there. If you'd like to learn more about the USS Salem, you can visit their website at usssalem.org. They have a museum that you can visit and they have overnight adventures and they even do some haunted activities around Halloween too. Thank you to Spirit Medium Tiffany Rice for contributing to this week's podcast. You can check out her website at tiffanyrice.com. And of course you can always visit my friends at rise up paranormal.com. I recently added a donate button on my website. Myparanormalstory.net because podcasts cost money and I really want to keep mine ad free. So if you enjoy my stories, please consider making a donation. Every little bit helps. My paranormal story is written, produced and narrated by me. Tom Stewart music from this episode, courtesy of [email protected]. My paranormal story is based on real life events experienced by me and put out new stories every Wednesday. So please subscribe or follow me for updates on Facebook or Instagram. Just search for my paranormal story and feel free to leave feedback or comments about any of my stories. You can also e-mail me at my paranormal. [email protected], thanks for listening. I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story.