RMS Queen Mary

The RMS Queen Mary sits permanently moored in Long Beach, California, a retired Cunard liner turned hotel. Deep in her machinery spaces, in a narrow corridor near the propeller shafts called Shaft Alley, there's a watertight door numbered 13. People keep seeing a young man pace the length of that corridor and vanish near the door.

The young man matches a fireman named John Pedder, who was 18 and had joined the crew only that March. On July 10, 1966, while the ship was crossing the Atlantic, Door 13 rolled shut during a drill — a slab of steel that closed horizontally on its own — and Pedder was caught inside it. He was crushed to death. According to accounts of the ship's log, it happened around 3:55 a.m., and he was found shortly after by a greaser named Cripps, with no one else present. The only mark on him was a trickle of blood from the nose.

The man people report near Door 13 matches him: young, bearded, in dark blue coveralls, walking the corridor before he disappears. One tour guide said she saw a darkly clad figure behind her as she rode the escalator up from the engine room, and later picked Pedder out of old photographs.

He isn't the only one said to have stayed. In the former first-class lounge, a woman in a white evening gown is reported dancing alone in a corner. And near one of the ship's pools, the staff keep a child spirit named Jackie — giggles, calls for her mother, a game of peek-a-boo. The ship leans into her; there's a "Jackie's Spirit Shoppe" on board.

But here's the thing about Jackie. Ship records show no child ever drowned in either pool. No death, no name, no family — she's a legend the Queen Mary sells tickets to.

Pedder is the one with a date on him. The ship still runs ghost tours past Door 13, the steel slab that closed on a teenager who'd been aboard four months.