The Spectral Tide: True Ghost Stories of the U.S. Navy

Now, for the first time, comes a long-overdue book that presents all of the U.S. Navy's rich cargo of paranormal phenomena. There is the great Stephen Decatur, whose mournful apparition still stalks the halls of his famous home, said to be one of the most haunted spots in Washington, D.C. USS The Sullivans, now a floating museum, is the source of much disturbing spectral activity--poltergeists opening locks, hurling objects, and turning on radar that's no longer under electrical power. Then there are the repeated sightings of the handsome USS Lexington ghost, "polite . . . kind . . . smartly dressed in a summer white Navy uniform." From translucent sails to phantom crews, from a flaming ghost ship to the infamous psychic anomaly at the U.S. Naval Academy to battleships where the dead still linger, this book offers no less than a haunted history of the U.S. Navy.

Eric Mills is the author of Chesapeake Bay in the Civil War and Chesapeake Rumrunners of the Roaring Twenties. His articles have appeared in Naval History, Proceedings, Chesapeake Bay Magazine, and other publications. He lives near Easton, MD.