In the 1920’s, this was a small town hospital that cared for the citizens of Turlock, California. According to a recent ghost hunting expedition done by American Paranormal Investigations, it seems that the building still cares for their spirits, though both their bodies and the hospital are long gone.

Built in 1918, The Lillian Collins Hospital was located in what is now the Sierra Building and currently contains Coldwell Banker Endsley & Associates. The hospital was best known for the doctor who created the MedicAlert bracelet when his daughter (who also happened to be the granddaughter of the hospital’s founder) had an allergic reaction to a drug while there in 1953. The hospital, which only had 40 rooms in the two-story building, eventually became too small for the city and was abandoned. In 1994, it was purchased by Bob Endsley and the downstairs was completely remodeled. The upstairs was left the way it was, and local charities used the space to host a haunted house fundraiser. It was during these fundraisers that the odd goings on in the building were first noticed.

While preparing for a haunted house event items would go missing when left alone for only a few moments. Cold breezes, footsteps, unexplained noises, and even unpleasant physical feelings have been reported. The owner of the building has had the motion detectors go off when no one was there. The events coinciding with the annual haunted house fundraisers ceased earlier this decade, but the strange happenings did not. That was when Endsley contacted API.

The investigation, which included video, photography, psychics, Electronic Voice Phenomena recordings, as well as a group whose purpose was to find logical causes for some of the stranger things discovered, came away with plenty of evidence that the hospital was still up and running on the second floor.

On video, they asked a spirit to come closer to their electro-magnetic field device. The EMF device recorded a dramatic spike in its levels. Geiger counter readings flared and diminished within moments and without the investigator moving.

Each and every photo captured orbs, or balls of light, somewhere on the photograph. But the truly amazing piece of evidence is the 11 second recording of a beautiful voice singing a French lullaby. The investigator was alone at the time. This recording is one of the longest pieces of EVP ever to be captured.

Other EVPs recorded were of female and male voices talking to each other, as well as male voices communicating with the investigators. One of the investigators said that the sounds on the tape remind him of what he’d expect from a 1920’s hospital.

Dark, human shaped masses were seen floating throughout the building and some investigators felt nauseated while on the second floor, feeling better when they returned downstairs.

The investigators sent to unmask the ghosts were only able to explain away the cold breezes as drafts from windows. The rest seem to be of truly supernatural origins.

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During the war she participated in almost every important Allied campaign, including the D-Day invasion. It was during this time in her amazing history that tragedy struck. In an attempt to dodge enemy ships, “The Grey Ghost” maneuvered right into one of her smaller companion ships, nearly cutting it in half. Under strict orders, she left the 300 survivors to a watery death. It is said you can still sometimes hear their screams and the pounding of their fists on her fore hull. As the war drew to a close, “The Grey Ghost” took part in the “Bride and Baby Voyages,” carrying more than 20,000 war brides and their babies to the US and Canada. In 1946 alone, The Grey Ghost made 13 voyages of this type.

In 1947 she was refurbished and renewed her job as a luxury liner, running weekly between England and New York. Later she took tourists into the Caribbean, but not being fitted with air-conditioning she was not very popular. In 1967 she was sold to the city of Long Beach, California to be used as a maritime museum and hotel.

Now she is frequently visited by curious tourists. It’s claimed that as many as 150 spirits roam the ship, with the ship herself being the site of nearly 50 deaths over the last 60 years.

The spots where most of the disturbances are located include the engine room, Door 13, the first and second-class pools, the women’s changing room, the first-class lounge, the third-class playroom, the Queen’s Salon and one particular cabin.

In The Queen Mary’s engine room and the boiler room, cameras go dead, batteries get drained and orbs show up in photos. Occasionally cameras simply “give up the ghost” refusing to operate normally until they’ve left the area. In Engine Room 2, people report feeling a sense of dread—perhaps because this was the spot many stowaways believed would be their safe-haven. Instead, when the engines roared to life many were burned. Door #13 in the belly of the boat has crushed two men to death, one a young seaman who lied about his age to get the job he so desperately wanted. People report seeing him, dressed in blue coveralls, hurrying down “Shaft Alley” towards the door before he disappears.

The old swimming pools are also the sites of frequent sightings. Visitors have reported women in wearing swimsuits from the 1930s walking the pool decks. Others have heard splashing or spotted fresh wet footprints. Near one of the pools people have even seen a little girl, sometimes clutching a teddy bear, and at other times calling for her mommy and dolly. Is this the ghost of the little girl, named Jackie, who drowned while the Queen Mary played ocean liner? Or is it the little girl—supposedly quite precocious and a child who enjoyed sliding down banisters—who went for a slide and got bucked off when the ship hit a huge swell, the child’s neck snapping as a result of sudden impact? Perhaps the two have even found each other and play together, as many report hearing childish laughter.

In the third-class children’s playroom a baby’s cries are sometimes heard. Those who know the ship best think it is the sound of the little boy who died there, shortly after his birth. Other ghosts occasionally are spotted in the playroom, too—perhaps parents picking their children up from what was essentially daycare, or maybe the caretakers themselves linger, watching for the children still aboard.

A strange vortex phenomenon has also been reported near the women’s changing room, supposedly the resulting negative force because of a woman being raped nearby.

In some first-class staterooms, a man wearing a 1930’s style suit has been seen and phones are known to ring without anyone on the other end. Faucets also turn on in the middle of the night as if someone is washing up after a late night enjoying themselves.

A beautiful young woman in a stylish evening gown can sometimes be spotted in the Queen’s Salon. Some claim she dances alone in a shadowy corner of the room.

But beyond the tragic deaths of children and military men, perhaps the darkest thing still clinging to the Queen Mary is the remnants of one mysterious man’s deeds. Once, a single male passenger checked in, and stowing his luggage, gave a steward some cash to see if he could find a willing female companion to share his cabin for the night. The steward was successful and dropped a woman off for the man. The pair retired for the evening. The next morning, when the steward realized his patron was not at breakfast, he went to see how things had gone. He knocked on the cabin door, but got no answer. Worried, he raced away to find his superior—a man who could open the door. When the door opened they were horrified to find the corpse of the willing woman, her blood spread round the room. They searched for the only suspect—the male passenger—but found no sign of him—no registration information, no luggage… There had not even been a passenger assigned to that cabin. To this day, the man’s identity and method of escape baffles everyone who hears the chilling tale of what happened when two people met for a sudden tryst.

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In 1884 Sarah Winchester, heiress of the Winchester Rifle fortune, began construction on a Victorian-style mansion. Driven by her supposed guilt over the many deaths her husband’s rifle business caused, Sarah paid a veritable army of construction workers and craftsmen to build the sprawling 160-room house over the course of nearly forty years. Devastated by the untimely deaths of both her husband and baby daughter and thinking them to be connected to the shooting deaths of many victims of the Winchester rifle, Sarah was supposedly told that continually building the rambling home would appease (or in some cases perhaps trap) the spirits and lift a curse.

Acting as her own architect, Sarah consulted with spiritual guides to make sure the wandering souls who’d lost their lives by gunshot would find a final resting place. Sarah Winchester never created a master set of blueprints, instead she sketched the rooms she wanted on scraps of paper and occasionally tablecloths. The house’s hallways and corridors are like a labyrinth, causing many to speculate that perhaps Sarah’s goal was to trap and confuse the spirits who sought vengeance on her family. Rumor has it Sarah tried to avoid the restless ghosts by sleeping in a different room every night.

When the earthquake of 1906 struck, Sarah was trapped in the Daisy Room where she’d been sleeping near a fireplace that suddenly collapsed. When she was finally freed, she said the experience was the result of the ghosts wanting her to stop spending so much time perfecting the mansion’s front rooms—and that they were furious she thought she was nearly finished with her construction. So Sarah obediently boarded up 30 rooms and focused on even more expansion. She never again used her then recently acquired (and quite pricey for the time) front doors.

Filled with “modern” amenities, the Winchester mansion includes button-operated lights, nearly 50 fireplaces, parquet floors and gorgeous chandeliers. Almost every window has 13 panes of glass, most floors contained 13 sections and all but one staircase boasts 13 steps. But beyond the architectural oddities and trappings of wealth, it seems the mansion has also trapped a fair share of spirits.

Ghostly animals began to be sighted and many people have reported seeing things ghosting about. People hear mysterious voices, footsteps and doors slamming shut. Cold spots and strange lights appear and then fade away. An employee of the mansion claimed to see a figure of an elderly woman in one of the rooms and asked who they had gotten to portray Mrs. Winchester. Alarmed, a coworker explained they did not have any reenactors. Could it be that Sarah succeeded in trapping the ghosts who dogged her steps for so many years and they still roam the Winchester mansion? Or are the disturbances signs that Sarah herself has never left the building—trapped with the same ghosts she feared?

Today 110 of the 160 rooms are available for tourists to see—but stick with your guide so you don’t become a victim of the wandering designs and maze-like halls!

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The Hotel Del Coronado, affectionately called “The Del,” sits overlooking the San Francisco Bay, dominating the beach with its brick colored roofs and sharp white walls. A true American beauty, it remains a stunning and sprawling example of the traditional wooden Victorian seaside resort. Opening in 1888, the Del has hosted such famous folks as “Lucky Lindy” (Charles Lindbergh), Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Brad Pitt, L. Frank Baum, Babe Ruth, President Benjamin Harrison, Madonna and King Edward VIII (at the time only the Prince of Wales). The Del was also used as a backdrop to Marilyn Monroe’s 1958 movie “Some Like It Hot.”

But one of the Del’s most famous guests has never checked out and rumors still circulate about her identity. Kate Morgan was supposedly a grifter working the rails in the late 1800s with her husband, Thomas. The two set up poker games on trains all across the country, pretending to be brother and sister so that Kate could use her wiles to help blindside the playing men. They were gifted cheats, but it seems (according to somewhat reluctant eyewitness testimony) they got into a lover’s spat and Kate drifted into the Del, signing in under the name of Lottie Bernard (a passenger on the same train she had recently ridden). Logging in to the Del just before Thanksgiving of 1892, “Lottie Bernard” carried no luggage and looked to be in poor health and a poorer state of mind. She essentially told the staff not to worry about her—she claimed her brother (a Dr. M. C. Anderson) would arrive shortly with her luggage. He would take care of her.

And perhaps “Lottie” truly believed her partner in crime would come to her rescue, but even after several days, he had not appeared. Lottie just got sicker. Distraught, she got transportation into San Diego where she made the biggest decision of her life. She returned to the Del. Returned to room number 3327 (then room 302). The next morning she was found dead on the stairs outside the Del, shot by the pistol she had purchased the day before in town. Nicknamed “the beautiful stranger” by the papers, her identity was finally revealed. But why did she and Thomas quarrel? Why the sudden separation? Police found quinine when they searched her possessions, leading some to believe she had been pregnant, and realizing her life could not continue in the same manner once her condition showed, she decided to try a home abortion. Or perhaps Kate wanted to settle down with a family and Thomas had other plans… Either way, the story seems to end the same way—in tragedy.

Recently, a medium located in San Diego claimed to have contact with this famous ghost and said that the ghost is truly Lottie Bernard and not Kate Morgan at all. Supposedly Lottie stays on at the Del waiting for her real story to be told.

Regardless of who haunts the Del, several odd things are often reported. People have claimed to see a woman dressed in the proper period and style as Kate paging through books and walking the halls. Lights flicker on and off in Kate’s room and the sheets and blankets are played with. In the gift shop, the Marilyn Monroe merchandise used to literally jump off the shelves when it had a prominent place, but stopped its crazy behavior when it was moved to a less visible location. Was Kate angry with sharing the spotlight or might she have had a jealous streak because of some anonymous blonde bombshell making things difficult while she was still alive and with Thomas? Unfortunately we will probably never know, and it seems the more research done into Kate’s story only raises more questions—not more answers.

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