11 scary ghost stories, legends, and haunted military bases
There are a lot of professions out there that could put people in the presence of the otherworldly, the unexplained, or the outright haunted. I’m sure there are a lot of clergy, doctors, morticians and the like who have seen some unbelievable things. Serving in the military isn’t all that much similar to those professions, because—although they’re in the business of making ghosts—spending a lot of time around remains isn’t what most of them do.
Still, the U.S. military’s history dates back a few hundred years, and some military installations are really old. Add in the fact that the U.S. military wasn’t always guaranteed to win wars (especially those on its home turf) and certain bases, ships, and buildings can be downright scary at times. It’s that element that gave rise to some of the best ghost stories and urban legends out there.
Here are few of the most enduring classics from around the services.
1. F.E. Warren’s Spectral Cavalry
Cheyenne, Wyoming is the home of F.E. Warren Air Force Base, part of the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command and, with it, command of all U.S. ICBMs. Because it’s also the oldest continuously active military installation in the Air Force, this means that Wyoming had the power to eradicate Crow Creek Indians before it had the power to eradicate mankind.
Back then, it was Fort D.A. Russell, built to help protect railroad workers from the local native tribes. They were undeniably good at it, massacring many of the Crow Creek. And so, for the past 100 years, people have reported seeing uniformed cavalry troops patrolling the base at night to keep the Natives at bay.
The fun doesn’t end there. Warren is supposedly one of the most haunted places in Wyoming—maybe even all of America. The ghost of one man allegedly haunts Quarters 80 has led to the area being known as “Gus Quarters.” And this spectral airman is doomed to live on the base forever. Legend has it that a man named Gus was caught in bed with an officer’s wife. To escape the angry husband, “Gus” jumped out of a second-story window, accidentally hanging himself on a clothesline—and becoming Jody for all eternity.
Troops on the base report unexplained doors and cupboards opening and closing on their own, believing it was Gus, looking for his pants after all these years.
2. Kadena Air Base’s Haunted House
Building 2283 on Kadena was a single family home for field-grade officers that was torn down in 2009, not because there weren’t enough O-5s at Kadena, but—legend has it—because the spectral samurai warrior that occasionally rides through the house.
Other sightings at 2283 have included a woman washing her hair in the sink, a curtain opening in front of a tour group, a phone ringing despite there not being a phone line connected to the house, and lights and faucets turning on by themselves (which would surely drive the samurai ghost father of the house insane thinking about the water bill).
Residents of the house also reported bloodstains on the carpet and curtains, as well as an unearthly chill in one of the rooms, the room where a real teenage girl was stabbed to death by her stepfather. Another account alleges a Marine Corps officer bludgeoned his wife in the house.
Conveniently, there’s a day care center next door, and both are across the street from what some say is an Okinawan Samurai warrior’s tomb.
3. Fort Leavenworth’s Haunted Houses
Widely considered the most paranormally active site in the U.S. Army, Leavenworth has upward of 36 haunted buildings. One of those is a guardhouse, Tower 8 of the Old Disciplinary Barracks that was torn down in 2004. The Guardhouse still stands. A soldier who committed suicide with his service shotgun inside Tower 8 will sometimes call the guard control room. Maybe for an aspirin.
The haunting fodder doesn’t end there. Leavenworth is where a lot of the U.S. military’s death row executions took place in years past. When the prison ran out of room on the gallows, they used the elevator shaft in the administration building as an extension. Now soldiers report hearing screams from the elevator when no one else is around.
As novel as the idea of a centuries-old, haunted, and abandoned prison might be for ghosts, the most haunted area is called the rookery. The building was once the base commander’s quarters but was turned into family housing—and people still live there.
The rookery is said to house a number of ghosts. “The Lady in White” was supposedly tortured and killed by local tribes while the soldiers were off-post. She screams and chases people she sees in the night. You don’t have to chase us, lady. The screaming was enough.
Also in the rookery are Maj. Edmund Ogden, who died in 1855 and is presumably in command of all the ghosts in the building (good order and discipline apparently doesn’t end when your life does.), a young girl named Rose, her nanny, and a young man called Robert. Rose whistles around the house while Ogden seems to just walk around all day in spurred boots.
It’s said that Maj. Ogden once asked a team of ghost hunters to leave his house.
4. March Air Reserve Base’s Hospital Dental Clinic
March Air Reserve Base no longer has a dental clinic, but the one it did have was part of a greater hospital complex built in 1965. The legend says that the old hospital complex once housed a children’s tuberculosis ward… and in the basement below was a morgue for dependents. The building was torn down in 2011, but until it fell into disuse, some of the staff reported seeing apparitions of small children playing in the building at night or hiding objects.
One ghost is less than playful: The spectral figure of a teenage girl was reportedly seen walking around the hospital, her face sliced open, talking to herself and searching for the person who cut her—her “unfinished business’ apparently meaning someone had to get got.
5. The Kadena Chicken
The 18th Wing at Kadena sports a yellow patch with a chicken prominently featured with its wings in the air, looking like it’s trying to surrender to an enemy unseen. The urban legend has it that the yellow background is for cowardice because, during the Korean War, the 18th Wing’s pilots abandoned their crew chiefs as the base was being overrun. The maintainers were then hung with safety wire by the enemy. Said safety wire is still supposedly hanging in Osan.
This is a very old Air Force urban legend, and there are myriad reasons not to believe it. First and foremost: Why would the Air Force keep the wire hanging? Aside from questionable decorations, a better reason not to believe this myth is that the patch has been around since 1931, when the 18th Wing wasn’t fighting combat missions. The base historian will also tell you that it’s not a chicken, and it’s not surrendering: It’s cockfighting.
6. Edgar Allen Poe on Fort Monroe
A famous poet (and Army veteran who briefly attended West Point), Poe’s death was originally attributed to alcohol, but recent science suggest he died in Baltimore of a mysterious illness whose symptoms match those of rabies. While he was alive, however, he was stationed at Fort Monroe as an artilleryman. Some say he’s still there.
Other ghosts said to have been spotted at Fort Monroe include Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, and Chief Black Hawk. Davis was imprisoned there after the Civil War, and it’s said he still walk around looking for his wife (who’s also been seen). Others say they’ve seen floating orbs and heard voices and hoof beats.
7. Bitburg Middle School’s Ghost Nazis
Until 2013, the Bitburg School was run by DoD Dependents Schools-Europe, and Bitburg Middle School was constructed in Bitburg Air Base’s housing in 1956, supposedly on the site of a Nazi airbase. It’s also consistently rated as one of the most haunted places in Germany, sharing that list with a pagan ritual altar and the Dachau concentration camp. During World War II, Bitburg was mostly destroyed by Allied air bombing, even being declared a “dead city.”
As if it weren’t enough to be full of ghosts, they’re also Nazi ghosts, which is way more frightening. Lights constantly flash on and off throughout the night, windows move on their own, and oh yeah: people are heard screaming at the top of their lungs throughout the building. Only at night.
8. The USS Hornet’s Ghost Crew
The Hornet is, by far, the most haunted ship in the Navy. Commissioned in 1943 during World War II, the Essex-class aircraft carrier survived 59 attacks, served in the Vietnam War, and recovered the Apollo 11 and 12 astronauts. However, roughly 300 crew members died aboard the ship from accidents and suicides. Tourists and sailors alike report strange voices and apparitions of sailors in (outdated) uniforms, roaming the halls of the ship. Radios and other equipment on the vessel are said to turn on and off on their own.
If any reader is interested in seeing the ghost crew of the Hornet, you can now pay to sleep aboard the ship, which was decommissioned in 1970. Since it’s moored in San Francisco, you don’t have to sleep there, but you can tour its most paranormally active areas.
9. Kadena’s (Yes, Again) Ghostly Gate Guards
The old Gate 3 at Kadena was said to be frequented by a World War II-era soldier or Marine covered in blood, asking for a light for his cigarette. That gate was eventually closed because the Japanese guards allegedly refused to man the gate, so a new one is being built in its place.
Which is crazy, because the old Marine could easily solve a manpower issue. Would you approach a gate manned by ghosts? Me neither.
He might be looking for any number of Japanese soldiers who were once said to approach the gate during the 1990s. The Japanese approached so many times, it was recorded in the 2000 book “Ghosts of Okinawa.” The real reason the gate was closed is because (I can only assume) it’s terrifying.
10. Guantanamo Bay’s Eternal Officer’s Club
The Bayview Restaurant at Gitmo was originally built in 1943 as the base officer’s club. It now has a spacious outdoor dining patio overlooking the bay. There are at least four spirits who are there for eternity to occupy the upstairs Terrace Room.
A “woman in white” is an old woman with long hair and a long white dress. She sits in a chair and looks out into the parking lot. She also switches lights on and off when no one is in the club. It is said the woman lived in an apartment in the club until she was found dead in a bathtub there.
The wives of base commanders have also reported a man in khakis walking from the living room of the CO’s residence to the bathroom (even ghosts can’t hold it, apparently). In 2007, Paula Leary, who was in the house at the time said she believed the ghost just wanted to know there was someone else in the house. The area where the house stands was the site of Marine camps from 1901 until 1920, so it may not just be any khaki chief walking around, but a salty old Marine.
11. Helmand’s Cursed Russian Graveyard
The 2/8 Marines in Helmand reported figures speaking Russian at Observation Point Rock. They found graves at the site, a place in Helmand considered cursed by the locals because of the unending amount of bones that are constantly dug up there.
“The Rock,” as it came to be known, was the reported site of Afghan mujahideen executing Russian soldiers during the Russian occupation. Because of the bones and the strange sightings, it soon became known as the “Haunted OP.” But it wasn’t just the Marines seeing or hearing things. The UK’s Welsh Guards who came to the outpost before the Marines reported strange noises and unexplainable lights in their night vision.
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