Moment in Oddity - The Secret Subway (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)
Alfred Ely Beach was an American inventor, publisher and patent lawyer, who spent most of his adult life in New York City. He is most well known for developing the Beach Pneumatic Transit Tunnel, the first experimental subway line in the United States. It began as a secret. Due to political opposition from Tammany Hall, Beach secured a permit for building postal tubes. However, he instead used his patented hydraulic tunneling shield to build a passenger tunnel under Broadway in New York, from Warren Street to Murray Street. The construction was completed in 58 days and was a single-car line that used air pressure to move passengers between the two destinations. His goal was to alleviate traffic congestion in the city. The tunnel greeted passengers with a luxurious station with a grand piano, chandeliers and a goldfish pond. Beach's creation was largely a demonstration project to prove the practicality of underground transport in the city. His invention used clean air power vs the noisy elevated trains of the time. In its first year, the Beach Pneumatic Transit tunnel attracted 400,000 visitors, who paid 25 cents to ride the 300 foot long experimental subway. The line closed in 1873 due to lack of funding and political roadblocks. The tunnel was demolished in 1912, but the story is a legendary piece of NYC engineering history. The fact that Alfred Ely Beach was able to secure permits to build postal tubes, but instead, was secretly able to build the first subway in the United States, certainly is odd.
Haunted Air Force Bases
World War I would birth the beginnings of the Air Service branch of the Army, which would eventually become the Air Force. This branch of the military is almost 80 years old, making it the youngest branch of the military until the Space Force was established in 2019. There are currently over 50 active-duty air force bases around the world. They serve a variety of purposes from combat operations to support training to logistics to command. Several of these bases have ghost stories connected to them. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of these various American Air Force bases!
The official motto of the USAF is "Aim High...Fly-Fight-Win." The beginnings of the air service started on August 1, 1907, when the US Army Signal Corps established a small Aeronautical Division. This division took care of balloons and dirigibles. The Signal Corp would have their first airplane by August 1908, but they would lose it when it crashed the following month with Orville Wright and Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge on board. Selfridge was killed. An improved Wright Flyer would replace it and become the Army's "Airplane No. 1," on August 2, 1909. When World War I started, the 1st Aero Squadron was established and it had 12 officers, 54 enlisted men, and six aircraft. It would double and triple in size over the next few months, but never reached the level of the air forces of the European powers. In August 1916, Congress appropriated $13,281,666 for military aeronautics and another $600,000 for the purchase of land for airfields. Next, Congress passed the National Defense Act and this really bolstered the Aviation section of the Army. During World War II, the German Luftwaffe proved just how important airpower had become when it came to war and international relations. President Franklin D. Roosevelt acknowledged this growing importance of airpower before America joined the fight and he told his advisors that "airpower would win it." Through that belief, the War Department got started building new bases and focusing on air power with lots of flight training in 1939. The National Security Act of 1947 became law on July 26, 1947 and this created the Department of the Air Force and established the United States Air Force.
Unidentified AFB
creepyafthrowaway 12 wrote on Reddit about an unidentified air force base overseas, "So I work nights in an older base overseas. I work in a very very old building. Not sure the exact date it was built but I've been told it's pre WWII maybe WWI. Usually there's a few of us who in our office at nights but due to COVID and some other issues with personnel I've been by myself at nights in this building. The building is mostly abandoned and besides a few offices it's mainly full of old shit and a lot of things from the 70s/80s. I've found some strange items in there to include old uniforms, journals from the 60s and some very old computers, Tandy 1000s and some other ones from that era. Since I work nights I'll sometimes explore the building. I've restored one of the Tandys and will play old games on it that I ordered on eBay but that gets old. Two nights ago I had zero work and was sick of playing games so I started to explore. There's a boiler room I've never been into before because it was locked but a couple weeks ago some CE guys were doing maintenance in there and they forgot to lock it so I just went in there to scope it out. It's a fairly normal boiler room with not much in there except the "boiler?" and an old beat up work bench. I looked underneath the workbench and saw there was a piece of ply wood leaning against the wall. I moved the plywood and saw that it had been blocking a fairly large vent, or tunnel, there was no cover on it so I'm not sure what it was. It also wasn't a typical vent, more of a tunnel if that makes sense. I peered in there to check it out but it was pretty dark so I went back to my office and got a flashlight and then used that and was able to see there was another room and the tunnel was maybe 10 feet long or so. I climbed through and found myself in another room with a MASSIVE steel door. Kind of like a vault in a bank. The lights in the room weren't working but I was able to look around using the flashlight. The "vault" door was somewhat open and I was able to squeeze through it and found a staircase leading down. I'm pretty inquisitive by nature so I went down the stairs and found a HUGE room that went on for what seemed like forever. Probably the size of the building and maybe even longer in other parts. I just had a creepy as fuck feeling being down there. Like I was being watched so I turned to go back up the staircase and that's when I heard a deep voice from somewhere in the dark scream "GET OUT!" I took off back up the stairs as fast as I could and I swear I heard footsteps running behind me. I crawled back through the vault door and shuffled through the tunnel and as I was in the tunnel I heard the vault door slam shut. This door was huge and made of metal and old as hell. I'm an average build but when I tried to get it to move earlier it wouldn't budge so whatever was down there was able to close it with ease. I crawled back through the tunnel and into the boiler room and slammed the door behind me and ran out to my car scared shitless and just drove the fuck home. It was probably around 1 am or so when all this happened and I was definitely only down there for like less than 2 minutes but both my phone and my car clock said it was 4 am. So SOMEHOW I'd "lost" 3 hours when I went down there. I really was freaking out and I'm a pretty rational guy but I've read stories on reddit before about people seeing ghosts and sometimes it can just be hallucinations from carbon monoxide or something so I thought maybe it was something like that. I have a friend who works in Bio-Environmental Engineering and I know they have equipment that can check for this kind of shit. I didn't want to tell any of my coworkers because I don't want them thinking I was insane so I texted him and asked him if he'd be willing to use one of his meters to check it for me. He met me at the building the next night with his gas meter and another meter. All the levels were normal around the office. When I took him to the boiler room the levels were normal there as well. But when I showed him where the tunnel was supposed to be under the bench there was NO tunnel. It was just a normal wall. I don't take meds, have no history of mental health issues, and I hadn't been drinking. I was fairly awake when all this happened and nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Should I call the chaplains office to have them come "bless" the building or should I just assume this was all some sort of temporary psychosis and move along or maybe talk to my doctor or something? Luckily one of my coworkers is starting nights with me now as well but I don't know what to do."
Spook 50 - The Haunted KC-135
The KC-135 has a unique feature that goes back to its use during the Cold War and that is two APUs, rather than just one. These refuelers had a supporting role for Strategic Air Command nuclear bombers and needed to be able to rapidly launch. The Spook 50 was built in 1958 and was capable of flying a 24 hour alert cycle. To this day, the KC-135 is the main source of getting gas to US and Allied forces across the world. Spook 50 made a name for itself due to a tragic death as well as years of high strangeness via accounts from generations of Airmen who've both worked and operated on it. The most infamous story would be from the 80's. This is a quote from a Canadian Armed Forces Publication:
"November 22, 1988
MARCH AIR FORCE BASE, CALIF. BIZARRE ACCIDENT. An Air Force reservist died after a window burst on a KC-135 tanker aircraft flying over the Atlantic Ocean and the cockpit depressurized. Master Sgt. James L. Borland, 47, of Moreno Valley, was killed in the accident as the plane was en route from England, said Capt. Richard Williamson, a spokesman for the air wing. The precise cause of death was not immediately determined. He died when a 10-inch-by-8-inch sextant sighting window in the cockpit broke. None of the 17 others on board was injured. The accident, four to five hours into the flight from Lakenheath, England, was ''one of those bizarre things. The odds are one in 2 billion,'' said Lt. Col. Duncan Bridewell. Col. Tom Frank, the aircraft's commander, said he heard a sharp bang as the plane flew at 35,000 feet above the ocean and miles from land."
The Darris wrote on Reddit, "When I was a Boom Operator in the USAF from 2008-2012, I was introduced to the legendary haunted KC-135, "Spook 50." The "50" comes from it's tail number, 58-0050. This is the one plane that seasoned crew members would jokingly try to avoid flying because of it's ominous past. My number was called to fly on it during the summer of 2009 when I was deployed in Kyrgyzstan. This was my first operational deployment as a fully qualified Boom Operator. In the summer of 2009, I was sent on my first deployment. The base I went to had KC-135's that were assigned to Fairchild AFB, in Spokane Washington. I was stationed at McConnell AFB in Wichita, KS so I was not familiar with any of the jets here. Yes, all of the KC-135's required the same checklist and operational procedures but just like any type of machinery, they all had their quirks and differences that you got to know over the days as "Line Boom." I was fortunate enough to be crewed with an Aircraft Commander (AC) that had just transferred from Fairchild to my unit so he was really familiar with these jets. Because I was a young boom operator, seasoned veterans would usually haze you in different ways. My AC loved to joke about how scary Spook 50 was for Boom Operators and for a couple of weeks of that first deployment, he'd share story after to story about how boom operators would see shadowy figures, have lights go out on them at the worst moment, circuit breakers would randomly pop during flight, etc. It was all mostly to freak me out. Well, after about two weeks into that deployment, I finally got to fly on this infamous haunted jet. Over the course of my 3 month deployment, I flew on Spook 50 a dozen times, if not more. I became very familiar with her quirks but there was always something strange that would happen that I never experienced on any other KC-135 the rest of my career, ever. On my first flight on Spook 50, I was a little nervous during the pre-flight portion of my checklist. I'd heard all the stories but still wanted to make sure I followed everything to a tee, especially concerning the circuit breaker panel. One of my job duties in flight was to back up the pilots and monitor the circuit breaker panels. So, one of the first steps when doing my pre-flight was to check the panel for any popped breakers and reset them (there was an exception for a few that were dangerous to reset). So, during my check, there were no circuit breakers to reset but right before I moved onto the next step about 10 different breakers all popped at once. This was not something that ever happened on this jet. And I mean, ever. So, that was freaky. All of them were simple enough to reset. I moved on. Nothing happened again until it was time for us to take off. The air base we flew out of was notoriously bad for how fucking bumpy the airstrip was. It would shake the hell out of you. Because of this, loose equipment tend to fall. One of those things was the Compass placard holder that sat just below the "whiskey compass" in the middle of the upper control panel between the pilots. It was a little door that you could pop open that was supposed to have a card in it showing a list of inspection dates for the analogue compass. Well, someone thought it would be funny to write is sharpie the words, "You are going to die" inside this holder so when the door would flap down, the entire crew would see it front and center while you're cruising down the runway. When this happened to us, my AC didn't miss a beat and said, "Roger Crew, we're going to die, continuing." Once we were established in our refueling track over Afghanistan, it was time to sit and wait for someone that needed gas during their mission. I'd find myself sometimes waiting 5-6 hours before someone called up needing the gas, in other cases we'd hang out for entire night and nobody would need us. On this day, some A-10's called us up. So, I got my gear and headed towards the back to get the boom down and get my night vision to adjust. This is when some strangeness started to occur. I wasn't thinking anything of it because once a receiver calls up for gas, I get into the zone. This job is dangerous so we are trained to be prepared for all sorts of things. That is, pretty much anything except for ghosts. I got to the back the aircraft and lowered the boom. I was pretty much ready to go. I was in radio contact with the A-10 pilots so the show was about to be handed off to me once I got visual contact with them. Up until I made physical contact with the aircraft, meaning the boom was connected in flight and we were passing fuel, everything was smooth and chill. As soon as I got the nozzle into the A-10's receptacle, I felt the feeling of someone else's hand grab my right wrist which was controlling the boom. My instinct was to disconnect from the A-10 and return them back to a safe distance while I figured out what was going on. I immediately look over to my right once the aircraft was cleared as I still felt the hand holding my wrist but I saw nothing. The feeling immediate went away. I tried looking to see if I could see someone getting out of the boom pop or hiding back there but given the tight space and lack of lighting, I couldn't see anyone. So, I called up to my pilots over our internal comms and said, "hey, who the fuck was back here with me!" I was pissed. I thought one of my pilots came back to fuck with me and given the critical phase of flight we were in, I was going to go off on them. Both pilots were on their regular comms and in their respective crew positions in the cockpit. Again, they are both required to be in those seats during all critical phases of flight. They were good pilots too so I believe they would never do such a thing but again, you never know. Especially after they were hazing me pretty much for the entire deployment. So, I took a beat to relax and regained my composure and told the A-10 to come back in for some gas. We got them finished up with no other issues. After that incident, I didn't experience anything else that was crazy for that flight. All the things I experienced for the rest of the deployment:-The feeling of someone standing very close to me, even in the daylight, lights turning on and off randomly without anyone touching the switch, voices when not in flight. If I was ever doing pre-flight or post-flight checklists and had my headset off, I frequently heard the sound of a soft voice towards the rear of the aircraft. I played around with our cargo compartment speakers to test whether or not I was hearing a faint sound of my pilot's running through their checklist over the radios but I'm 99% sure this was not the case. Basically, it the voice sounded as if it was someone sitting in the boom pod in the back the aircraft just having a conversation with themselves. Also, the feeling of something physically touching me, usually like a hand grabbing my arm or leg. I formed a fear of taking naps on that plane because whenever I did, would usually get woken up by the feeling of someone grabbing my shoulders and shaking me awake. I never experienced this on any other jet or sleeping anywhere else as far as I can remember. This was something I heard from a couple other boom operators when I asked them if they experienced anything on Spook 50. Thumps in the floor of the cargo compartment. The KC-135 is known to have very specific physical characteristics that you can feel through the floor of the airplane. Whether it be from the landing gear extending and retracting to fuel pumps through the lower body turning on or off. However, those were usually audible and you felt a vibration through the floor. On Spook 50, I experienced what felt like somebody underneath the floor knocking on it below my feet. This could just be how these physical characteristics were experienced on this jet because like I said before, all of the KC-135's I flew on had their quirks. This one was just a little more accentuated."
Little Rock Air Force Base
Little Rock Air Force Base opened in 1955 on property that covered 6,100 acres. There was limited air traffic for two years until all the runways were completed. Things started tragically with the first base commander, Colonel Joseph A. Thomas dying in a crash of the base's only aircraft at the time, a C-45.
In 1960, the base started housing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and one of these would be involved in something called the Damascus Incident in 1980. An airman was doing some maintenance on a Titan II missile when he dropped a socket that fell and hit the rocket's first stage fuel tank. A leak started and the area had to be evacuated. The following day, the fuel exploded and the nuclear warhead was hurled 100 feet from the launch complex's entry gate, destroying the launch complex and killing an airman, but no radioactive material escaped. On April 25, 2011, an EF-2 tornado came through the base housing area and across the flightline, damaging more than 120 homes, five C-130s and 50 other base facilities. Thankfully, no one was killed. Today, the base is the world's largest C-130 training base today with a focus on tactical airlift, combat training and humanitarian relief.
People claim there are Civil War ghosts here and that strange voices are heard. Shadow figures have been witnessed. Strategic Air Command shared this on Facebook about something that happened during the clean-up after the Damascus Incident:
"The story goes that there was a security post on the silo while the cleanup operation was underway. Usually a new Airman was posted on the site, especially at night when nobody was out there. One night, the control center conducted radio security checks and the Airman didn’t respond. Figuring either he was asleep or his radio was dead, a security team was sent out to find out. The team got there and the Airman was gone. Not only was he gone but his radio and M 16 laid on the ground and there were spent brass all over the place. A Search was started to find the missing Airman. They found him a couple of miles down the road, still running towards Little Rock. They picked him up and took him back to base. He was then questioned by OSI and he told the following. He was looking around the site and looked down at the burnt out missile silo. Then he saw the missile sitting there and the maintenance workers performing maintenance on the missile. He saw the Airman dropping the wrench, puncturing the fuel tanks. The explosion happened and the flames burned the flesh from bones. Then the flames died out. The blackened skeletons started to climb up the sides of the silo. The Airman retreated from the silo but the skeletons got to the top. There they advanced towards the Airman. He then took aim and fired all of his rounds. He then dropped everything and ran. They took him to the mental health center for treatment. OSI then looked over the missile site. They found the bullet strikes on the rubble. The strikes were perfect, the Airman was aiming at something. That just leaves one question. Was the original teller probably full of crap or did the Airman actually see something?"
Sassy Owl on Reddit, "I was stationed on Little Rock in the mid 90s. Our primary mission was C130 Training support. I was a flight line guy and often required to climb into the C130s when no one else was on the plane. Not a big deal. After a yr on stationed I got moved to overnight shift (2230-0630). Now my primary job was to go to all the air frames scheduled to fly that day and upload water and such for the crew and conduct other small tasks on the plane. Any given night I would visit 25-30 individual planes. LRAFB is not the busiest airfield nor did it receive regular military arrivals so the place is dead after 1700, leaving only cops, maintainers and ATOC moving around for the most part. My job required all aircraft to be serviced prior to 0630 so you're out there in the dark driving plane to plane looking for tail numbers. So I was on the flight line knocking out my list and drove up to the next plane like any other. I parked in front of the plane and just felt creeped out. The planes, nearly 100, were parked in a grid pattern and some could be really far from the active area of the flight line. This particular plane was a couple hundred yards from the road so once you turned the truck off, it's dark and silent and you're surrounded by these giant black forms looming all around you. I sat in the truck for a few moments and looked around from the seat before I came to my senses and realized I was just in my own head. I got out and opened the tailgate and felt this horrible chill and the breeze picked up. It was fall, but I was COLD and that creeped out feeling returned. I finally went up the stairs entering this unpowered plane with just my little MAG light to see. So I am counting the tie down on the plane near the middle of the cargo area and I hear the distinct sound of someone stepping on the stairs on the aircraft to enter. This sound is two parts- the sound of the boot stepping down on the stairs and then the sound of stairs touching down on the concrete. I spun around and dropped my light and tried to get quiet. The next two footsteps that would carry the visitor into the plane never came, and I stood frozen for a few moments before laughing it off. I grabbed my light and turned back to the tie down. Just as I resumed I clearly heard a male voice directly behind me ask 'Got a pen?' I spun around again, I am pretty sure I screamed, it scared the shit out of me. The sound of the voice sounded like someone would be standing directly behind me, but no one was there when I turned around. I was frozen for a moment then I bolted off the plane and tore off the flight line. It was about a mile drive back to my shop and my heart was still pounding when I got back to the yard. That was the only weird thing that happened at LRAFB."
Offutt Air Force Base
Offutt Air Force Base is located just outside of Omaha, Nebraska and began as Fort Crook in 1890. This was named for a veteran of the Civil War, Major General George Crook. The fort was used for Indian conflicts and sent troops to the Spanish-American War in Cuba. They suffered heavy casualties with only 165 troops surviving out of a regiment that numbered 513. Many died due to tropical diseases. The parade grounds and a few brick buildings have survived to the present day.
The 61st Balloon Company would be stationed at Offutt in 1918. The air base takes its name from First Lieutenant Jarvis Jenness Offutt who was the first native of Omaha to become a casualty in World War I. Offutt Field was designated in May of 1924. The first airfield was grass. The Post Office also used the field for refueling and was mostly used for training purposes before World War II. When the war started, a new bomber plant was built at the base. The B-29 Superfortress were crafted here and these included the Enola Gay and Bockscar, which were the heavy bombers that dropped the atomic weapons in Japan. The newly established USAF took over the base in September of 1947 and would rename it Offutt Air Force Base in January 1948. This then became the headquarters of Strategic Air Command. The base grew quickly during the Cold War and eventually became U.S. Strategic Command when that war ended. It was from a bunker on this base that President George W. Bush conducted the first strategy session as to how America would respond to September 11th. When the Space Shuttles were in use, they would be shuttled through Offutt.
Building 41 is home to the 55th Communications Group, but when it was built in the early 1900s, it was a post hospital when this was still Fort Crook. This hospital had both a morgue and a crematorium. RIP Paranormal Ventures investigated in 2019. One investigator was overcome with sorrow in the morgue, which she described feeling like a mother's sorrow. They had a trigger box, which was like a motion detector that had a ballerina that would spin on top of it. An investigator named Jason was going to remove the ballerina from the box and he felt something push his hand away from doing that.
Roymetheus said on Reddit, "Offutt AFB, old Building 41. Used to be a hospital and the basement was a morgue with a crematorium in it. If you go there at night you can hear what sounds like a small kid laughing and running through the halls on the third floor. I can't remember off the top of my head but one of the floors was allegedly a psych ward and maybe had a section for kids? I made the mistake of being there with one other person late one night after closing down a lengthy exercise probably around 2am. I heard the voice and the running, immediately turned around to flip on the light switch and started hollering at the person I was there with the stop being an idiot. As I turned around, he was standing right behind me with a terrified look on his face. "Bro, you heard that too?" We immediately left and locked up behind us. No other cars in the lot. All the other doors were locked. Later learned the kid ghost had a name, Billy I think it was. I never went there by myself at night. Freaked me right the heck out haha."
Lynnie Elliott wrote on Facebook, "I worked on the third floor for many years. Yes the place is haunted. Not only will you hear knocks on closed doors but hard knocks. In addition, you will hear glass breaking and the toilets will flush. Many nights working late I would encounter those noises as well as feeling the spirits. They truly come out after dark but only when there are not many people in the building. Billy is true too. Story goes he was a child that died in the building when it was a hospital."
Other haunted locations include Building D where B-29 manufacturing took place. Strange, loud noises are heard, disembodied voices are heard and lights turn on and off by themselves. The Old Strategic Air Command HQ is said to be haunted by the spirit of General Curtis LeMay who liked to smoke cigars. When he is around, there is the scent of cigar smoke.
Wendover Air Force Base
Wendover Air Force Base is no longer a military installation, but rather Wendover Airport today. But based on its history, we wanted to include it. Wendover Army Airfield was built in 1940 in Tooele County, Utah. This played a crucial role during World War II and was once one of the largest bombing ranges in the world. The unit that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan were trained here.
Construction continued throughout the war with three runways and seven hangars. There were 18,000 military personnel on the base as well as 2,000 civilian employees. At its peak, the base had more than 668 buildings that included barracks, a gym, mess hall, Service Club and a 300-bed hospital. The base was placed here because it was remote and could be used secretly. That made life on the base hard with harsh weather conditions and training hours were long. The secret operations could cause psychological issues. One story from the base dates to July 25, 1944. Apparently, five armed prisoners escaped Wendover’s military guardhouse by taking a guard hostage and forcing him to drive them in a stolen garbage truck to Knolls. They let the guard go and stole another car, which they crashed and then tried fleeing on foot. They had only had around two hours of freedom through this escape before being captured. Military officials were never forthright about what really happened here. Of course, the most important secret plan developed here was the atomic bombing of Japan. Test drops were conducted here. After the war, Wendover played a key role in the postwar weapons development industry. The Air Force closed it in 1969 and Wendover City took it over in 1977. Tooele County assumed ownership and it opened as the airport in 1998.
People have claimed to hear disembodied footsteps and voices. There are reports of full-bodied apparitions wearing World War II era uniforms being seen and blood-curdling screams. Strange music is sometimes heard and an unexplained light has been seen “landing” on the active runway. The Firehouse Building was used by the Civil Air Patrol and has a haunted reputation. People would stay overnight there sometimes and one time, a guest woke up and heard these quiet disembodied footsteps that seemed to be winding through the people all sleeping in the room. They then made out a shadowy figure and they assumed it was just somebody up and walking around, until it disappeared. The Enola Gay Hangar is haunted as well. People have heard the shuffling of papers and whispered voices in the former office of Colonel Paul Tibbets. When the office is checked to see if anyone is in there, it is always empty.
Jennifer Jones of The Dead History wrote in 2018, "During a public ghost hunt, a group of us were cleaning up the Service Club at the end of the night, putting chairs and tables away. The second floor of the building held a few small rooms where historic items were stored, including an old radio that, when a button was pressed, played speeches by FDR. As I stood near the foot of the stairs, I suddenly heard a man’s voice. At first, I assumed guests from our event were still upstairs, so I went to check. But there was no one there. Yet, the radio had turned on by itself. Whether it was an electrical glitch or something unseen replaying history in its own way, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone." She also shared, "One night, a member of the Historic Wendover Airfield staff walked into the Service Club to check that everything was secure before locking up for the night. As he made his way through the auditorium section, he caught sight of something unusual—a man in uniform standing on the upper level, calmly tapping his fingers on the bannister, looking down at the floor below. When the figure on the upper level noticed that he was being watched he looked at the staff member and slowly faded away."
March Air Reserve Base
One of the oldest military airfields in America is located in Riverside, California and this is March Air Reserve Base, which was established in 1918 as Alessandro Flying Training Field. The owner of the Mission Inn in Riverside, Frank Miller, and several other local businessmen headed up the effort to build a new airfield with the blessing of the War Department. On March 20, 1918, Alessandro Flying Training Field became March Field, named in honor of 2nd Lt. Peyton C. March, Jr., who died in a flying accident.
This airfield would train pilots for World War I and was a response to the plans of General George O. Squier, who was the Army's chief signal officer during World War I. His plan was to "put the Yankee punch into the war by building an army in the air." Training would continue here before and during World War II and it served as a major West Coast bombardment training center at that time. Many crews heading to the Pacific had their final training at March. Many buildings would be added at this time and most were built in the Spanish Mission architectural design. During the Cold War, March became a strategic base with tankers and bombers and got its first KC-135, "The Mission Bell," on October 4, 1963. In 1996, the Air Force base became March Air Reserve Base, so it was no longer for active duty. More than half of the acreage and buildings was declared surplus and sold off. The March Joint Powers commission has been tasked with redevelopment, but things haven't been going according to plan. There is lots of controversy and push back over various plans for the land and building of warehouses and such. Today, the base supports 452d Air Mobility Wing and hosts Air Mobility Command missions. There have been stories of ghosts here for decades. One of the main haunted areas is the Old Hospital/Dental Clinic, which is also known as The Rookery. This had started as a children's tuberculosis clinic and morgue, which is probably why the ghosts in this building all seem to belong to children. Staff claim to have seen ghostly children playing and they apparently like to hide things.
There aren't just young children here though. A teenage girl has been seen many times walking around the hospital. She is a pretty horrifying figure though as her face in sliced open and she seems to be talking to herself about trying to find the person who has done this to her. There have also been reports of a "Lady in White" and a 19th-century officer named Major Edmund Ogden.
There is a museum on the base, the March Field Air Museum. This building is haunted more than likely because of attachments to the objects inside, which include aircraft. Visitors and staff are positive that former pilots are hanging around their old air crafts. Visitors claim to hear disembodied voices and to hear noises and these have also been captured by paranormal investigators. Full-bodied apparitions of pilots have been seen. Ghost Adventures investigated the museum in 2018, during Season 17. They captured a voice that they interpreted as a child saying "It's Daddy's". Later, another voice reportedly said, "I'm the mother". They used a Polaroid camera and captured strange anomalies and then on video they captured a spiral light or ball of mist flying towards Aaron's face. The SLS camera also picked up a figure where this visual anomaly had been. Zak was told by employees that they sometimes feel like spirits are passing through them and they see artifacts moving on their own. Phil Navratil was investigating the museum with his son and his son's girlfriend, Freda. Phil said, "When we entered the room she was white as a ghost and her eyes were as big as saucers. We asked her what happened and she said, ‘There was a shadow figure standing right in front of me, blocking my way out.’ You could tell she wasn’t making stuff up. She was scared. She looked scared.” Phil also said that they captured an EVP. Freda had asked "where’s the light?" and a voice on the recording said, "It’s over here.”
F.E. Warren Air Force Base
Francis E. Warren Air Force Base is located in Cheyenne, Wyoming and is the oldest continuously active installation in the Air Force. The base got its start as a tiny Army outpost called Fort D.A. Russell that was established for workers building the Union Pacific Railroad in 1867.
This was a tough place to be stationed on the plains with rough weather in the winter. Summer would bring skirmishes with Native Americans and eventually, troops from Fort Russell joined the fighting during the Great Sioux Indian Wars. This was the war that would bring the defeat of Colonel George Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The Army made things official for Fort Russell in 1884 and with this came money and expansion. Twenty-seven buildings were built to replace old wooden structures initially and this building would continue until 1930 with 220 total buildings added to the base. Many of these historic structures remain today. Soldiers from the base would participate in the Spanish-American War and every war thereafter. Troops from Fort Russell came back from the Philippines after putting down an insurrection with a seven-foot Queen Mary Tudor cannon forged in 1557 that is the only one of its kind and it is still at the base near the base flagpole. In 1930, the base was renamed Fort Francis E. Warren by proclamation of President Herbert Hoover. Francis Warren had received the Medal of Honor for heroism when he was 19 and serving during the Civil War. He later became Wyoming's first senator and served in that capacity for 37 years. Air Training Command took over jurisdiction of the base in June of 1947. A month later, the Army Air Force facilities around the country, including Fort Warren were all folded under the newly established United States Air Force. In 1949, the fort became Francis E. Warren AFB.
This became Strategic Air Command from 1958 to 2005. The base is very important as it has nuclear weapons, making it a part of the triad of nuclear weapon systems we have that includes ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles), submarines and bombers. Today, it is home to the 90th Missile Wing and 20th Air Force and is undergoing modernization for the Sentinel system, aimed at maintaining strategic deterrence through 2075.
For over 100 years, military personnel and civilians have reported strange phenomenon. They claim to see uniformed cavalry troops patrolling around the base. The current Security Forces Building was once the base hospital with a morgue in the basement. Base personnel have claimed over the years to see a female ghost walking around the corridors as if she is a nurse checking on patients. Some people think this is connected to a story that claims that an escaped mental patient went to the building where six nurses from the hospital lived and he killed all of them. This occurred in Bldg. 233, now home to the Wyoming Wing Civil Air Patrol .
Quarters 80 is home to a ghost named Gus. There was a young married officer who was away a lot of the time on military maneuvers. One day he came home early and found his wife having sex with another soldier named Gus. Gus decided his best option was to jump out of the second story window and unfortunately, he ended up hanging himself on the clothes line. Gus moves objects around this house, including rearranging furniture, and he also likes open up the cabinet doors.
The base shared the following story in an article published in 2007, "Loud, horrifying screams of a young woman bellowed throughout Warren's FamCamp. The shrieks and screams rang thick with desperation and despair. The noise awoke Airmen in the nearby dormitories who alerted Warren authorities. Under a canopy of stars, police began a four-hour search following the screams they could still hear. At the moment they neared the source of the screams, the noises would stop and start again, shifting to a different, farther location. The police never found the source of the screams. Later research discovered that in the 1920s, a young Indian woman was brutally raped and murdered by cavalry men at White Crow Creek, Warren's present day FamCamp."
Hickam Air Force Base
Hickam Air Force Base in on the island of O'ahu in Hawai'i. It is today merged with Naval Station Pearl Harbor. Land was bought from several estates on the island to build a new air depot in 1934. The task of building a modern airdrome from sugar cane fields and tangled brush was difficult, but the new airfield was completed and dedicated in May of 1935. It was named in honor of Lt. Col. Horace Meek Hickam, an aviation pioneer who was killed in an aircraft accident in Galveston, Texas the month before the airfield opened.
Throughout the rest of the 1930s and into early 1940, the base expanded with new buildings for barracks and other housing and the largest structure of any kind on an American base, the Hickam Hotel, which a consolidation of a mess hall, medical dispensary, post exchange, laundry and dayrooms. Hickam was part of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Its planes were bombed and the structures suffered extensive damage. The base had 189 people killed and 303 wounded. Casualties included nine Honolulu Fire Department firefighters who fought fires at Hickam during the attack. They all received purple hearts today, something only ever done at that time. The base continued to train pilots during the war and assembled aircraft. During the Cold War, Hickam served as the Military Air Transport Service and supported the Apollo astronauts in the 1960s and 1970s. The base also hosted Operation Homecoming, which was the return of POWs during the Vietnam War. The Space Shuttle flights would also use the base in the 1980s and 1990s. The base bears the scars of its past with bullet holes still marking many buildings and the tattered American flag that flew over the base the morning of the attack on Pearl Harbor is on display in the lobby of the Pacific Air Forces Headquarters building. This building has many bullet-scarred walls that have never been fixed to serve as a reminder to never again be caught unprepared. The worst air disaster in Hawai'i's history took place here as well. On March 22, 1955, a United States Navy Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster was carrying 66 people through a bad rain storm and ended up veering off course and crashing into Pali Kea Peak killing everybody on board.
This past seems to have left spirits. People claim to hear bombing noises and the sounds of dying soldiers. Full-bodied apparitions wearing World War II uniforms are seen. The most well known ghost is named Charley and he roams the hall and often switches the radio stations. He likes to throw things too.
throwawaytoreply1 wrote on Reddit, "When I was a kid I got salmonella and was hospitalized at Wilford Hall for about a week. When I got admitted I had a 111 temperature. They threw me in a bath tub of ice water clothes and everything. First day or two was not fun. But that's not why I'm writing this. One night I was feeling pretty good and couldn't sleep. The nurse said it was ok if I walked around the building as long as I didn't go into any rooms or the emergency room. So I set off to wander around. At one point I came up to this area that had 6 or 8 elevators. As I'm passing them I heard a ding and I look to see who's going to come out of the elevator. The sole elevator facing directly towards me opens up and there's a little girl about 6 or 7 standing in the elevator. I ask if she's lost and she doesn't say anything. Then the elevator doors close but I don't hear anything indicating to me that the car is going up or down. Concerned for her well being, I walk over to the elevator and hit the button. When the elevator doors opened up nobody was in the elevator. I noped it back to my room and never went exploring again."
ipissrainbows wrote on Reddit, "I had to stay late in PACAF HQ once and it creeped me the fuck out. The motion detectors activated the lights in our office and I was the only one in the area. I was inside a cubicle writing something so I and pretty sure I didn't set them off.... then again, I had heard it was haunted so that didn't help. Someone else swore they heard people talking to each other while he was there late one night and he was alone. If you have a dog, try walking it past that field in front of the water tower. Some dogs (like mine) freak out and growl and bark at the field. I heard that's where they laid all the bodies after the attack and that's why some dogs hate it."
Kristen wrote in 2005, "I hadn’t been stationed there for very long and I had just gotten out of basic and Tech school so I was still kind of learning the ropes. Well the Commander’s secretary had to leave for an appointment and asked me if I would sit outside the office and answer phones for her and take messages. Well of course I said "yes" so I sat down. It was so silent in the office it gave me the creeps just to sit there with no one around. Well I was sitting there patiently waiting for the Commander or the phones to ring when I started to hear someone pass back and forth from the Deputy Commander’s office, past my desk, and into the Commander’s office. At first I thought it was the people upstairs but then the weirdest thing was if you got up and started to walk across the room the footsteps would stop until you passed then started passing again once you passed a certain place in the office. So I knew it couldn't be upstairs, the timing was just to perfect every time. You could take a step and as soon as you did the "Pacer" would stop walking. My supervisor at the time and I went in one Saturday to work on some things and catch up on paperwork. On Saturdays there is no one in the building with the exception of Security Forces and some computer people that have to work then. This might not seem like much but I’m going to tell it anyway. Well we walked in, had our IDs checked, the usual stuff, and went to the second floor where our office is. I clearly remember leaving the door to the hallway wide open. After we had done all the things we needed to do we walked towards the door and it was shut. Now mind you no one else was on that floor. It was quiet and everything was still expected for the both of us. Anyway there’s a story behind all of this apparently a few years back some guy committed suicide because his wife had left him and he was broken hearted. He jumped off the top of the building I worked at one day, and I guess he’s still here wandering around. Like I said it wasn’t much but still odd just the same.
Amy wrote this in 2006, "My father was stationed at Hickam AFB in 1989. We took the house out on Apollo Avenue because it had air conditioning. Not long after living there, things began to happen. The front bedroom (at the end of the short hallway) was impossible to sleep in. It was my 8-month-old son's room, but he never slept in it. One night, my sister wanted to sleep in the room to see why he woke up screaming every time we put him in his crib fast asleep. That night, her blankets were pulled off and the room was extremely cold. She pulled them up, and they were pulled off again. That happened once more before she said she couldn't take it anymore and came back to the bedroom we shared (all three of us).
We always heard our names being called like someone was whispering in our ears. Mostly this happened as we were walking up and down the stairs. We saw a few ghosts during our stay there. I saw a woman in a black dress sitting in the upstairs bathroom at the end of the long hall. She looked sad and made eye contact with me as I reached the top of the stairs. My bedroom was right next to the bathroom; and not only did I have her staring at me, I had that uncomfortable feeling pouring out from the front bedroom. YIKES! My sister saw a woman in white, like a nursing type uniform, floating up the stairs. My mother had someone climb in bed with her. She thought it was my father coming to bed, but when she turned over to say goodnight, there was no one there. She saw an impression though where something was lying. My father saw a shadow figure in his bedroom doorway one night. He thought it was one of his daughters, so he asked if we needed something. The shadow didn't answer. That next morning, he asked us who came to his room and why we didn't answer him? We were astonished. No one had gone in his room. One night, my sister wanted to leave my parents a note to wake her up that morning but they were asleep already, so she wrote a quick message on a piece of paper that she slipped under the door into the hallway. Our parent's room was across the hall. Not long after she pushed it out, she heard a set of limping footsteps coming down the hallway. It stopped next to our door (as if it were reading the letter) and then limped back down the hallway towards the stairs. Another night, my sister and I were staying up late and decided to head to bed. We turned everything off and started up the stairs. When we reached the top, we heard voices, like a party, going on downstairs. My sister was curious. She snuck back down the stairs halfway and peeked around the wall quickly to see. The voices stopped immediately. She started back up the stairs again. When she reached the top, the voices started again. We RAN to our bedroom. My son was always playing with an unseen figure. Peek-a-boo over the back of the recliner one time when he was one-year-old. Then, when he was about 2-years-old, he started talking about a boy named Bobby. I made him his lunch one day and my son took it to the bottom of the stairs. He set his food down on the first step and called up the stairs "Bobby!" That was pretty creepy. Things always disappeared, our keys, the hammer which we finally found the day we were moving in an ice chest that had been stored in the back of the closet under the stairs most of the time that we lived there. Also, we all fought amongst one another daily during the 3 stay. I remember how much hate we all had towards one another, it hung in the air. Lots of many other things happened -things moving, clunking noises and footsteps, etc. When we moved, my mother made a point to tell the spirits that they couldn't go with us. They had to stay there. I wish I was older and knew how to help them find their way to the light. I hope they've reached it. I saw that there was another account of a house on this same street on your site and I'm curious to know if they lived in the same house as we did. I can't remember the numbers exactly but I'm sure I can find out. I do know that it was in the "D" townhouse but I can't remember whether it was 2625, but that seems right to me if I were to guess it. I also DO remember finding out that those houses were built on the old flight line during the Pearl Harbor attack. It had been set up as a temporary morgue during that period."
While the Air Force bases are young in comparison to their other military branch counter parts, there has still been plenty of time and enough tragedy and death to lead to hauntings. Are the Air Force bases in America haunted? That is for you to decide!
