USS Alabama Officer Remembered
Witness: Geri Albea
Location: USS Alabama Mobile, Alabama
Date of Encounter: October or November of 1985 or 1986
My experience happened in late October to early November of 1985 or 1986, and for years I have searched the Web and reading materials of WWII for information regarding the USS Alabama. I gave up for a while, but recently my interest was aroused again, and there is more information available now on this ship.
I toured the ship with my first husband and two other couples. No one else was on the ship except the six of us, and each couple choose a different route. I believe there were three painted lines: red, yellow, and blue at the beginning of the tour and each route ran through the entire ship but just not together. Each couple chose a different route and we did not run into each other again because the ship was so large. A few minutes into the tour, I had the feeling of not being alone, that other people were watching us and I kept turning around looking for someone but no one was ever there. This continued throughout the entire tour until my husband started questioning me on why I kept turning around. When I told him, he just scoffed at me. I never heard any voices or saw anyone/anything, but I just had the uncanny feeling of an unseen presence and some sadness. The only noises I remember was something being banged on metal which I attributed to "settling" of the ship. At the very end of the tour just before we were to get off the ship, we saw a sleeping compartment for some sort of lieutenant. I entered the compartment and sat on the bunk for just a second or two. As I was coming out of this compartment, something snatched a diamond earring out of my ear. Not much pain, but definitely a force and not just the earring falling out on its own. I was upset because I thought even if I was able to find the earring, I would have to go to a jewelry store to get another back for it because I knew I would never be able to find the tiny little back to it. When we found the earring, it was in a corner 10-12 feet from where I had been standing and the back was still on it. I took this to mean that there definitely had been someone/something else on that tour with us and because my husband kept scoffing at me, this was the "other person's" way of letting me know I had not been wrong.
This next part may just be my imagination or maybe there could have been pictures of some of the officers on the ship at the time I was there, I don't remember, but for years I have carried the image of a tall, thin faced, blond officer in my mind. No name; just his face. A few weeks ago when I began my search again for information on the ship, one Web site had pictures and biographies of some of the commanders; one is the face I have seen in my mind for years. Unless there were pictures on that ship back in '85 or '86, there is no other place I could have seen that face. None of books on WWII I have searched through had this man in them.
This is the only strange thing that has ever happened to me. I have been to the Winchester Mystery House in California, the Oak Alley Plantation in Louisiana, Civil War battlefield parks, etc., (well documented "haunted" sites) and never ever has anything even remotely "different" happened to me.
