Braxton Taylor
There’s nothing quite as satisfying as a ghost story told well: a storyteller who relishes every creepy detail and the disturbing ending, and an audience that sits in uncomfortable silence, if even for a moment, contemplating the possibility of paranormal activity in their midst.
The military is chock-full of tales of terror, hauntings and things that go bump in the night. It’s also full of folks who delight in telling a really good story. Our Military.com readers did not disappoint when we asked them to share their spookiest military ghost stories. Here are some of the best spine-tingling, hair-raising yarns they had to offer.
Some selections have been edited for length and clarity.
The Vandenberg Vision
“I was stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base [in California] in 1971. Most barracks were relics of WWII, wooden structures from the Camp Cooke era. There were a few rooms that no one dared to occupy. The security police barracks had one such room. It was said that if a new recruit was assigned to that room, their belongings would mysteriously appear in the hallway after having been on a work shift. Some of those who tried to move into this room claimed to hear strange noises and even felt there were shadowy figures within the room when they stayed more than 10 minutes. Rumors were that someone had [died by] suicide in that room.”
— Michael, Air Force
Formations at Fort Sill
“[When] I was stationed at Fort Sill, OK, I lived in the senior quarters on post, which was about one mile from Geronimo’s grave and a few others’. As I was leaving for work one morning, one of my neighbors from across the street approached me and wanted to know in a very aggressive manner, ‘Why do we have soldiers marching through the neighborhood at night?’
“I assured her that no unit was marching through the housing area. She pulled out her phone and showed me a video that made me forget to breathe for a few seconds. She had a recording of soldiers in two columns, marching towards the road that led to the cemetery. I realized that the uniforms were unlike anything I had ever seen outside of a museum. I requested that she send me the video, but her husband deleted it and told her to never speak of the incident.
“He later came to my residence and requested that I forget about the whole thing, because he was a first lieutenant, trying to get a position on command staff and didn’t want the extra attention.”
— Kenneth, Army
Power from the Great Beyond
“I was a KC-135 navigator in the Air Force during the Cold War. One day, we got an alert to report to our aircraft. As we opened the door to the cockpit, the auxiliary power unit [APU] started up all by itself. There are several procedures required to start the APU, so this spooked the whole crew. After serving 19 more years, I still have never run across anyone else who had this same experience. Even the aircraft manufacturer couldn’t give me an explanation as to how or why the APU started up all by itself.”
— Steven, Air Force
The Stagecoach Specter
“During the 1700s, a stagecoach traveling from Yorktown, VA, to Williamsburg, VA, was attacked by Native Americans in the middle of the night. It drove across the Felgates Crossing while on fire. Now it makes the same route in the afterlife and scares the crap out of Marines on patrol.”
— Phil, Marine Corps
The Apparition at Altus
“When I worked on C-141s at Altus Air Force Base [in Oklahoma], we had a plane that was rumored to be haunted by an airman who was crushed to death in the T-tail. I pulled in front of that plane at 2 a.m. one morning, and it was completely dark. I wondered where the crew chief was, because a flight was scheduled for the morning.
“I sat on the flight deck reviewing the aircraft forms when I heard the very distinctive sound of combat boots walking from the back of the cargo bay to the front. Thinking I had caught the crew chief sleeping, I switched off my flashlight and stood at the top of the flight deck stairs, listening to every step, waiting for him to get to the front of the plane. When I thought he was a few feet away, I turned on my flashlight and jumped into the cargo bay ready to say, ‘Gotcha.’ There was nobody there, and I felt a cold chill go through me.”
— Bob, Air Force
The Ghost of Fort Devens
“During WWII, Fort Devens had German and Italian POWs housed on various parts of the base, including the pre-war, three-story, brick building known as Hale Hall. One version of the story says that a wounded Italian POW jumped [or fell] from a top floor window at Hale Hall and froze to death in a snowdrift at the base of the building. A second version says a German POW hung himself in the upper part of the building. By the 1960s, the building was in use as a training facility for the Army Security Agency. As it housed top security military intelligence materials, it had MPs inside on 24/7 duty. ‘George’ was reportedly seen various times by MPs, mostly at night on the upper floor.
“One night a new MP was on duty and making his rounds on the upper floor. He spotted an individual in a secure area and ordered the intruder to halt. When the intruder continued walking, the MP fired his .45. Although the MP had a clear line of fire, the intruder continued to walk … right through a wall.”
— Kevin, Army
A Nighttime Encounter at Ocracoke
“I was stationed at USCG Station Ocracoke, N.C. A year or so after being transferred, I went back for some duck hunting and stayed with a friend. The house was built in the late 1700s or early 1800s and had a rich history and numerous tales. It was near Ocracoke that Edward Teach was beheaded. Supposedly, the headless body of Blackbeard swam around the ship numerous times.
“The owners of the house were in the process of raising the lowest level and putting a taller foundation underneath. There was no running water. There were trees in the backyard, and I had to make a midnight call to those trees. While out there, I swore I saw a moving apparition that terrified me. I awoke numerous times through the night, sat bolt upright in bed. I went out the next morning looking for tracks or anything supernatural. I even moved the tablecloth left drying on a clothesline, but I could never again find the apparition.”
— Mark, Coast Guard
The Helpful Crew Chief
“I was a crew member on a C-5 based at Dover Air Force Base, DE. A crew chief died on the plane in an accident about 10 years before. Different things on the plane kept breaking without being operated or touched. I was outside chatting with the guard and heard over his radio that a new tire was on the way out to the C-5. We were the only C-5 at Rhein-Main AB at that time. Our flight engineers and mechanics didn’t know we had a flat tire. Five minutes later, a new tire arrived, and we quickly found our flat tire. To this day, we have no idea who requested the tire, or why I heard the call on the security channel when it should have been broadcast on the maintenance channel.”
— Doug, Air Force
Extra Training Partners
“In 1988, I was a volunteer at Ft. Frederick State Park, MD, where we did living history reenactments of the French and Indian War. During a nighttime training exercise for fun, we played a war game. The idea was to do tactical movements in the fields and woods around the only original stone fort from this period in the U.S.
“During the night’s activities, several of us witnessed figures in colonial uniforms, carrying 18th century flintlocks across an open field, heading away from the fort and going towards the Potomac River. No one could identify who those figures were. We discussed possible explanations, and nothing seemed to explain their presence. The only logical explanation was we’d witnessed ghostly apparitions.”
— Mike, Army
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