In honor of Halloween, here is a troubling account of a modern-day haunted ship. The LNG Taurus was one of a series of ten Moss-Rosenberg type 125,000 cubic meter Liquefied Natural Gas ships (LNG) ships built by General Dynamics in Quincy Massachusetts in the late 1970s.  The story takes a while to tell, so please bear with me.

As a liquid, natural gas is 600 times more dense than as a gas, which is why it is economical to carry by ship. The challenge is that natural gas can only be liquefied by refrigeration which means that LNG ship are essentially giant thermos bottles carrying gas liquefied at approximately −162 °C (−260 °F).  Some claim that because of the potential volatility and energy contained in the cargo, that LNG ships could be floating bombs, capable of doing significant damage to port cities if the hulls were breached.  So far, in a half century of LNG ship operations, these fears have proven unwarranted.

There have been close calls. When I heard that Robin Williams took his life in August, I was reminded of the suicide of the captain of an LNG ship which ran hard aground in a storm at the entrance of a Japanese port, many years ago.  When it must have seemed that his ship would break up, spilling its dangerous cargo with unknown but dire consequences, the captain stepped into his cabin and committed suicide with the ship’s revolver.

The ship didn’t break-up. Three days later, it had been salvaged and was in a drydock for repairs. No LNG had spilled.  From this tragic story, I have taken my “three day rule.”  When considering suicide, always wait three days. Things will likely get better.

I first heard the story of the captain’s suicide when working for a company which would take delivery of the last two of the GD LNG ships. This was all decades ago, so I couldn’t remember the name of the ship, the exact year or the port in Japan where it took place. After a quick Google search, I found that it was the LNG Taurus in 1980 and that the port was Tobata on the west coast of Japan.

In my Google search I also came across a remarkable account of sailing on the LNG Taurus.  The ship is apparently haunted.  The story is on the “Debbie Does Duluth” blog and I excerpting it with permission.

“Now one thing you have to realize is that when you are the only female on a ship, you are being constantly tested. Your strength is always in question, your intelligence, your hutzpah, your sexuality, everything is under attack by your co-workers. It is a situation that will either make you hard as nails or completely insane. I believe I fall under the former, but perhaps after this story you will disagree.

So, when we were taking on stores off Singapore in the middle of the night and the bos’n told me not to take the port side tunnel when I returned to my cabin, I was immediately suspicious. The ships were 1000 foot and had a port and starboard tunnel that ran the length of the ship. This allowed you to go from the bow to the stern in the tunnel and avoid inclement weather. The tunnels followed the shape of the ship and thus you could only see a few yards ahead at any one time. They were lighted intermittently with hanging fixtures but there were always small pools of darkness to contend with.

Now, what no one on the ship knew at the time was that I had been in the port tunnel a few days earlier. I had been traveling from the bow at the end of the day and mid-way I stopped dead in my tracks. The only way to describe the feeling that was following me that day was to think back to any Hollywood action flick that has a huge ball of fire chasing the hero up an elevator shaft or through a tunnel or cave. It is big, it is bad, and it is coming for you.

There were no footsteps. There wasn’t a single crew member in the tunnel at the time. There was, however, a horrible malevolent presence that grabbed me by the gut. I had never been more afraid for my life and I had no idea why. All I could do was to run. I couldn’t turn back, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t scream, all I could do was run.

I hit the final steps up to the hatch leading to the deck and almost lost my mind opening the dogs on the door. I stumbled out onto the deck and slammed the heavy door behind me. Looking around, I was alone. I was leaning on the door, shaking so much that I couldn’t even raise my hands to dog the door again for a few minutes. Then I asked myself, “What in the hell just happened?”

I didn’t dare bring this up to anyone. It is a very isolating experience to be in the middle of the ocean and to have such a terrifying experience and not have anyone (read “female” here) to talk to. If I would have told any of the guys they would have either laughed their heads off or they would have wanted to go down there to investigate. Neither of which I was interested in.

So, I asked the bos’n why I shouldn’t use the port tunnel and he told me very mater-of-factly that it was haunted.

Now, as any casual observer of the human animal can tell you, there is no more vehement denier than one who knows in their heart that what they are denying is, in fact, the truth. I gave him my best skeptical look and sputtered some sort of condescending noise, all the while realizing that I was in danger of shitting my pants.

The bos’n then called over the chief mate who I held in considerably higher regard. The bos’n asked the chief mate to tell me about the port tunnel.

The chief then regaled me with the tale of the former captain of the ship of whom the chief mate served under. The captain had a nasty little incident where he ran the ship aground. The Japanese coast guard were called in to investigate the incident and the captain told them everything they needed to know and all of the papers were filed and the I’s dotted. The captain then proceeded to go up to his cabin and shoot himself in the head.

Well, at least he waited until the paperwork was done…

It was the chief mate that found him and was left to, metaphorically, clean up afterwards. After that incident, there had been reports from many different crew members about places on the ship that held an incredible presence, most reports were that it was a malevolent presence. The chief mate had experienced quite a few incidences where he went up to the wheelhouse in the middle of the night when the ship was docked only to find the captain standing by the wheel. When he stopped and did a double take, the captain was gone.

“And I never, ever, go through the port tunnel…I did it once and that was enough…”He concluded.

It’s kind of funny how well I remember that conversation with the bos’n and the chief mate. I remember the lights of Singapore in the background, the smell on the air, the sound of the supply boat motoring off toward shore, and the earnestness on the face of the chief mate. I would have never believed it if I hadn’t gone through it myself but I felt my universe shift a little that night and I’ve felt the duty to remember and respect the dead from that point on.”

The LNG Taurus continued in service until around May of this year, according to reports in the press.  She is reported to be laid up in Labuan.