By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE
POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
When the
Kalakala hosts its regular Saturday grill for volunteers, there's a vacant seat
at the table for a visitor no one sees, but whose footsteps often echo from the
old ferry's empty steel decks.
It's a
silent acknowledgement that a man long dead may still be around, at least in
spirit, and that he may not be alone.
Amateur ghost
hunters came away from their field trip to the Kalakala with strong feelings and
some photos in which they say they detected orbs and mists. A psychic also
visited the boat. Dan DeLong / Seattle
Over the
years, Kalakala workers say, they have heard footsteps aboard the famous, rusty
ferry berthed on Lake Union and given chase in search of intruders -- only to
find the boat locked and vacant.
Recently,
a team of amateur ghost hunters boarded the boat with electromagnetic field
probes and infrared cameras. They say they found ...
something.
"We
believe the Kalakala is probably filled with a lot of residual hauntings," said
Ross Allison, president of the newly formed Amateur Ghost Hunters of Seattle,
Tacoma (AGHOST). "You have to be there at the right time to catch
anything."
Not that
anyone should be afraid. In fact, Kalakala's ghosts seem downright
warm.
"It's a
very friendly, embracing place," said Patricia Woolard, vice president of the
group. "I felt kind of honored being on that boat."
The group,
which has posted its results on the Internet at www.theresaghost.com, sought
permission from the Kalakala Foundation to use the vessel for its first field
trip last month.
They
probed its spiritual side with an array of instruments and were accompanied by
members of the more established Washington State Ghost Society and some
psychics, Allison and Woolard said. They came away with strong feelings and some
photos in which they detect orbs and mists.
A psychic
who visited the boat says the footsteps are those of John Martin, a janitor who
worked on the boat in the 1950s. An African American in life, he is said to have
felt unappreciated, and sticks around the Kalakala's friendly environment,
though he is bewildered because he thinks it is 1954 and cannot find
anyone.
Kalakala
Foundation director Peter Bevis said a volunteer archivist is trying to find
records that might show if a John Martin ever worked on the boat. In any event,
Bevis is happy to set an extra place at the table.
"The ghost
hunters said John is upset that he never got enough appreciation or recognition
in life," Bevis said. "So I figured, well, let's put a hot dog on our plate for
John and invite him to sit at our table, to honor those who came before
us."
Touting
the Kalakala's spiritual side is nothing new to Bevis, who waxes eloquent about
the Seattle spirit that built the Kalakala, and the boat's importance as a link
between past and present.
The
Kalakala began life as the Peralta, a 1927 San Francisco Bay steam ferry that
was towed north in ruins after a fire destroyed its wooden superstructure. At
the old Lake Washington Shipyards in Kirkland, workers grafted a daring new
aluminum top on the salvaged iron hull, and the Kalakala debuted on Seattle's
waterfront on July 3, 1935.
It soon
became a world-famous, state-of the-art attraction, synonymous with Seattle long
before the Space Needle became a landmark. Billed as the world's first
streamlined ferry, it excited imaginations about the future with its Buck Rogers
rocket-ship lines and art deco style.
Kalakala,
which means "flying bird" in Chinook jargon, carried 30 million people around
Puget Sound, despite its infamous engine vibrations and poor handling
characteristics.
At one
time it carried an on-board orchestra and radio station, was written up in
Ripley's Believe It or Not, and saw proposals, weddings and births on its
decks.
In 1967,
the vessel was retired, sold and towed to Alaska. It became a fish processor --
gutted, deteriorating and forgotten on a Kodiak mud flat until Bevis stumbled
onto it.
Since its
1998 homecoming to a cheering waterfront crowd, the boat has been moored on
North Lake Union, haunted by slack funding for restoration.Bevis said that when
the ghost hunters asked permission to investigate the boat, he kept quiet about
the things he knows -- and the things he suspects -- to avoid prejudicing their
inquiry.
"I was
sort of pooh-poohing their machines a bit because I already sense the boat is
alive with a personality, like a grand dame," Bevis said, adding that he was
impressed by the group's scientific approach.
"As their
machines picked up certain fields in certain areas, it lent a different level of
credibility," he said.
Even Mike
McNeil, a Kalakala worker who doesn't believe in ghosts but who has chased the
mysterious footsteps, was impressed when the sleuths noted "a lot of anxious
energy" in the women's lounge.
The lounge
was where 27-year-old Adelaide Bebb, a forlorn woman with a world of troubles,
shot and killed herself June 23, 1940. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
reported at the time, Bebb, a secretary, had experienced the suicide of her
father and the death of a sister in a car crash. She left a lonely, bittersweet
note that haunts in its own way.
"I found
life too beautiful, and, at once, too difficult," she wrote. "I know myself
inadequate to make my life what I wanted to make it."
The group
also homed in on the car deck, where Bevis experienced an unsettling night in
1998 while sleeping on the boat in Alaska.
"The boat
was making all kinds of noises. I figured it was the tide settling down," Bevis
recalled. "Then I heard laughter. I thought maybe the shift at the (fish)
cannery next door was letting out. But then I heard what sounded like three
women walking right by ... my door, and I thought, 'Now I've got to get up and
chase somebody off,'" Bevis said.
He put on
his shoes, grabbed a flashlight and followed the laughter and conversation in
the dark.
"It was
right in front of me, on the next deck," he recalled. "I followed it right down
to the car deck and then up the spiral stairs. I was right behind it and heard
two of the women burst out giggling," he said, still incredulous. "But I
couldn't see anybody."
The next
day Bevis told the tale to a caretaker who had watched the boat for years.
"He just
broke out in a big grin," Bevis said. "He had heard the same
thing."
Woolard
said the group was surprised to hear the stories afterward. It has published a
report on its Web site, and hopes to go back in a few weeks.
Bevis said
he doesn't need instruments to tell him there's spirit in the
Kalakala.
"The ghost
hunters said the boat felt alive with good energy; I know it's alive," Bevis
said. "I believe in the magic of the world.
"I'm a
foundry metal sculptor. I work with metal, and I feel all the vibrations that
ever shook this boat, from the conversation and laughter of the workers and
families during the Depression, between soldiers and sailors in World War
II.
"It's as
though you can hear a million passengers sometimes," he said. "There is so much
of Seattle's spirit in this boat."