00:00.00 kinkella Hello and welcome back to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 139 and we have been discussing the uss hornet and how haunted it is or not now when I last left we were yeah talking about how the hornet became a um. Museum right? moed in Alameda now. How did my dad get wrapped up in this right? That's where do you like Kingin Ke what's your dad doing on the hornet did so okay, you're going to need a bit of my dad's backstory. So before I was born. My father was in the Navy right? and he was in the navy and like there. Earliest 1960 s I believe he went in in like 1960 and he and he maybe got out in 1965 or so but he was on a fleet tugboat and a fleet tugboat. Ah, it's not like the little tugboat you see in your mind's eye like the one with all the. Old tires on it and stuff right? Those tugboats are just like for the harbor a fleet tub tugboat just looks like um like a full on big gray metal ship right? It's obviously not nearly as big as an aircraft carrier or a battleship or something like that. But it's it's made to tow. Big ships like aircraft carriers right in and this kind of thing. So my dad was on that in the early nineteen sixty s and he really got a free ticket to see everything throughout the south pacific right? He was stationed in Honolulu. 01:35.36 kinkella Um, but they would go out to like the Philippines and you know pick your poison. He'd been He's been to all kinds of little tiny islands out in the pacific and his job was like a radio man right? He was on the bridge. He's like lieutenant Uhura. Right? That was his that was basically his job and he my dad was always very a technically minded kind of person really really good at like um, sort of that mathematical technical figure problems out very scientifically kind of brain right. Um I he was very much not a bragger kind of person if anything he was the opposite like he should have bragged a little more but ah I I'm I guarantee you he was really good at his job right? So he took pride in it like he he. Had his full service in in the Navy and did he lucked out like so he was in the navy for 4 years he got off the boat in Honolulu his 4 years were up and of course the next stop for his boat was Vietnam. So he was like phew right? He got out of there but I think the navy was a very defining moment for him and he looked upon it finally he was in the naval reserve like my whole childhood life. He always did the whatever it would like the one weekend a month you know thing. 03:09.37 kinkella He he did it for years and years and years so he actually finally retired out of that and I know he got a little retirement from the Navy right? because he put in his like full time. But after he retired from that and then he with his sort of day job. He worked for at and t right? he. Took this sort of radio man experience and parlayed it into his career with at and t and after he retired from all of that and he he retired like right around 2000 or just before like 1997 or something like that. You note that. In the previous segment I talked about how the hornet opened in 9098 my dad I think was sort of tooling around for something to do in his retirement years you know and he kind of heard about this hornet thing. Um, my dad was funnily enough after listening to me for so long. My dad was kind of um I think reclusive is the wrong term he was he was sort of conservative kind of conservative in terms of talking in a crowd you know a bit of a wallflower but not really like he my dad could be really funny but at like really funny but he would. He was one of those guys who would say nothing at a party for like an hour. He'd like wait for his moment and then he'd have like a killer zinger joke that he'd throw in he was kind of like that right? but not like me not like a blabber mouth like me I know you're like can kill a can you be more like your dad that would be cool. Um. 04:41.84 kinkella So in the you know I don't know 2006 dozen 7 I can't remember but it must have been before. Yeah 2005 he volunteered to be a docent on the hornet because the the hornet the technology on the hornnet was from. His time period right? Even though the hornet was built in like 1943 it had been retrofitted several times and it ended up with the same radio equipment that he used you know in the 1960 s on his boat so he started to give tours and he was really good at talking about. The radio equipment on the hornet right? He did a lot of those tours going up into the island because then you could go to the bridge and and check out all that stuff but he did tours um, underneath too I think he really liked talk about the engine room and you know he he got to know the ship pretty well and you guys aircraft carriers are. Huge right? there. There's just compartment after compartment and floor after floor and you know you you can easily get lost in there easily can also easily like really hurt yourself too. There's um, you have to. Kind of watch your head from banging into eye beams and stuff and it's it's very maze like underneath there. Um, so he just started doing that and I think it was one of the healthiest things that he could have done. You know at the time and so he um. 06:09.29 kinkella Would invite us every so often you know like like my mom and me and my brother we we would go check it out I watched him give it to her several times and I was like really proud of him like it was cool being it was like opposite world. You know where you're the kid. But you're like proud of the parent for doing a thing you know because again even though he was always kind of a. Um, quiet ish guy he he could he could knock a tour out dude good for him so I would walk around. You know, walk through the hornet learn all about it and he every so often. The ghost thing would come up and dude he hated that crap. You think you think I'm Mr. Science you think I don't believe in anything like that. Oh my god you guys my dad like my dad was like member of the skeptics society he had that's literally had that sticker on the bumper of his car like total atheist. Right? He he took none of that bullshit and and so he he was smart enough not to make people feel bad if they asked but he believed in none of it 0 and zilch. Um, so that's when I first. Heard about the hauntings right? My dad would like just make fun of it and be like oh my god look at this and then and then I sort of let it go. But after um, taking this gig you know and getting more into pseudo archeology I'm like oh yeah I could talk about the hornet from from this angle. 07:41.59 kinkella Now if you guys go on a tour the hornet and I really actually hope you deal if you're ever in Alameda or in the bay area San Francisco um I think one of the funnest things to look at is right underneath the flight deck right? right? underneath the top. Right? Underneath. It's just a huge storage area and that's where they have like planes set up. That's where they have like um the apollo spacecraft stuff all set up and and the stuff they had for the astronauts like when they first came back, they put him into this funny quarantine thing that. Oh my god by modern standards even by standards of the late 60 s is pointless like if they truly brought back some space disease the stupid quarantine thing they were in is like would be like nothing I mean you guys. It's like a it's literally like a little trailer like like you know one of those like. 1960 s what are they called like air foil trailers or you know those like aluminum ones. Um that you know that people would take on vacation if you're going on a vacation in like 1959 airstream right? Those little airstream trailers. It's like that. It's like they put him in an airstream trailer and they were like okay. If. There's any moon diseases. Ah just sit in this trailer for like a week and you'll be good I so so they still have the trailer there which is like hilarious and they have um, they still have the painted steps that they took like like when the um, when. 09:14.15 kinkella The crew first got back off the helicopter and got onto the ship. They put little like they drew right around where their feet went as they walked on for the first time you know, big pump and circumstance thing but fun right? Fun to check out and after you do that you can kind of cruise through the corridors. Now as you cruise through the corridors they're narrow. Um, you can also check out where the ah soldiers what where they slept and stuff that's kind of cool. You can check out the Bunk Beds it's it's it's pretty pretty narrow right? You don't got too much personal space. But as you walk through there you can start to see where all the haunting stuff comes from right? It's because a big ship like that it just creaks and moans all the time you know it's it's basically in a state of always falling apart. You have. Steel in salt water right? That's that's not a match made in heaven. So yeah, oh it's echoey, right? So so ah, conversations will will kind of travel and bounce off all these weird angular walls down there it it totally makes sense. That people hear stuff when there's when there's sort of quote unquote nobody there. It makes sense because there is somebody there but they're in a completely other place and the sound of their conversation has bounced around and and sort of come out in a weird spot. It is like that. It's like this weird kaleidoscope of metal. 10:48.31 kinkella You know when you're when you're down there. It just it totally makes sense to me white people would hear this stuff and and honestly think they were hearing you know an apparition of the past doubly so because you're having people constantly tell you it's haunted. You know it's haunted. It's the most haunted ship in America oh did you hear that oh which who did. I heard that did you hear that? Oh my god what was that right? that kind of stuff so you're on edge already and you're just naturally going to hear weird stuff on the hornet I heard weird stuff all the time when I was on there but it was. It's completely explainable. And I know you're bummed I know you don't want it to be explainable I know you want it to be the unexplained but it's not the unexplained. It's the explained I know. 11:42.19 kinkella Um, and when we return 1 final time the last bits and bobs of the haunting of the uss hornet.