As days become shorter and night longer, fog rolls in from the water, blanketing Whidbey Island each night with a fuzzy gray blanket just about headlight high. The moon sends it’s full brightness down to shine through the fog and illuminate the white wisps. The coyotes are restless, howling in the dark looking for a kill to feed their young. The wind howls its mournful sound through the baring trees, scooting the dry leaves ahead of it like a mama hen shooing her chicks back home. My headlights illuminate something large moving in the bushes ahead. What it is I cannot see, but I am not slowing way down I will just pass through cautiously. I am alone and I am afraid of the dark, so If I turn the lights on high beam, and turn the radio up full blast I will scare whatever is out there away, and make it safely home once again. It’s a little creepy out there, which means Halloween and the haunting season is close at hand.
It’s amazing how many stories of haunted places there are on North and Central Whidbey Island. So many, in fact, that the area caught the attention of well-known paranormal researcher and author Jeff Davis of Vancouver, Wash. He came to Oak Harbor to investigate strange Things at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station’s Seaplane Base and has included several Whidbey haunted spots in his four books, which include the “Haunted Tour Guide to the Pacific Northwest.” He was visiting several places around the area, and was on the afternoon TV talk show. Phyllis called and told me to turn it on quick. I then told her the story…
One of his most in-depth stories is of the so-called “lurker” at the Navy Exchange building on the Seaplane Base. This is the very Building that for most of my career I worked in. The building originally was an aircraft hangar for the PBY seaplanes. During one of the night shifts, a member of an aircrew was hit by a propeller and killed inside the hangar about 50 years ago. The man’s ghost supposedly lurks around the building.
When I was a Fairly Young woman, I was promoted to Supervisor, along with 5 other women. We were the ones who opened and closed the building, turned the lights on and unlocked all the doors. There were Chain doors that separated the hard side from the soft side of the store, and closed at 500PM. The minimart side stayed open until 900pm.
As I mentioned above, I was afraid of the dark, so when I had to be the one to come in and open the store and turn on the lights, I would hum and whistle and generally make a lot of noise to scare away the boogey man. I had to walk through the clothing depts. To get to the door that went up to the employee lounge. It was in the refurbished TOWER part of the hanger, so the doors opened into a tall stairwell. I always opened the door, and yelled good morning, and unlocked it and then went on my business.
One day right after the first of the year, I was pre-occupied with making sure that all areas were ready for the yearly inventory, and I was not making any noise, I hit the crash bar on the double doors, and I felt an ice cold wind whoosh out the door with a loud spooky sigh. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. I was terrified, and shook, but then I got my wits back and said “I’m Sorry!! I didn’t mean to scare you, it’s just me. Good morning.” The wind turned warm and whooshed back up the stairs, and there was a calm sigh with it. The hair on my neck lay back down, and I made sure I hurried back to the occupied area.
The shoe room also was “haunted” by the “ghost” We made great fun of it, but it was real.
Today in The Whidbey News Times there was this Article talking about several people Who reported weird occurrences at the Exchange. The janitor said he saw a man in coveralls in a storage area and chased him up onto scaffolding. “When he was cornered, the man backed into the shadows and disappeared. He was just gone.”
Others reported seeing a rack of clothes “ruffle as someone was walking past, but there was nobody there” or repeatedly smelling a very strong odor of popcorn in the store when they come in early in the morning, Davis said. He was also told of a large pad lock that would mysteriously fall open, just as people turned their backs.
It was an eerie place to work. “We heard all kinds of moans and high quivering when the wind came through the cracks . I decided if they didn’t bother me, I wouldn’t bother them.
A woman who worked in the children’s department told about mysterious happenings. She came to work in the morning a few times to find complete baby outfits, very well organized, laid out expertly on the floor. Or in the morning there would be things like baby clothes in the shoe department.
Popcorn was stashed by the ladies who worked in Shoes. They would buy big bags of popped popcorn, and nibble on it all day. They told about how the popcorn would disappear, no matter how well they hid it. One day they bought a bag of cheese popcorn and when they came in the next day it was scattered all over the shoe room. Evidently he did not like the cheese-flavored popcorn.
When I got back this last time, my “office” was in the space that used to be the storeroom for shoes, and I mentioned that I had not felt or heard the Ghost since I had been back. I was told that several people were afraid to work back there because of the GHOST!!
He kept his distance, until one day just before I retired. I was sitting with my back to my desk working at the computer desk. I had a big heavy 3-hole punch sitting on my desk. I was talking to Ingrid and typing when the punch flew through the air and landed on the floor right between us. I looked at her she looked at me and we both nodded to “him” and said well, obviously you are BAAAACK!!! He left us alone after that, just wanted us to know that he was indeed still there.
This is a true story…
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