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Kinkella Visits the USS Hornet - Ep 139 image

Kinkella Visits the USS Hornet - Ep 139

E139 · Pseudo-Archaeology
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Is the USS Hornet the most haunted ship in America?  No!  How do I know this?  Because my dad said so, and he should know because he worked on it for years!  Also because while there’s no such thing as ghosts, tourist dollars are definitely real.

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  • For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/pseudo/139

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Transcript

Introduction and Episode Setup

00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You are now entering the pseudo-archaeology podcast, a show that uncovers what's fact, what's fake, and what's fun in the crazy world of pseudo-archaeology.
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the pseudo archaeology podcast episode one hundred and thirty nine. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella. And tonight the aircraft carrier USS Hornet.

Personal Connection to the USS Hornet

00:00:36
Speaker
Is it haunted? No, no, it's not haunted.
00:00:45
Speaker
So the Hornet, why am I talking about an aircraft carrier from World War Two? Well, it's because it's because my dad used to work on it, actually.

Is the USS Hornet Haunted?

00:00:56
Speaker
And I have like some little side stories on some little insider tips, my friends, on the ship on the aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet. And, you know, I thought I just I just talked about it a bit. So the Hornet is a
00:01:13
Speaker
aircraft carrier, as I've said, from World War II. It's number 12. It's number CV-12. Not to be confused with CV-8, which was also called the USS Hornet. More on that in a minute.
00:01:28
Speaker
And why am I bringing this up on the pseudo archaeology podcast? You're like, dude, yes, I get it. You can talk about your dad. Good for you. But it's because there's all this stuff online and at the ship itself about how haunted it is. Right. There's

History and Significance of the USS Hornet

00:01:46
Speaker
even this quote floating around that says it's the most haunted ship in America. What? You see.
00:01:57
Speaker
Behind the scenes in these places, and you'll know this if you work at any kind of museum, especially it's like a local museum, you know, you need to drum up some sort of interest. And so I guarantee you, basically every ship, every sort of historic ship, wherever it may be docked, is going to have some sort of like, ooh, there were ghosts or somebody saw an apparition.
00:02:25
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? And the Hornet just gets in line and does that too. I mean, they have to do this because right now, the Hornet is in Alameda, right? It's in Alameda, California, which is in the Bay Area, right? It's in the Bay. Now, I'll talk about its history in a minute. And yes, it was in the later part of World War II, and it did see action in Korean and Vietnam too, a little bit.
00:02:52
Speaker
But after it was decommissioned, it was basically set up to be moored forever in Alameda. And for those of

Challenges of Maintaining a Historic Ship

00:03:01
Speaker
you who don't know Alameda in the Bay Area, Alameda is like a little island. It's like its own island, but it's super close. This is hard to explain. It's like super close to the shore. Like you need the world's shortest bridge.
00:03:14
Speaker
to get from Oakland over to Alameda. It's like right there. Like if you're looking at a like a Google Earth image of the San Francisco Bay, you might not even notice that Alameda is actually an island because it's so close to the mainland in the bay.
00:03:32
Speaker
But anyway, there's a long history there of the military, various military bases there. And of course, it makes sense. There's a ton of naval history there because you're in the San Francisco Bay, one of the world's best natural harbors for this kind of stuff. So.
00:03:49
Speaker
there's a group of people that's basically made this into a museum and we've heard this story before right whether it's like the battleship missouri which has ended up in pearl harbor right we can we can list a bunch of kind of world war two era aircraft carriers as well and others of the sort of stately historic famous ships it's kind of a double-edged sword though
00:04:15
Speaker
I think when places receive something like this, it's a gift. But at the same time, they're like, oh, great. Now we're going to have to keep this thing afloat, make sure it doesn't sink and make sure it doesn't rust to death. You know, it's a full time job keeping these things afloat. And it costs

Exploring Ghost Tours and Student Interest

00:04:34
Speaker
it costs thousands upon thousands of dollars, even though they never go anywhere.
00:04:38
Speaker
So all of this to say that the main way to get money is through tourism dollars, right? So I do have to say as I go through this, I am not making fun of the Hornet and I don't find anything at fault with those guys. I have a lot of respect for those people. The people who work on the Hornet are docents. They're usually older, retired people. That's what my dad did. He was a docent on the Hornet.
00:05:04
Speaker
And I just again, I have nothing but respect for these guys. That's a difficult job where you get no money and you just do it out of the goodness of your heart. Right. The only thing that I'm going to make fun of, you guessed it, is the haunting aspect.
00:05:22
Speaker
Now, what's funny, so they have actual tours, right, that they have on the ship and all ships like this have that. I've been on the Hornet several times because my dad used to be a docent. There's a tour of kind of below the decks and then there's a tour above decks of the island on the aircraft carrier. If you know aircraft carriers, that's the part above the flight deck, right? So you can either go up or down.
00:05:47
Speaker
I kind of prefer the down one. There's there's pluses and minuses to both. But beyond that, in order to make more money, they'll have like a nighttime tour, right? Or they'll have an overnight where you kind of look for apparitions and you hear stories of long lost sea men, right? Where are they? I don't know. Was that him? He just turned a corner. Or did he?
00:06:13
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? That kind of thing. So and I got to say, would I go on the haunted tour?
00:06:22
Speaker
Yes, of course I would,

Legacy of the First Hornet in WWII

00:06:24
Speaker
right? No, I don't believe in any of this stuff, but hey, it might be kind of fun. And I have to say for my students, right? I've talked about this kind of stuff with my students and I always have them vote. Like there was one point where we were going to go check out the Queen Mary in Long Beach, same kind of story as the, as the Hornet, right? They have a haunted tour too. And I asked them, I'm like, which tour do you guys want to go on? And all of them, of course. They were like, King Kela, we need to go on the haunted one.
00:06:50
Speaker
And I'm like, Oh, my God. Yeah, I understand. I understand. So. I guess where we have to start. Beyond the ghosts and the goblins and the apparitions, there is some real history here. Now, when you hear the name Hornet, if you're a World War Two junkie like me, you're going to hear some famous, famous
00:07:17
Speaker
World War II stories like the first one you're going to hear is the famous 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, where an aircraft carrier took a bunch of B-25s and they took off from like the middle of the Pacific and they flew over Japan and they dropped bombs on Japan. And this is even though they didn't do that much damage, it was huge in terms of morale right for the United States that after Pearl Harbor, this this would have been in like mid 1942.
00:07:48
Speaker
that we actually kind of counterattacked, right? Those B-25 bombers were launched off of the Hornet, but...
00:07:58
Speaker
That was Hornet version 1.0. That is not the Hornet that's in Alameda today. So that

Hornet's Evolution and Impact on Wars

00:08:04
Speaker
ship CV8, that one was built right before World War II. I think it was built right around 1940 or so, right? And it sees service early in the war. So everything that happens in kind of like 1942, you know, basically 1942, as we'll see in a minute,
00:08:24
Speaker
That's the first hornet. So that one is the Jimmy Doolittle raid over Tokyo famous. Oh, and as an aside, if you're from the Bay Area like I am, you're from the area of Oakland or San Leandro, you will see.
00:08:41
Speaker
names like Doolittle, there's a major road, Doolittle Drive, right, named after Jimmy Doolittle because of this raid on Tokyo. Just after that, you're going to have the Battle of Midway, which is basically, what, is it June 1942 or so?
00:08:58
Speaker
The Hornet took part in that. You've heard these famous names, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, right? This is we're kind of rocketing through 1942 and the earlier Hornet was at all of these until there's a battle called the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, which I
00:09:18
Speaker
I hadn't really heard that name, right? These are the ones like Guadalcanal Midway. Good God, we've all heard those 100 times. But the first hornet was basically sunk at the end of October 1942. It was attacked by the Japanese. It sustained major, major damage.
00:09:36
Speaker
Basically it was in such bad shape that they abandoned ship the americans tried to sink it i believe in their unsuccessful cuz a bunch of the american torpedoes didn't go off there were a ton of problems with that early in world war two where the torpedoes just sucked.
00:09:52
Speaker
They weren't nearly as good as the Japanese ones. Then the Japanese actually came by. There's a long story to this, but basically the Japanese ended up sinking it even after it was there was nobody on it anymore. And it was done. It actually is, I believe, the last U.S. carrier ever sunk by an enemy force. Right. Isn't that interesting? The last one was was the Hornet version 1.0. Now,
00:10:18
Speaker
even though the first hornet was now gone, they were just building. And

Role in Apollo 11 and Decommissioning

00:10:24
Speaker
you guys know this during World War Two, they're the in terms of building ships. It's amazing, right? They they're building aircraft carriers all the time. And so they just repurposed the name and they made a new hornet and they built the hornet in a year. I mean, from nothing
00:10:42
Speaker
to a full aircraft carrier in almost exactly, I believe, one year. Isn't that amazing? It's like you can't get a permit to add on to your fence in California in like a year. You know what I mean? But they used to be able to build an aircraft carrier.
00:11:02
Speaker
I think I'm going to have to give the Greatest Generation their title as Greatest Generation. Good for them. So Hornet version 2.0, which is CV 12, right? That's the one that ends up in Alameda. And this is the one.
00:11:21
Speaker
That's going to see some fighting later in the war in 1944 and into 1945. Battle of the Philippine Sea stuff in kind of New Guinea and that area as they're kind of hopscotching up the Pacific Islands towards Japan near the end of the war, you know.
00:11:38
Speaker
It's going to see action there. It was damaged really badly in a typhoon right near the end of the war, so it had to kind of sit out a little bit. It was used to carry soldiers home right after the war, of course. Then it was decommissioned. Then it was recommissioned for the Korean War for a little bit where it had some some limited exposure, I believe, in the Korean War. Same with the Vietnam War.
00:12:00
Speaker
had little bits and bobs that it did. But, you know, I think it's probably best known for scooping up the Apollo 11 astronauts.

Family Ties and Memories on the Hornet

00:12:08
Speaker
That was the Hornet when the Apollo 11 this is the first moon mission right in 1969. When their capsule splashed down in the ocean, it was the Hornet that picked them up, you know, got them on the ship and steamed back home. So
00:12:24
Speaker
It's really famous for that. They also did Apollo 12, but since Apollo 11 was the first one, there's all kind of famous people that were related to that amazing moment in US history.
00:12:39
Speaker
After that, we're talking 1969, right? After that, the next year, it's decommissioned in 1970. It's demarcated as a historic landmark, both at the federal level and at the state level in California. And in 1998, it opens its doors as the USS Hornet Museum. So it's, you know, the real ship and you can go on and take a tour.
00:13:06
Speaker
When we come back, a deeper dive into the USS Hornet. Hello and welcome back to the pseudo archaeology 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 talking about how the Hornet became a
00:13:31
Speaker
Museum, right, moored in Alameda. Now, how did my dad get wrapped up in this, right? That's where you're like, King Keller, what's your dad doing on the Hornet, dude? So, OK, 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 in like the earliest 1960s. I believe he went in in like 1960 and he and he maybe got out in 1965 or so. But
00:14:00
Speaker
he was on a fleet tugboat and a fleet tugboat 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 tug boat just looks like
00:14:16
Speaker
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? And this kind of thing. So my dad was on that in the early 1960s, and he really got a free ticket to see.
00:14:39
Speaker
everything throughout the South Pacific, right? He was stationed in Honolulu, but they would go out to like the Philippines and, you know, pick your poison. He's 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
00:15:06
Speaker
My dad was always very technically minded kind of person, really, really good at like sort of that mathematical, technical figure problems out, very scientifically kind of brain, right? 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 I guarantee you he was really good at his job, right?
00:15:33
Speaker
So he took pride in it like he had his full service in the Navy and did. He lucked out like so. He was in the Navy for four years. He got off the boat in Honolulu. His four 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
00:15:59
Speaker
I think the Navy was a very defining moment for him. And he looked upon it fondly. He was in the Naval Reserve like my whole childhood life. He always did the whatever it was, like the one weekend a month thing. 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.
00:16:24
Speaker
After he retired from that and then he with his sort of day job, he worked for AT&T, right? He took this sort of radio man experience and parlayed it into his career with AT&T. And after he retired from all of that and he retired like.
00:16:39
Speaker
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 1998.

Ghost Stories and Ship's Atmosphere

00:16:51
Speaker
My dad, I think was sort of tooling around for something to do in his retirement years. And he kind of heard about this Hornet thing. My dad was funnily enough,
00:17:01
Speaker
After listening to me for so long, my dad was kind of 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 can be really funny, but really funny. But he would he was one of those guys who would say nothing.
00:17:24
Speaker
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 you kill it? Can you be more like your dad? That would be cool. So.
00:17:42
Speaker
in the, you know, I don't know, 2006, 2007. I can't remember. It must have been before. Yeah. 2005. He volunteered to be a docent on the Hornet because the Hornet, the technology on the Hornet 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 1960s on his boat. So,
00:18:12
Speaker
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 check out all that stuff. But he did tours underneath, too. I think he really liked talking about the engine room and, you know, he he got to know the ship pretty well. And you guys aircraft carriers are huge, right? They're
00:18:38
Speaker
There's just compartment after compartment and floor after floor and you know you can easily get lost in there easily can also easily like really hurt yourself too there's you have to watch your head from bang and i beams and stuff and it's it's very maze like underneath there.
00:18:55
Speaker
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 would invite us every so often, you know, like like my mom and me and my brother, 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 quiet ish guy, he
00:19:24
Speaker
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.
00:19:39
Speaker
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 Skeptic Society. He had that literally had that sticker on the bumper of his car, like total atheist. Right. He he took none of that bullshit. And so he he was smart enough not to make people feel that if they ask, but he believed in none of it. Zero and zilch.
00:20:09
Speaker
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 taking this gig, you know, getting more into pseudo archaeology, I'm like, oh, yeah, I could talk about the hornet from from this angle now.
00:20:32
Speaker
If you guys go on a tour, the Hornet and I really actually hope you do if you're ever in Alameda or in the Bay Area, San Francisco.
00:20:41
Speaker
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 plane set up. That's where they have like the Apollo spacecraft stuff all set up and the stuff they had for the astronauts. Like when they first came back, they put them into this funny quarantine thing.
00:21:04
Speaker
Oh my god, by modern standards, even my standards of the late sixties 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.
00:21:22
Speaker
Like, you know, one of those like 1960s, what are they called? Like airfoil trailers or, you know, those like aluminum ones that, you know, that people would take on vacation if you're going on a vacation in like 1959 air stream. Right. Those little air stream trailers. It's like that.
00:21:38
Speaker
It's like they put them in an Airstream trailer and they were like, okay, if there's any moon diseases, just sit in this trailer for like a week and you'll be good. I swear. So they still have the trailer there, which is like hilarious. And they still have the painted steps that they took. Like when the crew first got back off the helicopter and got onto the ship, they put little like
00:22:00
Speaker
They drew right around where their feet went as they walked on for the first time. It was a big pomp 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. You can also check out where the soldiers, where they slept and stuff. That's kind of cool. You can check out the bunk beds. It's pretty, pretty narrow. Right. You don't got too much personal space.
00:22:29
Speaker
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.
00:22:54
Speaker
So oh, it's echoey. Right. So so 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.
00:23:10
Speaker
When there's when they're 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 sort of come out in a weird spot it is like that it's like this weird
00:23:25
Speaker
kaleidoscope of metal, you know, when you're when you're down there, it just it totally makes sense to me why 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

Tragedies and Haunting Myths

00:23:42
Speaker
most haunted ship in America. Oh, did you hear that? Oh, I heard that. Did you hear that? Oh, my God. What was that?
00:23:51
Speaker
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.
00:24:17
Speaker
And now, and when we return one final time, the last bits and bobs of the haunting of the USS Hornet. Hello and welcome back to episode 139 of the pseudo archaeology podcast. And this is our last segment to talk about the USS Hornet. Now,
00:24:40
Speaker
In terms of the hauntings, there have been some specific, vaguely specific. Don't you love that sentence, vaguely specific?
00:24:50
Speaker
In terms of when I looked into this a little bit, I'm like, are there specific ghosts or goblins or apparitions that are seen? And there's one that they talk about once or twice called the dress white ghost, and that would be a sailor in their dress whites. Right. That they're they're dress up. Right. That, you know, the sailor has died. There's never a specific person, though, at least that I had found like this specific guy. And of course,
00:25:18
Speaker
With these various ghosts, it's always dead sailors. Right. And why is that? Because, well, this this aircraft carrier has been in several wars. Right. And, you know, people die from time to time. Now, there was, I think, much more death on the original Hornet. Right. The one that that finally sank.
00:25:40
Speaker
But even so, over time, people would die on the Hornet like they would die on any ship like this. Like being just being on an aircraft carrier is intrinsically dangerous. Right. Think about how many things that can just straight up kill you on there if you don't do everything right. You can be swept off the ship itself and just swept out to sea. My my uncle, my uncle Dave was on.
00:26:03
Speaker
actually on an aircraft carrier in the 60s. He was on the Hancock and he said one of his friends was swept off and never found again, right, swept off and drowned, died, you know, and you can have accidents with the aircraft on there. You're having this heavy machinery and just heavy equipment, multi-ton stuff rolling around quickly. You know, you do one thing wrong and you just get smashed, you know, killed.
00:26:28
Speaker
So you have the systems that that launch the airplanes that have these big heavy cables that whip, you know, back and forth really fast. You get hit by one of those and you just get cut in half dead. Right. So, of course, there's been plenty of of sad and unfortunate sailors who've died over the years on the Hornet again, just like on any other

Personal Stories and Legacy Reflections

00:26:49
Speaker
ship. You also do have suicide, you know, from from time to time. And I'd heard that somewhere they said, oh, the
00:26:57
Speaker
Hornets had more suicide than average or something like this. Like, really? Is that you're going to sell that one? Hey, our suicide rates are the best in the nation. You know, I don't know. It feels a little. And I just.
00:27:13
Speaker
I don't know, feels a little dirty, man. And I think it's kind of extra dirty because I've been holding out on you, my friends. I got one more story. Well, in terms of of that, in terms of, you know, if you want to sell the horn as being haunted, talking about suicide. There is an article in the East Bay Times
00:27:40
Speaker
which is the Bay Area paper right from the from the early 2000s. And if you look up the April 6th, 2007 edition of the East Bay Times, there is a story there where the headline says man found dead aboard USS Hornet.
00:28:00
Speaker
And I'm going to read the first first sentence or two. It says, quote, a volunteer at the USS Hornet Museum committed suicide aboard the aircraft carrier this week, leaving both colleagues and loved ones badly shaken. A fellow volunteer found the body and then it goes on and on and on like who this person was and this kind of stuff. I know this story really well because the volunteer who found the body was my father.
00:28:29
Speaker
my dad found this guy hanging, you know, below decks. So he was he was there, you know, early. And again, aircraft carriers like this are huge.
00:28:43
Speaker
And he was walking through. He I think he was going sort of going through where they would usually take people. Right. They kind of do a quick walk around in the morning to make sure everything's cool, to make sure the correct things are roped off where they need to be roped off, et cetera. Right. And he came across this. Right. And he had to like, you know, alert everyone and deal. And, you know, he said it was, you know, he said it was
00:29:11
Speaker
Pretty macabre pretty awful you know my dad's like against stoic as hell but. I could tell he was like a little shaken up by it not too bad again my dad rocket Gibraltar stoic but he was like who you know pretty heavy day so.
00:29:30
Speaker
You know, when when when people talk about, oh, the horn is haunted, I'm like, yeah, kind of. I always thought. Speaking of my dad and again, you know, my dad, my dad did did this job for quite a few years, but he he had Alzheimer's, you know, he ultimately passed away from Alzheimer's like a decade ago and he was he was able to give tours, you know, even when he started to
00:30:00
Speaker
It got more difficult for him to kind of talk and everything. He still did him for a while. And then there was a time when he finally, it was finally just too difficult for him. And this is a sad thing. And we also had my dad's memorial service at the Hornet. So again, in all this, I really,
00:30:20
Speaker
thank his fellow docents at the Hornet, you know, because they were really cool, really understanding about this kind of stuff. And, you know, my mom and my brother and I were able to have this nice service for him there. And I think he would really appreciate it. And it just it just fit because, again, my dad, he was not this like raw, raw soldier guy, not at all, you know, but he.
00:30:44
Speaker
He just appreciated, I think, the Navy for kind of what it is and the kind of camaraderie with it and what he learned and the experiences he had traveling throughout the Pacific and the learning experience. He always liked the schools that it had, you know, when he learned sort of the radio man stuff and after that.
00:31:04
Speaker
So again, I just I appreciate what the what the Hornet community did for him in his in his later life. But, you know, he did say one thing about the ghosts that I thought was like really cool. He's like he's like. Yeah, the horn is full of ghosts. We're the ghosts.
00:31:26
Speaker
And he's totally right. You know, and what that means is my father is sort of taking people on these tours
00:31:36
Speaker
as an apparition of the past, you know, he's talking about what it was like in 1965. You know, he's he's one of the only people on Earth, I'm sure, at that point who knew how to operate this antiquated, you know, radio equipment from 1965. And so he was the ghost and he would talk about how he haunted the Hornet, you know,
00:32:00
Speaker
And him and his fellow docents, they're the ghosts who haunt the Hornet.

Podcast Credits and Closing

00:32:06
Speaker
So in the end, I would say, definitely go to the Hornet. Definitely go check it out. But check it out for the history, like feel the history there, right? This is a ship that was in World War Two, that was in places that picked up
00:32:21
Speaker
the Apollo 11 astronauts, right? Don't go for the haunting fake story crap. You know, go go for the history. And, you know, if I go and I go by myself and I walk down a darkened hallway in the late afternoon below decks on the Hornet and I turn and I hear a whisper.
00:32:48
Speaker
And I'm like, Dad? Dad, is that you? I'm sure my dad would say. No, Andrew, it's not me. There's no such thing as ghosts. What's wrong with you? And with that, I'll see you guys next time.
00:33:11
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the pseudo archeology podcast. Please like and subscribe wherever you'd like and subscribe. And if you have questions for me, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, feel free to reach out using the links below or go to my YouTube channel, Kinkella teaches archeology. See you guys next time.
00:33:32
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.