The account
A white-clad figure should not have been unusual to the worker. In an account signed Bob Eiess, he was aboard the museum ship Hornet when he saw someone he took for a colleague turn into a side passage. He called after him, followed and found a chain across the entrance to an empty compartment. Later, the actual colleague said he had remained in the room where they were working. Eiess wrote that a ship employee connected the experience with a reported sailor apparition known as the Dress Whites Ghost. The identification came afterward; the moment itself was an ordinary mistaken greeting that stopped making sense.
Following the trail
A recorded story, with its history attached
The account survives in a public collection of submitted Hornet stories maintained by David Miles on a Caltech-hosted personal page. It is a signed personal report, not a Caltech research finding or independent confirmation. The collection also includes contributors who discuss possible pranks and uncertain impressions.
Why it stays with us
The chain matters more than a dramatic ghost face. It interrupts the route the witness thought he had just watched someone take, turning the ship’s everyday maze of passages into a small spatial puzzle.
Follow the sources 1
- USS Hornet Ghost Stories ↗David Miles’s personal collection, hosted at Caltech