Tinyvoid is working on a ghost theme for the Blogathon this year, and I thought I’d contribute some more. Consequently she’s raising funds for the American Heart Association. You should check out her site, and consider sponsoring her. It’s a good charity, and does great work.

Without further ado, here is the story of the Ghost of the Recruit Medical Clinic in Great Lakes, IL, Navy Recruit Center.

So according to rumours, there was an young patient during the earlier part of the days of the clinic, when it was perhaps a full blown medical hospital, who had passed away from a severely debilitating disease. I don’t Really recall what it was, when it was, or how he died, but regardless, it’s said his ghost walks the hallways of the clinic at night. Every night.

Normally, at night, the doors are locked, chained shut and no one can enter or leave. Of course, the night duty watch person does have keys, so it’s not exactly too helpless. During the night, Really odd things will happen. One of the first things to happen is the phone system will start ringing. Now while this is not normally a strange thing, it’s the way it rings that is odd. If I recall correctly when I was stationed in Great Lakes, the clinic front desk (where the night person stood watch) had 3 lines. Now you only called one number to get any of those 3 lines. What happens is that the first line would ring, you would answer… nothing. Dead Air. Then the second line would ring 5 minutes later. Same thing… Nothing. Then finally the third line rings… Same thing. This occurs randomly during the night, from what a few folks have told me. Weird right?

But wait, there’s more…

Another responsibility of the night person is to walk the hallways and make sure all doors are closed and secured. So people would walk the hallways with the flashlight, making sure everything is ok. People have walked the second floor, then moved to the third floor, only to come down to the second floor and find a trash-can in the middle of the hallway. Odd, right?

The elevators would move by itself, going to the top floor, then back to the first floor. And do this randomly during the night.

Some people have felt the temperature of the room go real cold all of a sudden.

Others have heard footsteps, and the distinct sound of boon-dockers walking down the hallway. clip-clop… clip-clop… It gets closer and closer. But you look. and no one’s there.

You normally do night shift rotations 2 weeks at a time, from 10-6am. My friend was up for his rotation, and what happened?

“I felt it get Really cold once…. but then I realized the window was open…” And that’s all. Perhaps being the skeptic that he is, nothing happened. But Really. Who knows?