Tales of ghost greet Hokule'a

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

SAND ISLAND, Midway Atoll — If there's a place that ought to have a ghost, it's Midway Atoll.

And, according to several residents, it does.

The specter is a man in military dress, wearing a hat and smoking a cigarette.

He is seen in various parts of the island — always outside — and doesn't interfere with anyone.

Descriptions of the apparition are remarkably consistent, despite coming from people as diverse as the Vietnamese wife of a contract worker to the U.S. crew of a jetliner that had stopped to refuel.

But as with many ghost stories, original sources are hard to come by. While the voyaging canoe Hokule'a's crew was on Midway earlier this month, everyone who was asked about the ghost began with "I haven't seen it, but ... "

There is a certain somber presence about Midway.

The atoll is best known for its role in World War II. The Battle of Midway in June 1942 marked a turning point for the United States in the Pacific. The Japanese lost four aircraft carriers, two cruisers and three destroyers. The Americans lost the aircraft carrier Yorktown and one destroyer. In recognition of that battle, Midway is a national historical landmark.

Today, many of the old military buildings stand vacant, some of them stencilled with the word "abandoned."

Pieces of the past

There are remnants of the old Pan American Airlines seaplane terminal. The century-old Commercial Pacific Cable Co. buildings that provided offices, housing, recreation and equipment shelter for the old transpacific cable station are in decay, concrete walls cracking and flaking.

Midway's facilities are sized to house thousands of people, but only a few dozen people, plus hundreds of thousands of birds, live here. You can walk the paved streets for hours at night and see no one.

If Midway does have a ghost, it seems appropriate that it's a military man, and appropriate that he be a quiet, contemplative man. So many have died here and in the nearby waters.

Sid Sommers, who works for contractor Chugach McKinley, has never seen the ghost but knows a contract employee who said he saw the spirit outside the three-story building that is the former bachelor officer quarters known as Charlie Barracks.

The employee "came in mad because the military guy didn't return his greeting," Sommers said.

The Navy gave up its title to Midway and turned it over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There aren't any uniformed personnel stationed here.

An intriguing tale

Other sightings: A contract employee and his wife lived a couple of houses down from Charlie Barracks. The wife saw the wordless guy in uniform but wasn't immediately suspicious. Not long afterward, though, she spoke to the wife of another man who had seen it. Once they compared notes, she got spooked and insisted on moving to another house away from the barracks, Sommers said.

Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge manager Tim Bodeen hasn't seen any ghost and doesn't believe in them, but he hears the reports.

"Typically, they see a man dressed in either khakis or camouflage," Bodeen said.

He said there have been reports of sightings outside Charlie Barracks, by the old theater, not far from the water tower, and near Chugach headquarters, which is roughly central to the other locations. All these sightings are away from the ocean and near buildings.

Bodeen said he might write off the spooky sightings to the deep sense of history around the island, but is intrigued by one report. Two U.S. pilots had stopped to refuel at Midway while ferrying an empty L-1011 aircraft across the Pacific to Thailand. They were outsiders who had no way to know any Midway ghost stories.

"They came in and said, 'I didn't know you still had military here,' " Bodeen said.

They, like the fellow Sommers mentioned at Charlie Barracks, were miffed that the military-attired smoker refused to acknowledge them.

Sommers said there are particulars of the sightings that remain mysterious. The ghost is said to wear a uniform, but it's not always clear what kind. The smoking material appears to be a cigarette and not a pipe or cigar.

Bodeen's wife, award-winning children's book author Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen, said she's planning a book set on Midway, and, yep, it'll be a ghost story.

Advertiser Science Writer Jan TenBruggencate was a crew member aboard Hokule'a during its 18-day voyage through the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands from Kaua'i to Kure Atoll.