MYSTIC, Conn. - Specialists in paranormal research are investigating whether a historic whaling ship might be home to the ghost of a long-ago seafarer.

 

A five-member team from the Rhode Island Paranormal Research group visited Mystic Seaport on Friday night to spend time on the Charles W. Morgan, a wooden whaling ship where several visitors have reported seeing the apparition.

 

The 165-year-old craft made 37 ocean voyages in search of whales during the 60 years it was in use. About 1,000 men worked on the Morgan over those decades. The ship, due for a $3.5 million restoration next year, is one of the main attractions at the Mystic Seaport maritime museum.

 

The Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group became interested in the Morgan after receiving reports from three different groups of people about the apparition.

 

The visitors said that while touring the ship last summer, they saw a man in what appeared to be 19th-century clothing, working below deck. They said the man, who had a pipe in his mouth, nodded at them but did not speak.

 

When they went returned to the main deck and asked a museum interpreter what the man was doing, they were told that no one was down below and that no one was assigned to be on the boat that day.

 

"I automatically questioned it, but they insisted they saw something down there," Andrew Laird, founder of the paranormal research group, told The Day of New London.

 

He said that when he asked the three groups for more details, they responded with the same accounts. The three groups were from Massachusetts, Arizona and New York and did not know each other. They visited within a week's time of each other.