Stateroom B340: The world's most haunted cruise cabin

Strange knocking, uneasy presences, hangers rattling amid the stagnant evening air, and water running before the sanctity of daylight. This isn’t your typical nightmarish lodger. Rather, this is the haunted stateroom B340 onboard RMS Queen Mary.

Located on B-deck of the ex-Cunard liner, the notorious cabin is known for strange happenings - usually in the dead of night and without warning. Inhabitants have reported bloodcurdling anxiety beyond the witching hour, as bedclothes are torn away and 'that presence with burning eyes' stands over the threshold.

The ship's hauntings are well documented, but the epitome of possession resides within the stately lodgings of B340. Plush and stylish though the fixtures and fittings are, there's dark power oozing through the woodwork.

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Of course, Cunard's 20th-century flagship holds a firm place in history, and that feeds the imagination. Launched in 1936 and operational until October 31, 1967, RMS Queen Mary carried 2.2 million passengers during peacetime operations, and 810,000 military personnel throughout World War II.

Even as a decommissioned ship, now a hotel and business centre, her fame remains stratospheric. Besides finding adoration from the good American people, she proudly boasts over 50 million visitors since her transatlantic retirement ceremony, alongside more than 12,000 weddings. Perhaps the brides wear red.

Passengers and visitors of the time boasted serious clout, too. The likes of Bing Crosby, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, and Winston Churchill (who signed the D-Day Declaration onboard) frequented the respected Scottish liner during her heyday. Frank Sinatra even made a heist film where RMS Queen Mary played host.

However, throughout all those years and all that activity, fatalities and tragedy played out within the ship's confines. Death occurred on every deck, and in some very public spaces. Such as the drowning of a young first-class adolescent by the pool. She's said to still be down there.

The onboard hauntings are therefore not limited solely to stateroom B340. Experts claim that RMS Queen Mary accommodates over 100 spirits from bow to stern; the majority revolving around her stint as a military powerhouse.

She was the Allies' secret weapon during wartime, where the vessel's effective speed and size offered a safe haven through dangerous waters. At one point, 15,000 soldiers were crammed onto the 2,200-capacity ship. It's a record that remains unbroken by modern equivalents.

With war comes anguish, but peacetime bears its' own scars. Souls perished while engulfed in luxury or surrounded by their kinsmen. But what happened in stateroom B340 to trump all other locales? Even the Captain was too scared to enter.

What really happened in stateroom B340?

The most gruesome fable surrounding stateroom B340 was a brutal triple murder in October 1967. As the story goes, during RMS Queen Mary’s final transatlantic voyage, a man butchered two women in their stateroom and, as a result, he was locked in his lodgings (there's debate between B222, B224 or B226) with a guard outside.

The man proceeded to pound on the door following his decadent imprisonment, claiming that someone in the room was trying to kill him.

Cunard's guard presumed that the criminal was attempting to escape under an elaborate ruse, but as the murderer's panicked yelps transformed into feverish yelling, punctuated by stagnant batches of silence, something untoward was materialising.

Little did he know, when the door was opened by the police department upon arriving at Long Beach, that the man had seemingly been ripped apart. His limbs were violently dismembered and spread across the cabin, with his face twisted by agonising torment; once they found it, barely attached to his febrile and decapitated head.

The grizzly scene was beyond anything previously witnessed by seagoing humanity. A cruel and tangy punch of steaming entrails and human offal pierced the air. Those thick carpets would certainly require a deep clean.

To this day, no one knows the motive behind the murder of the two women, or who killed the man in his room. Guests who have since slept (or at least tried) in these affected cabins report spine-tingling haunted occurrences – including one woman having her bedcovers ripped off while she was asleep.

Before this, a third-class passenger by the name of Walter J Adamson died under unknown circumstances in 1948. He is said to still haunt the area, and it has been suggested that Adamson is the root cause of the hauntings in stateroom B340.

The rumour mill dictates Adamson suffered a painful demise, succumbing to mysterious forces that doctors could not explain.

Immediately following the triple murder, RMS Queen Mary was retired from transatlantic service. Purchased by the City of Long Beach, California, for continued operation as a hotel. The trio of third-class cabins, reportedly where supernatural occurrences affected scores of passengers, were merged into one – stateroom B340.

Guests staying in this larger room began to report strange happenings, from phantom voices to knocking on the door in the middle of the night.

These events didn’t translate into good reviews, resulting in the closure of B340 following entrance into the 1970s. It wasn't open to the public again for over 30 years.

Of course, to the corporate suits and demonic accountants, there was money to be made out of this strange situation. After being shuttered for three decades, stateroom B340 was reopened to anyone looking for a creepy overnight stay.

All reasonably priced, of course. The accommodation rarely offered availability thereafter, with B340 fast becoming the new en-Vogue statement.

Rumour vs truth

It’s natural to question the supernatural occurrences that took place in stateroom B340. The stories or reports, regarding what happened in this stateroom vary from a man killing his family in the cabin to a woman murdering her husband to a husband shredding his wife. The list goes on.

Even the most famous story of the triple death in the stateroom is somewhat inconsistent. Some say the man who was locked in his room was possessed by a spirit called Samuel the Savage.

He was locked away due to disruptive behaviour during a voyage to New York, and as a result, ripped himself to shreds in a fit of madness. He must have been transfixed by Jane Fonda's latest workout video...

In fact, in Nicole Strickland’s book Spirited Queen Mary she alludes to the legend of B340 and suggests this was invented in the late 1980s by employees of the Walt Disney Hotel, who owned the RMS Queen Mary at the time. And as we all know, Disney is pure evil.

Nothing draws in guests like a haunting, with ghost-buster enthusiasts from all corners of the globe making the journey to experience RMS Queen Mary's haunted stateroom B340; especially following the ship’s renovation in 2023.

Many journalists and vloggers have been invited onboard to see the scary-stuff for themselves, with a questionable level of special effects implemented in various videos, or simply not much happening at all.

Despite the dramatics, whatever happened resulted in many guests reporting ghost sightings and an energy full of rage. But really, the decision rests with you – do you believe in the haunted stateroom B340?