About the Lexington Ghost
By Diane Richbourg Caller-Times
October 31, 1994

He's polite, knowledgeable and kind. Smartly dressed in a summer white Navy uniform, he's good looking, too, with light hair, a clear complexion and piercing blue eyes that haunt like a good ghost story.

An apparition to write home about.

Those who have seen him say he might be found in the engine room of the Lexington Museum, although none of the museum staff has seen those blue eyes for themselves. He wears no nametag, but is known solely by description.

His character so impressed a couple from Peoria, Ill., that they told tour guide David Deal about it.

"The woman says, 'You know, I really did appreciate that knowledgeable young sailor down there in the engine room who gave us all that information on how the engines work,'" Deal said.

Deal, who had gone up to the hangar deck to get coffee on a quiet Friday, had been in the engine room and knew no one else was there. So he probed for more details.

The couple said the seaman was 19 years old, maybe 20, and wore a white uniform. He had a slight limp to his left leg. He had memorable blue eyes. And he knew all about the engines, their horsepower and the use of steam.

Deal, who had first shipped on the USS Lexington in 1959-60, checked out what the couple had learned. "This apparition told things about the engine that I don't even know," said Deal, who made the rank of airman on the Lexington and retired in 1976 as a catapult chief.

"It's fascinating because I'm one of these hard nuts to crack on something like this," said Deal, who judged the couple to be adamant about what they said and without reason to fabricate the story.

So he ran to the engine room, calling "Anybody home?" and searched for a hidden uniform. He found nothing.

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