15 Haunted Colleges: Of Course New Jersey is Included

Halloween is getting closer, and I’ve got even more spooky stories from college campuses in my trick or treat bag. Last time, I was just playing around with stories of bumps in the night and benign Casper-like toddler ghosts. This time around, however, I promise scarier, more malevolent ghosts.

Just researching these stories is getting me all jittery. Last night, I was walking my dog at the park. There was no moon out or streetlights on. Even the stars seemed dimmed. Of course, a spectral fog hung in the air- you’ve got to have the fog. I had rarely seen a night that dark. And I swore I could feel eyes watching me out there in the thick darkness. So I ran around the park, practically dragging my poor dog behind me, scurried into the safety of my house, and watched my kids’ entire Care Bears: Season One DVD set just so I could get to sleep. I know, I’m a big chicken.

But I also can’t help dishing it out. So here goes another serving of 15 fiendishly frightful forays into that phantom field of the unknown:

1. Bradford College: Unfinished Affairs

Now vacant, this college was recently visited by a band of ghost hunters, who discovered more haunting happenings there than they had bargained for. Prior to their visit, they were well aware of two old stories that pervaded the campus about a sordid affair between a female student and a priest that occurred at the Academy Building. When the student got pregnant, she either killed herself or was killed by the priest. A similar but more recent story came from Denworth Hall, the drama building, in which another female student had an affair with a professor and got pregnant. She threatened to tell the administration, and he killed her. Supposedly, her ghost still haunts the theatre, playing tricks on visitors or singing “Hush, Little Baby” from the upper floor.

At the Academy Building, the ghosthunters felt a great deal of negative energy, recorded the trademark cold spots, and saw the forms of two people: a young, blonde female who appeared to be fleeing something and a man in black, overcome with anger. They also recorded a host of other peculiar phenomena throughout the building.

At Denworth Hall, although not expecting to find anything interesting, they encountered the ghost of the female student, singing her favorite tune. Apparently, she started as a shadow then developed into a more visible form. Dressed in Flapper Era clothing, she descended a set of stairs carrying a doll, singing to it mournfully. As the ghosthunters exited the building through a tunnel, they could hear the student screaming out after them, “Wait! Wait! Don’t leave!”

This college also houses the ghost of a little boy, a bloody phantom old woman who has a thing for foreign exchange students, a ghost man who haunts the theatre stage, and a dark figure that hangs around the catwalk above the stage. No wonder this place has been shut down!

2. University of Notre Dame: Win One for the Gipper’s… Ghost?

It would make sense that Notre Dame’s most famous graduate ever would continue to grace the university from the grave. No, I’m not talking about Rudy- he’s still alive. I’m referring to the Gipper himself of the now immortal “Win One for the Gipper” speech. According to accounts, George Gipp, legendary ND football star of yore, has a habit of hovering over students’ shoulders and then dematerializing just as they sense him and turn around. They catch him just as he vanishes into thin air.

The Gipper especially prefers to frighten students working late at night backstage at the university’s dramatic theatre department. Which leads one to wonder: Why would a deceased football great hang around spooking a bunch of drama kids? My theory: He’s a jock. What jock can refuse terrorizing a bunch of drama nerds- even from beyond the grave? Watch out, chess club. You’re next!

Also roaming the grounds of Notre Dame are the restless spirits of the Patawatami Indians who inhabited the banks of the St. Joseph River. Of course, it turns out that Notre Dame was built on, say it with me,… INDIAN BURIAL GROUNDS!!! The ghost Indians prefer to hang around Columbus Hall, where they ride up and down the front steps on ghost horses.

3. University of Georgia: Unhappy Spectral Southern Belles

Many of the buildings at this Athens, Georgia, school are old, certainly old enough to hold a lot of secrets. The Alpha Gamma Delta house, for example, is rumored to have been the dwelling place of its founding family. Oh, and it’s also the house where their daughter, Susie Caruthers, hung herself in despair over having been stood up at the altar. It just so happens that the house resembles a three-tiered wedding cake. According to legend, passers-by catch glimpses of Susie in the attic window, the room where she killed herself.

As far as the sorority girls are concerned, some prefer to keep the story under wraps so as to protect the sorority’s reputation. Other sorority members embrace the ghost and her influence around the house. They speak fondly of doors opening and closing on their own, of the lights cutting off randomly and then coming back on, and of things moving around on their own. Just part of living with other girls, I guess. Girls who live in the “Engagement Suite,” rumored to have been Susie’s room during her engagement, claim to have incredibly good luck in love, with marriages occurring magically within a year of leaving the room. Word to the wise, ladies: Susie’s a good friend to have.

At the Phi Mu house, following incidents of phantom crying being heard from the top of the stairs, a Ouija board revealed that a girl named Anna Hamilton was haunting the building. Students also uncovered a tale of murder and secrecy in which Anna’s fiance was killed before her eyes and his body buried beneath the front steps of the house. Creepy! The students tried to investigate the alleged murder with people who knew Anna but to no avail. They remembered Anna but grew upset when asked about any murder. Hmmmm… Sounds like it’s time to call Scooby and the crew or Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Also at U of Georgia, the ghost of a Confederate office, Major Charles Morris, likes to rock in his old rocking chair at the president’s office and roam the halls of the administration building. Sounds like a fun place!

4. Montclair State University: Bad Boogeymen at Clove Road

The Clove Road Apartments on this college’s Montclair, New Jersey, campus are apparently a gateway to Hell. Not really, but there is definitely some scary stuff happening there. Starting things off on the wrong foot, this place was built on, of course,… an INDIAN BURIAL GROUND!!! I mean, that just opens the door for killer clown puppets, scary, staticky TV screens, people peeling their faces off in the bathroom sink, and the undead marching out of your swimming pool. The American Founders should have put a footnote in the Magna Carta or something about not building on Indian burial grounds. Everyone’s lives would be a lot easier. But, oh well: hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.

Anyway, back to Clove Road. This place is bad news. Tenants have reported electrical appliances turning on and off of their own accord, lights on the second floor flashing on and off by themselves, disembodied knocks on bedroom and bathroom doors, “unearthly” noises emanating from the woods behind the apartments, and, get this, shadows lurking around in the woods. Uh, I think I would have demanded my deposit back from the landlord by now and checked into the Motel 6 across town. I mean, “unearthly” sounds? Lurking shadows? Hello! Red flags all over the place! But, alas, I digress…
It gets better (or worse, I guess). Tenants reported being overcome by an “unsettling feeling or nausea” whenever they discussed the strange phenomena at their apartments. The roommates, best friends when they moved in, had inexplicably negative feelings toward each other and would often fight and squabble. Their apartments would be chilly even though the thermostat was set at 80 degrees (aka cold spots). We know what cold spots mean. Cold spots equal dead people. One female tenant told of waking one night to find a man dressed in 19th century garb standing over her bed, staring at her lovingly. Thinking it was her roommate’s boyfriend mistaking her for his girlfriend, she told him he had the wrong bed. The man suddenly disappeared into thin air.

I say, kids, it’s time to find another apartment. I don’t care if you like the cheerful peach decor. Get yourselves out of there before everyone starts growling evil incantations and spewing green slime. Seriously…

5. Drew University: Ghosts Getting Religion?

One of our stories comes from this Madison, New Jersey college’s theological school. It seems funny that a church or a seminary would have ghost stories. I mean, it’s a church. Aren’t those supposed to be free of, like, spooky stuff? Evidently not. One student reports hearing the sound of breathing in the otherwise empty chapel while he was saying his prayers. He got up and looked around the small room and found no one, nothing to explain the breathing sound. The sound grew louder and heavier. Thoroughly frightened, the student took off like a bat out of… heck.

Other accounts tell of mist-like apparitions forming on the second floor of Asbury Hall. Witnesses are certain the mists are not steam or tricks of light. But they do recall being gripped by fear in their presence. According to rumor, a seminary student hung himself from the attic rafters, and the mist is his despairing disembodied spirit still roaming the halls.

Also at Drew U, the ghost of Roxanna Mead Drew, wife of the original founder, makes spooky appearances now and again. Madison firefighters tell the story of the fire at Mead Hall, started by a painter’s torch, in which two firemen spotted a woman walking unphased through the raging flames. They moved toward her and called out to her. Suddenly, they realized she was dressed in old-fashioned attire, and, a second later, she vanished before their eyes. Apparently, Mrs. Drew just decided to show up for the burning of her namesake.

6. St. Charles Community College: Footprints, Flying Papers, and Ghost Boys

This small campus in Cottleville, Missouri is allegedly the home of a large paranormal infestation. Even in buildings with no apparent history, ghostly activity has been widely witnessed by students and faculty alike. Whoever is haunting them is a terrible houseguest, as most incidents revolve around loud footsteps, bumps, loud conversations, muddy footprints, and doors slamming by themselves.

One notable report came from a housekeeper cleaning in the library during closed hours. No one was around. They heard a commotion behind a service desk and went to check on it, but found no one there. Upon returning to the spot they had been cleaning, they found muddy footprints tracked across the carpet, starting from the, gulp,… MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR!!! The spooked housekeeper called another staffer to come to the building, but, of course, the footprints had VANISHED! Isn’t that just the way?

Another event happened in the new Technology Building where several housekeepers were working. Without warning, the ceiling tiles in many rooms “started jumping up and down.” Other housekeepers were called to the scene via walkie-talkie. By the time they arrived, “papers on the bulletin boards in the building were standing out from the wall, as if they were trying to fly away, rather than hanging down against the wall as usual.” This phenomenon continued for another hour until it stopped just as suddenly as it had started. That’s like freaky Poltergeist stuff! And the fact that it was witnessed by several people over an hour only amps up the freakiness.

In what I think is the most bone-chilling story, campus residents have reported seeing a ghostly nine-year old boy dressed in 19th century dress following them around. For some reason ghost kids are scarier than ghost adults (like that white-faced ghost kid from The Grudge… I’m getting scared just thinking about it). This kid prefers to scare the pants off people by appearing at night and following people when their alone. Creepy! Other than the following thing, it has not been established whether the boy actually says or does anything in particular. All I’ve got to say is, someone’s gotta find that kid’s ghost mom and have her give that kid some attention instead of letting him float around and freak people out.

Speculators at St. Charles have their theories: air masses of different temperatures mixing and colliding with each other in the buildings (whatever); the tragic deaths of early European settlers; and, of course, that old stand-by, the Indian burial ground.

7. Franklin & Marshall College: Haunted Songs and Spectral Wrestlers

Late one night in Diagnothian Hall on the Lancaster, PA campus, a music professor was listening to a recording of a Souza duet called “Red Cross Nurse,” which is about a nurse bandaging wounded soldiers during World War I. As the song played, the professor began to hear “sounds apart from the music … moaning, rattling sounds, and overall, the sounds of a person in intense pain” coming from the other side of his office wall. He ran to the other side of the wall only to find an empty room. A few years later, this same professor was listening to music in his office late at night, a piece entitled “Haunted Landscape” that was composed about the nearby Gettysburg battlefield and the “lingering presence” often felt there by visitors. Obviously, this professor hadn’t been spooked enough by his first experience. Anyway, you can guess what happened next: the same ghostly sounds of suffering were heard. It had long been known that the hall acted as a hospital during the Civil War, housing the dead and wounded from many battles, including that of Gettysburg. The music professor theorizes that his musical pieces about Gettysburg and war hospitals literally woke the dead.

In Distler House on the same campus, students (even in large groups) have reported strange noises coming from the upper floor of the building, noises like “squirrels running in circles.” Over the TV room in the building, people have reported sounds of moving furniture, horseplay, and rough-housing. Turns out Distler House used to house the school gym, with the upper floor containing an indoor track and the room over the TV room acting as the practice room for the wrestling team. Apparently, the dead are still interested in maintaining their ghoulish figures (sorry, bad joke). But those wrestling singlets have got to be pretty foul by now.

Seriously, though, are these cases of buildings retaining some kind of “psychic residue” of their pasts that they just replay on a loop in the present? Spooky stuff. Here’s more…

At the Alumni House, guests have reported feeling strange sensations as they lay in their beds at night. The bell at the administration building has been known to ring randomly and without human manipulation, possibly as a result of the building being built on, gulp, GALLOWS HILL!!! Up until recent decades, the ghost of a deceased, obsessive professor who was killed in an auto wreck in the middle of accumulating pieces for a collection at the school museum, his late life’s work, still occupied the library, where he made odd noises at night and caused elevators to go to the wrong floors.

8. Sweet Briar College: A Car-Thieving, Towel-Stealing, Heavy Breathing Ghost Girl

This girls college abounds with stories about the founder’s daughter, named Daisy, who died while a teenager and has been purported to still cause mischief on campus today. She is blamed affectionately by students and faculty alike, who are on a first-name basis with the ghost.

One account tells of two co-eds who took their dates up to Monument Hill, where Daisy’s statue stands, and told the guys the ghost stories they knew. When one of the girl’s made a casual joke about the monument, the parking brake on her car suddenly released, sending the car rolling down the hill. The four kids reached the car in time to stop it, jumped in the car, and drove away with the doors still flying open.

Another story is told about a girl making her way to the laundromat with her laundry baskets. She suddenly had a strange feeling and looked up at the bushes to her right. To her surprise, she found her towel, which should have been at the bottom of her basket, hanging from the bushes. She remembered having it after she had done laundry last, so she couldn’t have dropped it. Strangely, the towel was not dirty as would be the case if it had been dropped or left somewhere on campus. When she got back to her room, she searched her towel drawer for the towel. It wasn’t there. Naturally, the female student assumed that Daisy must have taken an interest in her towel and hung it out on the bushes for all to see. Some roommates think they can just get into everything…

In a more frightening account, a student awoke one night in her dorm to the distinct sound of loud, heavy breathing. She thought it was her roommate, but when she glanced over at her, her roommate was awake in bed, holding absolutely still. The breathing was coming from high above them. It sounded human. They had locked their door, as they did every night. Her roommate asked, “Is that you?” The student answered no, and the breathing ceased. They didn’t talk about it until later, remarking that it didn’t sound friendly. Maybe Daisy has taken on a more sinister tack. Look out, girls…

9. Shepherd College: The Haunting Homecoming Queen

At this West Virginia school, a story circulates in Gardiner Hall about a past homecoming queen who slipped in the shower, hit her head, died, and now haunts the premises. One student tells of how he was assigned to a room where the room number was always set upside down. When he inquired about it, he was told not to worry about it. Then one night, while his roommate was out of town, he was awakened by the sound of footsteps inside his room. They moved across the room from the door to the desk. Then the student heard the sound of shuffling papers. The footsteps moved to the foot of the student’s bed and, yikes, “a cold sensation erupted.” Say it with me: “I see dead people … ALL … THE … TIME!” 

The day after his harrowing experience, he asked several students about it, and they told him about Patricia, the homecoming queen, her accident in the shower, and her picture that hangs in the lobby in memoriam. The numbers in his room, it turns out, were always upside down because Patty preferred it that way. She had some kind of beef with Mabel Gardiner, after whom the building was named. The student went on to say that he awoke one night before summer break later that year to see a bright flash of light in his mirror. When he looked up, he saw a young woman with dark brown hair and a white outfit. Apparently, she communicated with him because he claims to have more information about her and her hauntings. Run away, man! That girl has some serious issues.

10. Ohio University: Playful Poltergeists, Pentagrams, and a Headless Buffalo

For some reason, Ohio just seems to have more than its fair share of haunted colleges. Dubbed “the most haunted college in the country” by some, this Athens university certainly follows suit. It’s old, which means it has a lot of history, which means you can expect a lot of ghostly traffic.

In several different buildings, poltergeists throw objects, lock doors, flush toilets, and- gasp!- unroll rolls of toilet paper. Phantom marbles sounds will be heard from ceilings and the sound of dripping water. Disembodied laughter will sound from the center of an empty room. Some students have reported feeling threatening presences hovering in front of their faces. Others tell of ghosts spooning with them in the middle of the night (oohh-kay… time to find a date, preferably a living one).
Perhaps the most notable haunted site on campus is Wilson Hall, which as amassed a disproportionately large number of hauntings in its short 42-year history. There have been, of course, a number of suicides there. Dark, shadowy figures roam the halls, leaving unfortunate students feeling chilled and frightened. Athens ghost folklorists believe that Wilson Hall’s high frequency of hauntings is due to its location. Apparently, Wilson sits smack dab in the middle of… Athens’ five pentagram cemeteries!!! That’s good enough for me.

Lastly, the university’s West Green sits on, you guessed it, an Indian burial ground. Besides hearing Indian chants at the site, students tell of Stroud, a headless buffalo that still roams the area. It turns out Stroud was killed by some Confederate soldiers near the end of the Civil War. To hide their plunder, the soldiers cut off the buffalo’s head and stuff it full of loot. This has left the buffalo’s restless spirit to wander West Green for eternity. Someone should tell him his head is hanging on the wall of Buffalo Wings and Rings in town.

11. Illinois University: The Gray Ghost, a White Lady, and Creepy Closets

This school has its share of ghostly footsteps, spectral suicide victims, flickering lights, and windows that open and close on their own. But IU also has a few unique stories of its own.

In one such story, a female student was returning to her room in Alpha Phi Omega Hall to get something while everyone else was at a party. She had been drinking but still insists that the following was not imagined as a result of intoxication. As she ascended the staircase, she saw a man standing at the top of the stairs, dressed in gray. Cautiously, the girl squinted to get a better look at the man, realizing suddenly that the man had no face. The student ran out of the house screaming bloody murder, but no one heard her… You’re probably thinking that they found her dead, but you’re wrong. She lived to tell the tale to her sorority sisters, who subsequently thought she had had one too many swigs of Halloween punch. Since then, the Gray Ghost has been sighted widely around campus.

In Crampton Hall, the same building where a student was found hung by an unknown hand in his closet, a male student went to his room to get ready for a night on the town. When he didn’t come back for a long time, his companions went to look for him. They found him naked, hanging upside down in his closet, and too frightened to tell them what had happened. Later, the same student was awakened in the middle of the night by a loud noise and found a man standing over him. The mysterious stranger turned and disappeared into the closet. Perhaps, this was an elaborate hazing performed by frat boys from Narnia.

Or perhaps something more sinister. In the basement classrooms of Rammelkamp Chapel, students have reported seeing an old woman in white. When she sees them looking at her, she quickly vanishes into thin air.

12. Cal State University Channel Islands: Home of the Undead Insane

Don’t be fooled by this school’s young age (it opened its doors to students in 2002). This school used to be one of the most crowded, infamous insane asylums in the United States. [Note: many schools are built on the former grounds of asylums, and these schools usually experience hauntings. In fact, Congress should pass a bill forbidding anyone to build on the site of a former asylum- just like with Indian burial grounds.

Going against all horror movie caveats, the Cal State organization thought it would be a bright idea to use an already haunted sanatorium for their university. Former cells have been converted into classrooms and study halls. Does anyone else here see red flags flying up? Unfortunately, they won’t learn their lesson until it’s too late and the student body has sprouted horns, and the entire campus is swallowed into the tenth level of hell.

Thousands of men, women, and children passed through the halls of this place, ranging from autistics to schizophrenics to violent psychopaths. Brutal, old-school methods were used on inmates, including electroshock therapy and lobotomies. While it was still in operation, Camarillo State Hospital employees reported numerous terrifying supernatural encounters. The place was shut down in the early ’90s. New students are already reporting ghostly occurrences.

One former employee tells of a janitor who, while cleaning a ladies restroom, spotted what was obviously a pair of male legs in one of the stalls. She knocked on the door and told the occupant that he was in the wrong restroom. When she didn’t get a response, the janitor opened the stall door, only to find the stall empty. One of the supervisors saw a man enter the women’s restroom dressed in one of the old patients’ jumpsuits. She followed him to chase him out- he was obviously a confused inmate. When she entered the room, however, no one was there. She called in another female supervisor who had seen the man. They talked for a moment, and then the other woman screamed, her face as white as, well, a ghost. The supervisor spun around to see the man standing right behind her. Then, he vanished before their eyes.
Other creepy stuff: one nurse was sneaking a smoke outside the empty cafeteria when someone grabbed her hard by the shoulders and jerked her back. When the nurse gained her footing, she glanced around the room only to find that the room was empty, the doors locked. Another nurse was grabbed by her hair and yanked back so hard her chair almost fell over. Also, one of the units featured a mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves where Grumpy’s face would transform occasionally into a sinister image. Also, a dirt road that runs behind the buildings is said to be very haunted, with bizarre accidents occurring regularly there.

Nowadays, the spirits are as busy as ever. Children’s voices can still be heard from what used to be the children’s center. Old swing sets swing without any wind or hand to push them. Other students have heard shouts and banging there. Some claim to have seen a black, shadowy figure. An old woman in white has been seen wandering the halls. Another old woman has been spotted outside the bell tower, asking for directions to the chapel.

Shushing voices have been heard in the bathrooms. A man has been seen spinning around in the parking lot until he disappears under one of the streetlights. Students have reported seeing people out of the corner of their eye who vanish when they look directly at them. One female student told of how her boyfriend stole a painting from one of the wards, began acting bizarre, and became possessed by the ghost of a former inmate. When he went nuts and threatened to kill her, she called the cops, and he was eventually admitted to a mental institution.

Many have reported inexplicable nausea and headaches upon setting foot on campus. First-day-of-school jitters or something more sinister at work?

13. Berea College: A Phantom Runner, Undying Tragedies, and the Ghostly Tour Guide

Tucked away in the Kentucky woods, this obscure liberal arts college houses quite a few phantoms. As with so many other colleges, many of these hauntings are said to originate from tragic happenings in the school’s past. Still, it also has its odd, inexplicably random haunting.

Take, for instance, the Phantom Runner of Pearsons Residence Hall. It turns out that back in the 1920s, one of the school’s football stars, Charles Seabury, Jr. died of a broken neck while playing ball. His grieving father donated money for a new gym on condition that the school would never again have a football team. The school honored his request. Apparently, however, young Seabury has not ceased his pursuit of sports. To this day, students report the sounds of someone running up and down the fourth floor hall early in the morning. Phantom breezes blow past students with no apparent origin, leaving the students feeling chilled and frightened.

Also like many other colleges, a couple of Berea’s ghosts come from rumored suicides. In James Residence Hall, a female student hung herself in the elevator shaft after being taken advantage of. Students tell of finding wet footprints leading toward the old shaft, which has since been converted into a janitor’s closet. The footprints go in, but none come out. Another female student was rejected by her boyfriend after he got her pregnant. Unable to endure her shame, she hung herself in the Fairchild Residence Hall attic. Students report seeing a mysterious candle in the attic window and hearing footsteps and a melancholy rocking chair creaking in the attic.

In a much lighter tale, one student was taken on a campus tour by a strange young man in a 60s-style suit. When it came time to show him the library, the tour guide showed the building that used to be the library. The student told him that the new library was elsewhere and the guide agreed. That was when four more 60s-style students appeared, holding each other up, one of them crying. The odd tour guide vanished, and the students reported feeling an acute sense of loss and seeing a demolished, muddied, 60s-era tow truck being taken to the city dump. The student was left perplexed and you probably are, too.

14. Mount Holyoke College: A Picture Paints One Word

Paintings seem to naturally invoke reflection, study, curiosity, and awe. At this South Hadley, MA college, however, one painting invokes madness. Apparently, Deacon Porter, one of the school’s early supporters, had an illicit affair with one of the school’s founders Mary Lyons. When Porter’s wife, Hannah, discovered his treachery, she vowed to get revenge on him. She exacted revenge from beyond the grave, it seems. A portrait of her, with its intense, staring eyes, is said to have driven a female student to insanity. It is unclear why the painting would exact its revenge on an unrelated female student or if the painting exists at all. Actually, there is little evidence to support any of the story. But it sure is spooky…

15. Kenyon College: 17 Ghosts and A Gateway to Hell

This well-known liberal arts college is apparently quite crowded… with the dead. One hall is haunted by a spectral insomniac, a former student who committed suicide in his dorm room. Another hall is haunted by a female student who died before she could attend classes; she continues to rearrange furniture from the grave, scaring her living housemates and exhibiting a complete lack of talent in interior decorating. And at yet another hall, another suicide victim flushes toilets, flicks lights on and off, and knocks on doors randomly- some people never grow up.

In the pool building and dance studio, a former high-diver cracked his head on the building’s glass ceiling, broke his neck, fell into the pool, and drowned. To this day, lifeguards will hear someone thrashing in the water, screaming for help. When they run into the pool room, it is empty, the water calm. In the dance studio next door, people have heard the same splashing sounds. They’ve also reported showers turning on and off by themselves. Wet footprints appear in the dance studios, and eyewitnesses have seen a white face with wet, slicked back hair peering out of the building’s windows.

At the theater building, security guards tell of curtains opening by themselves, light bulbs being unscrewed by themselves, and the ghastly sound of a body falling hard on the stage. Years ago, they say, a student fell from the catwalk and that the sound of his demise is being replayed again and again. At the fieldhouse, another ghostly runner frequents the track; it also likes to play music in the supply cage and open doors. At one of the female residence halls, a jealous spook haunts the elevator shaft where he apparently met his doom during a dangerous prank. He also likes to appear in the girl’s rooms and block their doors with furniture. He tried to harm female students, trying to smother one with a pillow on one occasion. Another hall is haunted by the victim of a fraternity pledge gone wrong, in which a student was struck and killed by a train.

To top it all off, Old Kenyon, which was the site of the deaths of nine male students when a fire consumed the old building, continues to experience a plethora of supernatural activity. The nine fire victims glide up and down the halls. They are said to be visible only from the knees up because the new reconstructed building was built ten inches higher than the original one. Students on lower floors will see ghostly legs protruding from the ceiling. Lights turn on and off; toilets flush. Scenes of panic are reenacted from that terrible night, with screams of trapped students being heard, doors being shaken violently, and male voices calling, “Wake up! Fire!”

To complement this severely haunted school, students claim that a gateway to hell exists at its main gates. They may not be too far off.

Are you scared yet? Did you have to call a friend or relative into the room to keep you company while you finished reading? You big baby. Honestly, there are some spooky things out there, especially, it seems, at college. And I’m not just talking about the sorority girls. If you’re searching for a college, avoid these places like the plague. I just hope you’re scared so I’m not the only one.

Article by Marcus Varner

Read Article Here: