Ghosts and other spooks are a common sight with Halloween just around the corner, but at some campus buildings and greek houses, supernatural events occur all year long.
Delta Delta Delta
The women who live at the Delta Delta Delta sorority describe the ghost as a prankster.
“She just messes with us,” senior Shelly Bock said. “It’s not scary.”
Bock said that the ghost is nicknamed Helen, and that the women usually see Helen’s actions instead of the ghost herself.
“She does everything from locking a girl’s door to filling a water glass,” Bock said.
Bock said she had a stuffed animal that made noise when a string was pulled, and one night Helen started using it. Bock was sleeping when she heard the animal make noises from her closet.
“I didn’t let it bother me,” she said. “I just went back to sleep.”
She said an hour later the animal made a noise again, so she wrapped it in a towel and stored it in a drawer. Later in the night, she heard it make noises again.
Phi Mu
Although the ghost of Phi Mu sorority does not make herself visible to the women who live there, she does manifest herself in dreams and through spooky actions.
Sophomore Melanie Hendrix said the ghost, Mary, followed two members home one day.
“Jenna Hirsch and a couple of other girls were walking down the steps of Parmentor,” she said. “All of a sudden, they all felt something trying to push them back up the stairs.”
Hendrix said after that, weird things began happening at the sorority house and the members began calling the ghost Mary after two of the sorority founders. Hendrix said she had seen the ghost only in dreams.
“My roommate and I have had several dreams, and I started describing her, and she finished describing her,” Hendrix said.
Freshman Emily Smith had a more physical encounter when she was alone in the Phi Mu kitchen one night.
“I looked past a table and there were some wooden spoons in a container, and they were out of place,” she said. “One of the wooden spoons came out of the container and moved about a foot an a half and set down next to the container.”
Hendrix said other women had reported of strange, unaccountable noises and sudden temperature drops.
Zeta Tau Alpha
A female ghost nicknamed Norma haunts portions of Zeta Tau Alpha sorority.
Sophomore Missy Westgate is one of the members to have encountered her.
While she was sleeping one night, Westgate said she heard creaks on the floor, even though no one else was around.
“I would see random little shadows and when I plugged in my phone, it kept turning on and off,” she said.
Westgate said she ran to the third floor to stay the rest of the night, and later heard somebody sprinting up and down the hallway, even though nobody was there when she looked out the door.
Sophomore Abbey Bove also heard the footsteps that night.
“It wasn’t normal,” she said. “It was unrealistically fast and loud running and stomping. There was no way a human could run that fast. It was like it was looking for where Missy was.”
Bove said the next day she had another experience with Norma. The other residents of Zeta Tau Alpha had left for a campus event, but she had to run up the back stairs to the third floor.
“I felt a presence right next to my ear, and it whispered my name,” she said. “I ran up the rest of the stairs, and I was trying to open the door, and I heard stomping on the stairs behind me.”
Delta Tau Delta
Some of the men of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity have also had encounters of their own.
Sophomore Aaron Whittle said he had two different spooky experiences at the fraternity house.
“I was sleeping on my top bunk and I was on the phone and it was dark and I just saw this white little glow go by my eyes,” he said.
Whittle said he got up to check his windows, because he originally thought it was a firefly, but his windows were closed. The light was not his only incident.
“There’s supposed to be a ghost in the formal room,” he said. “I refuse to go there alone because of how haunted it is, especially after last year when I came in the front door, one time I heard the piano playing when there was nobody there.”
Irwin Hall
Junior Lesley Gillaspie found out independent housing is not immune from paranormal activity when she lived in room 53 of Irwin Hall.
Gillaspie said she had heard rumors that a resident hanged herself in that room. Brenda Day, curator of the Old Castle Museum and university archivist, said she had heard similar things, but that she was not sure when or if it actually happened.
Gillaspie said she and her roommate would often hear strange noises at night, but what they saw was even stranger.
“My roommate would see dark flashes, like people moving across the room from under my bed to her bed to the closet,” she said.
Gillaspie said even when she was alone in the suite, she would hear and see unusual things.
“I would hear people gather underneath my bed,” she said. “My bed was lofted, and I could hear people talking underneath.”
“Even if you were completely alone in the suite and you pulled the curtain across the shower, you could see dark forms cross past the curtain.”
Junior Laura Poskochil lived across the hall from Gillaspie. Poskochil said she remembered unusual things happening, and she also saw a picture taken of the door of room 53.
“The picture of the door looked like there was a face on it,” she said.
Old Castle
The oldest building on campus is also one of the most haunted, with at least two ghosts in it.
Day said the former curator had left a note in a file saying “Look out for Thomas.” She said she later found out that Thomas Mudge was a minister who died in the Old Castle when he was working late one night.
“Thomas is the one we blame when anything goes wrong on the first floor,” she said.
Day described an incident when Thomas tampered with new technology the computer services department was trying to install. Day said each day a technician would try to install some cords in the wall, and the next morning they would always be unplugged.
Dee Schneck, Telecom specialist, said at first the department blamed Day.
“We kept asking Brenda why she was taking it out of the wall,” Schneck said. “Finally, we just put a bunch of packing tape over the box to make it stay up.”
Day said one ghost is occasionally more helpful than Thomas. One day she was carrying an armful of artifacts from the third floor to the ground floor, and she said she nearly fell.
“You can still see the chunks my boots took out of the stairs when something stopped me from falling.”
Day isn’t the only person interested by the spirits of the Old Castle. She said each year she has visitors come to the campus who heard about the building on a paranormal listing.
“They’re always cool with the old building until they get to the second floor,” Day said, “then they start saying that it’s cold and that they feel upset.”
She explained that the second floor was a gristmill at one point, and a worker was smashed in the grinding mechanism.
“That would have been a really horrible death.”
Theater
Some actors regularly in Rice Auditorium believe a fraternity man who died in the 1976 Kappa Sigma fire haunts the stage.
Senior Brian Berrens said most people think the theater major Stewart McCoy, who died in the fire, comes back to the stage he loved so much.
“From what I hear, Stewart was a really good person in life, so if anything, he’s just a fun ghost,” Berrens said. “It’s not anything malicious.”
Berrens said at times he has a feeling somebody is there with him even when all of the students and faculty have left the theater. He also said the ghost is a little mischievous at times.
“Every once in awhile you’ll get stuff that moves,” he said. “There’ll be a wrench that you know you sat down right next to you, but when you go to get it, it’s 15 feet away.”