Halloween is coming soon. You’re getting excited – the jackets and hoodies have come out, the boots are on, the piping hot lattes are in your hands, and you’re ready to cocoon yourself in blankets and enjoy some cheesy Netflix horror movies. Well… you could do that, or you could experience some real horror this Halloween season. Why not plan a trip to discover the nation’s scariest college campuses? Don’t be afraid! Keep reading for 20 of the country’s most haunted colleges that you need to visit this fall. I would recommend bringing a flashlight or two!
Every historical college like Notre Dame has at least one ghost story; Notre Dame, it turns out, has two. The first isn’t so scary – George “Gipper” Gipp, the Notre Dame football star, is said to haunt the school as a friendly ghost, often spotted hovering over students’ shoulders only to disappear when they turn around. The second story is one to shiver at: it is believed that Notre Dame is built on the burial grounds of the Patawatami Indians, and many students claim that they have seen the ghosts of Native Americans riding on horseback around the campus.
The University of Georgia is full of haunts, particularly in its sorority houses. The Phi Mu house is said to be haunted by Anna Hamilton, a girl who witnessed her boyfriend’s murder and his body’s burial under the building’s front steps. Some say they can hear Hamilton’s cries in the house’s empty rooms. The Alpha Gamma Delta house is another haunt, which is as old as the founding family itself. Susie, the daughter of the family, hung herself in the attic after being stood up on her wedding day. Today, occupants and visitors report seeing a woman watching them from the attic windows.
In 1969, Betsy Aardsma, a student of Penn State, was visiting the library, doing research. It was there where she was stabbed to death in one of the library’s aisles. The murder is unsolved to this day, and her ghost is said to wander around the library at night. One student claims that, after visiting the aisle where Aardsma was killed, she awoke the same night to the feeling of being strangled.
Drew University is believed to be so haunted that their Historical Archives caretakers have asked students and alumni to submit accounts of any paranormal happenings. Some say the ghost of the school’s founder, Roxanna Mead Drew, is said to walk the corridors of Mead Hall at night, but the really creepy tales revolve around Hoyt Hall. Several students claim to have spotted a dark-haired woman standing in a hall window at 2 a.m., all on the same night. Residents in Hoyt Hall have also reported possessions and furnishings moving around their rooms or even disappearing entirely. Because they happen so often, these incidents are referred to as “The Drew Phenomena.”
Ohio University is supposedly one of the most haunted campuses in America and is said to have a ghost for every building on campus. Students claim to have seen and spoken to ghost teachers and ghost students, and even an entire basketball team of ghosts. Wilson Hall also happens to be the center of a pentagram of five surrounding cemeteries, where a girl died during a Satanic ritual in her room. Some say the building has a mind of its own – voices can be heard in the hallways, and doors open and close at will.
Fordham University is basically guaranteed to be haunted; the campus is built atop a former hospital that includes a morgue. Students in Keating Hall have reported feeling a ghostly touch and seeing ephemeral visions, and some even claim that they have woken up with invisible, cold hands trying to strangle them.
Saint Joseph’s University was used as a hospital during the Civil War – you see where this is going. Some students have claimed to see, hear, and even smell the once hospital through the screams of patients, scents of the dead, and sightings of nurses, doctors, and soldiers.
UT is infamous for one horror – the gaudy orange color of their school. However, this is not the haunt which makes the school worthy of this list. In the 1970s, in Hess Hall, another horror occurred – a student committed suicide. Some say the deceased’s tormented spirit can be heard shrieking to this day. In addition, UT’s McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture is built on what is believed to be a Native American cave. Some students and staff report that the ghosts of the cave’s inhabitants walk the halls of the museum even now.
Huntingdon has quite an interesting haunting story. A lady from New York with a penchant for the color red moved to the school, but she remained isolated and withdrawn because she was so different from the others around her. Eventually, she slit her wrists in her dorm room, and was forever immortalized as the “Red Lady.” Students have frequently sighted the lady’s ghost, especially on the anniversary of her death. They say that a strange red glow emanates from her old room around this time.
Several urban legends are based around Hollins University’s Roanoke campus, most of which are about ghosts. The campus has several historic buildings, one of which is Presser Hall, the home of the music department. The story goes that a female student was in a relationship with her piano teacher… who later murdered her during practice. Some say her ghost still haunts Presser Hall as a dark figure you can see from a window.
East Tennessee State University’s founding president Sidney Gilbreath was known for his dedication, and when he died in 1961, his ghost lingered in Gilbreath Hall. His ghost still lingers today, though only to turn off lights left on and shut windows left open. The spirit of former ETSU English professor Christine Burleson is also said to haunt the school in a picture of David Sinclair Burleson, her father, whose eyes follow people as they walk by. And finally, another ghost is said to reside in the Lucille Clement Hall sorority house. Residents say the ghost, called Marble Boy, is saying hello when they hear the sound of marbles rolling around on the upper floor, though once they go upstairs to check, nobody is there.
In 1908, Condie Cunningham, a student of the University of Montevallo, was up late making fudge in the kitchen. When the order for lights out came, she and others rushed to clean up, accidentally spilling a bottle of highly flammable cleaning fluid. The fluid poured onto the open stove and set Cunningham on fire, and she later died in the hospital of her burns. Her tortured ghost lingers yet, however, and some students say that sometimes you can hear screaming and moaning in the kitchen.
According to legend, the famous landmark building of Georgetown University, Healy Hall, was once home to a Jesuit minister who spent time reading and examining ancient texts about nefarious spirits. The priest’s apprentice found the work and started to read it, which is when things went awry – the story goes that a gateway to the underworld appeared and ever since, malicious ghosts and spirits have been haunting the building. Witnesses have even claimed seeing items move on their own, lights flashing, and temperatures suddenly and mysteriously changing.
The University of Maryland’s Morrill Hall is said to be one of the most haunted structures on the school’s grounds. In 2002, the Maryland Spirits and Ghosts Association claimed to detect multiple phantoms inside the building. Alongside this, workers discovered what was believed to be cadaverous remains in the building during a 2003 renovation. Marie Mount Hall is also supposedly home to the ghost of the school’s first home economics dean. Staff on campus claim to have heard her spirit playing a piano during storms at night and a paranormal researcher claims sensing her presence as well.
While its name may evoke images of Dracula and the like, Transylvania University is actually not home to vampires – though it is, some say, home to a ghost. In particular, the ghost of Constantine Rafinesque, TU’s most unpopular Botany professor to date. Rafinesque had an affair with the university president’s wife, which ended quite unfortunately with the professor’s ban from the school. Legend says that in his anger and bitterness, Rafinesque cast a spell on the school, and his ghost now haunts the grounds.
Kenyon College’s trademark “Gates of Hell,” the two pillars at the entrance to the school, is your first clue that KC has a relationship with the other side. Living up to that reputation, several places on campus have had ghostly sightings. Most of these are simply made up, but some are actually connected to dark events. For example, the most famous haunting is from a terrible fire that happened in the 1940s in the Old Kenyon building, where nine students died. Even today, some say the ghosts of the students can still be heard crying out late in the night.
Gettysburg was the sight of one of the most brutal and bloody battles of the Civil War, so of course Pennsylvania Hall, one of the buildings on GC’s campus, was used as a hospital. Several times over the years, students and staff have claimed to see ghostly soldiers walking the grounds. However, in 1980, an even more gruesome event occurred – two staff members were in the elevator in Pennsylvania Hall, and when the door opened on the basement level, they were greeted by a bloody room full of wounded and dying soldiers.
California State was installed in what used to be an insane asylum. If you know anything about insane asylums, then you know that they’re often full of the ghosts of the insane patients who lived there. As such, reports of strange occurrences are all too common at California State; lights going on and off, strange sounds, and voices crying out in pain can be heard all over the campus.
John Hower, a prominent industrialist, built the Hower House at the University of Akron in 1871 in dedication to his wife, Susan. These days, some students are too scared to even step inside the building in fear of Susan’s ghost. Before her death, Susan discovered that her husband had cheated on her, and her anger clung to her even in death. Now some say that she attacks and harasses any male student who dares enter Hower House.
In the early years of Wells College, there was a bad influenza outbreak. So bad, in fact, that a room in the campus’s Main Building was turned into a temporary morgue for the dead, and the door was painted red to warn people not to enter. After the outbreak ended, the door was painted over, but eventually the red bled through, and now serves as a reminder of what transpired there. Some say the spirits of those dead sometimes visit the morgue, which is what causes the red color of the door to return.
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