Escape games are by appointment only and all bookings can be made at Streapers.com
Our haunted adventure is open seasonally. Check website for dates.
Streaper’s Nightmare Haunted Adventure
Indiana’s most original haunt makes it’s home inside of the old Central Grade School in the center of town. This adventure is like no-other. Every twist and dark turn houses the nightmares from the children of years before the school was shut down. Nightmares like no other! Open seasonally.
Streaper’s Escape Adventures
Streaper’s Entertainment also houses live escape game experiences that are open year-round. Choose from a variety of theatrical and immersive experiences and see if you have what it takes to escape before time runs out!
Are you brave enough to survive the maze, mine, and wooded trail of terror?
Experience the thrill of a lifetime at our 30-acre farm this Halloween! Our haunted walk will test your courage, your resilience, and your ability to survive the frights that lurk around every corner and every tree.
Enter at your own risk, as you embark on a thrilling journey through a spine-chilling maze, a creepy mine, through a terrifying wooded trail, wind through cursed corn and then survive an open gauntlet through to the finish. If you manage to make it out alive, you can be rewarded with unique blood bag drinks, syringes, and witch’s bites and brews.
Don’t miss out on this unforgettable experience! Purchase your tickets now for just $18 (plus fees) ahead of time or $22 (plus fees) at the door. And remember, we have a full restaurant and craft beer, cider, and wine bar on site for you to enjoy before or after your spooky adventure. No outside food or drinks are allowed, so come ready to indulge in our chilling concoctions.
Don’t be afraid to join us for a night of fright and fun! Book your tickets today and step into the unknown!
Entry from 7pm-11pm (last victims allowed up to 10:30) on the following evenings: Friday October 16 Saturday October 17 Friday October 23 Saturday October 24
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, mental health was broadly defined. Health conditions and mental capacities simply had yet to be discovered by medical science and as a result, thousands of people were not handled with enough care and concern. While highly debatable, their life-care was turned over by their families to the aid afforded by the state and they were placed into asylums. One such place that is registered to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places is the Danvers State Hospital. Located in the town of Danvers, Massachusetts, the now-defunct asylum has been chronicled as a hotbed of paranormal activity. After all, Danvers is an adjacent offshoot of Salem, where the infamous Salem Witch Trials took place.
Originally constructed in 1878, the Danvers State Hospital opened under the original name of the Danvers Lunatic Asylum. It was designed by a Boston architect named Nathaniel Bradlee, who was responsible for the famous Jordan Marsh store in Boston as well as Boston’s Downtown Crossing. His design of the asylum had it perfectly laid out with four housing buildings that were separated by gender and divided by the towering administration building.
The outer fringe locations of the housing buildings on each side were reserved for the most hostile and violent patients. Slated with five hundred beds to house people, over the decades this number grew to two thousand, and many expansion buildings were added. With such a large population of increasing diverse patients with severe mental, physical, and emotional problems, it comes as no surprise that areas of the asylum eventually became haunted.
Is the Danvers State Hospital Haunted?
Upon opening, the asylum was quickly overcrowded. While the number of patients rapidly increased, the number of employees there did not. Greatly outnumbered and already poor in medical knowledge and technology for the time, the asylum administrators turned to the use of lobotomies to quell the out of control patients. The medical care while already poor, was even worse for those who were given lobotomies and as a result, a substantial number died.
But for a group of patients that died, more were added to the hospital to the point that the structure served as a revolving door for sure death. As the years passed, sanitary conditions deteriorated, and also electroshock therapy was made common so this only ramped up the volatile situation. This is the prevailing theory, coupled with the geographical tie to Salem as to why the asylum is haunted.
The Ghosts of Danvers Lunatic Asylum
Gerald Richards was a hospital administrator there in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Due to the nature of his job, he lived on the premises with his wife and three children. One of his children, Jeralyn Levasseur, has been one of the only people to ever step forward and verify that a ghost was seen in the administrator’s quarters.
In the quarters where she lived with her family as a child, she had memories of playing in the attic with her brother and sister. However, the attic soon became off-limits that were self-imposed after seeing the spirit of an elderly woman in the corner of the darkened attic, scowling at her and her siblings. That was not the only encounter with this particular apparition as she claimed that she was awoken several times at night by the same scowling spirit as it would slowly pull the covers straight off her bed.
Unsurprisingly, the asylum closed in 1992. As it sat abandoned, this opened the flood gates for paranormal investigators and ghost hunters to explore the haunted site. Many groups started off by doing walkthroughs of the abandoned asylum. Almost instantly the audible cries and moans of the spirits said to be haunting the asylum are quite numerous. Electronic voice phenomenon (EVPs), is something that has captured and occurring at a fairly high level. Among the more chilling EVPs captured are a spirit saying, “I live here” and “I am warning you”.
Only near the closing of the asylum was it discovered to have small, underground tunnels connecting the buildings. Historians date these tunnels to the original construction of the hospital, meaning they were put in under the direction of the asylum’s first administrator Thomas Kirkbride, who was notorious in his methodology.
His tunnels have thought to have been constructed so as to keep the more violent patients completely out of sight, thus giving the asylum’s upper levels a more sedate and dignified look and preached to his infamous Kirkbride Plan that he always referred to as, “a special apparatus for the care of lunacy”. It should come as no surprise as ghost hunters and former hospital workers alike have seen Thomas Kirkbride’s ghost floating through the underground tunnels.
In 2005 the property was sold to a real estate developer and a series of the connecting buildings were torn down. In their place has gone a small collection of condo apartments. Not all of the buildings were totally demolished as those underground tunnels prevent this to a degree. Outback behind the grounds is the asylum’s cemetery. With such sacred ground, the developers have not constructed anything new on that part of the land.
People who live in the apartments now claim to hear moans and screams at night, theorized to be from the spirits still tied to the land. Many a Danvers police officer has responded to complaints of the terrifying noises at night only to find a desolate and empty lot, but night after night the screams are said to remain heard.
The Filming of Session 9
Before most of the hospital was demolished in 2006, Hollywood used some of the Danvers hospital, and many of it’s creepy and existing equipment as props, to make the cult classic film Session 9.
Session 9 is a 2001 psychological horror film directed by Brad Anderson and stars David Caruso, Peter Mullan, Stephen Gevedon, Paul Guilfoyle, Josh Lucas, and Brendan Sexton. It tells the story of a work crew assigned to remove asbestos from an abandoned mental institution. It doesn’t take long for the crew boss to hear voices and have one of his men go missing. As you can imagine, they don’t find him in their truck outside.
When asked about filming Session 9 at the Danvers State Hospital, David Caruso said,
“It was a place you never got comfortable in. It wasn’t like day three and we were throwing water balloons because it was so much fun to be there. It was always scary. You can really feel the pain of the people that went through Danvers. It’s a rough environment. It’s not fun. It’s on the film. They didn’t have to dress any sets, or anything. All of that stuff was sitting there. The federal government walked away from it about thirty years ago. It was a terrifying location.”
Open every Friday & Saturday from September 25 through October 31, as well as October 22 & 29.
Open 7:00 pm - Midnight Fridays & Saturdays (EXCEPT HALLOWEEN).
Open 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm on October 22, 29 & 31.
As you enter Hysterium, you will be immersed immediately into the lobby waiting room where the patients will be glad to see you. They want to get out and the head nurse has to keep order while you await your turn in to the intake area. If you escape or not, you will be lost in the Hysterium Haunted Asylum and hopefully only have nightmares as you escape!!!
There are certain houses in horror fandom circles that fans just can’t get enough of seeing in the flesh. The Amityville Horror house in Long Island, New York is an especially legendary one to visit. And who can possibly leave out the ordinary-looking on the outside, yet paranormally chaotic on the inside home from Poltergeist, located in Simi Valley, California. But have you ever had the dream of buying one of horror history’s most frightening homes if given the proper chance? The home of ghastly serial killer Buffalo Bill from the serial killing Academy Award-winning film Silence of the Lambs has just hit the open market!
Buy The Home Of Buffalo Bill
Ted Levine as Jame Gumb, AKA Buffalo Bill
8 Circle Street of Perryopolis, Pennsylvania sits on a quiet street backed up to the Youghiogheny River, which sits roughly eleven miles due south of Pittsburgh. The outside of the home itself is constructed in the gothic Queen Anne style. The tan brick and white-colored exterior upon the well-manicured yard with garden fountain and stone steps lead up to the door where an old-world style interior reveals itself inside. One of the most fascinating aspects about the inside of the home is how well preserved the hardwood interior is, just as it was in the film itself.
Touring around every turn inside, you really can envision the same steps FBI agent Clarice Starling herself took in trying to capture Buffalo Bill. Ivory lace curtains cover the windows as a flowery thorn-print wallpaper paints the walls of the house which impress against the most charming dining area you’ve ever seen. Four bedrooms and one bath are generously spaced here. But the real draw lies within the infamous basement!
A well-worn antique wooden door leads straight down into the dungeon-like basement area that Buffalo Bill himself used to skin his innocent victims alive in. The claustrophobic confines of the basement (complete with shelving perfect for holding all your….um….lotions) is the real draw for any serious horror fan looking to make the purchase on such an iconic horror home. Even with an outside gazebo and proximate location of the river itself, an even better deal on this piece of prime real estate is the price. $298,500 is a small price to pay to own Buffalo Bill’s serial killing home.
At the time of press, the home is still available for tours in regards to prospective buyers. What are you waiting for horror fans? Buy the infamous home of Buffalo Bill, relax and enjoy owning a piece of legit horror history. Oh and that first meal in your new home? We hear that liver paired with some fava beans and a nice chianti taste really well together.
Friday until 12am Saturday till 12am Sunday till 10pm and Halloween till 12am.
********COVID-19 Information: CDC approved face-coverings required for outdoor attractions and six foot distancing enforced. Hand Sanitizing stations available and Covid-19 questionare mandatory for entry.
Are you ready for the best scare you will find in CNY??????
Try Field of Screams CNY located at 1861 Route 49, North Bay, NY – 1/4 mile West of the North Bay Fireman’s Field.
This year due to Covid-19 we will entice your fears with a fully outdoor haunted trail experience. Will you and your group be able to make it through the darkness of the forest, the screams of the unsavory souls, and the terrors of the your own nightmares. What will you find around the next curve? The most spine-tingling fright-enticing, pee-your-pants Haunted Trail is here. 90% real live acotrs and incredible props. Come on out, bring your family, bring your friends and be prepared to be scared beyond your wildest imagination.
Cost of Admission: TBD
Opening date October 2, 2020 open at 7pm/Dark.
Friday until 12am Saturday till 12am Sunday till 10pm and Halloween till 12am.
Due to Covid -19 there will be no Kid Versions done this year, sorry for any inconvenience this may cause
Address: 1961 State Route 49, North Bay, NY 13123 1/4 mile west of North Bay Fireman’s Field Phone: 315-200-0623
Hotels provide lodging for untold numbers of travelers across the world every single day. They range in providing sometimes dated, albeit homey accommodations to make people feel as comfortable as possible all the way up to the most modern and hi-tech amenities one has ever experienced. For such a wide spectrum, how do some of them get a reputation for being haunted? The De Soto Hotel in El Paso, Texas has one such notorious reputation and some claim it’s because Satan himself lives in the basement.
Is the Desoto House Hotel Haunted?
Built in 1905, the De Soto started off like any other hotel in the El Paso area, providing a downtown place to stay for weary travelers. With Juarez, Mexico just over the border, more and more people became regulars at the De Soto, so often that throughout the decades it has also offered its rooms in short-term rental style. Today the De Soto still has both overnight and short-term rental rooms available, however, guests and tenants alike both refrain from doing one thing…..entering the basement.
The spirit of a young girl dressed in black named Sara is the ghostly entity haunting the De Soto. People claimed to have seen the spirit of a young girl in a slightly early 20th Century dress, running up and down the hallways at very odd hours. Sometimes laughing and sometimes running, guests and tenants have opened their doors hoping to catch her in the act, but when they do she simply disappears. Her laughter and amusements are also reported to come from the basement area of the hotel.
Over the decades there have been incidents of reported Satanic rituals being performed in the basement by travelers coming from the Juarez area. At one time Juarez was labeled the “Murder Capital of the World” as it racked up a dozen confirmed murders every day. Paranormal theorists believe that whatever demonic energy on the Juarez/El Paso border has likely been opened up in the basement of the De Soto. Occultists have claimed to at one point discovered not only a pentagram on the floor but a Leviathan Cross as well. In Satanism, a Leviathan Cross is made from sulfur and shaped like an infinity symbol stacked upon two crosses. This symbol is said to be the sigil of Lucifer himself. People who have dared to enter the basement, claim that a near paralyzing sense of dread and the feeling of being watched accompany them the entire way down. Others have said they feel physically threatened as sometimes rocks have been thrown at them by unseen forces. Do they come from the spirit known as Sara? Or something far more demonic?
Today the De Soto remains as one of downtown El Paso’s most lasting hotels. At one point informal paranormal investigation groups were allowed in the basement, but due to the demonic activity there, no more groups have entered. From everything known about the De Soto, it not only lies on the Mexico border but also lies on the very border to Hell itself!
Camp Big Timber: Three Fires Council, BSA, 37W955 Big Timber Rd, Elgin, IL 60124, USA
Even 2020 Couldn’t Stop This TERROR
Think you’re safe behind a piece of glass and some metal? Think again. The dead have taken over the once innocent Camp Big Timber and are coming for the living…one car at a time.
This one-of-a kind drive-thru scenic Halloween experience allows you to simply put your car in park, sit back and let the Terror begin.
Think you’re up for it? Book your tickets now and see for yourself.
Two Haunted House located in downtown Yankton, SD. The Victorian is an traditional haunted house. The Davenports have a special treat waiting for you in their home. Can you escape the Asylum?
Not many haunted attractions can boast that they are in a “real haunted house,” but the Boo-Coda, which is in the old 1939 Bucoda School Gym, has been investigated for paranormal activity after reports of orbs, shapes on cameras, and strange voices heard whispering in the dark.
Boo-Coda Haunted House Open Times & Dates
September 29,30 and October 6,7,13,14,20,21,27,28th
From 7PM (Dark) to 11PM
October 29,30 and 31st from 7PM (Dark)-10PM
Located in the Bucoda Haunted Gym, 403 N. Nenant Street, Bucoda, WA 98530.
Trick or Treat Every Night October1–31, 6:00 pm-8:00 pm at Joe’s Place, 118 S. Main Street, Bucoda, WA 98530
Pricing
$13General Admission, $20 VIP Ticket
Show your ticket stub from Rutledge Corn Maze and get $3 off of regular admission
$5 per person $ 20 per family or 4 cans of non-perishable food or 4 Good books, one coat, or 1 Blanket admission.
All donations go to local charities.
MORE Boo-Coda
Frighteningly Family Fun Day
October 7th – Family games, Activities, Costume Contest and Pumpkin Carving
Hearse Procession and Viewing
October 14th on Main Street
Casket Races
October 21st – Cost is $100 and includes 1 T-Shirt for each participant (5 total).
Teams consist of 4 pallbearers and 1 corpse.
Location: In front of Town Hall 101A E. 7th ST.
Thrill the World Dance: October 28th
Check-in at 1:00 pm
Line up at 2:50 pm
Dance at 3:00 pm SHARP
TRUNK OR TREAT Begins at 4 pm on Main Street
Family Friendly Haunted House Nights
October 28th and 29th from 6 – 9 pm
The Town on Boo-Coda Spook-Tacular
Spook-Tacular is what happens in BOO-Coda throughout the whole month of October! People are coming from far and wide to visit BOO-Coda and see what kind of spooky fun they can have! From the Scary-Nights Haunted House every Friday and Saturday, to the Hearse Procession and Viewing, Jack-O’-Lantern Pumpkin Carving Contest, Thrill the World Thriller Dance, and SO MUCH MORE – Bucoda, WA is the place to visit in October! Bring your family, bring your friends, and have a Spook-Tacular time! BOO-Coda is located just 3 miles outside of Tenino.
The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) is a local institution of higher knowledge that has experienced all the celebrities one can handle. Just the film school portion alone has boasted such notable alumni as Shane Black, David Koepp, Justin Lin, Steve Martin, Tim Robbins, Rob Reiner, Carol Burnett, and Ben Stiller just to name a few. Sporting 337-degree programs across a robust student body of 31,000 that over the years has yielded a staggering 24 Nobel laureates, UCLA is a Southern California powerhouse of monumental epic proportions. So why did it once have a parapsychology lab on campus that was so reaching in its scope that the founder’s work was even nominated for an Emmy award?
UCLA and Parapsychology
It all began in 1968 with Dr. Thelma Moss. She was a campus psychology professor who became fascinated by hypnosis, extrasensory perception (ESP), clairvoyance, and the supernatural. Such topics fell under the umbrella term of parapsychology and she created a makeshift lab on campus to study the phenomenon. One of the earliest contributors to the lab was a young research assistant named Barry Taff, who would one day obtain a doctorate in psychophysiology and a minor in biomedical engineering. Unfunded and even unsanctioned by the university, things began to spike when breakthrough images were taken that involved Kirlian photography.
Kirlian photography or electrophotography is a highly controversial method of visually capturing electrical discharges within a particular electric field. To the purveyor of such methodologies, it is believed that it can capture unobtrusive “auras” in empty spaces and around people. The process is controversial, however, it gained a wide degree of attention when a local area woman named Doris Bither met Taff and a fellow lab partner Kerry Gaynor in a local bookstore near campus. She told them a wild story of her being personally attacked and sexually assaulted by a vicious spirit in her home. The subsequent investigation and evidence collected were parlayed into a 1982 smash hit horror film chronicling the haunting, called The Entity.
The Entity 1982
Is UCLA Haunted?
The local television show, Eye on L.A. had heard about the growing popularity of a parapsychology lab on the UCLA campus that actually studied and received phone calls concerning ghosts, spirits, and other things that go bump in the night. An investigative story was done and it even went so far as to showcase some of the electrophotographic images that had been collected by the group. The images were so powerful and convincing that this particular show was nominated for an Emmy award. The real standout with the group, however, was Dr. Barry Taff.
Another one of the most engaging cases that he spearheaded during his time with the lab was the Holly Mont Drive Case of 1976. Whenever ESP experiments and studies weren’t being conducted at the lab, the group was inundated with calls from all over California and the United States about people concerned with supernatural activity in their homes. Again being unfunded, the group used their own personal vehicles and expenses to get to and from would-be cases. Of all things, an undergraduate student casually walked into the lab in May 1976 to tell about his experience at a house party the evening before. Objects levitating and then flying across the room, including a large charge that pinned another partygoer to the wall. Dr. Taff and his colleagues investigated the home and indeed verified all the paranormal claims that the young man spoke of the evening before thus labeling it as one of the most active hauntings in North America.
The Gardenia Hall Ghost
By 1978, more and more tabloid-style recognition was befalling the lab as Dr. Taff now began using intuitive ESP-style methods in diagnosing medical or psychological ailments. The administration had enough, and the lab was then permanently closed. Not surprisingly after the closing of a lab of this nature, people began speaking of a haunted spot on campus within their own midst. Gardenia Hall is a normal residential complex that’s as bustling and ordinary as any university dormitory, but late one evening a maintenance worker spotted a tall and dark shadowy figure lumbering down the hall with a spectral flow. It wasn’t until another maintenance worker and some students stepped forward to say they had witnessed the same shadow man as well that the legend of the Gardenia Hall Ghost was born. Sidled up to the hall is a breezeway that many people have claimed to hear bizarre noises in the dead of night with nobody around to make them.
The Haunted Sound Stage 3 of UCLA
Not to be outdone, Sound Stage 3 in the film school is said to be haunted as well. Rapid temperature drops, objects, and props moving, lights turned on and off, people being physically pulled or shoved is a common occurrence by an unseen force. Many believe that the spirit belongs to a former theatre director who held a deep passion for film being taught on Sound Stage 3, as all the activity is fairly benevolent.
Dr. Thelma Moss passed away in 1997 and is credited to this day with the strides her former lab made. Dr. Barry Taff has gone on to investigate thousands of paranormal claims all over the country, writing countless articles and books on the subject. He also made a brief appearance in Zak Bagans’s Demon House documentary. The UCLA Parapsychology Lab still remains one of the most controversial campus organizations ever.
Yale University is one of the top-ranked Ivy League universities in the United States. Established all the way back in 1701, it is the third-oldest institution of higher learning in the entire United States. As a matter of fact, Yale stands as one of the original Colonial Colleges that was set up and founded before the American Revolutionary War even begun. With centuries-old history, it should come as no surprise that Yale has some paranormal activity going on.
The Ghosts of Vanderbilt Hall
Vanderbilt Hall at Yale is a building that was formally endowed from the massive finances of Cornelius Vanderbilt. A long-standing dorm, students there have remarked that there are sudden and bizarre temperature drops into the freezing cold with no logical explanation. Other times, descendants of Vanderbilt and other students staying in the dorm are said that Cornelius has even manifested to appear in their dreams. Totally genial in nature, his presence in the hall is quite bizarre.
Haunted Wrexham Tower
Across campus is the chilling Wrexham Tower. According to campus lore, three different students at one time or another committed suicide in a third-floor suite there. Intermittently, over the years various students have reported paranormal activity in this particular suite to involve freezing temperatures, voices, doors opening, and closing, all associated with classic poltergeist behavior. As a result of the complaints, Yale has had the room completely sealed to prevent any further dark manifestations from happening.
The Haunting of the Pierpont Home
Off in the distance is the Pierpont Home which has been redesigned into a visitor’s center for the campus. The building actually dates to the Revolutionary War era in which it was used as a British command post as well as a battle hospital. Decades later, visitors have claimed to see bloodstains manifest and then disappear on the central staircase. It’s wholly possible that the deceased spirits of British soldiers haunt the building. Outside, beneath the New Haven Green walkways used to be an actual burial ground during the Revolutionary War, but bodies were relocated at some point in the 19th Century to the Grove Street Cemetery. Bodies mismatched with headstones have given further credence to the belief that the spiritual grounds of Yale are quite restless.
Yale’s Skull and Bones Society
Of course, many believe the infamous Skull and Bones society has something to do with all the activity as well. A secret underground student society that’s dark and mysterious, the Skull and Bones are said to actually possess the skulls of Geronimo and former president Martin Van Buren. Bizarre rituals include supposedly being lowered into a coffin and then “reborn” again with another ritual involving drinking a mysterious substance from one of the skulls while chanting in a bizarre language.
Is such a group responsible for any supernatural activity on campus at Yale? All of the members are sworn to a level of secrecy that can never be broken. But for now, only the spirits lurking about on-campus know the whole truth.
On the surface of Athens, Georgia is like any southern town. A simple population in a modest county that is known for southern charm through and through. One of the most dynamic aspects of this town is that it is home to the University of Georgia. Considered one of the oldest public universities in the United States, it should also come as no surprise to paranormal enthusiasts that it is also quite haunted as well.
Is the University of Georgia Haunted?
The University of Georgia was founded back in 1785, just years after the Revolutionary War ended. Lyman Hall was a Yale graduate who in addition to signing the Declaration of Independence, was also the founder of the university. Hall was able to secure a grant that enabled over 40,000 acres of land in Athens to be the breeding ground for the state’s premier university. As each year passed, more and more effort was put into the university to acquire even more and bring in more students.
Naturally, during the Civil War, the school had suspended its academic rigors for three years so as to avoid any potential devastation that the horrors of the war brought about to the area. Over the many decades, the university has positioned itself to bring in over $1.2 billion in endowments for a student population that regularly hovers around 38,000. As charming and accomplished as the school looks on paper, it is also home to an array of ghosts.
The Ghost of Alpha Gamma Delta
The Alpha Gamma Delta sorority house is one of the eeriest haunts in the campus area. Prior to serving as a sorority house, the Alpha Gamma Delta mansion was actually home to a wealthy Athens family. William Winstead Thomas is said to have originally built the mansion back in 1896. According to local oral folklore, the mansion was originally intended as a wedding gift for his young daughter Isabel who was soon to be married. However, on the day of the wedding, Isabel was actually stood up and abandoned by her fiancé on this special day. As a result of this, she went back to what would have been her new home and committed suicide via hanging.
Heartbroken as a father, Thomas sold the home off and it changed hands a bit before becoming a sorority house for the university. As a result of her unfortunate death, Isabel’s spirit is said to haunt the Alpha Gamma Delta house in a variety of ways. The most innocuous is her turning the lights on and off at odd times, along with the occasional door opening or closing to its residents. However the most terrifying of these paranormal acts is that some young women who are getting themselves dressed in front of a mirror have seen the reflection of Isabel in the mirror staring back at them! While most believe her spirit is harmless, some paranormal enthusiasts believe her suicide there no doubt left her spiritual impression on the mansion.
The Haunting of Waddell Hall
Waddell Hall is one of the more interesting buildings on campus. Although it currently houses the campus Office of Special Events, this building actually served in a laboratory and dormitory capacity for many of its years. Built back in 1821, Waddell is considered to be the second oldest building on campus and also completely rife with paranormal activity. One of the more popular spirits there is said to be the ghost of a young World War I soldier.
Sometime after the war had ended, this young soldier was lent a room in Waddell by some dormitory friends so he could spend time with his fiancé. At some point, it is believed she was seeing another man and the soldier killed her and then himself. Today, those who have frequented the hall say that mysterious and somewhat loud noises can be heard overhead in areas of the hall were simply no one is. Others have gone so far as to see a flurry of brightly lit orbs streaming through parts of the hall. The presence of orbs ultimately suggests that there is residual energy left from the murder-suicide that has chosen to manifest.
Demosthenian Hall and the Ghost of Robert Toombs
Demosthenian Hall is yet another one of the university’s many haunted buildings. Originally constructed in 1824 this particular hall is one of the absolute oldest on the entire campus. The Demosthenian Debate Society made primary use of the building as it readied itself for upcoming competitions. One of the more ardent debaters was a student named Robert Toombs. Toombs was set to be a speaker at graduation, but was disciplined in a gambling bust on campus and never got the chance. Instead, he gave his speech before one of the university’s largest oak trees. Later he went on to be a Representative as well as Confederate General. However years later, the oak tree was struck by lightning and destroyed and for whatever reason, it was partially moved and reconstructed into a sundial at Demosthenian Hall.
Nowadays, students have long reported seeing the ghostly pale figure of Robert Toombs going up and down the hall in this antiquated building. Loud, plodding footsteps are said to be a warning sign of Toombs drawing nearer to someone in the hall. Other times, students have claimed to be rushed with a certain feeling of dread and unwelcomeness in the hall and feel like it is Toombs ghost telling them to get out and leave him alone! This feeling combined with his ashen and gray spirit being sighted is more than enough to send a Georgia student running for the hills.
Today the University of Georgia is going just as strong as ever, enjoying tremendous academic as well as sports program success. In fact, there are more than one Athens area ghost tours that include many of these stops as well as other hidden paranormal gems on all their tours.
Iowa State University is a classic when it comes to imagining just what a Midwestern university is. The small city of Ames hovers around a population of 65,000 yet nearly half of those numbers are students at the university. Cornfields lay on the outskirts of the Ames, and agriculture is still a huge reason why students attend. But amongst all those far-out rows of the cornfields in the distance, did something sinister sneak onto the campus somehow?
Is The Iowa State University Haunted?
The university was established all the way back in 1858. Ideally, due to all of the vast unused farmlands in Iowa, the school was established with a heavy concentration on agriculture life so as to propagate such lifestyles and careers within the state. In 1861 the very first building on campus, The Farm House was constructed. Serving as the main house to a model farm on campus, it is considered an institution on campus. However, the Farm House is considered to be the most haunted location on campus.
The Haunted Farm House
Farm House is said to be haunted by the ghosts of two different women. One named Edith Curtiss, was the daughter of the dean of agriculture while the other is named Esther Wilson and she was the former wife of the school president. Curtiss was reputed to have many gentleman callers that were snuck through the windows at night. While the Farm House is a museum today, the curtains have been spotted by students and visitors mysteriously swaying. At other times, the curtains have been seen snapping open and then closing in an instant with nobody in the room. Paranormal theorists believe her spirit is responsible for that and the mysterious sound of a female voice that can be heard at different times in the house. Wilson’s spirit has a different slant, quite literally. Being a museum many table place settings have been mysteriously moved or angled after they’ve been laid down by human hands and many believe her spirit is correcting the improper table manners. On more than one occasion her spirit is believed to have been manifested and one frightened woman was said to have approached and greeted the spirit before it disappeared into thin air.
The Ghost of Fisher Theater
Fisher Theater is also said paranormally active by a ghost. The theater is over one hundred and twelve years old, and its longest-tenured theater instructor was a woman named Frieda Shattuck. In fact, her dedication to the Iowa State theater was so dedicated she is rumored to have never missed a single performance in sixty-two years. Her spirit has manifested before theater students on the night of a big performance, and this is taken as a sign of good luck. However, her wheelchair was left behind as a prop to be used by the school’s theater company. There have been reports of the wheelchair not only moving locations around backstage, but some have even claimed to see it move towards them as if someone were in it!
Haunted Friley Hall
Across campus, Friley Hall is another haunted hotspot on campus. The basement area is said to be the most haunted spot in the hall and has earned the campus nickname of “The Devil’s Legion Room.” Over the years, students have reported seeing a shadow man who has partially manifested into an older man with a beard and top hat. His spirit has been seen slinking around this area and brings with it a certain feeling of not only cold air but dread as well. This dread seems to have branched out and hit other parts of the hall as collectively students have complained about having incredibly disturbing and dark dreams.
There also exists a singular room where a student was said to have committed suicide in it years ago. At some point, the room was closed and because it lacked a fire escape and serves no purpose, but the most disturbing claim is that people have seen a blood-like substance seep from underneath the doorway. The room has been opened and no real source was found for why it materialized. Is the shadow man in the basement responsible? The physical manifestation has the knee jerk reaction of someone who died in the vicinity in a violent way and continues to make their spirit known. On the other hand, there are some that speculate the entity is somehow related to the “Hat Man”. The Hat Man is a supernatural entity that has been seen by people the world over. Tall, shadow-like figure that resembles the physical feature of a man, but wears either a top or wide-brimmed had. Along with his presence is that terrible sense of dread as well as a cold sensation that creates almost a paralyzing fear. Still to this day, the origins of the Hat Man phenomena as a whole is a mystery.
Iowa State University is one of the top Midwestern schools in terms of academics and even in its vastly rising sports programs. Paranormal tours have been known to occur on campus that are formed by former students and it’s spirits like that which keep the stories of the real spirits on campus alive.
Long considered to be one of the premier universities in the northeast area, Penn State University has been a cornerstone for academia to all those seeking higher knowledge. With close to 85,000 undergraduates alone enrolled, the amount of students canvassing the campus any given semester is absolutely staggering. With such heavy amounts of academic foot traffic, it should come as no surprise to anyone that this campus is one of the most haunted around, so much so that an actual paranormal research group was founded on campus.
Is Penn State University Haunted?
Pennsylvania State University (PSU) was founded all the way back in 1855, initially as an agriculture college. Farmers had donated acres of empty land towards the school’s construction up until 1882 when an engineering program was catching on for the school and permanent halls were built. By 1936, many baccalaureate degrees were added as well as enrollment figures hitting over five thousand. Over the next few decades, enrollment would essentially double every year, with recent figures close to 99,000 students enrolled as the school now enjoys multibillion-dollar endowments every year, a successful sports department, and is considered by a recent Wall Street Journal survey as the number one place to receive the best all-around bachelors degree. But with all the success, just what lurks underneath?
The Haunted Penn State Library
One of the chief hauntings of the university begins with the murder of a student. In November 1969, Betsy Aardsma was a graduate student at Penn State who was busy working on a research paper late one fall afternoon in the library. At some point, she was stabbed from behind, with the killing wound severing her pulmonary artery. A mysterious man is said to have descended from the upper-level library floor and alerted the librarian to the dying girl who was found in Row 51 on the floor. However, the killer was never caught and the case is still considered open by University Park Police.
Over the years, the rows in the library have shifted but students have none the less reported hearing manifested screams or gasps, bloodstains on the floor, and even a supposed apparition of what many think is Betsy’s spirit. As eerie as all of it sounds, things got even more bizarre in 2013 when a student claimed to have found a note in the vicinity of Row 51 on the day of Betsy’s death that read, “R.I.P. Betsy Ruth Aardsma July 11th, 1947- November 29th, 1969…….P.S. I’m back!” To this day, nobody knows just exactly who or what the note is referring to, but it definitely earns an A when it comes to the creepy factor!
The Ghost of Atherton Hall
The Atherton Hall at Penn State is one of the oldest on campus, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that it has a ghost. It is said by many students that the spirit of Frances Atherton, late wife of the school’s former president is one of many spirits haunting this hall. As a dormitory, the most common supernatural activity reported by students is the opening and closing of doors at random. In fact, students have claimed that her spirit has been seen looking out of one of the windows on a top floor, forever keeping an eye on the students.
Another spirit haunting this particular hall is that of a former female dormitory house mother who was nicknamed “Gumshoes” by students decades ago. The story is that she was always rooming about the dormitory halls at night in a pair of very noisy sneakers, in hopes of catching students out past curfew. Today, students who call this dormitory home for now still report hearing Gumshoes stepping around late into the night.
Schwab Auditorium Haunting
Nearby at the school’s Schwab Auditorium, another spirit is said to be prowling about the many theater seats. Affectionately called “Schwabo”, this ghost is said to be that of the auditorium’s former janitor. Scratching sounds about the floor, doors opening and closing, heavy footsteps in empty areas, and objects being mysteriously relocated have many paranormal enthusiasts musing that Schwabo is totally genial. Still thinking of the auditorium as his and helping tend to it well into the afterlife his presence is just another notch on Penn State’s paranormal belt.
Paranormal Research Society (PRS) at Penn State
In 2006, former student Ryan Buell founded the Paranormal Research Society (PRS) at Penn State. It was a homegrown club on campus that met up to investigate paranormal cases in the surrounding tri-state area. Based on a terrifying childhood experience that Buell had, the group consisted of PSU students who were committed to investigating the paranormal outside of their regular course of studies. The group became so popular that they were in fact given their own paranormal reality series on the cable channel A&E where it ran for five seasons. Today, the PRS consists of students that over the years have come into the school and naturally left their research and findings to younger students so that the group may never disband. With all the ghost stories and commitment from on-campus students to study the paranormal, Penn State will remain as one of the more haunted universities in the northeast.
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