Oct - The Hotel: Ringmaster Nov - The Hotel: Ringmaster Blackout Dec - The Hotel: Festival of Frights Jan - The Hotel: Terror on the Midway Feb - The Hotel: Tunnel of Lov Mar - The Hotel: Carnie
Paranormal Ghost Tours are conducted daily at 8:30pm but must be booked at least one day in advance. Ghost tours are not conducted on nights that the haunted attraction is open.
Psychic Readings are scheduled daily from 8pm - 10:30pm and must be booked at least one day in advance. Psychic readings are not conducted on nights that the haunted attraction is open.
Voted as the #1 haunt in North Carolina for 2022 and 2023, The Hotel is an extreme, interactive haunt, located in the historic Garrett Hotel (a REAL haunted national historic landmark with many reported paranormal experiences). Our theme and layout changes every year and every season, but the fear remains the same! Our attraction is not for the faint of heart. We will expose you to your deepest fears and push YOU to your limits.
Listed as one of the Top 8 “must-see” haunts by WRAL-TV, this haunted attraction is a must for those who truly enjoy the thrill of a scare.
***GHOST TOURS***
We also conduct private ghost tours throughout the year. Our ghost tours consist of paranormal investigations of the historic Garrett Hotel, which is almost 100 years old, and is listed on the national historic register; and is also the building in which our haunted attraction is housed. The tours are conducted using professional ghost hunting equipment, which allows you to see fit yourself, the presence of spirit activity. The tours are private, with small groups, and guaranteed to be a unique experience! You will be required to sign a liability waiver before entering the hotel. For more info, contact us through messenger.
This attraction is not recommended for young children.
Miami International Mall, Northwest 107th Avenue, Doral, FL, USA
House of Horror Haunted Carnival, the largest Halloween experience in South Florida returns. Explore a giant abandoned department store that has been overtaken and claimed. Endure FOUR unique haunted experiences that will make you regret ever walking through the doors! Sssshhh!!! Walk quietly through “Silent Mall” or you’ll trigger Misshhhell and unleash her wrath. Brave the remains of “Drown Town” but stay away from its inhabitants or you’ll end up a permanent resident. If you still have the nerve, check-in to “Insanitorium” where the patients oversee the delivery of nervous breakdowns. Enter our last haunted experience, “Scare X Studios”, an immersive experience where gaming and imagination take center stage. If you make it through all four unique haunts and still have some stiffness in your spine, take a risk and enjoy unlimited carnival rides, delectable treats, and carnival games at the House of Horror midway. See you there…if you dare!
WEEKDAY TICKETS – Valid any Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday during 2022 season excluding Special Event Days
*Includes free parking, one-time admission into the House of Horror Carnival, UNLIMITED rides and entrances to each of the FOUR haunted attractions.
WEEKEND TICKETS – Valid any Friday. Saturday or Sunday during 2022 season including Special Event Day, *The Spooky Bash – 10/30*
*Includes free parking, one-time admission into the House of Horror Carnival, UNLIMITED rides and entrances to each of the FOUR haunted attractions.
6 & UNDER TICKETS – Valid any day excluding Special Event Day, Freaky Fright Night – Halloween 10/31
*Includes free parking, one-time admission into the House of Horror Carnival, UNLIMITED rides and access to Scare-X Studios. Does NOT include access into the Haunted Houses.
Tickets:
* Halloween Haunted House Attraction $15 (10 AM to 6 PM) Runs all day. Guests enjoy a spine-chilling mix of special effects, actors, costumes, story-telling, and exhilarating surprises blended with Imogene’s haunted history.
*Ghost Hunt $35 (7 PM to 11:00 PM): We will provide ghost hunting equipment, but feel free to bring your own! Audio equipment & digital cameras are allowed.
Haunted History:
The Imogene Theater, 6866 Caroline St., Milton, suffered heavy structural damage in January 2009 from a devastating fire but was rebuilt several years later. This does not prevent people from seeing a man walking on the balcony or the ghost of young Imogene Gooch, the daughter of the man who bought the theater in the 1920s and the building’s namesake. The location is rumored to be built on an Indian burial ground.
The Imogene Theatre is a small timely open stage theatre that was opened in October of 1913 by the president of Milton’s First National Bank. The president decided to open this new auditorium because four years prior to opening it, there was a great fire that destroyed most of Milton’s commercial district and the president felt a new auditorium was necessary. When the building first opened it was titled the Milton Opera House. The early shows that made it to the opera house were mostly made up of traveling shows and silent moving pictures, the very first being The Passion Play, a depiction of the life of Christ. By 1921, the opera house was bought out by Mr. Gooch and was renamed the Imogene Theatre, after his younger daughter. Sadly, Mr. Gooch died months after the purchase but the name stuck.
By 1938, the Imogene Theatre became the first building in Milton to have central air conditioning. With the increasing amounts of technology and the creation of sound and color films, the Imogene projected its screens with classic movies. Some of the popular are Gone With the Wind and the Wizard of Oz. While these pictures were being shown upstairs, the first floor was being used as a retail space and was even home to the Milton Post Office for about 30 years. The theatre closed down years later in 1946 when a newer theatre was opened up down the road and the first floor became vacant in 1980.
In the years to follow, the Imogene Theatre had become old and decrepit. With a failing roof and plaster peeling off the building, it looked like an end to the once great theatre. But, in 1985 the building was purchased by the Santa Rosa Historical Society. The building was then restored by the historical society, with the help of some state grants, and was reopened in 1987.
After almost 100 years after the original fire that inspired the creation of the theatre, Downtown Milton was struck by another fire that badly damaged the theatre in 2009. Luckily with the help of over seven fire departments, the fire was put out and the building was saved. Many saw this fire as a blessing, as it gave the historical society a chance to properly restore the theatre to how it looked when it first opened.
Since the Imogene has been fully restored and is open to the public. The first floor of the theatre is now utilized as a museum that tells of all the hardships and wonders that the theatre had faced in the past.
The second form is still used as a theatre with many different events. The Imogene now hosts swing dancing events, high school jazz concerts that are open to the public, and even some movie nights. This small two-story theatre is a great place for family fun and can even be rented out for private events. Located in the center of downtown Milton and across the street from the Blackwater River, the theatre is the perfect place for community outreach and entertainment.
Waverly Hills Sanatorium is chronicled on many of the “scariest places” lists by paranormal historians. Many experts place Waverly Hills Sanatorium in the top 3 of the most haunted and scariest places preserved. Situated in the southwestern area of Louisville, Kentucky the sanatorium is renowned for being the most haunted asylum in the entire world. Rife with reports of moving objects and cold spots to malicious appearances of ghostly doppelgängers mimicking the visitors to the sanatorium themselves. The stories are astonishing.
Is The Waverly Hills Sanatorium Haunted?
The location and former building where the sanatorium stands now was originally purchased in 1883 by a military man, Major Thomas Hays. Due to the remote location at the time, the initial building was fashioned into a large one-room schoolhouse as the nearest school was several miles away. A woman named Lizzie Lee served as the first teacher there and she held a special fondness in her heart for author Walter Scotts’s Waverly Novels series. Major Hays needed a name and found Lee’s penchant for the Waverly Novels to be the perfect name and the Waverly School was formed. At the turn of the 20th Century, the region was hit very hard with a severe tuberculosis outbreak and the land the Waverly school was on was purchased. Subsequently, the building and land were massively expanded and hospital construction was done so as to house the influx of tuberculosis patients.
Roughly beginning in 1911, for the next three years more and more beds and building extensions were added to create a five-story, four hundred bed building for those stricken with tuberculosis. A children’s wing for younger patients was even added, however as the numbers of cured children improved, feeble adults who had tuberculosis and could not care for themselves in the outside world were sent to live in this wing. In 1962, cases of tuberculosis patients declined to a point where the Waverly accepted geriatric dementia patients. For the next twenty years, the Waverly Hills cared for these patients until the state of Kentucky stepped in to close the sanatorium down due to severe neglect in 1982. And that’s when the horror stories began to emerge.
Waverly Hills: The Creeper
The Creeper is hands down the most intimidating spirit in the entire sanatorium. Manifesting itself as a twisted shadow creature, The Creeper has been known to appear in the sanatorium hallways the most. If spotted, it has long crudely twisted arms and legs and it seems to be spotted approaching some unlucky visitors in various ways. Most commonly, it is spotted crawling along the floor, while other times The Creeper is on the ceiling, slowly approaching the unsuspecting. One of the associations of being in the presence of The Creeper is doom. Paranormal investigators to Waverly have claimed that when The Creeper has been spotted, they suddenly have such an overwhelming sense of dread saturate them, that the feeling of impending doom is immediately upon them, and more often than not they have to leave the property as it takes hours to calm down again.
Room 502
Room 502 is the most haunted individual room in the complex. Pretty young nurse Mary Hillenburg worked at Waverly, and according to stories there, she became pregnant out of wedlock. Feeling ashamed and hopeless about her situation, it is believed she sought out an abortion, but something about the procedure went horribly wrong and she committed suicide by hanging herself inside the room. Her death was a gory scene and the baby was already dead and was put down the body chute the sanatorium had.
Today Room 502 has chilling reports of vicious cold spots, and objects indeed flying past visitors. EVP sessions have picked up the words “get back” inside the room and the phantom screeching of the chair Mary kicked out from under herself to be hanged is also audibly heard. The body chute to the Waverly was often used as patients often succumbed to their illnesses. Bodies were sent down to a tunnel where they were rounded up and transported via train to unknown destinations. EVPs collected from this area of the sanatorium are quite chilling in their simplicity as words like “pain” and “leave now” are picked up.
Emerge from the body chute tunnel and you’re likely to catch a glimpse of Timmy, a child ghost there. A young patient who passed away at the age of six, Timmy had a fondness for toy balls. Over the years, visitors bring in toy balls and leave them for Timmy to play with and many a time people have claimed to see one of these toy balls in a room roll furiously back in forth on the floor unassisted, before Timmy’s spirit rolls it at them.
Hollywood Comes A Knocking
Waverly is also no stranger to modern American horror pop culture. In 2005, reputed horror documentarian and filmmaker Phillip Adrian Booth directed a little then-unknown cast to star in a film entitled Death Tunnel. The plot was horror-cliche of college sorority hazing gone wrong as a half dozen young women have to endure five floors of pure hell as they’re terrorized by the long tormented spirits there. Menacing ghosts in the film were inspired in part by actual spirits said to be haunting the Waverly. Even wilder is the fact that this film, in particular, was filmed at the Waverly Hills itself. Cast members have been quite reluctant to reveal as to whether or not filming there added to the fear-filled environment they were trying to create, but filming in such a place no doubt added considerably to the scare factor and requiring all acting parts in the film to be quite method.
Visit The Waverly Hills Sanatorium
The Waverly Hills Sanatorium today is completely open for ghost tours, events, and paranormal investigations of all types. Visitors are encouraged to take videos or pictures that document any paranormal activity they find on the grounds, however, arrangements to visit must be made via reservation. Even with all the tour groups, some people have been brave enough to attend one of the all-night tours. And it’s completely normal to see them last only an hour or two before running out the building screaming in sheer terror.
Ghost Tour 6pm Public Paranormal Investigation 7:00 to 9:00 pm
This chilling lockdown will reveal mystery that lingers in every inch and around every corner. Doors slamming, people being pushed and shoved, shadow figures, disembodied voices, footsteps, eerie laughter and full-bodied apparitions. You do not want to miss the opportunity to investigate.
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.”
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.
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!
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.
