Searching for Campus Ghosts

Nich Wolak

The blood oozed through my shirt as I prepared to search out the ghosts of Michigan State University………….. I guess I shouldn’t have been picking my back acne.

Fairchild Theatre was where my adventure started. The information I had looked up talked about a little boy who roamed its halls, my resident mentor Sean Grier, a music education major who is involved in theatre, confirmed this.

We ran into each other at the bike racks outside Wilson a couple of days before I visited Fairchild and he said, “…I haven’t personally experienced anything there, but some of my friends have. Supposedly there used to be a pool there, and a little boy drowned.”

As I sat in Fairchild Theatre his words came back to me. The floor I was looking at was slanted, like a pool would have been. Not long after this revelation I heard a noise that sounded like something metal moving in the wind. I got up to try and follow the noise, and a game of cat and mouse ensued.

After a minute or two of walking in circles I sat down, sick of it changing directions on me. My mind was momentarily given time to wonder before a choir based group came in to practice. They were pleasant to listen to, but they killed the “haunted” mood, so I left.

Next on the list of stops was the Oak Room in the Mason basement. There an elderly gentleman allegedly got locked in, and suffocated to death. Before I walked in I was astonished by the label on the door. It was written in a boldly artistic manner, like it was celebrating the trauma I might experience within it.

The room had a very “old restaurant” feel to it with dark brown walls, table, chairs, and posts. There were paintings all over, and on the posts were gold trimmed lamps. A few of these lamps were lit on the right side, providing a dim light, my only light. I moved my chair against the wall so I could see both sides of the room.

After typing some notes I decided to explore them. I walked up to a dresser on the right side and started opening the drawers, but the glass-encased top part wouldn’t open.

I then snaked my way through a group of loose furniture to find a sink and a closet area, hidden from the rest of the room. There was a chair facing the sink, almost as though someone had been sitting there earlier, washing their hands.

Rumblings came from the closet area, but upon further investigation I saw that the top was slanted like stair steps. The other side of the room had a lot of bags, but it was too dark to tell what was in them. I left soon after; with relief being the best word to describe how I felt. None of the light switches I tried in there had worked.

Holmes Hall was my next stop, and the last hall stop of the night. On the sixth floor of the west portion there have reportedly been appliances that turn on and off on their own, and mysterious men who enter the elevators. I got there a little before twelve A.M. because the ghost activity has been reported to occur mostly after three A.M, and I had to avoid the id check.

A lot of people wondered what I was doing outside of the elevators with a lab top. My explanation that I was searching for ghosts got a variety of reactions.  One girl accused me of lying, but apologized after I showed her my reference sheet as proof.

Later on that night, she and three of her friends came back to talk to me more in depth. After her friend Mike, a sophomore in his second year at Holmes read my sheet, he remarked, “I haven’t seen anything with the elevators, but I have had my computer turn on and off randomly.”  Mike may have never noticed anything peculiar about the elevators, but I did.

Three times they came to the top empty. It should also be noted that the doors close very slowly, especially when they get near the end.

There have been reports of screaming heard and shadowy figures in MSU gardens, so I strolled through the horticultural ones on my way back to the dorm. I have never been so intimidated by plants in my life. When I reached the chuppah I saw a shadow go by, and a chill ran down my spine. It started raining soon after, and I trudged back to the dorm, my shirt getting soaked along the way.

Mayo hall was the most anticipated of all my visits. Everyone who I talked to that hadn’t had any supernatural experiences directed me towards it. There were three separate cases that I had read about; a mysterious presence in the basement corridor, Mary Mayo herself playing the piano in the West lobby, and the fourth floor, where satanic rituals had been performed. My visit there came at around eight o’clock the next night. The West lobby, like the Oak room, had a certain timelessness to it. Chairs were neatly placed around the room with a couch in the middle facing the fireplace. Scattered around the room were paintings, and five old lamps, one of which was turned on. Opposite the fireplace was the infamous piano where Mary Mayo had been reported to have played.

I tried everything I could think of to get her to play for me. I asked her verbally, typed her messages on my laptop, played a tune for her, and even tried using flattery. All of my attempts were to no avail, so I moved onto the basement corridor.

I was again disappointed as nothing happened. The east and west portions of the basement were creepier than the corridor itself. The last spot in Mayo to check out was the fourth floor, the attic. The door was locked, so I knocked and waited before knocking again. Nothing happened, and I was very grateful after considering the rumors which surrounded that particular floor.

Williams hall was a place where I hoped to find dancing ghosts, strange noises coming from unoccupied rooms, and TVs turning on and off. None of this occurred while I was there, and not one of the people I talked to had experienced anything of that nature.

I did see what looked like an alien head on a door though. Disappointed, I headed back to Mayo to kill some time. (I didn’t want to get to my next stop, Hubbard, too soon before midnight).

The OSU-Penn State game was on in the east lounge, so I sat down to watch. While sitting I couldn’t help but notice the differences between the east and west lounge. The East lounge had a TV and regular lighting, and while these were only two differences, they made the room seem much younger.

There was also a painting of Mary Mayo above the fireplace. As I glanced at it the familiarity of her face was striking, she looked like my mother. A light bulb popped above my head, and I made my way back to the west lounge for one last shot with Mrs. Mayo.

I told her that she looked like my mother hoping that she would think I was homesick, and play something for me. My mother doesn’t just look like Mary Mayo, her middle name is Mary, and she also plays the piano. Despite all of these connections, that piano stayed silent. Before leaving I heard a pounding noise in the room. I pounded back above the fireplace, and my pounding sounded identical to the pounding I had heard right before. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to investigate further; I was going to be hard-pressed to make it to Hubbard before twelve o’clock.
       
My destination was the twelfth floor of the Southern portion. There have been reports there of an apparition of a man who gets on the elevator, bringing a breeze with him, appliances going on and off, windows opening and closing, and running in the halls that is later accompanied by laughing voices.

While I was there an elevator opened up empty about a half dozen times, putting Holmes Hall to shame. During all of these times there was a slight breeze caused by the fans in the elevator, but one time I felt a breeze come from behind me, and the one that came from the elevator was more powerful than any of the others had been.

This prompted me to go to a room filled with three avid Nintendo players and ask them to talk about any supernatural experiences they might have had. I was reading off from my reference list when one of them, (who wishes to remain un-identified), cut me off saying, “yeah the running down the halls, none of that other stuff has happened, but I hear someone running down the hall in the middle of the night all the time.”

The rest of my time there was spent monitoring the elevators, and explaining to random people what I was doing. It wasn’t without any more occurrences though, on two occasions I heard disturbing laughter.

Around four o’clock I was barely functional and decided to head out. On my way home I strolled through the Beal botanical gardens, nothing happened. It was the most peace I had experienced in a while.