More than 600,000 students have graduated from Penn State in the past 150 years. Who's to say a few ghosts haven't stuck around?
With more than 700 buildings on campus, some of them more than 100 years old, they'd certainly have space to hide. And with the amount of history this campus has seen, they'd probably have plenty to hide from.
Finding where these spirits lurk is easy enough, Eilfie Music said -- it's figuring out why they're still banging around that's tough. A seven-year veteran of the Paranormal Research Society, she researches the history behind reports of haunting, seeking an answer for a phenomena some consider unanswerable.
"Most of the time, when you go to interview people, the first thing that comes out of their mouths is, 'You're never going to believe this,' " she said.
Usually they're right, and their stories can be explained through natural means, she said, but sometimes -- well, those are the interesting cases.
This time, Music tramps down the narrows stairs in the stacks of Pattee Library, the square frame of her Beetlejuice leather jacket tight against the walls. Section BA -- Music isn't sure of the exact location, and persistent bleaching has long since removed the bloodstains, but she's standing roughly around where Penn State student Betty Aardsma was stabbed to death almost 40 years earlier.
She looks around. "I haven't been here in a while," she said.
Most students know Aardsma's basic story, how she was struck down by an unknown attacker while studying alone during Thanksgiving break in 1969. Music can fill in a few more gory details -- how she pulled down a pile of books with her when she collapsed, how the knife pierced both her heart and her lung, filling her breaths with blood -- but she prefers to focus on the after-death stories.
Many students have claimed to have felt Aardsma's presence in the stacks, catching sight of a shadow or hearing a voice, she said, but few accounts can be entirely trusted.
"Back when I was around, this place was even dimmer," she said. "You're pretty much in a perfect setting to get scared as it is."
Aardsma's murder remains unsolved, but Music's next story involves more mundane deaths -- the peaceful passings of 19th century Penn State President George Atherton and his wife, Frances. George, buried outside of Schwab Auditorium, is said to stalk the balconies of his beloved theater after dark, while Frances keeps watch over his grave from across the street in Old Botany Building, peeking from the attic windows.
The society has held conference investigations at both locations, Music said, and enthusiastic guests have noted plenty of "evidence." Once on Schwab's top floor, visitors heard a metal chair scrape across the floor and rushed to look, she said.
"Then someone said, 'Look! The chair moved!' and moved it right back," she said, rolling her eyes.
Encounters in Old Botany haven't been so benign. One staff member reported hearing footsteps in 1996, Music recalls. The woman knew there wasn't anyone there, so she locked herself in her office. Seconds later, something banged again and again on the door.
The culprit? Some blame Mrs. Atherton, but Music has doubts -- rumors her body was locked in Old Botany's attic were debunked after one dusty investigation by the society's own Ryan Buell.
"We don't think she ever lived there," she said. "We haven't done any further extensive research, but we don't know of any deaths in Old Botany."
But a favorite case involves a very obvious death: that of Old Coaly, the university's first mule and faithful laborer when Penn State was primarily an agricultural school. Students couldn't bear to see Coaly buried, legend says, so Penn State stored his corpse in Old Main for a time. When the building burned in 1892, officials moved Coaly's skeleton to a number of temporary resting places, including the basement of Watts Building -- and from then on, staff began hearing braying and the clip-clop of hooves at night.
The sounds reportedly stopped upon the opening of the Old Coaly Diner in the HUB-Robeson Center, which has since been replaced by Nathan's Famous. Today, Coaly's skeleton stands on display on the second floor of the HUB; Music, barely tall enough to reach his thigh, laughs at the thought of his skeletal frame prancing around campus.
Then there are the dorm stories, the tales of students who have fooled around with Ouija boards and seen strangers sitting on their roommate's bed, or had their television mysteriously flick to Spanish-language cable stations without explanation. Who knows which accounts are true, Music says -- but there's a reason that Beam Building, a former residence hall, is now offices, or that two dorm rooms in Runkle Hall have been converted to storage.
It all begs the question -- when she's locked in a building with a reported vengeful spirit, does Music ever get scared? Not really, Music said. "Most of the time, we are waiting for something to happen," she laughs.
Friend and fellow PRS member David Moyer (senior-history) agreed. "If you're trying to figure out what's going on," he said, "running away isn't going to do that."
