On the hunt for the ghosts of Penn State

Ever felt chills walking around campus at night which you just can’t attribute to the brisk fall weather? Or perhaps you’ve seen a figure shifting in a seemingly deserted window?

Well, your fears are founded, because according to a recent article, Penn State is the #2 most haunted campus in America. Freaky, right?

We did some digging and narrowed the plentiful options down to the top three haunted locations on our beautiful but, let’s all be honest, creepy, campus.

Living in an old rundown West College house which does a little more than bump in the night and being roommates with two Tab writers who communicated with the spirit world through a homemade ouija board, my curiosity was more than peaked.

The late shift I had to work Friday night ruined any plans I might’ve had involving parties, so I decided to visit the infamous haunts Halloween morning during game time. These are in order of creepiness:

Old Botany

Built in the late 1880s, this funny little cottage had a few greenhouses attached to it (long since gone) which students would use to study more exotic plants. But the actual haunting has nothing to do with Botany – the building is conveniently located across the road from the grave of the famous late president of our university, George Atherton (1837 – 1906).

Legend has it his widow, Frances Atherton, stands behind the top floor windows to watch over her husband’s final resting place.

Frances may have been behind those creepy eye windows, but the glass is so warped it was hard to tell. Overall, maybe at the dead of night by yourself you’ll feel like your being watched, but apart from the fact it’s near a grave and it’s an old building, it didn’t seem too haunted to me.

Schwab Auditorium

This Auditorium is home to the most specters on campus. One is the building’s namesake, Charles Schwab, a university trustee who donated over $100,000 to its construction. The notable George Atherton is ghost number two, rumored to be generally friendly, minding his own business.

(Quick aside: why doesn’t his wife float literally down the street to come chill? Why does she have to be creeping on him from afar in a building that has absolutely nothing to do with her?)

The third ghost is up for debate: some say it’s a woman, others believe it’s a revolutionary soldier, the most popular belief though, is a janitor. But hey, maybe all three of them take turns. These ghosts apparently don’t do a ton either, just move curtains and creep on people working on stage. They are referred to collectively as “Schwaboo”.

Because it was Saturday, I couldn’t get into Schwab, but I did have the chance to talk to someone who has been there more than once.

Rachel Moeser, a recent Penn State grad and former President of Penn State’s Paranormal Research Society said she has personally had experiences in Schwab Auditorium.

“A lot of our club members also had experiences there. The year before I joined the club, they did the Ganzfeld Experiment and one girl heard people talking and asked everyone sitting around her to be quiet (she thought it was them).

“They actually weren’t talking so she started to repeat what she was hearing so someone could write it down. When they looked it up later, they were lines from a play called ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ and it hadn’t been performed in the auditorium since the 30s or 40s.”

She said the janitor spirit has been spotted on multiple occasions and is the one they’ve had the most interaction with over the years.

“Another spirit that we’ve ‘run’ into a few times is a female spirit that we’ve called Marilyn,” Rachel said. “On two separate occasions when we’ve been in one of the dressing rooms in the basement and asking questions directed towards Marilyn, two separate female club members have been overwhelmed with sadness and started crying for a brief period. Both said the sadness left as quickly as it came and were completely fine after a few minutes.”

The basement stacks

Though it doesn’t have as many ghosts as Schwab, the basement stacks of the Pattee Library undoubtedly are the most terrifying place on campus. Unlike the other locations, this one has a single event that has turned crime into legend at the university.

In 1969, Betsy Aardsma was a 22-year-old grad student doing some research over Thanksgiving break one afternoon when she was stabbed once in the heart in row 51 of the stacks. 46 years later, her murder was never solved and remains an officially open case to this day. Rumor has it you can still hear her screams echoing in the shelves and her blood has been seen among the rows of books.

Maybe it’s just because on Saturday morning the library is dead quiet, but I was mad freaked out in Row 51-52 of the basement stacks. You could hear a pin drop, and it is so cramped down there it’s hard not to feel like someone is watching you. Messages were scrawled on the shelves of row 52, probably by some twisted students, but definitely eerie all the same:

Had to look this one up: REDRUM is MURDER backwards

While I was down there, my paranoia got the best of me and I heard someone moving in the shelves and saw shadows flitting at the end of the rows. It definitely could have been someone actually alive, but maybe because I can sympathize with Betsy – being a poor defenseless girl alone in the stacks on an off day – I left quickly, definitely spooked.

Though we are an extremely haunted campus, the ghosts have been, for the most part, harmless. So next time you pass Schwab, say what’s up to George and maybe let him know his wife is lurking on him from across the street. And if you see a flickering shadow in a window or feel like an otherworldly presence is watching you from behind a shelf, remember the ghosts will probably leave you alone – as long as you stay in your lane.