Oh yes, there are plenty of ghosts to be had at University Park campus and students have seen and heard them - there are some unbelievable stories -you just have to know who to ask - the Penn State Paranormal Research Society, duh!
If you're in the HUB Robeson Center, you might catch a glimpose of "Old Coaly" - Penn State's informal mascot long before the Nittany Lion - a mule. This particular mule, along with several others, assisted in the hauling of stones for the original buildings on campus in the 1850s. The mule was such a great worker that Penn State bought him for $190 and Coaly spent over thirty years on campus. Students adored him and when he finally died on January 1st 1893, his body was displayed in Old Main, a building that Coaly helped build, of course. In the early 1900s, the campus caught fire and Coaly's body was saved and stored in the basement of Watts Hall. Believe it or not, students and staff started seeing a mule standing outside the storage door. Others never saw a mule but did hear braying sounds. In the 1960s Coaly's body was put on display again in the Agricultural building. The same sort of sightings and sounds were reported there as well. Today you can find his body on display in the HUB Robeson Center.
This next story is very personal to me because I believe I've had an experience with it. As a Penn State alum, I've spent a lot of time on campus and in various buildings. Two years ago I got the chance to attend an informal ghost investigation in Schwab Auditorium and took some pictures that really freaked me out. I was standing on the stage in Schwab and looking up at the balcony. All the lights were out, of course. The room was occasionally lit by flashing digital cameras, meanwhile Rosemary Ellen Guiley, our guide, carried a flashlight or a lantern, I don't remember which. I took over forty pictures with my digital camera and when I looked at them the next day on my computer, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. It didn't help that most of the pictures were pretty dark - so I enhanced them. And blamo, a person appeared in the glass windows on the balcony. I had been taking the pictures continuously until my battery died so I checked the picture before and after and the figure was not in either. There were no features that I could identify for certain, except that it was probably a male - wearing a hat. Now it's possible that a member of PRS was up there - but why? Everyone else was on the stage and walking around the seats below. And why would someone be up there in complete darkness? Around all that technical stuff? Without the enhancement of the photograph, the figure would have been totally lost to the darkness of the balcony and technical room. Now the story we were told was that a girl had fallen off of the balcony to her death and that people have reported feeling very uncomfortable near the location of her fall. I had no such experience - I took a photograph of a man watching from the balcony window. So I did some looking around - this excerpt was taken from Mark Nesbitt and Patty A. Wilson's "Haunted Pennsylvania" - I bought this book a month ago, so I had no prior knowledge of this story. It reads that "A ghostly presence is said to watch the stage from the balcony. Actors have claimed that a male figure was watching them as they rehearsed". EEEEEEEK, okay!? Now this guy could be any one of the male ghosts said to haunt Schwab - Charles Schwab, George Atherton and a Revolutionary War soldier. Given the hat that is very noticeable in the photograph, I'd put my money on the soldier [my photo above - tell me what you think - skeptics are welcome!].
Schwab's attic also has some activity. Staff and students have reported hearing things being thrown around in the attic and chairs have been found moved and laying around as if thrown. During an investigation three years ago, Lou Gentile and about ten people were investigating the attic and provoking the alleged spirit(s) by asking questions. On several handheld recorders, a male, irritated voice was heard to say "God D*mnit" in response to the question "Were you married?". How rude. In the basement, a girl was using the bathroom when all the lights went out and something apparently poked her in the back while she was in the stall and then the lights went back on. The bathroom areas in the basement are quite creepy all by themselves. I'm sure the light issue and the poking by unseen forces only added to the creepiness. Wait, there's more. Maintenance employees have reported finding equipment in odd places and have also reported an entity manifesting on stage and passing through a wall. In the 1970s the director of performing arts saw what he believed to be a Revolutionary War soldier in the auditorium. After passing it off to his imagination, he saw the soldier again in the basement and apparently the ghost looked him right in the face. George Atherton, PSU's seventh president, supposedly haunts Schwab as well. Not surprising since his body is buried right beside the building. If you didn't know that then it's time you went for a walk between Schwab and Old Botany.
Old Botany has ghost stories of its own. Atherton's wife, Frances, apparently looks out of the windows of Old Botany's attic. In life, she was a very clingy woman and I guess she remained that way after death. If this story is true, she can see her husband's grave a short distance from the attic window.
Penn State's Pattee Library has its own very scary ghost story. On November 28th 1969, a grad student, Betsy Aardsma, was stabbed in "the stacks" on the second floor. She died in the Ritenour Health Center before she could ever name her killer. The case was never solved. Shortly after her death, people reported hearing a scream coming from the stacks. Others reported seeing a young girl walking the stacks and disappearing into thin air. Every now and then, a student runs up to the library desk to report a scream - and it's become habit for librarians to explain "it's just Betsy's ghost".
Now this last story is very hard to find any information on. Luckily, I've got the story to share with you. In 1992, an RA in Room 318 of Runkle Hall began complaining of banging sounds that were keeping her awake during the night. Later on, her bed started "heaving". Of course, she did what anyone would do and ran out of her room. When she returned with friends to accompany her back in the room, the door was locked. In 1994, another RA in the same room reported nearly the same things - that her bed was "breathing". In addition, this RA heard voices in the room but was never able to discern what was being said. In 1998, things started happening in room 313. The television would turn itself on - to the spanish channel - doors opened, closed and locked by themselves, lights flickering and things being thrown around the room. The student in 313 even tried using a Ouija board to figure out who was inhabiting the room and received answers in Spanish but claimed that eleven spirits were in the area. One student claimed to see an old woman in a rocking chair at the end of the third floor hall in 1994.
http://community.centredaily.com/?q=node/3995
