WEB CHUTNEY

Some universities are supposedly ‘haunted’ because they are built on ancient sites and some because they have scenes of tragic suicide and unexplained deaths. These universities embrace the reputations that they have, for all things, paranormal. And these tales are enthusiastically passed on from each generation of freshmen to the next.

1. St Andrews University, Scotland

St Andrews hold a special position in the history of Scotland; it was said to be a religious center in medieval times and is now said to be haunted. Among the crumbling ruins, a white lady is the most celebrated ghost.

2. Durham University, United Kingdom

Durham University has an 800-year-old castle that it uses as student residence. In the 19th Century, the wife of Bishop Van Mildert, who owned the castle before the university, is said to have fallen to her death from the top of the ‘black’ staircase. According to Durham’s students, the Grey lady keeps floating up and down the castle’s black staircase.

3. Southampton University, United Kingdom

A section of the Avenue Campus at Southampton University is said to be haunted by a female phantom. Staff who work during the night shift often hear the sound of footsteps and of furniture moving about in empty classrooms.

4. Cambridge University, United Kingdom

Paranormal activity has taken place in this old university as well. In the 1990s, a person, who is said to have committed suicide by hanging, is often seen by people. As a result, the college staff and students refuse to enter the 13th century oak-paneled chamber where the incident took place.

5. Oxford University, United Kingdom

It is believed that the ghost of Archbishop William Laud, a former Oxford chancellor, is often spotted at St John’s College library. He was beheaded in 1645 for treason.

6. Exeter University, United Kingdom

The ghost of Exeter University is a workman who is often seen near the corridor walls with a brush in one hand and a paint pot in the other. He died when he was at work.

7. University of York, New York

Paranormal activities were reported in York when a survey was conducted. According to the survey of the International Ghost Research Foundation, York was ‘Europe’s most haunted city’.

8. Brunel University, London

Brunel University is built partly on the ground of an isolated hospital for contagious disease. At St Johns’ campus, a woman working as a secretary is said to have seen ‘a young girl in a hospital gown running down the corridor’.

9. Royal Holloway, United Kingdom

Founder of the Surrey university, Mr Thomas Holloway’s cat has haunted the university for decades. Students of the university have allegedly been recorded saying that, ‘they see a cat but when they turn, the cat disappears’.

10. University of Wales, Newport

People who live and work in the University of Wales, Newport campus, have said to have seen a 6-foot tall matron with her hair in a bun. She is said to be the ghost of Bertha Ramsey, who was found at the foot of the staircase after having fallen from the second floor. The school’s headmaster claims osays that he has seen her at her funeral as well, firstly he thought that she is her twin sister but who knew she never existed.

11. University Of Virgina, Virgina

Staff and students of this university have recounted hearing footsteps and feeling as if they were being watched whilst in the building. It is said that, the ghost of Confederate surgeon, Bennett Wood Green, who died in 1913 still loiters in the halls.

12. The University Of Iowa, Iowa

According to some students, spirits with a penchant for flicking through TV channels haunted their shared home. The ghosts are said to be of three female residents who collectively ended their lives after discovering that they were all dating the same man.

13. California State University, Channel Islands

This university’s campus is said to have been built over Camarillo State Hospital’s site. Between 1936 and 1997, thousands of people are said to have died there. Many people are said to have died because of neglect. Paranormal investigators who visited university say that this was an active location for supernatural activities.

14. Penn State University State College, PA

Betsy Aardsma, a student of Penn state university, died in the Patte library in 1969. Her murder mystery goes unsolved even today. It is said that, her ghost still wanders in the library late at night.

15. University Of Georgia, Athens, GA

Legend has it that a girl named Anna Hamilton, who saw her boyfriend being murdered can be heard crying in the empty rooms of campus.

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