I never
believed in ghosts until my freshman year of college. The buildings at Albertus
Magnus date back to the mid-1800's and every single one of them is creepy and
most likely haunted. During my first semester, my bf wanted to explore Sansbury
hall, where the girls were complaining that they couldn't sleep at night; they
would huddle together in sleeping bags in one room rather than be alone. They
said things would fly off their shelves and they would be poked and scratched at
night. Being a "logical" person, I expected a logical explanation--probably too
much estrogens in the women's dorm. When M and I went to check out the place, I
completely changed my mind. Just standing downstairs in the basement made me
feel like something was watching me. Two girls who were with us said that the
laundry room to my left was usually where a black
shadow would walk back and
forth, one that you couldn't see out of the corner of your eye. Trying not to
scare myself I said "yeah, right. There's nothing down here, let's go." In
reality I just wanted to get the hell out. There was the sound of water dripping
very loudly even though there weren't any pipes in our area...the whole place
was just dark and foreboding. M, who is into the occult, cast a circle and
proceeded to explore the basement. I had had enough and ran upstairs. Seconds
later, the two girls came running up behind me, screaming bloody murder. They
said they had seen the black shadow again, and it was moving towards them. I was
just about to call for M to come upstairs when there he was--being thrown up the
staircase! His toes were barely grazing the steps, there was no way he could
have been supporting himself. Though he
was a little shaken, he wasn't
nearly as scared as I was, having never seen or felt anything like this in my
entire life. He grabbed my arm and we ran outside, where we found the rest of
the dorm waiting for us, asking M what had happened. They were so impressed with
his story that there was kind of a mass hysteria developing, no one wanted to go
back inside. M was like a leader, they were all looking at him like he knew what
was going on. "All I did was cast a circle," he said. So to calm everyone down
he went to the outside basement door--which was all boarded up so intruders
couldn't get in--and knocked on the door 5 times (the shave and a haircut
knock.) Everyone laughed...until the door rattled violently back and forth twice
in response! The girl closest to the door screamed and knocked me over trying to
run away. I looked in the window,
figuring it was a prank...but no one was
inside, we were all out here. Furthermore, the lights were on inside, when I
knew that M and I had been the last ones out and we had shut them off. I have no
explanation for the Sansbury haunting, or any of the
other hauntings at my
school. Girls who live in the dorm still tell me about what goes on now and
then, although it never reached the level of hysteria that last year had. The
dorm I live in is also haunted...in fact, it's a former Yale psych ward. I have
been followed down the hall by an invisible presence many times, and absolutely
refused to sleep in my room alone last year, not because I saw anything, but
because I always felt like something was watching me. Everyone who visited my
room felt it too. If anyone has any information about my school, I would love to
hear from you. I have researched any deaths on campus and can only find one...I
really wonder what was on this land before Albertus, because the campus is truly
creepy. Please email me if you have any info or would like to chat.