5 spine-tingling ghost stories that shook students

Chilling ghost stories
Many schools and universities have a rich history; some have chilling ghost stories that will give you goosebumps. Source: Joshua Blanchard/Getty Images/AFP

Every once in a while, you’re bound to come across chilling ghost stories that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand. Ghost stories are quick to capture people’s attention — regardless if they believe in ghosts or not.

In pop culture, shows like “Are You Afraid of the Dark” create a hype on chilling tales of ghosts and the otherworldly. It features a group of storytellers called the “Midnight Society” gathered around a campfire chilling tales like how a ghost appears in a mirror or how a pale-looking boy appears out of nowhere saying he’s cold.

Other shows like “Unsolved Mysteries” and “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction” also present chilling ghost stories based on the personal accounts of those who have experienced them. A famous segment of “Beyond Belief” include a boy who believed that there was a monster in his closet.

One day, a group of friends came over to test his theory. His brother mockingly went into his bedroom closet to prove his theory wrong. Moments later, he vanished. When it was revealed in the show that the segment was based on a true story, many were shook.

However, it was later confirmed that his brother who “vanished” had actually escaped through the attic and hid at a friend’s house for two weeks due to problems at home.

If you can’t get enough of chilling ghost stories, we’ve curated five from the internet that involves students or campus grounds that will send shivers down your spine.

5 chilling ghost stories that spooked students

The RM50 a month bungalow

Malaysia is known for its spine-tingling ghost stories, some of which involve haunted houses. One particular story that gained national attention and that was also turned into a movie was the “RM50 a month bungalow”.

A group of eight university-going friends moved into a bungalow in the city of Shah Alam and was only asked to pay an 50 ringgit deposit upfront. They could even live there, rent-free, in their first month and only start paying rent in their second month of occupancy. Barely into their second day in the house, problems started arising.

According to the tale, one of the boys, Azmi, needed to use the bathroom urgently one morning but found that the door was locked. Thinking that one of his housemates had occupied the bathroom, he waited outside. After some time, his patience ran thin, and Azmi began yelling at the person inside.

His yells reportedly woke his housemates up, who came down to see what the commotion was. This left them perplexed: all eight housemates were with him, so who was using the bathroom?

Other spooky encounters included two of the housemates seeing a girl with no legs waving at them, while another was pulled out of bed from his feet. One housemate was spooked at seeing a ghost both outside and inside the house that he jumped out of his window.

The tweet below reportedly shows an image of the alleged haunted house:

‘The Ghost Girl’ who appeared in the El Paso High School Yearbook

In 1985, students and teachers who received their yearly El Paso High School Yearbook were stunned to find a ghostly apparition appearing in one of the group photos — later dubbed “The Ghost Girl”. In the photo, the figure looked disproportionate in size, blurry and out of place.

A staff member recalled that on the day the photo was taken, the girl was not present and it was reflected in the original negative. And yet, she appeared in the developed photo.

It is believed that the ghostly figure in the photo was that of a girl who committed suicide in 1922 on the school’s premises. After the tragic incident, the school reportedly received several reports of the “ghostly image”— so they decided to build a wall to block off the haunted hallway completely.

A prank in the morgue that went too far

This next story is reportedly based on a true story that occurred at a university in Hong Kong in the 80s.

One night, a group of seniors played a prank on a freshman by locking him up in the morgue at the medicine faculty overnight.

The story goes that when the group of pranksters returned to the venue the next morning, they were shocked to discover that the freshman was covered in bite marks and wounds — and was found to be eating the flesh of the corpses inside the morgue.

A love triangle that took the wrong turn

For years, there were reported sightings of a ghost which terrified students at the University College grounds of the University of Toronto.

The ghost is believed to have belonged to stonemason Ivan Reznikoff, who was killed by another stonemason, Paul Diabolos, with an axe. The ghost sightings persisted until Reznicoff’s body was discovered during a fire at the University College, 30 years after he was murdered.

However, Richard Fiennes-Clinton, who leads historical and “haunted” walking tours of the campus, has no recollection and could not trace any evidence that the story actually happened. The names Reznikoff or Diabolos could not be found in the census between 1851 or 1861 (when the murder took place), said the university.

While a newspaper archive supported the fact that the University College did catch fire in 1890, there was no mention of a body being found around the same time.

Haunting at Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester

Last on our list of chilling ghost stories is on Pete Nicosia, an immigrant from Sicily who slipped and fell to his death while working to construct the Rush Rhees Library at the University of Rochester in the 1920s.

According to the university, his foreman, James Conroy, signed the death certificate and saw to the burial arrangements.

In 1932, student George Maloney recalled meeting a stranger dressed in a tattered sweater and workman’s overall near the library. The stranger requested to meet with Conroy, who claimed that he was still owed wages for the time he worked.

A year later, Maloney and another student, Robert Metzdoff, were standing in the library tower when they chanced upon the strange man who came up to them. He commented about the great height of the tower, and the students informed him that it was about 150 feet to the ground.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by River Campus Libraries (@rclibraries)

Maloney and Metzdoff reported the incident to a librarian, who showed concern. The librarian then reported the detailed account of the incident provided by the two men to Conroy — who answered in a letter stating that the stranger’s description matched Nicosia, the man who fell 150 feet during the building’s construction.

A file photo of Nicosia surfaced, to which Maloney and Metzdoff claimed matched the stranger they met in the library. However, no records of Nicosia has been found in the River Campus construction files or Rochester city directories.