As Halloween nears, campuses around the country acquire a somewhat spooky atmosphere. Reports of strange happenings, mysterious figures and things that go bump in the night peak during this season. As the eerie environment emerges, campus legend and lore crop up everywhere.

Joseph E. Brown Hall at the University of Georgia is noted for its stairs to nowhere. In 2005, Alyssa Anderson wrote a story on it for redandblack.com:

“As the legend goes, the hall used to be a dormitory and during Christmas break one year a student hung himself and wasn't found for several weeks. A wall was built over the doorway leading to the student's room, which can still be found today. Some people claim to have seen a face looking in the windows of the building at night.”

At Boise State, we have our story of Dinah. Dinah is the ghost in the Communication Building. It used to be the old Student Union Building, and one story says that Dinah killed herself there after being rejected by a date at the Student Union ballroom. Another story claims that after finding out that her fiancé was killed in WWII, she leapt to her demise from the second floor. Some faculty members avoid certain rooms in the building, the alleged site of the dance or another which houses the window she jumped from.

Texas State’s Old Main building shares a similar story (with oddly similar variations on the cause of the haunting.) According to The University Star, Texas State rumor has it that she suffered the same fate as the WWII widow from Boise or leapt from a third story window for one reason or another.

Whether fiction or fact, these stories add flavor to campus life. Next time you hear stories around college grounds, don’t be skeptical. You never know what may have occurred in your dorm room before you got there.