Inexplicable happenings have been the source of rumors and legends for years

With Halloween just around the corner, students may be in a spooky mood and looking for ways to bolster their festive spirits. While the coronavirus may be scary enough for some, it should be noted that there have been reports of suspicious and unexplainable paranormal activity on North Dakota State University’s campus itself. Students might not need to go out and search for Halloween horror fun, they might just need to show up to an in-person class.

At least two locations on the NDSU campus have had multiple reports of strange happenings. Ceres Hall and Minard Hall are both reported to be haunted and have had numerous instances of inexplicable sounds and occurrences. Another student who lived in Thompson Hall during the 2017-2018 school year said she saw a ghost in her closet one night, but these reports of haunted instances are nothing new. 

Two Hangings in Ceres

Ceres Hall, which now contains the Office of Admissions as well as the Counseling Center and Career and Advising Center, was the first female dormitory on the North Dakota Agricultural College campus. It has been said that a female student who lived in Ceres Hall was having trouble with grades and she hanged herself. To this day, there have been reports of strange happenings on the third floor of the building. At night, mysterious loud noises may be heard along with the slamming of doors. It is believed that the spirit of the woman who committed suicide haunts the building and runs through the hallways at night. Further, there is a story of another man who also hanged himself from the heating pipes on the third floor of Ceres Hall during World War II. 

The basement of Ceres Hall is also claimed to be haunted. There have been numerous accounts of persons who feel a strange feeling of panic and a triggering flight or flight response when they enter. On Halloween in 2007, paranormal investigators Charles Dosh and Shawn O’Donnell of FM Paranormal visited Ceres Hall at night. They brought recording equipment and cameras and have posted the several unexplained sounds that they heard on their website, fmparanormal.org. Dosh and O’Donnell investigated the third floor and the basement and documented their experiences.

“As I was doing some EVP work I noticed a shadow on the corner right by one of the doors [started] moving in and out, then all of a sudden take off. I went right over and found that it was really cold right by the wall where the shadow was seen,” O’Donnell said in the investigative report on their website. 

“We heard whispers from the corners of [the] basement. In one area of the basement, there was a red ball of light moving around,” Dosh said in his own investigative report. A picture of the unexplainable red light may be found on the website previously mentioned. 

Two Bodies Found in Minard

In the 1920s, Minard Hall’s fourth-floor attic was a ballroom for dances. Lore states that one morning after a dance, a janitor found the dead bodies of two people in the dance room. It is believed that authorities thought it was a double-homicide, but no suspects were ever named and it became a cold case. Although parts of Minard Hall collapsed in 2009 and the building has received several updates, students have still reported feeling strange presences or bouts of coldness in Minard Hall.

With many of these occurrences happening at night in buildings that are locked, students should refrain from doing their own investigating after hours, but the halls are open for use during the day and students can try to find the answers to these NDSU haunted legends.