By Jasmine Durst
The Susquehanna University Paranormal Club (SUP) does many spooky things across campus every year, and their stories show what they witnessed throughout their time.
Not only does the club host the annual haunted house in Weber Chapel every fall semester, but they also do paranormal investigations across campus.
Francis Rogai is a junior and serves as the Paranormal Club’s Historian.
Rogai said, “My favorite place to investigate during my time at SU has been the Deg Theater. The scariest/most shocking experience I’ve had on an investigation has been my Deg Theater investigation on Nov. 25.”
According to Rogai, the team “got an immediate spike of 0.40 uT on the EMF detector” when the team went into the basement. A uT is referred to as a microtesla, a unit of measurement for magnetic field, and an EMF (Electro-Magnetic Field) detector is what reads these measurements.
He said that they had good responses from ghosts on the spirit box.
Rogai said, “Most notably, the sounds of a crowd breathing, the phrase ‘The time has come’ when we asked if there were spirits there and ‘The time has just come’ when recapping for Max [the club president], and repeated requests for us to stop leaving when we warned the spirits that we were about to end the investigation.”
He said that the final minutes of the investigation also showed high, sustained EMF activity between 0.50 and 0.99 uT in the passageway between the backstage and dressing rooms.
Hannah Bower is a sophomore member of the club, and she said her favorite place to investigate was President Green’s house. Bower said that the most shocking experience she had was with the investigation of this location using the EMF detector.
Bower stated, “We asked any spirits that were present (it was later confirmed on the spirit box that there were 12!) to approach the detector, and sure enough, it started beeping like crazy. We then asked them to move away from it, and the beeping slowed. It was an amazing experience!”
Mikey Masters is a junior club member who has been part of SUP for 3 years.
Masters said, “My favorite place to investigate has been President Green’s house, specifically the basement. Lots of spirit box activity, and they answered a lot of questions directly.”
According to Masters, when asked if the investigating team leaves the house or goes around campus, they heard ‘TRAX’ loud and clear, which is also a famously haunted area on campus.
Cindy Scholl is the Paranormal Club’s advisor and is a parent of two SU graduates.
Scholl said, “I really enjoyed going to Centralia (aka Silent Hill) and walking Graffiti Highway at night with the club.”
She said her scariest experience was one evening when the club was doing an investigation in a funeral home that was no longer in business. There was no electricity, and they needed to rely on their flashlights.
“The owner was ‘supposed’ to let the local police department know that we would be there doing the investigation, but [the owner] forgot,” Scholl remarked. “The neighbors called the police, thinking we were robbing the place.”
According to Scholl, the police showed up and “held them all at gunpoint until they could verify their story.”
I am also a member of the Paranormal Club, and I have investigated two locations with them: President Green’s house and Degenstein Theater.
At President Green’s house, there was a weighted bag holding open the basement door, and something or someone moved it, closed the door, and locked us in the basement. We had to knock on the door until First Lady Lynn Buck let us out of the basement.
At Deg Theater, we were just about to leave the investigation when I suddenly felt a burning sensation on my side like I’d been pricked by a sewing needle. I was in front of the stage on the ground, and almost everyone was already on stage or heading up to retrieve their belongings.
When I got back to my dorm, I had a small red mark on my side like I’d been pricked by something tiny, like a sewing needle, and the mark lasted for about three days.
I always have a saying when talking to potential future investigators: “If you ever go paranormal investigating, please do not ever go alone. Never prioritize content over yours and your team’s safety. Some entities/spirits in the afterlife are not safe to be alone with.”