Spooky Accounts of Haunted and Cursed Rooms

We are all familiar with the concept of haunted houses. These are spooky properties around which unexplainable paranormal phenomena gravitate, but what is lesser known is the idea of haunted rooms. For whatever reason, some rooms seem to be ground zero for all manner of unexplained phenomena and are either haunted, cursed, or both. 

When it comes to haunted or cursed rooms, hotels certainly seem to hold a fair share of them. One of these can be found in the cold expanses of Alaska. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Alaska was a major gold rush destination, and to accommodate the influx of miners many of the cities we see in the state today were first erected as little more than tent towns, slowly evolving to feature buildings and modern trappings to become permanent settlements. One of these is in the now major city of Juneau, which back in 1800 was a tent village started by two miners named Richard Harris and Joe Juneau, from which it would gain its name, after they struck it rich along the Silver Creek Basin. As settlers become pouring in through the town’s steam docks, in 1913 entrepreneurs Charles Hooker, Jules B. Caro, and brothers John and James McCloskey erected a three-story hotel by the docks that would be called the Alaskan Hotel. More than 100 years later the hotel still remains in service, one of Alaska’s oldest operating hotels, sitting atop the National Registry of Historic Places, and is known for its charming Victorian architecture and also its ghosts. Although Alaska may be a sparsely populated region of more wilderness than people, it still has haunted places just as scary as anywhere else.

The numerous hauntings of the hotel seem to be largely tied to the turbulent and often violent history of the hotel, having once been used as a bordello and considered at one time to be a hive of raucous gambling and drunken brawls. One of the most popular tales is that of a young woman named Alice, who was supposedly married to one of the miners of the area. When he went off on a mining excursion and did not return for some time, the worried woman turned to prostitution to try and support herself, unsure if her husband was ever returning or even alive at all. According to the story, he turned out to be very much alive, and when he returned from his long trip 3 months later to find his wife as a lady of the night he did not take it well at all, apparently ruthlessly murdering her right then and there in the room.

It is the spirit of Alice that is blamed on the persistent sightings of a ghostly blonde woman in white period clothing who roams the halls here and seems to hover particularly around Room 219, thought to be perhaps the very room in which she was killed, as well as in Room 218. Alice’s ghost also seems to spend a lot of time spooking guests and employees in other areas of the hotel as well, with one former employee saying:

“I used to get people saying, 'She's in my room.' I've had people tell me that she was touching them, or they could see her sitting on the bed. A friend of mine told me if you walk up the top of the stairs, you could see her in the mirror by [room] 308. I've also had people tell me she was in the bar coming down the stairs. The bar has a lot of mirrors in it, and it's easy to see things out of the corner of your eye, especially if you're tired.”

Whether this story is true or just a piece of spooky folklore, it is interesting to note that Room 219 in particular seems to be rather intensely permeated by supernatural forces. Housekeepers in the room often find misplaced or missing objects, and sometimes something will suddenly disappear or appear somewhere else while they are in the room. There is also a deep sense of dread and melancholy that hangs in the air here, and both guests and employees alike have told of being suddenly overcome with dizziness or nausea while in the dreaded room. One hotel front desk worker has said of Room 219 and the hotel in general:

Whenever I walk up into room 219, I get goosebumps. It's cold in there all of the time for some reason. I personally think there are probably a couple of ghosts around here. I think the one in 219 is the only one that is frustrated or unhappy or tormented, I don't know. People have told me they've seen things before, like seeing people in the hallways that look like people in paintings around here. I've never experienced any of that kind of stuff, but I've heard about it. The only reason that I personally believe that it's haunted around here is because parts of the hotel just don't feel right. Some parts of the hotel I just don't feel safe at all. I'm constantly turning around.

Room 219 is not the only haunted room at the Alaskan Hotel. Room 315 is also ground zero for all manner of paranormal phenomena, from apparitions to roving cold spots, moving objects, and more, and the room has attracted to it a plethora of creepy tales, gaining it somewhat of a legendary reputation, and the current hotel owner Bettye Adams has said of the notorious room, “I just – it’s creepy. You know, I’ve never seen anything but I feel things.” One modern spooky tale related to the room occurred on May 19, 2007, when a visiting sailor aboard the Navy ship the USS Bunker Hill was in town for the evening and actually requested to stay in the notoriously haunted Room 315, which the hotel granted. That evening the sailor inexplicably decided to jump straight through the room’s window to plummet to the ground below after a commotion was heard in the room, seriously injuring himself in the process, reportedly with “injuries all over his body from head to toe.” One guest at the time would say of the scene, “The walls were covered in blood. There was – it looked like something very bad had happened in there and I didn’t know what it was but it didn’t look normal.” Naval investigators then moved in and pretty much swept the whole incident under the carpet. Hotel owner Bettye Adams has said of the aftermath of incident:

“His mother called me from Arizona and said, ‘What do you mean renting a room that is haunted? You nearly killed my son. And I said, ‘I really really have nothing to do with that.’”

Was this just a regular suicide attempt? Did someone or something throw him through that window? Or did he see something in that forsaken room that somehow compelled him to do it or drove him mad and out of his wits? We’ll probably never know, and no matter what the real reason was, it certainly adds to the spooky lore surrounding Room 315. The room is reportedly pervaded by a feeling of malevolence, to the point that many guests who end up here request to be moved, and there are stories of the bathroom inexplicably appearing to be old-fashioned Victorian style, only to phase back to its more modern look, almost as if its past is seeping through into the present like an afterimage. Speaking of haunted rooms, other rooms at the Alaskan hotel also seem to have much paranormal activity gravitating toward them as well. Room 313, right near 315, is said to harbor the spirit of a fisherman, his presence heralded by the heavy odor of fish, and room 321 just down the hall has what is described as a very angry specter that tosses objects around. Besides these rooms, the hotel's bar is also said to be rather haunted, with shadowy wraiths and glasses that move or spill on their own.

Another haunted or cursed hotel room can be found at the Hotel Colorado, in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, known for its natural hot springs. Opened in 1893 by businessman and silver baron Walter Devereux, it was meant to lure in the thousands of people who were journeying west to cash in on a silver and gold mining boom at the time. Glenwood Springs itself had sprouted out of the landscape just a few years before as a mining town in order to cater to the wealthy and elite, and the decadent hotel boasted a European-style spa, tennis courts, a Victorian garden, a bird sanctuary, a 185-foot fountain of water, and an indoor waterfall. The hotel has been used as a temporary White House, as a place of healing for the U.S. Navy during the World War II years, and as a community focal point from its inception. Ownership changed hands frequently until the early 1990s when the hotel was gradually restored to its former glory. However, it seems like it was not all smooth sailing.

According to many accounts, the land that the hotel sits on was stolen from the native Ute tribe of Indians in 1880, which caused bad blood and by some stories a curse upon the land itself.  This made problems from the beginning, as many workers on the construction of the hotel fully believed in this curse and there were allegedly many freak accidents that plagued the project. There were also rumored to be many deaths on hotel grounds, with the hotel having purportedly been the site of a murder, a fatal accident and a morgue, and over the years this led to the place having a decidedly haunted reputation. 

Among the many haunted spots on the property include the basement, which is said to be roamed by the ghost of an old woman, the attic, haunted by the spirit of a construction worker, as well as the halls, prowled by a dead nurse killed by a jealous lover, a young girl who fell to her untimely death from a balcony, a housekeeper who unpacks and repacks guest’s clothing, and former owners and managers including Walter Devereux, E.E. Lucas and Hervy Lyle. Then there are the numerous haunted rooms of the hotel. 

The most haunted guest rooms are said to be on the 3rd and 5th floors where there have been frequent reports of ghostly activity from visitors including flickering lights, anomalous noises, and sightings of apparitions. In particular, is one of the suites that is named after its most famous guest—Titanic survivor, the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, who allegedly haunts it relentlessly. There is also Room #661. In 1993, a man and his wife were staying in the room and the man was feeling ill, so his wife opened the windows, thinking the fresh air would do him good. When she left the room, another woman came in and closed the windows, saying that he needed to stay out of the draft. When the man’s wife came back, she re-opened the windows, and the process repeated for the entire three days the man was ill, with this phantom women insisting on keeping the windows closed. But this couple aren’t the only ones to have noticed the woman in #661. Many guests over the years have reported seeing a woman standing over their bed in that room, usually wearing a floral dress. What is going on with this room?

Sitting in in downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA, is the historic Gunter Hotel. Opened on November 20, 1909, it was financed by local rancher and real estate developer Jot Gunter, along with a group of investors, and it was envisioned as being a grand pillar for the fast-growing city. Indeed, it certainly was a palatial sight, designed by the renowned St. Louis architect John Mauran, and at the time the eight-story, 301-room hotel was the largest building in San Antonio, eventually further expanded in 1924. It featured all manner of facilities, including a café, barbershop, restaurant, lounge, meeting facilities, exhibition rooms, tennis courts, an observatory, and even a petting zoo and subterranean jail. Before long it was a beacon for rich businessmen and other influential people, driving further growth for the prosperous city and becoming a vital part of San Antonio’s burgeoning business center. Over the years its cellar would also serve as a speakeasy during Prohibition, and although it would fall into disrepair in the mid-1900s, it would eventually be restored and now sits on the National Register of Historic Places. Over the years it has attracted celebrities and VIPs, including actors, writers, and even Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. The hotel also has a hidden dark history and is intensely haunted, indeed considered to be one of the most haunted places in San Antonio.

The haunting at the Gunter Hotel is mostly focused on Room 636, which has a dark history permeating it involving a spooky unsolved murder. On February 6, 1965, a blonde man in his late 20s came into the hotel to book a room for several nights, signing in under the name “Albert Knox.” He was given Room 636, and over the next few days, he was frequently seen coming to and leaving the room with a beautiful tall, blonde woman, who was always dressed in elegant, expensive outfits. At the time this wasn’t particularly strange, as lots of customers at the Gunter Hotel were rich and had trophy wives or mistresses, but things were about to take a dark turn.

On the morning of February 8, one of the hotel maids let herself into the room, even though the “Do Not Disturb” sign was hanging on the door. She would soon regret her decision to ignore the sign, as she found Mr. Knox standing in the bedroom next to the bed, which was covered in blood. The man then apparently gave her the sign to be quiet by putting his index finger to his lips and then bolted right past her out of the room while holding a large bloody bundle of sheets. The maid didn’t stick around to see what sorts of horrors were lurking in that dim room and quickly went off to tell the hotel manager, who would then notify authorities.

When the police arrived, they were met with a rather grim and macabre sight like something out of a horror film. The bedroom was splattered with blood everywhere, on the floor, the walls, and furniture, and the bathroom was also found to have scattered bits of human remains on the floor, in the tub, and clogging up the toilet. Also in the bedroom were empty bottles of wine, olives, and cheese, blonde hairs, nylon hose, and women’s underclothing, as well as a .22 caliber bullet lodged in the wall, which was strange since no hotel guests had reported a gunshot. It seemed as though the woman had been killed in the bedroom and then butchered in the bathroom to take the pieces back to the bedroom, which looked to have taken many trips because there were bloody footprints going back and forth between them. He had then flushed some down the toilet and then wrapped the rest in those sheets to run off. Since it had taken nearly 40 minutes for the police to be notified and for them to arrive, the killer could have been anywhere at that point, and gotten rid of the body. Further confounding efforts to find the killer, the name on the register, “Albert Knox,” turned out to be an alias, leaving the police with little to go on.

They would eventually track down a suspect, a 37-year-old unemployed accountant named Walter Emerick, who had raised suspicion at the St. Anthony Hotel, just blocks away from The Gunter, when he refused to let maids come in to clean his room. Police took this as a possible lead, but when they went to the room to question Emerick, who had checked in under another alias, this time the name “Robert Ashley,” they heard a shot from within. Emerick had taken his own life. When fingerprints were checked, it was found that they matched those of the killer at The Gunter, and a bloody t-shirt was found in the room, but the murder weapon and the body of the dead blonde woman from room 636 were nowhere to be seen, and indeed the body would never be found at all, despite a massive search. Making it even stranger is that the victim has also never been identified, and no missing reports were ever filed for her, making her a bit of a ghost. She also seems to have become quite the literal ghost in the following years, as she has supposedly relentlessly haunted the room ever since.

Ever since the unsolved murder, Room 636 has been besieged with all manner of paranormal activity, including moving objects, lights turning on and off by themselves, and the bathtub and sink also turning on and off. Guests have reported coming back to find their room completely in disarray as if it had been ransacked, or of being mysteriously locked out of or in their rooms, with keys not working and the lock unable to be undone. Spookier phenomena are the sounds of banging and hammering in the walls, the voice of a woman whispering in the ear, and sheets ripped off of the bed. The apparition of a tall blonde woman has also been seen in the room, often appearing in the shadows, or creepily in the mirror, often with arms outstretched. Some have claimed she will also appear in photographs taken in the room. The entity especially seems to dislike men and will focus much of her activity on them. Not only guests, but also housekeeping staff have had paranormal experiences in the room, and it has at times been so intense that maids have quit not long after being hired. In modern times, the room has been split into two separate rooms, and the activity continues in both. Is this woman being tethered here after death, perhaps due to the violence of her crime? Or is this all spooky urban legend orbiting a real unsolved crime? It is hard to say for sure, but still incredibly weird, no matter what the truth is.

Another iconic and unmistakable presence in Las Vegas, Nevada, is the Luxor Hotel and Casino, with its unique pyramid shape and 42.3 billion candela Luxor Sky Beam, the strongest beam of light in the world. The 30-story luxury hotel contains a total of 4,407 rooms, including 442 suites, and has a 120,000-sq. ft (11,000 m2) casino, 20,000 sq ft (1,900 m2) of convention space, four swimming pools and whirlpools, a generous wedding chapel, Nurture Spa and Salon, and 29 retail stores, making it the fourth largest hotel-casino in Las Vegas. It also has a rather dark past marked with tragic death.

It is said that 3 construction workers lost their lives during the building of the resort and that two guests committed suicide on the premises by leaping from the elevated walkways onto the casino floor below. On May 7, 2007, Luxor was also the scene of the explosion of a handmade bomb on a vehicle in the hotel parking garage, killing one 24-year-old victim but not instigating an evacuation or slowing business down one bit. This dark past and indeed the unique pyramid shape of the resort have imbued the place with an air of ghostly mystique, and it is said to be the haunt of at least 5 ghosts. One of the most active is the ghost of a woman who is said to wander the halls of the 12th to 14th floors, often allegedly breathing down guests’ necks or pushing them. Ghosts of the dead construction workers are also sometimes seen in quiet areas, and the eeriest of all is that some people looking over balconies have heard a faint voice urging them to jump. of the hotel, and some people even claim the building’s pyramid shape draws to it some form of palpable strange energy.

Considering all of this, it should be no surprise that several of the hotel’s rooms are said to be heavily haunted. Reports of seeing a ghostly girl in one of the rooms are common, as well as numerous guests complaining that they can hear an ethereal singing. One report from the Buried Secrets podcast says of some of these guest experiences:

“In a long review from December 2016, someone describes a series of frightening events, including being woken by a spider crawling down her face and neck, and maybe a hand grabbing her. Then she climbed out of bed, and her husband saw a pretty blonde woman in a hat–maybe a beret–standing at their bedside, who then disappeared. After that, they went to sleep in the other bed in the room, but during the night, she felt someone wrapping the covers tight around her and leaning against her back, which I found very interesting, because that’s similar to what happened to a friend of mine when we stayed at the Hawthorne Hotel. The next day, they went to the concierge, and the woman there was very nice but didn’t seem surprised by the experience. She said they’d move them to a different room, out of the pyramid (where they’d been staying on the 12th floor) and into one of the newer towers. That seemed to help, though the guest said that she experienced electric shocks throughout the hotel, even after their rooms moved."

A ghost hunter on Trip Advisor saw orbs and their friend felt a hand at the bottom of the comforter. They also said the hotel gave them a sense of vertigo as if the hallways were all at an angle and they were walking at a slant. The disorientation makes sense, because of the hotel’s strange shape. Another reviewer said:

“running the risk of sounding insane, I swear my room was haunted. I always felt like there was a shadowy figure just at the edge of my vision and this creeped me out like nothing before. Another person said that they experienced someone going through their luggage during the night. Hopefully that was a ghost.””

Strange, indeed. Lying out in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the United States, is the historic, regal Read House Hotel. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and known for its quaint old-fashioned Georgian style architecture, it is a delightful little gem that has over the years attracted a list of famous guests including Oprah Winfrey, Gary Cooper, Winston Churchill, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and even the notorious gangster Al Capone. It is mostly considered a classy and elegant piece of history, but it also has more than its share of ghostly phenomena, and it has the distinction of having what is considered to be one of the most haunted hotel rooms there is.

The Read House Hotel was originally the Old Crutchfield House, which was built in the mid-1800s during the area’s bustling years as a major railway hub, and did brisk business serving the many people passing through. During the Civil War, it served as both an inn and hospital for injured Union soldiers, losing a bit of its luster. A fire destroyed it in 1867, but it would be rebuilt by a new owner, businessman John T. Read, as the Read House Hotel, which opened in 1872. Read had high aspirations for his new venture, seeking to build the finest and most opulent hotel the city of Chattanooga had ever seen, sparing no expense in its creation. With its marble inlaid floors, sumptuous carved and gilded mahogany woodwork, and sweeping columns and arches it worked, and soon the Read House Hotel was seen as the pinnacle of luxury, attracting high-class wealthy clientele from all over the country. This would continue until 1875, when much of the hotel was badly damaged by a flood and it fell into disrepair, eventually mostly rebuilt and renovated in 1926 into the 10-story building we see today. There are plenty of rooms here, but when walking through these halls there is one room in particular that has attracted much attention and that is its infamous Room 311.

The room itself doesn’t look particularly special, resembling the many other rooms of the hotel with its rustic charm and old-fashioned décor, but this particular room is supposedly steeped in a dark, bloody history. It is said that in the 1920s, a young woman named Annalisa Netherly stayed here with her lover, but it was far from a romantic getaway. According to the tale, the lover became jealous of Annalisa’s flirtatious ways, they argued, one thing led to another, and she ended up murdered, decapitated, and dumped in the room’s bathtub, where she was later found by shocked staff. It was not long after this that the room quickly gained a reputation for being remarkably haunted. Guests would complain of all manner of paranormal phenomena in the room, including flickering lights, doors that open by themselves, the toilet flushing when no one is there, the faucet turning on by itself, the key to the room refusing to work, cold chills, the feeling of being watched, in more modern times the TV changing channels on its own, shadowy figures appearing in the mirror, and others.

Most frightening of all is the apparition of a young woman, presumably Annalisa, who will sit on the bed or wander around the room, but who will also sometimes display aggressive behavior, especially towards men. One very famous story comes from the time Al Capone stayed here while on his way to his federal trial for tax evasion. The room was even fitted with bars to prevent him from escaping, which remained for years after, but most intriguing is that it is said that Annalisa was so offended by his cigar smoke that she acted up during the time. Reports from the room have continued into the modern day, and one report comes from a “Tangelo99” on the site Trip Advisor, who says:

“We stayed at the hotel 9 years ago with no knowledge of any ghost stories. There were 4 of us in the room including my daughter who was 13 at the time. In the morning she said that she woke up in the night and saw a shadow of someone standing by the door but then it was gone. She was thinking it was someone getting up to go to the bathroom and went back to sleep. Another person in our party said that they also woke up and thought they saw someone by the bathroom and thought the same thing but then it was gone and everyone was in their beds. Didn't give it much thought. My daughter all day long while sightseeing couldn't stop thinking about it. I told her when we get back to the hotel we will ask if anyone has reported strange happenings confident, they would say no and put her mind at ease. When we got back, we asked the front desk and to my astonishment, they said yes, they received many reports and handed me a piece of paper with the story about room 311. We stayed another night with nothing occurring but it left all of us wondering!"

Another report comes from the same site from a “magic9s9,” who says at the time her son was staying in the notorious room. She says:

“My son stayed there this week for a conference in Chattanooga. While he was there, I looked up the hotel and found out about the haunted stories. So I texted him and told him there were staying in a haunted hotel. So being the curious teenager he is, he explored, asked questions and such. He never believed in that stuff but said he was walking the halls asking for something to happen, was calling the girl ghost fake and such. He and his roommates were in bed watching TV later and he got pinched. Totally freaked him out. They there was a knock on the door at 10:30pm. They answered pretty quickly and there was nobody around. He said there was no way someone could have knocked on their door and ran, they would have seen them or at least heard another guest room door shut. He was defiantly weirded out about the whole thing. He didn't even tell us about it until he got home.”

A couple by the name of Tripp and Shiba Gorman from Atlanta came to stay at the hotel from Atlanta and were among the first to be allowed to stay in the room after its renovation in 2019. They said that they immediately got bad vibes from the room, but then Shiba started seeing things and having some unsettling experiences such as the drawers opening on their own, and she says of their stay:

“It was just very disturbing. I did get a very heavy, kind of like a sad feeling, from this place. I felt something grabbing my wrist and then it happened and stopped. I just kept seeing things move in the corner of my eye. I stop and I look at it and I'm like wait. And I run back in, and I'm like 'baby are you messing with me?' I was shaking for about 10 minutes."

The hotel has been renovated several times in modern times, including in 2004 and in 2019, but although other rooms have been outfitted to be more modern, Room 311 has intentionally been modified to be eerily as it has always been, with the TV taken out and making it as authentic to the 1920s as possible in an effort to appease the resident ghost. Hotel general manager Ken Merkel has said of this decision:

"After reading all accounts of haunted Room 311, we knew the best thing to do was to restore the room to make Annalisa Netherly comfortable with no modern amenities. And we are excited to welcome new guests to share her room. Room 311 looks and feels like Annalisa’s room in the 1920s. There is an AM radio that does not work, a vintage clawfoot tub, an original pull chain toilet, antique furnishings, and distressed hardwood floors just like it would have been in the early twentieth century and no television.”

To this day Room 311 is mostly considered off-limits, only very occasionally offered to guests for special occasions, but one can still see it through the ghost tours run by the hotel. The renovations don't seem to have stopped the tales of weirdness coming from this room, and it has remained a famous location for ghost hunters and paranormal investigators. Why is this ghostly phenomenon so firmly tethered to this room? What does this spirit want? Is any of this real at all or is it just a spooky urban legend? Only one way to find out, and that is to book a night there to see for yourself.

Hotels don’t have all of the haunted rooms, because another one is supposedly a haunted dormitory room at a university. Located in Athens, Ohio, is the historical Ohio University. Established in 1804 and first opened to students in 1809, it has a long history, being the oldest university in Ohio and the 8th oldest in the country. It is perhaps this long history that has contributed to it becoming known as one of the most haunted university campuses in the world, with numerous locations on campus said to harbor ghosts and specters, such as Jefferson Hall, Washington Hall, Bush Hall, Shively Hall, Perkins Hall, Voigt Hall, Crawford Hall, Cutler Hall, the Convocation Center, College Green, Lin Hall, the Brown House, Delta Tau Delta, Alpha Omicron Pi, and a building that was once a State mental asylum, now a patch of ruins called The Ridges. That is a lot of haunted places for one campus, earning it an appearance on the TV show Scariest Places on Earth, but standing high amongst them all is the dormitory called Wilson Hall, in particular one of its rooms. Here one will find a locked door, entry barred, and the place sealed off, forbidden, because this room just happens to be one of the most evil, haunted locations of an already very haunted place.

Wilson Hall itself, named in honor of the late faculty member Hiram Roy Wilson, is a rather new building, erected in 1965 and not nearly as old as much of the campus around it, yet it has nevertheless managed to attract quite the impressive reputation as being incredibly haunted, with all sorts of urban legends congregating around it over the years. One of the most popular is that the hall was built upon a giant pentagram that can be drawn between five surrounding cemeteries on a map, and indeed Wilson Hall supposedly sits right in the middle of it. There are also the typical spooky tales of Satanic worship carried out there in the old days, or that covens of witches would perform dark rituals in the cemeteries, and it has also been found that the hall was built over the site of an early cemetery for the Athens Mental Institute, an insane asylum which was closed off and abandoned in 1993. There is also a rumor that there is an ancient Indian burial ground nearby, because why not? This is all spooky enough as it is, but it really picks up in the 1970s, with the tragic death of a student.

According to the lore, a female student once lived in room 428, but one day her behavior started to get very odd indeed. She supposedly became very withdrawn and began obsessively studying the occult, becoming so absorbed that it affected her school studies and social life. Stories vary on what exactly happened, with some saying that she performed arcane rituals in the room or spoke to the dead or even the Devil there, while others say that she could do astral projection or had managed to conjure up demonic forces there, with some versions of the tale saying that she was once fully possessed by these malevolent forces, speaking in tongues and writhing about. While there are a lot of different details, they all agree on one thing, that she died in that room after losing her mind and either cutting her wrists or jumping from the window. It is also agreed that, whatever truth the stories hold, Room 428 is most certainly very, very haunted.

After the death, it seems as if practically everyone who lived in the room or even stepped foot there experienced something out of the ordinary, and the list of supposed paranormal phenomena tied to Room 428 is long. Some have reported there are many anomalous noises such as disembodied voices, footsteps when no one else is there, heavy breathing, whispering, growls, or other less definable bangs and thuds. Often the voices heard here were described as being very malicious, telling people to get out or to die. More sinister reports are that demonic faces would appear in reflective surfaces or even within the woodwork only to vanish again, or that blood would sometimes drip from the ceiling or walls. Poltergeist activity is also supposedly very intense here, with objects thrown across the room with great force or unseen hands that will poke and prod, and of course, there have been many reports of seeing the apparition of the dead student herself lurking in the shadows. It has also been reported that the room holds an incredibly potent feeling of despair and dread that is almost palpable in its intensity and has caused some people to panic and run from the room in fright.

For years these reports came in from residents and visitors, and it got so bad that the university ended up closing the room down, not allowing any residents to live there, sealing it shut, and deeming it “uninhabitable.” To this day the room remains closed off and off-limits, whatever is in there contained, but there is plenty of other paranormal activity reported from other areas of Wilson Hall as well, although the residents seem to take it all in stride and even seem to be proud of it. One resident has said of the building’s haunted reputation and her thoughts on it:

“As someone who lives in Wilson Hall I have yet to experience any of these phenomena's but that is not to say that they don't happen. I have had some friends on the third floor experience the marbles rolling on the floor but my friends on the 4th floor, the supposed most haunted floor have not experienced a thing so I guess it depends. All in all, I love living in Wilson and it is always a good conversation starter with people who know it as the most haunted place on the most haunted campus in the United States. It's important to understand this because the history of the place we live will give us a better understanding of the community. This history of the haunted Athens does give us a sense of togetherness with our fellow OU students. We even identify with it when other students that we know acknowledge the fact that OU is infamous for our hauntings. Don't be scared of our haunted past, embrace it.”

Why is this place so apparently haunted? What draws these forces here, especially to that room? Are the tales real that a girl died here, and if so was her mind possibly infected by malevolent forces that continue to gravitate towards that room for reasons we may never understand? Or is this just a good dose of spooky urban legend and local lore? Curiously, it was all enough to convince the university to seal the room off indefinitely, and whether it is really haunted or not, that door remains locked and its dark secrets sequestered within, whatever those may be.

It is impossible to know what might draw these forces to these particular rooms. Is it the violent history that keeps them tethered here for some unknown reason? Do these rooms possess some mysterious spiritual energy or residue that powers them? Or is this all just tall tales and urban legends, mixed with overactive imaginations? There's only one way to find out, and that is to book or visit one of these rooms for yourself You never know who or what will be in that room with you.