The Lonely Ghost of Barnes Hall

This story is a significant one, because it is still generating sightings--within the past few years, I personally have spoken to first-hand and second-hand witnesses to the events. There are actually two parts to the tale: the Story, or Legend, and the actual Reports.

Legends of A Lonely Ghost

Barnes Hall is an unattractive "L" shaped blend of two wings, one old (circa 1950s), one significantly newer (1970s), both made of the same brownish brick and off-white paint. The split between old and new is obvious, both outside and in; old section rooms are two-room dormatories, while the newer, three-room "residences" have better paint, better halls, and better windows. Oddly, it is the newer section which claims to be haunted. The room where the ghost supposedly resides is on the second floor of the building (the room number is known, but not generally said, since there are people who still live there). The story goes as such:

There are three rooms in a typical CMU dorm--two bedrooms (2 beds each) and a "study room." According to legend, one of the four corners in the study room is the home to the lonely spirit of a girl who hung herself from the ceiling there. No one is certain who she was, but the story is normally told that she was distraught over a boyfriend. It is also said that she hung herself in the left corner of the room, behind the main door, though that, too, is uncertain. What is certain is that the ghost has the tendency to get lonely, and unless the residents of the room put something in her corner (presumably to make her happy or keep her company), she will haunt them in a bid for attention.

No apparition is ever reported. Typical antics include those normally associated with a poltergeist (albeit a benign, sedate one): tipped posters, hidden books, the occasional term paper that comes up missing, and so on. Such things continue to happen until the residents put something in the corner where the spirit resides. The conventional wisdom is that if you live in second floor Barnard, you put something in every corner, just in case--a chair, a TV, a coatrack, a couch, a desk, etc.--to keep the ghost at bay, and to make sure your homework is in your notebook where you left it.

Recent Activity

The Barnes Ghost is famous partially because it is so recently active. Only a couple of years ago (1995), the unfortunate residents of the haunted room found themselves the unwitting victims of one of the ghost's antics. The report states that the girls in the room were watching the Miss USA pageant on television, and were really excited to see who the winner would be. They had all gathered around the set, and just as the winner was about to be revealed, their set went fuzzy. They checked the plugs, checked the connections, checked the remote, but nothing could explain why the TV--an almost new set--went blank. Even more surprising was the fact that, as soon as the final credits had rolled on the Miss USA pageant, the TV flickered back to normal. The girls checked with their neighbors, but no other TV on the floor had been affected, and the TV did not malfunction again. The girls were unsure if the corner their TV was in was the "haunted" corner.

Perhaps the Barnes Ghost wanted to be the center of attention?

Other Tales of the Barnes Ghost

Throughout the years, several students have had or heard about run-ins with the Barnes Hall ghost. Several of their stories, submitted to Legends in the Dark, appear below.

The following encounter was submitted by Jean Bartlett, resident in 1993 and 1994:

"I personally was studying in the basement/Blue room when the TV came on and tapping from behind the wall started. I asked it nicely to stop and gave the "ghost" my reason and it stopped."

The following tales were submitted by Brian Bremer:

"I live[d] in Barnes Hall in 1979 and 1980. There are two that I've heard.

"One was when Steve ... who was the main RA lived in the apartment that was where a person at his level lived [RAs are given personal rooms on the floor of the residence hall -- BH]. One night when he came home he walked into his bathroom with the lights out, and he heard a woman yell "Steve!!" as if she were trying to stop him from going into the bathroom. He turned around to see no one, but when he turned back and turned the light on, there was the trash bin sitting squarely in the middle of the door to the bathroom. He felt this ghost was tricky and moved the trash bin there, and then warned him just before he was going to trip over it.

"The second story is when a janitor was cleaning the first floor of the dorm during the summer months, and always heard footsteps running up and down the hallway on the second floor. He never found a person up there and always attributed it to the ghost on the second floor."