This is an exert from my sophmore year story, placed here, to shorten the story
The editor stated that he was extending an offer to each of the squadron staffs and one person from the Regimental staff (me) to write an article for the school newspaper. I instantly had a great idea, recalling an article in the alumni magazine stating that the school had no less than 38 ghosts. I thought that was a bit much, so I decided to approach the story with actual journalistic curiosity. I knew about the ghost of the bell tower.
The bell tower is actually a fifteen foot high monument, erected in honor of three students, killed in one day, in a polo match at the school. The bell at the top of the tower came from a now scrapped steam locomotive. The ghost will ring the bell within hours of a cadet's death, as a warning. On average, a cadet will die once every 6 or 7 years, from suicide, an overdose or car accident and there are those, who will swear to whatever, that the ghost rang the bell.
Since I work daily with the campus police, they told me a couple of stories. I'd heard tale of the "first sergeant ghost" but the campus police version is that one day, one cadet, swore he saw an apparition. The cadet was frightened out of his gourd, but this was the one and only time that this apparition was sighted. Since cadets, due to academic strain, will go sleepless and overdose on caffeine. Lack of sleep, plus too much caffeine will make people see things that aren't there. The other ghost story concerned the ghost of the gym.
Campus police (and sometimes Constabulary) will check doors on school buildings and the gym late at night. One campus police officer (who had a Masters in psychology and awaiting a teaching position at the local community college) had a run in with the ghost of the gym. That cop, and another (who was also a retired state police officer) went to the gym one night. The retired state cop stayed at the front door and had a full view of the first floor. The degreed officer went into the basement. The degreed officer called the other officer on the radio and said he heard someone walking on the main floor. The veteran cop replied "No one is walking the floor." Since then it was the practice of the campus police to lock the gym doors from the outside. There are phones available in the gym, so if someone gets locked in, all they have to do is call to get out.
I tracked down the architect of three of the buildings on campus. He was residing in a nursing home. Among other stories, he told me the actual true version of the "ghost of blood tower" (the gym has a tower). Cadet athletes were ducking inspections by hiding in the gym tower (this was the 1940's) during the Saturday morning inspections. The nerds of the time figured this out and set up a series of booby traps. Come Saturday morning, the nerds set off the series of booby traps. The athletes ran out of the building and right into the inspection party. It did not end well for the athletes, but the story of the "Ghost of Blood Tower" endured for decades after that event.
In the late 1970's, the campus theater ran a series of current and former box office movies (this was in the days before VCR's and laptops). One night, there was a commotion in the orchestra pit in front of the stage. A cadet said that a ghost was chasing him under the stage. I was actually the highest ranking of all cadets waiting for the movie to start, so I went under the stage to investigate. Sure enough, lights flashed on and off and doors slammed right after I stepped through them. I exited into the orchestra pit to find the officer of the guard. He asked what was going on and I told him. He then went under the stage. Several minutes later, he emerged, very much pale in the face. He said "No one else go under there tonight. Now, disperse."
When I told that story to campus police, while investigating the upcoming newspaper story, they countered with the other theater ghost story. The theater has a balcony. Under the rim of the balcony there is a seat that is continually broken. The seat will be replaced and will be just fine, but eight hours later, overnight, the seat will be broken, again. According to cadet lore, a staff member had an disloyal wife and he confronted her in the theater. He then threw her off of the balcony. She slammed into the seat, broke her neck and died.
I went to the sheriff's office (after checking with the sheriff) and spoke with the chief of detectives. He assured me that no murder ever occurred on the campus. I then went to the chief of campus maintenance. When I asked him about the chair, he leaned back, opened a desk drawer and produced a stack, two inches thick, of work orders on the chair that went back fifteen years. If it was a cadet vandalizing the chair, it would have stopped after a year or two, but fifteen years?