Which campus ghost are you most likely to encounter? A definitive guide to campus hauntings
By Josie Simon, March 27 2025—
Looking to spice up your mundane university experience with a brush with the paranormal? Here’s your comprehensive guide to the spectral residents who failed their final exit from campus life.
1. The Taylor Institute (TFDL) third floor
Meet “Professor Perpetual,” the ghost of a teaching assistant who died waiting for their supervisor to review their thesis draft. Legend says they’re still making edits in the margins of students’ papers at 3 AM. If you hear aggressive keyboard typing from an empty study room, that’s just them working on draft number 847.
2. The Olympic Oval
“Speed Skater Steve” met his demise trying to break the sound barrier on ice. Now he haunts the oval, causing mysterious cold spots (colder than usual, which is saying something). Sometimes he trips athletes who are about to break his records – he’s petty like that.
3. Science A Building room SA015
“Chemical Catastrophe Cathy” roams these halls after a particularly explosive lab accident in 1976. She’s actually quite helpful, appearing to warn students who are about to mix the wrong chemicals. However, her warning method – making all the Bunsen burners shoot 10-foot flames – tends to cause more panic than prevention.
4. Biological Sciences room BI542
“Dissection Dave” haunts the anatomy labs, rearranging preserved specimens for fun. He’s particularly fond of switching brain specimens between jars and leaving passive-aggressive notes about improper scalpel technique. His favourite activity is making the cadavers wave at unsuspecting first-years.
5. Earth Sciences Building room ES054
“Seismic Sarah” died during a particularly boring geology lecture about sedimentary rocks. Now she causes minor tremors during lectures just to keep things interesting. She’s been known to make rock samples dance across tables while whispering, “Plate tectonics are sexy.”
6. Math Sciences Building room MS205
“Probability Pete” calculated the odds of his own death so precisely that he accidentally manifested it. Now he helps students with calculus by writing equations in the condensation on windows, though he exclusively uses Roman numerals just to be difficult.
7. Social Sciences Building room SS06
“Marx’s Ghost” isn’t actually Karl Marx – just a former sociology major who took theory a bit too seriously. They rattle chains made of student loan documents and whisper, “Eat the rich” into the ears of sleeping students.
8. Murray Fraser Hall room MFH160
“Litigious Lucy” is a law student who died defending her parking ticket appeal. She now haunts the moot court, objecting to particularly bad legal arguments by throwing ghostly law books. She’s actually helped several students pass their bar exams through sheer terror.
9. Mathison Hall
“Accounting Andy” still can’t accept that his balance sheet didn’t balance in 1989. He manifests as unexplainable Excel errors and randomly changes numbers in financial calculations to add up to 666.
10. Cal Wenzel Precision Health Building
“Dr. Deez Nuts” was a researcher who died while waiting for the ethics board’s approval. They now haunt the labs, unplugging equipment that hasn’t been properly sterilized and leaving ominous sticky notes about proper protocol in Comic Sans.
11. The Gauntlet Office
The most terrifying ghost of all – “Editorial Easton” – haunts the student newspaper office. He was an editor who died from caffeine overconsumption while trying to meet a print deadline. When editors are alone, he expresses his eternal rage by flickering lights, making spooky noises, and, worst of all, adding Oxford commas to Canadian Press Style (CP) style articles.