Updated 11:50 a.m. EDT, 31 Oct 2025
In the Halloween Spirit, the STAR collected a series of spooky stories about Gillette, our oldest residence hall. These stories may be true, or fictional but inspired by real events. We hope you enjoy. Happy Halloween!
-Your STAR Editors
Gillette Paranormal
I didn’t realize Gillette Hall had spirits until I moved into my room on 1st Old last year. My first encounter with the mostly invisible visitors was while I was on the phone with a friend, discussing going to church. I was trying to persuade her sister to join us. As I spoke, the Bible I kept securely on the shelf in my closet flew from the shelf, hit the door, and startled me thoroughly. Nothing else happened for a while, but then I kept seeing a woman standing in a corner. She never spoke or moved. I called her Eleanor, but she hated the name and threw tantrums, moving things more wildly.
Later, when my roommate’s ESA cat arrived, a new visitor appeared—a shadow cat imitating her. The shadow would dash across my feet and meow from the opposite corner of the real cat. Not long after, I experienced my scariest paranormal encounter. Before bed, I saw a creepy child-like figure underneath my roommate’s bed, hugging a purple balloon leftover from my birthday. The next morning, I woke up to my alarm going off, but my phone was no longer beside my bed. It had fallen beneath the bed, and the books beside my bed had been rearranged. A card from my boyfriend was also thrown aside and replaced with a creepy drawing I had made, which had previously been in a drawer but now seemed to stare at me. Afterward, I was sufficiently terrified and put holy water around my room and prayed for protection.
The Tunnels of Gillette
It was mid-October, and the leaves on the trees fell rhythmically with the wind as it howled into the night. Sarah, a freshman, lived on the fourth floor of Gillette. She was feeling a bit warm under all of her covers, so she decided to briefly step out of the room to cool off.
She crept to the door to not wake any of her roommates. The room was still, and her three roommates occasionally snored to break the silence. Out in the hall, she felt the immediate relief of the cold. Sarah spent the next ten minutes silently sitting in the lounge when she heard a loud noise.
Getting up to investigate, she realized it came from her room. She cracked open the door to look at what caused the racket, and a cold gush of air swept onto her feet. Startled, Sarah quickly shut the door. She put her ear to the door, trying to hear if one of her roommates was up and maybe opened the window. Silence. Maybe I’m just hearing things. They’re probably still asleep, she thought to herself.
After building up her courage, she opened the door and walked in. Something is wrong. She felt a pit in her stomach. Glancing over at her roommate’s bed, she realized they were gone. All three of them. How could this have happened? I was only gone for ten minutes!
Sarah frantically rushed around the room, searching for them and praying that this was just some cruel joke. Where could they have hidden? As she approached the closet, the air became icy cold. Pushing the clothes aside, she revealed a dark, large hole where an attic door used to be.
Before she could even grab a flashlight, a hand lunged from the darkness and dragged her inside. Sarah and her three roommates were never heard from again. But sometimes, at exactly 12:13 AM, you can hear faint scratching echoes from the closets. Whispers say that it comes from The Tunnels of Gillette.
The Doors of Fourth Main
When I was an RA in Gillette, one of my RA friends told me a story: she was on duty and doing her final rounds with another RA on a Friday at the end of open hours at one in the morning. They walked through Fourth Main, and everything looked normal: all doors were closed, and everything was quiet, so they turned down the lights. From what I remember, no one was living in Fourth Main at the time. My friend and the other RA walked through to Fourth New and finished rounds (which only took a few moments), then my friend walked back to Fourth Main to go back to her floor and go to bed. But when she walked back to Fourth Main, all the doors had flown open! She was never able to figure out why or how this had happened.
An RA’s Nightmare
It was a dark, cold night in Gillette when I was on duty. The night had gone well, I had friends visiting, and it had been a quiet, no-nonsense night. During the day, we had a planned water shut off, but the building was working like a well-oiled machine yet again. Or so I had thought. Nearing the end of my duty, I began to hear whispers of complaints about the cold water not working. And whispers of complaints about brown water. Then, these whispers turned into real complaints. And suddenly, I had residents from each floor telling me their water was no longer working. Oh no. What could I possibly do? I have no plumbing skills of my own. And so, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I called Safety and Security. They came into the wee hours of the night and told me the most horrifying thing I may have ever heard: The water would be off for the night. A building full of women? And no water? And I was in charge? I was terrified. Perhaps the spookiest night I have spent in Gillette to date.
Shout out to Facilities for getting our water back, though! ★
