Western Kentucky University

Founded in 1906, WKU sits on a hilltop known as "The Hill" above Bowling Green. The campus has such a reputation for hauntings that it was featured on Ghost Hunters and has its own official ghost stories page.

Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green sits atop a network of limestone caverns beneath its hilltop campus, and around 25 of its buildings are reportedly sites of paranormal activity — a concentration so significant that the university maintains an official ghost stories page on its website and was featured on Syfy's Ghost Hunters in a November 2012 episode titled "Higher Dead-ucation" (Season 8, Episode 24).

The oldest and most enduring legend belongs to Van Meter Hall, the grand auditorium built between 1909 and 1911. According to the most common version, a construction worker fell to his death during the building's construction, plummeting from scaffolding onto the auditorium floor. Some accounts say he was distracted by the sight of one of the first airplanes to land in Warren County and fell through a skylight onto the stage. The bloodstain he left allegedly reappears on the floor no matter how many times it is washed. More unusual is the legend of the underground hermit: Bowling Green sits on a vast cave system, and according to campus lore, a recluse lives in the caverns beneath the Hill and enters Van Meter through secret passages, carrying a blue lantern. The mysterious blue light has been spotted moving through the building after hours, and the spirits of the dead man's wife and daughter are said to roam Van Meter's halls, singing and speaking in voices no one can understand.

Potter Hall harbors the campus's most documented tragedy. On April 21, 1979, a young woman named Theresa Watkins, living in Room 7 on the basement floor, died by hanging from the steam heating pipes. Her death, confirmed by funeral records, left a mark on the building that students and staff say has never faded. The spirit that haunts Potter Hall is known by multiple names — "Casperella" in accounts from the late 1970s, "Allison" in later Ouija board sessions. She described herself through a Ouija board as "an unhappy spirit who occasionally entertained herself by pestering the residents." Doors lock and unlock without explanation, desk drawers rattle on their own, and objects move independently. On the ground floor, which houses the Office of Admissions, a gentler spirit called "Penny" makes after-hours visits, leaving pennies in the offices she frequents.

McLean Hall, a co-ed dormitory named for Mattie McLean, the longtime secretary to WKU President Henry Hardin Cherry, is haunted by McLean herself — described as a friendly, watchful presence. Students hear footsteps at night and strange noises, including the sound of coins dropping into a vending machine when no one is standing there. Three students using a Ouija board in McLean once reported seeing a woman with gray hair, a lighter gray face, and an even lighter gray outfit appear in their darkened room.

The university embraces its haunted reputation through the Hilltop History and Haunts Tour, which departs from the Amphitheater and Colonnade and visits McLean Hall, Schneider Hall, Rodes-Harlin Hall, the Kentucky Building, Van Meter Hall, and Potter Hall. The tours give visitors a chance to walk the same halls where construction workers, students, and faculty members left imprints that refuse to fade — on a campus where the dead, it seems, are as committed to the Hill as the living.