Marquette
is one of the Milwaukee area's haunted hot spots,
according to paranormal researchers at the
Unexplained Paranormal Conference held Sunday.
Hotels,
clubs, theaters and graveyards in the metro area are
also said to be haunted by ghosts and other
supernatural beings.
Chad
Lewis, a paranormal investigator, said Marquette has
its share of ghost lore — but that doesn't mean
it's unique.
"It
does seem like every university in Wisconsin has
their own ghost story, and it usually involved the
death or suicide of a student," he said.
Lewis
said residence halls tend to be the most
supposedly-haunted spots on campus because students,
who are fond of urban legend and superstition, live
there.
Straz
Tower and Humphrey Hall are the sites Lewis said he
hears the most about being haunted at Marquette.
Lewis
said he has received reports of students living in
Humphrey, which is rumored to have been a children's
hospital before being a residence hall, hearing
children laughing or crying.
Although
he doesn't discredit these reports, Lewis still has
his reservations.
"In
a dorm, it'd be easy to hear someone laughing or
crying and think it's ghosts when it's someone down
the hall," he said.
Lewis
has also heard that Straz Tower is haunted by the
ghost of a little boy who drowned in the Rec Plex's
pool.
Christy
Bergen, residence hall director for Straz Tower,
said she has never had any experience with a ghost
or had any reported to her. College of Communication
sophomore Emily Schumacher, a lifeguard for the Rex
Plex pool, said she has never had any ghostly
experiences.
Lewis
and his co-researchers have been in both buildings,
but have not had time to thoroughly inspect them.
He
says he has received about 15 e-mails concerning the
alleged Marquette hauntings in his 10 years as a
paranormal researcher.
Some
businesses around Marquette are also purportedly
haunted, Lewis said.
Phantom
dogs are said to run up and down the halls of The
Pfister Hotel, 424 E. Wisconsin Ave., and the
Ambassador Hotel, 2308 W. Wisconsin Ave., is
allegedly plagued by mysterious occurrences,
supposedly committed by the ghost of an early victim
of Jeffrey Dahmer who, Lewis said, was murdered
there.
Lewis
also said workers at The Rave, 2401 W. Wisconsin
Ave., have reported seeing groups of ghost children
while cleaning up after-hours. Patrons of the club
have also reported being assaulted in the bathrooms
by unseen assailants.
Representatives
from the businesses deny any supernatural events,
however.
"I've
never heard or seen anything," said Jodie
Thomann, executive secretary for the Pfister.
"Nothing's happened."
"You
hear pipes banging and that's it," said a staff
member at The Ambassador who asked not to be named.
Many
of Milwaukee's parks are also said to be haunted by
ghostly lights or disembodied voices. Metro area
graveyards are also allegedly sites for the
supernatural, including LaBelle Cemtery in
Oconomowoc, where the statue of a young girl who
drowned is said to cry tears of blood and walk
toward Fowler Lake, where she drowned.
Other
supernatural beings in Wisconsin discussed at the
conference included a werewolf-type creature near
Elkhorn, a vampire in Mineral Point,
extraterrestrials in Bloomer and the skeleton of a
dragon buried somewhere beneath Elk Mound.
The
conference, arranged by four self-described
paranormal researchers, was held at the Scottish
Rite Masonic Center, 790 N. Van Buren St.
