My partner of 3 years, who is a Resident Assistant at Saint Michaels and lives in Founder's Hall told me something intriguing this morning. He lives in one of the two RA apartments in Founders. He told me that there have been times where he is sitting in his "living room" and the toilet in his personal bathroom has flushed itself. He said he heard water running and what sounded like flushing and when he went into the bathroom the water in the toilet bowl was swirling. Kind of spooky!

Dave Breeckner mentioned in an email to me that:

"As for personal knowledge, I've heard the pentagram story was a complete fabrication, but the Hallaway (Herrouet) theatre up on North Campus IS supposed to be violently haunted."

I tend to agree with Dave in reguards to the theatre located on North Campus. Whether you are passing by it during broad daylight or in the cover of darkness the Herrouet is chilling. The first floor is completely boarded up. Windows are broken. If you look closely at the second floor and box office area's you can see hand prints on the inside of the glass. Strangely so, the lights in the building are always on despite no one having access to the building. I always thought it was because I had heard it was being renovated for community use but then my roommate who works for security at SMC told me that they are the only ones with keys to the building. Very strange. I just went past it a few days ago on my way to pick up my partner. I snapped a few pics I'll post later but what was eerie is that the lights were burning bright behind the plywood boarding up the windows.

These stories were sent to me, they are not about spirits at Saint Michael's but I posted them because I read them just now in broad day light and, I'm not going to lie was somewhat freaked out! We'll dub them, The Babysitting: The Unexplained...


1. One time I was babysitting 3 kids who live down the street from me at night. There are two little ones, at the time probably 5 and 8. And then there was an older boy going into 6th grade. I put the little ones to bed around 9 o clock and ended up staying up and talking to the to be 6th grader until almost 11. Then once i realized the time i told him he had to head upstairs, but we kept talking on the stairwell. I was standing on the bottom platform while he was sitting facing me and back to the upstairs. In the middle of our conversation i all of a sudden saw what i thought was the little 8 year old girl walking right behind the 6th grader, into her parents room. I thought that was odd and waited for her to come back out to head back to her room until i said something. "Leah hunnie what are you doing?" The 6th grader turned around, looked, then looked back at me with the most confused look on his face and said, "no one is there.' i then proceeded to check the girls door and her room, the door was never opened, and she was the same way i left her when she had fallen asleep. Needless to say I was freaked, next thing i knew the dog across the street who never barks at anything except people started barking furiously, like worse than i had ever heard him bark. I looked outside and everything had fogged over. It was horrible. I sat on the couch and waited for the parents to get home holding the firepoker in my hand. To this day i believe i saw a ghost of a little girl. I know it doesnt that scary, but i was mortified. And got the eeriest feeling ever. but yeah.

2. ((This story sounds like one of those random stories that circulate, but i know from a firsthand source [two of my friends and the family] that it truly happened in my town)) Ok so one night 3 or so years ago, my friend was babysitting for the first time at this family's house in my town, because their kids had just gotten old enough to be watched by a sitter. So everything had been going well for her. She got the kids to bed at a reasonable time and headed to the big living/family room to watch tv. Now this family room had pretty big windows that the TV was in front of that faced the side yard right on the first floor. So the girl was just watched TV waiting for the parents to get home when all of a sudden looked into one of the windows and saw a man holding a knife. She freaked and immediately reached right in front of her for the phone and called 911. When she looked back at the window he was gone. The police were there within 5 mins of the call ((i live in a small boring town)). and the girl was just sitting in the same spot with the phone still to her ear talking to the police on the other line. The police came into the house to talk to her and asked where she saw the man, and then sent men and dogs out to search the outside of the house. They didn't find anything. After not finding anything the police were interrogating her, one officer asked her "were all the lights on like this when you saw the man?" Apparently almost every light in the room was on, making it really bright. Apparently the girl told me every officer in the room fell completely silent and stared at her. And when she said yes, they all went into a frenzy taking out guns and searching the house. The girl was so confused, and stood there scared out of her mind. Finally one of the officers came up from the basement and said one of the latches on the one of the storm windows had been broken off. The girl asked what that meant and one of the officers looked at her and said, "If all the lights were on like they are right now, there would have been no way you could have seen the man if he was outside, which means you didnt see him through the window, but his reflection... he had to have been standing right behind you." That is when she fainted. They never found out what really happened to the man who broke into the house, nothing was stolen and no one was hurt. But my friend was permenetly tramatized. ((still to this day)). Like I said i know this sounds false, but it was one of my friends who was babystting and my family is close with the family who this happened to, and one of my best friends lived nextdoor and told me all about the intense amount of police cars that were next door at 1130 that night. Makes you never want to babysit again huh?

An emailer who wished to stay anonymous sent me this:

There are a couple of places on St. Michael's campus that seem to have ghostly visitors. 1) The theater supposedly is haunted by a nun who assists actors. There have also been incidents reported during performances of props disappearing with no explanation. 2) The men's' first year dormitory (supposedly Joyce Hall) also has an evil presence. In the 60s or 70s, young men were holding some sort of occult meetings. One of the men insisted that he needed to close the "portal" before they left, but by that time security was there and they tossed them off campus. The door to the attic is padlocked shut. However, lights go on in the attic and footsteps are heard in the middle of the night by the residents on the top floor. The image of the pentagram still exists on the floor despite attempts to replace the wood.

This can be found on https://smcmail.smcvt.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://theshadowlands.net/places/vermont.htm , along with other haunted campus buildings in VT.

Separately from this, I've heard others tell me that some boys in Joyce Hall from years ago were pestered by lively spirits, that white boards would sometimes fly off of bedroom doors, and some were abruptly woken out of deep sleep.

Here are a few stories from Phil Smith, A St. Mike's student who responded to a mass emailing I sent out:

I have a few weird stories from my freshman year up in Joyce 4th.

-There was a night that I had to leave the room to use the bathroom, probably around 4 AM, and all I could hear down the hall, both sides, was a weird “rain stick” sound. It was cold out, but clear, so I have no idea if that was something electrical or what. But after I get back into bed, fall asleep around 4:30, and get up again that morning, my roommate is freaking out because he woke up around 5:00 and swore I wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He woke up again an hour later, and still couldn’t find me. We figured I was maybe sleepwalking after I supposedly fell asleep around 4:30, but other than that, we can’t account for the time that I apparently lost.

-I’ve been in the bathroom when the showers turn on by themselves. Very creepy.

-The guys living next door to us first semester had this light that would always bug out on them. One day, the whole floor was freaking out because we heard this loud THUNK and then it sounded like someone was dragging something across the floor in the attic. It started at the guy’s end (which is where the girls live now), and went all the way down. When it happened, the light next door would not stop flickering. It would make so much noise and cause so much annoyance that eventually while we’re all in there, somebody yells “Shut up!!” to the light, and it stops. It didn’t bother them again for a while.

That’s my stories, take ‘em or leave ‘em. Enjoy :p

--Phil Smith

Hello Everybody:

Welcome to my brand new blog! I decided to start the blog to serve a hub for all Saint Michael's College paranormal stories. If you read books on haunted places in Vermont Saint Michael's in Colchester is mentioned but there is a rather pathetically small passage included. I wanted to use this place as a tool to post stories and accounts from students, faculty, and staff reguarding their experiences late at night in some of our academic and office spaces. So please enjoy! I will post things as I recieve them and I hope this sight will grow to something bigger and put SMC on the paranormal map!

This morning I found the following story was posted on www.burlingtonfreepress.com on the right hand side under comments:


Ghost in Founders Hall at Saint Michael's College
Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:41 am
My junior year I was living in Founders Hall, shortly after 3 girls died a ghost started to appear in my room. At first is started out as my door locking and unlocking itself. Then it progressed into my TV randomly changing channels while the remote was on the other side of the room. Then eventually it took form and would watch me sleep. Over the years I have heard of other students experiencing the same sorts of things, usually after a campus tragedy is when it apears.