Around this time of the year students share ghost stories that have circulated around campus every October.

This October, one story hits close to home for two junior photography students, Kristen Salierno and Haley Belofsky.

Last week, Salierno and Belofsky were working on a “fear” photography project in the darkroom on North Campus. They were there to remove the roll of film from its canister and place it on to the developing reel, to avoid ruining the film.

During this process, Belofsky cut the end of her film so it could fit on the developing reel. When she went to pick it up it was gone. After searching in the dark for several minutes, they decided to turn the lights on and find the film, but the film was nowhere to be found, Belofsky said.

“We had the teacher help us look all around the room,” Belofsky said. “We emptied a tiny garbage and took each item out. We searched everywhere, even in the toilet.”

Salierno and Belofsky decided to get more film to finish the project. They returned to the darkroom to restart the process a few days later and were astonished at what they saw.

Jordan Douglas,
photography professor “Haley was putting the new film in and we found her old film we had lost, spun up in her camera,” Salierno said. “We don’t even bring the cameras into the darkroom!”

Feeling frightened by the experience, Salierno and Belofsky quickly went to their professor. Photography professor Jordan Douglas explained to them that he and several of his past students experienced similar incidents in the dark room.

Douglas said he believes the darkroom could be haunted by the late St. Michael’s art professor, Cy Sloane. Sloane died in 1995 and the apartment he lived in on North Campus is now the darkroom, Douglas said.

“It seems to be somewhat understood that it is inhabited with some kind of spirit,” Douglas said. “There have been many visual sightings of something that you could call ghost-like.”

Salierno and Belofsky said that they did not see any ghostly figure, but did feel as if something or someone was in the room with them. The students said the room was pitch black, making it impossible to see anything, but both recall they saw a light glowing at one point.

“For a second I could see (Belofsky’s) outline or something, and she said the same,” Salierno said.

The experience has affirmed both Salierno and Belofky’s belief in ghosts, they said. They also said they believe the darkroom is - without question - haunted.

“The whole thing freaks me out,” Belofsky said. “When anyone talks about ghosts I start to cry.”

Special thanks to the Saint Michael's Defender which you can access at: http://journalism.smcvt.edu/defender/