Founded over 125 years ago, Delaware Valley University has been host to a number of hauntingly suspicious events. Students recount tales of ominous voices, chilling halls and dark figures lurking around campus. Prepare yourself. For the legends told below are not for the faint of heart. Continue reading… if you DARE!
Our first story comes from an old article written for the Ram Pages in March of 1986. Student Annmarie Whitesell tells a chilling tale of a lingering spirit in the Krauskopf Memorial Library.
Unfinished Business
I, being of sound scientific mind and holding on to a decent GPA, do not believe in ghosts. Well, not until this semester. You see, I have picked up the habit of studying in the library and, as anyone will tell you, your mind will do funny things when bored and studying.
I was moving through my reading material at an astounding rate when suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard this voice, with a slight accent.
‘Interesting. Very interesting.’
I looked around. ‘What? Did anyone say something?’
It was close to closing and no one was around. No one studies until 10:45 p.m. on a Thursday night in the library. I hadn’t noticed anyone passing by the entrance of the reading room, so I simply ascribed it to the wind playing with some leaves on the porch or the trees brushing against the library walls. I packed up my belongings to go back to the dorm. Then, I heard that voice again.
‘I was talking to you, child.’
OK, I had had it. No one plays with my mind the night before an exam.
‘Whoever is doing this, you can knock it off!”
The librarian came up and told me to be quiet or I could leave. She must have thought I was losing my mind because she didn’t believe me when I told her someone was hiding in Dr. Krauskopf’s room. She flipped on the switch and said, ‘See, no one’s there. Now go get some rest.’
It would have ended there, but on several other occasions when I have studied late, Dr. Krauskopf’s voice comes to ask me questions. He still wants to know how I got into school since I’m a girl, and how can I get music out of such a small piece of equipment without anyone hearing it but me. He was referring to my Sony Walkman.
Maybe Dr. Krauskopf’s ghost doesn’t exist and it’s my active imagination.
The current library was built per Dr. Krauskopf’s will following his death. So, despite housing Dr. Krauskopf’s ashes and personal collection of books, he never actually stepped foot in the current library… at least… not alive. But perhaps his spirit lingers anyway and he makes his presence known via echoing footsteps through the staircases. Flash forward to 2019 and read the spine-chilling experience of Nick Gammaitoni as he too attempted to study in the Krauskopf Memorial Library.
the library staircase
My experience occurred in fall of 2019 when I was in the lower part of the library. I had gone there for a quiet place I could catch up on work and an assignment I had fallen behind on. The library was basically empty aside from one or two students and as I opened the door to walk downstairs they got up and started walking towards the exit. I walked downstairs and found a seat closest to the exit back upstairs and began working.
I think no more than 15 minutes passed before I began to hear noise. It was creaks and taps and occasional loud knocking but I knew old buildings make those noises so I didn’t even consider it. Soon after I heard what I assumed were students walking on the floor above. I then heard the sound of the upstairs door closing and descending footsteps followed as if someone was coming. But those footsteps then stopped about halfway down and nobody ever came out of the stairwell. “Huh?” I thought as I stopped my work. My ADHD brain immediately went wild with possibilities. Was this the ghost I’d been hearing about? The other part of me said “great. Another mind distraction to slow me down” curiosity built, I had to take a peak up the stairs. I peaked my head around the corner to find the stairwell was deserted. They could’ve gone back upstairs before ever making it downstairs but I only heard the door once. And that door is loud. Frustrated with my own state of distraction, I shook it off and finished my work. As I walked back upstairs and past the front desk I noticed someone sitting there. Explained what I had heard and asked her if she’d seen anyone go down stairs in the past 20 minutes. She looked at me like I had 3 heads and said “no I didn’t”. However she did say a couple students did enter the library but that they all stayed upstairs and that she didn’t hear or see the door open at any time.
Bewildered, slightly weirded out, but also excited, I fast walked out and exited the library. Who.. or what did I hear that walked down the stairs?
AH I have chills! I may be avoiding the library for a little while… but the library isn’t the only place where mysterious figures have visited students.
Ulman Hell
Ulman Hall, built in 1923, is the oldest dormitory on campus. Though there’s no confirmed record of any deaths within its walls, students whisper otherwise. Evidence may be scarce, but the presence that prowls those halls doesn’t seem to care.
It’s your freshman year of college and you’ve been living in Ulman for just over four months. You and your roommate have gotten along well, but even still, you can’t help but feel a little excited when they say they’re going to spend the weekend at home. It’s nothing against them; you’re just ready for a night to yourself again. Unfortunately, you soon discover you’re not as alone as you thought.
Around 2 a.m., something pulls you from sleep. There, in the doorway, stands a figure. You quickly sit up thinking someone has broken into your room, but the figure doesn’t move. It’s perfectly still, like eerily so. Despite the light spilling in from the hallway, you can’t make out a face. No features at all. Just a shape. Flat, dark, almost two-dimensional. As if a shadow had peeled itself from the wall and decided to stand on its own.
You squeeze your eyes shut hoping it will be gone when you reopen them, but instead the figure remains.
It extends an arm…
reaching out for you…
…and suddenly your fear turns to anguish and pain. You close your eyes as you wince and curl your body into a ball. You look back to the figure, fearing what may come next. When you look up, though, the figure is gone and with it, the pain goes to. Your only evidence of the experience being the hallway light flooding in through the still open door.
After a few calming breaths, you lie back down and attempt to go back to sleep. You recall other students having shared similar stories and campus folklore tells of a student who died on the third floor. Was that the student? Were you feeling their pain from the moments of their death?
When you can’t fall back asleep, you search for answers online. Your search turns up nothing. Maybe you had just dreamt the entire thing. After all, if no one died in the building, whose ghost would be hanging around and for what?
Just before you give up on finding answers, one final thread catches your eye. You read of the first building on campus, Pioneer Hall. Pioneer Hall burnt down during a student protest in 1923… the same year Ulman was built…
The protests, the fire, the dismissal of several students that same day. It all blurs together in your mind. What if one never made it out of the flames? What if they were thought to have fled, when in truth, the fire claimed them with the same greed with which it claimed Pioneer Hall.
Maybe they’re still here, bound to the stones salvaged from the ashes. Maybe they’re waiting... watching… searching for a way to free themselves from the building that entombed them.
And until they can, they’ll keep reminding every student who calls Ulman home: the past isn’t gone. It’s just buried… under the very building they’ve come to call home… at least for now.
It turns out the DelVal community is a little larger than we thought. Although, these stories bring a whole new meaning to “Once an aggie, always an aggie.” Our next story tells of an evil villain and an unlikely hero. They say curiosity killed the cat, but at DelVal… it was the squirrel who learned what power really means…
Sparky’s Surge
It was February 22, 2017, and the night began like any other on campus. Students were preparing to go to evening classes, lights flickered in dorm windows and cheers echoed from the gym where a playoff basketball game was underway. No one could have predicted that within minutes, the entire university would be plunged into darkness.
Somewhere near the edge of campus, a squirrel, small, quick and curious, scurried along a powerline towards the transformer. For Sparky the Squirrel, it was just another night to forage, to climb and to search for the perfect chew to shave down his teeth.
The transformer loomed ahead, humming like a beast asleep. Its wires coiled and snaked along the ground, pulsing with a strange blue light that danced faintly in the dark. The sound drew Sparky closer. Soft at first. Then louder. Rhythmic. Almost inviting.
He crept closer, pausing on the metal casing. The hum wasn’t just sound; it was a vibration. Deep and constant, rising through his paws. It called to him like a heartbeat. The warmth of it was comforting in the cold February air.
A single spark jumped.
Sparky froze. The air buzzed, sharp and electric. The hum deepened into something darker. Something alive. He tilted his head, nose twitching with a hesitant curiosity. That’s when the wire moved.
To anyone else, it would have been imperceptible, just a flicker of current, but to Sparky, it was as if the machine had awakened. He knew why fate had brought him here. This monstrosity was supplying the power that kept students in class. It must be stopped. Sparky, with more heroism in his tiny squirrel pinky than most have in their entire body, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. He lunged forward, teeth bared, and used every ounce of strength he had to pierce the thickest wire of the beast.
Heat began to emanate from the transformer as it grew angrier. The air hissed, the hum roared and then came the FLASH!
It was blinding.. A burst of blue light lit up the sky, cracking through the night like lightning.
Across campus, lights flickered and died. Computers went black. Dorms fell silent.
Smoke began to pour from South Hall, curling upward like a signal to the heavens. Students screamed and fled into the night as alarms pierced the stillness. Evening classes were cancelled. The playoff basketball game, already underway, stopped mid-play and would not resume until the next day.
By morning, the truth had spread. Electricians had investigated the cause and the power outage had been traced to one small, innocent squirrel. Sparky, our squirrel who searched for light in the darkest of times, was found lying on the ground. Motionless. Lifeless.
As the story spread, students began growing suspicious. The more the story was told, the less it sounded like an accident. Some began to whisper that the transformer wasn’t just a machine. It was hungry. Alive.
Every few years, power will flicker for no reason. Lights will dim or strange vibrations can be felt through the dorm walls, as though something beneath the ground was stirring again.
Now, on cold February nights, when the wind hisses through the power lines, students swear they can hear a faint scratching sound like tiny claws against metal. Desperate and rhythmic.
If you listen closely, you might hear it too: a crackle of static, a low electric hum and the whisper of a warning carried on the current.
Sparky wasn’t the first. And the transformer still waits.
Let these stories be a warning: study hard. Keep your wits about you. And hopefully the scariest thing to come for you, is your final grade.
Have a safe and spooky Halloween, DelVal!
