While Halloween itself has officially passed, the Halloween spirit continues to thrive on McGill’s downtown campus. In a city as old as Montreal, there are bound to be some spooky spectres floating around and frightening citizens. Or, if you’re more into ghost stories, there are bound to be some rumours of spectres. For example, you may have heard that fur trader Simon McTavish’s ghost roams Mount Royal, or that the halls of the Allan Memorial Institute, formerly Ravenscrag, (seriously, Ravenscrag?), are haunted by the exploited victims of the notorious MK-Ultra experiments. How about friends and family members who swear they’ve seen the ghost of a loved one, or psychics who are a little too on the nose? The McGill Tribune asked students to share spooky stories they think can only be explained through supernatural means. 

Dreadful Doll 

“At my tenth birthday party, a bunch of girls and I were in my basement, and there’s this doll that I have that hangs on the ceiling and doesn’t move. It started swinging on its own, so we were all freaked out and started screaming. I don’t know if I believe in ghosts, but it was probably a ghost.”

– Laura Gervais, U2 Science 

Visions of the Future 

“I went to a psychic with my sister when she was 16 and I was 13. When I tell you it was the most specific reading of my life, I’m not kidding. It all came true. The psychic told me I would get an injury on my right knee, and two years later, I had to quit gymnastics because of a gym injury. She was spot-on! She also predicted my sister would get proposed to when she was 24. She’s 24 now and her boyfriend, who she never told about this, gave her a promise ring for her 24th birthday. It wasn’t just [any] ring either––it was his grandmother’s engagement ring. We initially went [to the psychic] as a joke, but I’m convinced that she was the real deal.”

– Karine Faingold, U2 Arts 

Pet Cemetery?

“I’ve never experienced anything ghostly, but one of my friends told me about how she was walking her dog near a cemetery, and her dog started barking and freaking out. She turned around and saw three headstones, and she swears to me that around the headstones, she saw three spirits talking to each other and mingling. She says they noticed her dog and turned to look at her.”

– Alexandria Sasso, U1 Arts 

Datamatch Horror Story 

“One time, I got ghosted by a girl who knew too much about the Unabomber. That’s pretty spooky, I would say.”

– Alex Barbeau, U2 Science

Sitcom Scare 

“One time, my parents were out for dinner pretty late, so I was home alone. I kept hearing these weird noises, so I went down to the living room to investigate, and when I got there, the TV just turned on by itself. I was confronted by the Golden Girls loudly blaring through the house, and it scared the crap out of me. To this day, I’m convinced it was the ghost of one of the Golden Girls telling me to keep their ratings up.”

– Mia DiMatteo, U2 Arts

A Voice from Beyond

“When I was about 12, I was home alone and thought I heard a voice––for some reason, I thought it was my dead grandmother’s voice, even though I never met her. I ignored it at first but then it started saying my name, so I started to panic. I called my mom and the voice got louder so I started screaming and my mother started panicking too. Needless to say, I ended up going over to my neighbour’s house to escape the voice of my dead grandmother.” 

–Jessica Gearey, U2 Arts