Haunted tales - The Rider Newspaper

Read if you dare

JACQUELINE WALLACE/THE RIDER PHOTO ILLUSTRATION

Brigitte Ortiz | THE RIDER

In the spirit of Halloween, students have shared their scariest on- and off-campus experiences with paranormal activity.

Priscylla Guzman, a mass communication junior, said the scariest experience she had on campus was in Fall 2019 in Albert L. Jeffers Theatre in Liberal Arts Building South on the Edinburg campus.

“It wasn’t raining or anything, and the lights kept going off,” Guzman said. “ I think they went off, like, three or four times in, like, just random periods of time, not, like, consistent. It was just, like, it would go off and then, like, 20 minutes later, they would go off again. And, I don’t know, it was really weird because like I said, it wasn’t raining and I was starting to freak out and I could hear creaks on the catwalk of the studio.”

She said later that same day there was a flickering light that kept making a ticking sound and at the same time there was also a creaking noise on the catwalk as if someone was walking on it.

“So far, that’s like the scariest thing that I’ve experienced there,” Guzman said. “But the light thing definitely freaked me out because the lights are controlled. … There’s, like, this box and you have to click an actual button for the studio lights to go on and no one was near that box. We were all practicing for our show, and they would just keep going off and it was really weird.”

She has also heard of other spooky experiences in the Jeffers Theatre from her peers.

“We have a costume shop where the costumes are made,” Guzman said. “I’ve heard from some students and, like, the people who work there that they have stayed late to work on costumes and that they see someone walking by. But it’s like no one in particular, like, not a real person because at that time there’s no students anymore. It’s just them working in the costume shop.”

During an event hosted by the Student Union last Wednesday, students shared their scary stories via Zoom.

Adriana Nava, a bilingual education junior and student manager at the Student Union on the Edinburg campus, said she has heard stories of a little ghost girl who roams the second floor of the Student Union on the Edinburg campus.

“I personally have never seen her; however, what was really, really strange, we used to have a co-worker, we never spoke to her about any of the paranormal things that would happen at the union,” Nava said. “All of a sudden, she just said one day she saw this little figure and it was like a little girl in, like, the back of her, in one of the bathrooms on the second floor. And, when she told us, we kind of all freaked out because we were, like, ‘We’ve never told you anything’ and there was no reason for her to know about it, but she had seen it. So, it just kind of made things a little more weird. If she saw it and we didn’t tell her anything about it, that means that there’s actually something there.”

She said her other co-worker has also felt the presence and heard giggles of little girls throughout the union.

Aileen Williams, an exercise science sophomore, said the scariest thing she has experienced is sleep paralysis.

“I took a nap in the afternoon with my little girl; she was about 3 years old, I think,” Williams said. “I laid down with her and I started feeling that I was being possessed by a demon and I’m not that religious, but I don’t know. I had that dream and the demon was trying to hurt my daughter, too, and I could see that I was in the room, the same room that I was in and I was trying to protect her. And, suddenly, I just woke up to check on her and the fan was swinging back and forth, and it wasn’t on.”

Asked what stories she has heard on campus, Williams replied that her mother knew a janitor on the Brownsville campus who would hear horse hooves and, one time, saw five men dressed in old military uniforms. The Brownsville campus sits on the former Fort Brown, which was established in 1846.