Every town comes with ghost stories or urban legends that everyone seems to know, Eastern students shared their scariest experiences with the paranormal. 

Within every town there is the creepy bridge, the haunted house, the eerie residence hall—the stories surrounding these allegedly haunted places seem to take on lives of their own. They can spook even the biggest skeptics.   

Some students came to Eastern with ghost stories of their own, stories they heard growing up from their relatives or classmates. 

One such student is Kingsford Onyina, a graduate economics student, who knew an urban legend from West Africa, specifically from Ghana.  

“It’s a high school story whereby the girls’ dormitory,” Onyina said. “It’s being described that there is this Madam who was in the school and passed away and used to come and pass through the girls’ dormitory when they are asleep. She normally wears heels, and you hear the sound of the heels, and in Africa, we call it ‘Moke.’” 

Onyina said he first heard this legend about Madam Moke when he was in high school.  

“It’s kind of a common story in the country,” Onyina said.  

Onyina said that when he came to Eastern, he heard “Pemberton was experiencing a similar issue.” 

“It’s scary from the onset, but I don’t like listening to ghost stories, sincerely,” Onyina said.  

Faith Young, a freshman elementary education student, said she heard a ghost story about Urbana High School. 

This ghost story is specifically about the fourth floor, which she said was locked up the entire time she attended school there.  

“There’s been multiple legends, but the main one that we know of is that someone committed suicide there, and ever since then, they have locked the fourth floor,” Young said.  

Young said that although it is locked, teachers have been on the fourth floor, as well as those who go up there to clean.  

“People have talked about how they always heard someone talking to them,” Young said.  

Young said that people from her high school would often try to find ways up to the fourth floor. 

There was only one known door to reach it, so students would often try breaking its lock.  

“People would always get in trouble because of that, but it was very funny,” Young said. “People are just trying to get scared.” 

Joey Dhom, a freshman criminology student, said he had a ghost story that was a bit close to home, literally. 

Dhom’s ghost story came from his childhood home in Newton, Ill., the house he lived in for about 10 years.  

Dhom said that he was certain there was a ghost in his room, which was freezing cold year round. 

Dhom said that their room also had a crawl space with a small door that would “randomly swing open, swing close, swing open, swing close.” 

“What really got me into actually, fully believing that there was something wrong was the fact that I had severe nightmares every time I was in that room, and when I slept out of that room, there was no nightmares at all,” Dhom said.  

He said that the nightmares were so bad that they would wake up feeling “like somebody was choking me, or there’s somebody crawling on my back.” 

Dhom said that he and his family moved out of that house about three or four years ago “because it was really creepy and broken down and super old.” 

Young said she had a similar experience, hearing multiple stories from her older sister about their childhood home, the one she lived in when she was around five years old.  

This ghost story takes place in the basement of Young’s old house near St. Louis, Mo., a basement she said was always freezing cold.  

She said that her whole family felt there was something off about the house. They always felt like they were being watched, they could hear stomping, and even her mom refused to go down to the basement by herself.  

Young said that when they lived there, her grandmother had a rocking chair she no longer wanted, so they put it downstairs in the basement. 

Young said that one day, her sister went down to the basement and the rocking chair had vanished. The next day, it reappeared.  

At first, she said, the family thought someone was just messing with them.  

“[My sister] goes back down in the basement, and she sees this person standing on the rocking chair,” she said. “Apparently, she was nine-years-old looking, I don’t really know, but it was really creepy. My sister started running up the steps screaming and yelling. I remember that to this day.”  

Young said that they moved out of that house after about five years of living there “because there was always other creepy stuff going on in other rooms, but it was mostly just the basement.” 

Kyara Morales-Rodriguez can be reached at 581-2812 or at knmoralesrodriguez@eiu.edu.