Haunted Valley: Our Guide for Your Halloween Weekend
Penn State is quite the place on Halloween. We’re rowdy every day of the week, and holidays certainly aren’t an exception. Not that we need an excuse to binge drink, ever, but Halloween is at least a somewhat valid one. Even if raging your face off isn’t what you had in mind, here are some options that can be enjoyed sober or with some optional pre-gaming:
- Have you ever walked past those two green cottages by Thomas and wondered if they were haunted or not? Yeah, me too. Quite appropriately, they are hosting “The Last Show On Earth” on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. It costs $4.99 to walk through, but you may want to bring some extra cash for the bake sale that will be taking place outside, benefiting THON. (Crap your pants and help kids fight cancer? Two birds I never considered killing with one stone…) Apparently, it’s really dark, really cramped, and really creeps you out. Winning? Check out the Facebook event HERE
- If you don’t feel like spending any extra cash (beer money is precious, I understand) you can get creeped out on campus, FO’ FREE. Dear Old State has been around for quite a while now and there are a few allegedly haunted places that are worth checking out:
The stacks in the basement of Pattee, where the murder of Penn State Grad student Betsy Aardsma took place, is always unsettling no matter what time of year it is. Apparently, she often is seen wearing a red floral print dress with a white sweater whilst floating with no feet.
Then of course, there is Frances Atherton, wife of George Atherton, who apparently haunts the attic of Old Botany. If you show up outside of Old Botany at midnight, rumor is she will appear in the window, overlooking George Atherton’s grave right across the street at the Schwab Auditorium. Other reports include sightings of her rocking in her chair in the attic, flickering of lights, sounds of footsteps, and developed photos with her looking out the window of the “empty” building.
- Schwaboo the Ghost is a regular at the Schwab Auditorium as well. Apparently Schwaboo (not a very intimidating ghost name at all) will watch a lot of the shows performed here, as evidenced by a seat that will go down when the show starts and go back up when it ends. Also, there is supposedly separate poltergeist activity that happens in the attic? And a floating adult and child above the stage? I think people just do a lot of drugs, but alas, I digress.
- The third floor of Runkle Hall is supposed to be pretty active with poltergeist activity as well, but this time by a Hispanic ghost, who apparently enjoys the Spanish channel, locking and unlocking doors and throwing things off the wall. One time a Ouija board was utilized and all the questions were answered in Spanish.
- If you want to passively participate in the Halloween capers, there are a few screening options available. The State Theatre is presenting “Villains in the Valley”, screenings of both Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street on Saturday and Sunday night at 7 p.m. for only 5 bucks a pop. The Schlow Library is also having a free screening of The Night of the Living Dead tonight at 7 p.m. in the Community Room. There is supposed to be a zombie walk right before that, so it may be full of younger kids and families.
- If you’re that delusional kid that thinks its funny to go trick or treating past the age of 11 or if you’re planning to be a pedophile for Halloween, you’ll want to know that the official Centre Region time for trick or treating this year is on Monday, October 31 from 6-8 p.m. This applies to the Borough of State College and the Townships of College, Ferguson, Harris and Patton. This is your holiday to embrace your inner weirdo, so live it up.
- The Lion Ambassadors will be hosting Lantern Tours this Thursday and Friday. Check out more info on it HERE.
- And, of course, the ultimate form of Halloween tomfoolery is mischief night. For those of you who are unaware, mischief night is traditionally held on the night before Halloween and involves defacing a lot of property. Classic methods include throwing rolls of toilet paper all over someone’s house, trees, bushes, etc., forking front lawns (sticking a bunch of forks in their lawn), wrapping cars in plastic wrap, putting shaving cream on peoples cars, egging houses, etc etc. If cops catch you doing this, you will
probablyabsolutely get royally screwed, but should you get away with it, you will brag about it for eons, no doubt. This was my favorite night of the year in high school. Dressing in all black is highly recommended.
If none of these interest you, the initial plan of binge drinking and eating a lot of candy works just fine too.
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