Students, ghost hunters at Randolph College explore purported ghost activity

The students twist around in their front-row theater seats, straining to peer through the black space to the back row.

Perhaps tonight, they’ll catch a glimpse of the apparition that some say haunts Randolph College’s Smith Hall Theatre.

It was opening night in 1971, so the story goes, and students prepared for their rendition of Shakespeare.

Slideshow: Ghost Hunting

The male lead, from Hampden-Sydney College, delivered a stunning performance.

Stunning, because he was dead.

“He was actually killed in a car wreck on his way to the theater,” says Alan May, founder of Bedford Paranormal. Tonight, the ghost-hunting group is searching for signs of the supernatural at Randolph College.

Another account of the story says the student’s ghost didn’t perform but sat in the theater’s back row without saying a word, until he disappeared.

“Either way, a guy who was already dead showed up,” says rising sophomore Brandon Morgan.

The eerie tale is one of many that have been passed down from year to year, haunting students who attend the 115-year-old school.

“We always come here because we’ve heard so many stories,” May says while sitting on the theater’s stage. “We sought out the college several years ago, and we have a pretty good relationship, so they’ve let us come back several times.”

The theater is tonight’s first stop.

“Is there anybody here with us that would like to speak?” asks ghost hunter Amy Scott.

She sits in a circle on stage with several others searching for signs of the supernatural. Their recorders are turned on to capture any unearthly

noises.

In the audience, three Randolph College students — a mix of believers and skeptics — sit on their own. They’re working at the school over the summer, and decided to come along and explore their school’s folklore.

It’s about 9:30 on a Saturday night, and the theater is lit only by several red, glowing outlines of “EXIT.”

Split-second camera flashes light up rows of upholstered seats before plunging them back into darkness.

Silence, murmurs between observers, then two quick beeps.

“That kind of sounded like the noise of when someone uses their (key) card to get into the building,” says student Carl Coffey.

Or is it?

“But this building doesn’t have a card system.”

It’s 10 p.m., and Scott aims a camera toward a seat in West Hall’s date parlor. This is where, long ago, women attending the college could entertain male friends under the watchful eye of a “dorm mother.”

The chair is said to be frequented by the friendly ghost of one such matron who monitored students until the early 1970s.

The camera is connected to a small television where a blurry, circular white light squiggles across the screen every now and then. The group reaches no consensus on its cause.

Dust, or perhaps an insect in front of the camera.

Or, just maybe, something unexplainable.

Around 10:45, the group heads to Bell Hall, where a resident advisor recently reported hearing children’s laughter late at night, when no one was around.

The group splits up and explores separate floors, walking cautiously past door after door of empty dorm rooms.

Coffey jumps slightly as the elevator rings, and the door opens next to him.

“Did anyone push the elevator button?” he asks. “Because it just opened up on this floor and there was no one inside.”

No one had.

It’s now midnight, and the thinning group enters Lipscomb Library.

Ghost hunters report flickering lights, unexplainable shadows and what sounds like singing from behind a locked door. All the evidence will be examined over the coming weeks.

“Hello?” Scott calls out.

Her answer comes about a half hour later.

“Do see this? Do you see this?” shouts ghost hunter Alissa Kuminski from the third floor. “You don’t see the thermometer going crazy? The thermometer is just going from 73 to 83 to 80, it’s 80 right now. Oh my god.”

“We were just going to pass through and we heard noises here, we heard noises here!” Scott says.

Or did they?

“We just couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from, and every time we went to walk out, it would disappear.”

A half dozen flashlights are all that illuminate a gravel, uphill path at about 1:15 a.m., as the group walks to the nearby Rivermont Baptist Cemetery, off Quinlan Street.

The final stop of the night.

A wandering doe’s eyes shine as lights pass over them.

“Straight ahead,” Coffey calls.

Kuminski sets her recorder on a fresh grave, and the group examines tombstones.

Scott takes a few digital pictures, and reviews the images. A mysterious orb of light appears in several.

“It looks like there’s a face in it,” Kuminski says.

“Hear that?” someone calls a few minutes later.

Crickets, and the roar of something big approaching, fast.

“It’s a train. Debunked!” Kuminski says.

The tired investigators have had a long night, and decide to head home around 1:45 a.m.

They’ll sleep well tonight.

Or will they?

w Christa Desrets can be reached at or by calling (434) 385-5561.