Throughout the years many paranormal sightings have been reported on the University of Wyoming Campus. One spot eclipses the rest: Knight Hall.
Reports of paranormal activity at Knight Hall include hearing unidentifiable sounds, smelling foods when no food is present, seeing disembodied shadowy figures, and moving objects.
In 2012, The University of Wyoming and the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center invited a professional ghost hunting team called Haunted Xplorations to investigate the paranormal sightings of Knight Hall. The team conducted the investigation on October 31, 2012.
According to the investigation’s official report, “It’s the professional opinion of Haunted Xplorations that Knight Hall at the University of Wyoming does have paranormal activity.”
The report outlines that Haunted Xplorations believes Knight Hall is haunted by one or more non-hostile, yet intelligent, spirits.
Those that work at Knight Hall echo similar claims to Haunted Xplorations, expressing that there may be multiple spirits trapped within the walls of Knight Hall.
“We like to call our ghost Gertie or Gertrude,” Molli Paulson, who works in Knight Hall, said.
“And sometimes we smell her making spaghetti and things like that, or like lasagna. It always seems to be like Italian food. When we go check the other floors we’re like, ‘Oh, that smells really good,’ but there’s no one making any food or even heating it up.”
There are many reports from Knight Hall of hearing noises that seem out of the ordinary.
“I had [a paranormal experience] Friday, actually. CJ and I, we locked the door and shut it, and were talking down here, and something hit the door [from the inside],” Nicholas Johnson, who also works in Knight Hall, explained.
Despite consistent reports of various different spirits, there have been no reports of any hostile paranormal activity at Knight Hall.
“Gertie is friendly,” Paulson said. “One of our former coordinators, things have just randomly fallen off their desk. Again, not in a hostile manner, just apparently they didn’t want those papers on the desk.”
Of the individuals the Branding Iron spoke with, not everyone had a personal experience with the paranormal to share, but every one of them shared that the building can have an eerie feeling at times.
The paranormal activity at Knight Hall may be caused by its unusual history, being that it is allegedly built on the site of a twice exhumed cemetery. In her book Sinners & Saints: Tales of Old Laramie City, the late Gladys Beery explored the history of the paranormal in Laramie.
According to Beery, when Laramie was first established, the city was expected to develop northward following the direction of the railroad. The city’s cemetery was placed east of the main strip, in a direction the city was not expected to develop.
To escape the noise of mainstreet as the city developed, buildings began to be constructed progressively more east of what’s now historic downtown. Eventually, the Union Pacific Railway Company decided to sell the cemetery land in order to make room for more residential lots.
The railway company petitioned the city to relocate the cemetery, and it was decided that inmates that the local territorial prison would take on the task. In May, 1873 inmates, under the direction of Sheriff Tom Dayton, began moving the cemetery to a location roughly where Knight Hall is today.
The cemetery’s new location only lasted for 13 years however, as it was decided the University of Wyoming would be built on the same spot in 1886. The bodies within the cemetery were again exhumed and transferred to the modern day Greenhill Cemetery northeast of Half-Acre Gym.
In many cases, no record was kept while the remains were moved. As bodies were often unable to be identified, many names became lost to history.
It is also reported that there are an unknown number of graves that were not properly exhumed, and may still rest under the University of Wyoming campus.
Could it be possible that during the exhumation spirits were disturbed and have taken up residency in Knight Hall? Could it be possible their bodies still remain under our feet? Could it be that individuals who were lost to history cling to life and still roam those halls?
These mysteries may never be solved, but for those who have experienced the paranormal, one thing is certain; something is there.
