During such a spooky season, ghost stories are bound to arise; but many cannot, will not or simply do not believe in the scary spirits from beyond.

“I would not say I believe in ghosts,” freshman Elijah Mays said. “Because, I don’t know, I don’t believe that shit is real … never been my thing … But here’s the thing, I believe in demons and angels, I just don’t believe in ghosts, and those are different. I feel like I relate ghosts to spirits in a different sense, like I believe in God, I believe in demons, but I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Freshman Tommy Avant is of a different opinion.

“I believe in ghosts because there has to be a reason that these shawties keep stepping on me,” Avant said. 

Freshman Kohl Hansen does not believe in ghosts.

“I guess I don’t have a specific reason, but I guess it’s kind of one of those things that’s more of a myth, like Bigfoot,” Hansen said. “I think they’re made up for the Halloween season and at a younger age kids do believe in them, and that kind of hypes up the Halloween season.”

Sophomore Mason Heuer said that seeing is believing.

“But there’s also plenty of things that you can’t see that are proven to be true, and I feel like ghosts are so hard to figure out and really see and scientifically explain,” Heuer said. “I feel like they may be real, but we will never be able to see them.”

Integrative English studies major Alison Elwell concurred. However, she still does not want to mess with them.

“If I saw one then like, yeah, but until I see it it’s just not there, you know?” Elwell said. “But I am terrified of ouija boards. I don’t fuck with that shit at all because it’s like, if it is real, then I don’t wanna be that stupid bitch in a horror movie whose like ‘let’s summon the devil,’ so I don’t believe in them, but I also refuse to fuck around with them.”

Freshman Riley Meggins said she hears a lot of things in the dorm walls and she believes that it is ghosts; sophomore Brayden Duff believes the same of his house.

“I’m pretty sure that my house was haunted,” Duff said.  “I would be in the basement home alone and you’d hear people walking upstairs. Our dog would bark at random places in the house and there was one room specifically that I was like, that looks sketchy.”

Freshman Derren Ali has a more whimsical view.

“Somewhere there has to be a ghost, I think that’s honestly the only reason I believe. It is because this is a big world and there has to be something somewhere,” Ali said.

Philosophy and creative writing major Jacq Schroder, however, is adamantly against the possibility.

“Here’s the thing – I also am an atheist and I am a writer, so I know how to make a good story so I know how to tell and read a good story. I have never heard a story about a ghost that sounded real. Like I specialize in creative writing, I know fiction, I study it and it’s like, whenever I read a story about a ghost I’m like ‘this sounds like a two-sentence horror story from Reddit,’” Schroder said. “I’ve never seen one so I’m not gonna believe in it.”

Ghosts are something that I could never believe. They are always played up and turned into a massive bunch of hoopla. 

Ghosts are a fun story, they are fascinating to think about, but nowhere near scientific. There is so much spooky and scary in the world as it is; why do we need to try to add more than the fear of doing our taxes?

Ghosts are a great way to explain the unexplainable, and they sure do make a great story. But the really scary thing, the incredibly horrifying atrocity, is that it is November and people are not celebrating Christmas (or their other respective holiday season given religion or creed) yet.