Do you think McMaster is haunted? 👻
McMaster University is a site rich in history and — according to some — paranormal activity. From eerie sounds in empty offices to strange presences in isolated corridors, staff and students alike have reported unsettling encounters over the years.
It does; however, make sense given that McMaster University opened in 1930, and has been home to hundreds of thousands of students, faculty and staff since it’s move from Toronto.
Over the last few years, a team of investigators from The Silhouette, McMaster Students Union, Beyond The Veil and The Ghost Walks, set out to explore these haunting tales, using tools like the Ghost Meter Pro and Ouija board to see if they could communicate with the campus’s spectral inhabitants. This article provides a short look at each stop on their ghost tour, along with the results of their chilling encounters.
The Tools Of The Trade: Ghost Meter Pro and Ouija Board
I always like to preface these ghost investigations with this: I’m honestly not entirely sure if these tools work. The ghost meter pro looks like a toy and the Ouija board was a board game made by Parker Bros.
With that being said, I also believe in respect for what we did. I feel that if you respect the tools, then maybe they work? There’s a lot of spiritual belief that the Ouija board opens up gateways to hell and invites the devil himself into your home. I feel like that has to come from SOMEWHERE. So, respect the tools and hopefully the devil doesn’t commit a break and enter.
Before diving into each location, it’s worth explaining the tools that served as the backbone of the investigation.
The Ghost Meter Pro is an EMF (electromagnetic field) detector that paranormal investigators often use to sense changes in the environment. Everything casts an electromagnetic field, which can sometimes be hard as your phone could set the sensor off. But, think about Ghostbusters’ PKE Meter. As Egon Spengler walks around, the arms raise when a ghost is near by. Similar idea, except it’s a meter, that will go off. Now, this particular model has a unique feature that allows users to ask yes-or-no questions. One tick for yes, or two ticks for no. Again, I’m not sure what the validity is, but I’ve seen multiple ghost meters sync up to the same question and have also seen them go off as soon as you finish answering. I’ve done some testing and with the belief that it works, HOLY SMOKES is it a cool tool.
The Ouija board, on the other hand, is a classic tool used to connect with spirits. Participants place their fingers on a planchette, which moves between letters, numbers, and “yes” or “no” to spell out messages supposedly from beyond. The idea here is that the ghost is able to use your energy to help guide you to the answer. Of course there is the thought that somebody is moving the planchette themselves, but again, just believe for a second that everybody is doing what they’re supposed to. When that planchette starts spelling our answers, boy is it spooky.
Another “tool” that we had at our disposal was a psychic. No, she didn’t have a crystal ball, but she did have a lot of feelings that night about who could have been in the space with us. She also felt that some of us were a little more “tuned in” to the spiritual than we thought we were.
I’m going to emphasize one more time, dear reader. The tools could 100% be baloney, like you’re thinking. However, consider for just a second, the possibility that these tools actually do work. Consider that our society is so rooted on the idea that ghosts don’t exist that we don’t even allow ourselves for a second to believe in this idea of something otherworldly being possible. Then what? Where do we go from there? You investigate campus with those tools and see what you come up!
The Silhouette Office (MUSC B110): A Lingering Presence
The Silhouette Office is the home to our team. Featuring a large space that acts as our news room, one small office used by our fearless Editor-in-Chief, a kitchen space and my office, it became our home in the early 2000s when the McMaster University Student Centre was opened.
Now you’d assume, “wow, a brand new office, that couldn’t be haunted at all!”. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Typically a lively and welcoming space during the day, takes on an unsettling stillness after hours. Staff members have reported feeling watched and often catch glimpses of shadowy figures out of the corner of their eyes. Some describe the sensation of never being truly alone, even when the office is empty. Honestly, it can be pretty freaky sometimes. I’ve called the SIL office a second-home since I started working at the paper in 2018 and LET ME TELL YOU, I’ve had some weird feelings in there, even when other people are with me. That’s why it made sense to start our investigation here.
During the investigation, the team used the Ghost Meter Pro to reach out to any entities that might be present. The device seemed to respond, indicating the presence of a spirit who, intriguingly, was not a former McMaster student but someone who had nevertheless died on campus. According to the psychic present, the energy felt like that of an older gentleman who had perhaps wandered the campus grounds before passing away. This figure, the psychic noted, seemed to roam the SIL Office, as if attached to the place in some inexplicable way.
The experiences in the SIL Office left the team with more questions than answers, but one thing was clear: something—or someone—was lingering there, watching from the shadows.
MSU Office (MUSC 201): The Footsteps Of A Trickster
The McMaster Students Union Office, located on the second floor of MUSC has a similar history to the SIL office. It was opened in the early 2000s when the MSU moved from Hamilton Hall to MUSC.
Again, why would there be any activity in a brand new building? While we couldn’t tell you that, what we can tell you is there is definitely something lurking around the cubicles of the McMaster Students Union.
Years of Board members and staff have told us about the strange noises heard. Footsteps echo through empty hallways, even sometimes heard on the ceiling. Doesn’t matter if it’s 10 p.m. at night or 11:30 a.m. in the afternoon.
If that doesn’t make it worse, I’ve even heard the strangest noise of my life in there. I was alone in one of the offices with a former vice-president (education). Everyone else had gone home for the night. It was about 11 p.m., two weeks after our initial ghost investigation and we both suddenly started feeling uneasy. The entire night, I kept hearing foot steps in the hallway and at one point out of the corner of my eye, saw what looked to be the shadowy face of a man staring into the window of the office.
Needless to say, we packed up our belongings but as a final farewell, we heard the loudest noise we possibly could have in the office. Keep in mind, the office is fully carpeted. So how could we hear what sounded like a 200 pound table, being dragged on a hard surface, coming from the far end of the office.
I bolted out of there, hearing from the distance “Andrew, don’t leave me behind!”. The voice? The VP I was with, who I forgot as I was running in fear.
The team decided to hold a Ouija board session in the MSU Office’s boardroom, hoping to contact the spirit responsible for these disturbances. What came through was something altogether unexpected—a trickster spirit. The trickster told us that it perished in a fire and was never a student. It also told us that it’s birth date pre-dated McMaster’s time in Hamilton. It wasn’t until the psychic told us that she felt like the spirit was trying to deceive us, that we realized it was a trickster.
To be frank, everything made sense after that though. The entity seemed to enjoy causing minor chaos, playing pranks on office members,and generally making its presence known in mischievous ways. This playful spirit wasn’t malicious but left the team with an eerie feeling, as though it were watching and waiting to cause its next bit of trouble.
As we left the MSU Office, the team couldn’t shake the sense that the trickster spirit was following us, perhaps enjoying their reactions to its antics.
University Hall: Secrets of the Basement
Perhaps one of our most anticipated buildings to investigate on campus, University Hall.
This was one of the original buildings that opened in 1930 when McMaster moved from the University of Toronto campus. Since then, it has been the iconic building that Mac uses on all of it’s imagery. It is truly a beautiful part of our campus.
But what happens when all the students go home for the night? On the evening of our investigation, it was particularly eerie out. There was a haze surrounding campus, which prompted me to say “why does this building look so daunting at night” *cue Ghostbusters theme*.
If you are familiar with the layout of the building, there is a pretty creepy basement with what looks to be a safe (B137). That’s where we wanted to investigate.
Legitimately, as soon as we got there, we started hearing knocking on the other side of the door. Naturally, we pull out the Ghost Meter Pro and start asking questions. We figure out that whomever this entity was, wanted to talk with us in more detail via the Ouija board, so we pull it out and separate into two teams. We assume that it is not being used as a custodial closet, but the mystery of who truly was on the other side still makes us wonder.
The team made contact with a spirit that claimed to have committed a murder—specifically, the spirit confessed to killing its own mother and expressed lingering guilt over the act. The heavy nature of the message left the investigators visibly shaken, and they sensed an unspoken pain from this lingering presence.
What was interesting was that through my own research, I had learned of a professor who was murdered in one of the campus buildings in the 70s. I would later find thanks to some old forum posts, that it wasn’t in University Hall, but it makes you wonder, could that still have been the spirit of the son, returning to campus to atone for his crimes?
While that team was doing the Ouija board, I felt the strong urge to walk down the hallway to where the tutorial rooms/offices are. The psychic and I caught a whiff of a strong floral-scented perfume wafting from an empty office. The faint, floral scent seemed entirely out of place, almost as though someone had passed by moments before. But upon closer inspection, they found the classroom completely vacant.
Was it the spirits of the prof and her son, trying to have their stories be told?
The Refectory: A Familial Connection
During our first investigation, we were walking in front of Bridges and got stopped when the Ghost Meter went off. It felt like there was a lot of spirits in that area that wanted to chat, but we didn’t have enough time that night. It was important for us to come back and further explore this.
Bridges was in the old Refectory building that opened up in 1930. For those who have been to the Phoenix, you would have noticed the arched ceilings, similar to that of a Viking longboat house. The Refectory was actually the original food hall for the “boys” and “girls” of McMaster when it opened.
Bridges; however, was a student-run campus bar called the Rathskeller, also known as the Rat, which closed when MUSC opened and was replaced by Quarters (now TwelvEighty).
While Bridges used to be a vegetarian restaurant, that too has now closed and is now a rentable space through MSU Clubs.
Given it’s one of the original buildings, we thought there was probably someone who wanted to talk to us in that building, but to our surprise, it was somebody far closer to our group.
We sat down on the main floor of Bridges (the sub-basement) and proceeded with a Ouija board session.
To our surprise, the spirit coming through told us that it was connected to the psychic, who was also on the board with us. After more questions, she unveiled herself as the psychic’s grandmother. The session lasted almost 45 minutes with the Ouija board spelling out intimate details about the psychic’s life, things only her grandmother could know.
Although this wasn’t the intended purpose of the investigation at the Old Refectory building, the deeply personal encounter left the psychic with a profound sense of comfort. It seemed that sometimes, the Ouija board reveals more than just spirits who are haunting a space; but can serve as a bridge between loved ones across realms.
This idea was actually the primary reason behind Victorian seances, so it was quite interesting that we were able to hearken back to an older time.
Cootes Paradise (Behind Bates) A Murder Mystery:
At some point or another, we’ve all ventured into Cootes Paradise. For some, it was to go on a short hike within the protected nature reserve. For others, maybe it was to partake in some partying during their year living on residence. But for us, Cootes is steeped in a dark past.
In 1994, Bates Residence was used a graduate student residence on campus. However, on one fateful evening, a Kinesiology graduate student was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend. The tragedy rocked the McMaster community.
With this history in mind, we knew we wanted to investigate Cootes to see if the spirit of student was still on-campus.
We first arrived to Cootes with a ghost meter pro. It immediately connected to a spirit who claimed to be the student. Heartbreak filled the air, I can’t really describe it beyond that. It geniuenly felt like we were talking to someone who tragically met their end.
After a little more conversation, she told us she wanted to talk through the Ouija board to tell us more in-depth answers.
So, we got a small team together and stood around the board. Immediately, we connected to something powerful. This did not feel like the student. No, this was something worse. It felt evil. The feeling was in the air and we felt like something was staring us down from the darkness of Cootes.
This spirit tried to scare us away both during the investigation and after. It even pulled the hair of one of the VPs who was with us (the same one who I left running from the MSU office). As we were leaving the area to walk back to MUSC, the ghost meter kept connecting to someone. When we pressed for questions, it kept saying it was the spirit in the forest and it was attached to the two of us. We believe it tried to follow us home. After the first ghost investigation, We were walking back to my house around 3 a.m. (the witching hour) and heard the crunching of leaves behind us. I stopped in my tracks at one point, only for the VP to say “yeah, I heard that too”.
This entity felt so evil, so negative . . . that we decided to return to Cootes during our second ghost investigation.
I won’t lie, I was pissed this time. I didn’t want anything trying to follow me home and I surely didn’t want anyone on our team to get hurt.
This time, we had some new tools to use. If you know anything about ghost hunting, you would have come across the spirit box at some point. This device is a small radio that quickly scans through channels on the AM/FM band. The theory is that the spirits can stop this scanning and land on specific words to answer questions. Now, obviously this could be tainted by contextual clues (hearing what you want to hear), so there is a way to ensure this doesn’t happen.
The Estes method allows one investigator to listen to the spirit box through noise-cancelling headphones with a blindfold, while others ask questions. The investigator with the blindfold cannot hear or see the others, thus not succumbing to any bias.
Well, we tried it.
One of the investigators heard what sounded like two voices talking over each other. A man and a woman. Were these the voices of the student and whomever tried to scare us off last time?
To end our session at Cootes, we used the Ouija board one final time. You can watch this in the final part of our ghost investigation, but the spirit literally told us to “run”.
Whatever is out there, it doesn’t like us that’s for sure. It seems to “dominate” Cootes Paradise and we hope that the others who have remained in the forest find peace away from this evil spirit.
Conclusion: An Unforgettable Night
The ghost investigation at McMaster University left the team with a mix of emotions. From playful spirits to lingering presences with dark pasts, the campus revealed itself as a complex tapestry of paranormal activity. Each location seemed to harbor its own unique energy, from the mischievous trickster in the MSU Office to the sorrowful spirits in University Hall.
The team’s experiences suggest that McMaster is more than just an academic institution — it’s a place where history and energy intertwine, with each location telling its own story through the spirits that may still walk its halls. As they packed up their equipment and prepared to leave, the investigators couldn’t help but wonder: how many more secrets does McMaster hold, just waiting to be uncovered?
By Andrew Mrozowski
Content warning: this article contains mentions of suicide
What if I told you that you are living in a haunted city? Hamilton has had a long history with ghosts dating back to hundreds of years, so naturally, there are claims of specters still roaming the city.
With All Hallows Eve quickly approaching, paranormal activity is reaching a new high. Once the sun goes down, an eerie feeling fills the crisp cool air as darkness seeps through every corner and alleyway in the city.
This means good business for Stephanie ‘Spooky Steph’ Dumbreck, founder and owner of Haunted Hamilton. She has been leading ghosts walks and tours across Hamilton for nearly 20 years and has a passion for Hamilton’s haunted scene.
“It has evolved [since] I first started Haunted Hamilton… The paranormal wasn’t even looked at the same. All along [Haunted Hamilton] has been a passion for local history for me and what better way for that than a good ghost story,” explained Dumbreck.
Originally starting off with her spine-chilling tour of downtown Hamilton, Dumbreck has since launched a variety of different tours from her haunted cruise along Hamilton’s harbor to a haunted bus trip taking you on an overnight paranormal investigation.
“Hamilton is extremely haunted, it’s just a matter of where you look and how you look because anywhere can be haunted. Hamilton has such cool historical landmarks and locations,” said Dumbreck.
[pjc_slideshow slide_type="whitehern"]
[spacer height="20px"]One stop on Spooky Steph’s downtown tour is Whitehern Mansion. Located right behind Hamilton City Hall, Whitehern is one of the only period mansions remaining within the downtown core and has since been turned into a historical museum.
What many do not know is that Whitehern Mansion is haunted by the ghost of Issac McQuesten. This fact is eluded to by the house’s staff who reportedly sign a contract during their employment stating that they will be terminated if they mention the ghost.
Calvin McQuesten was a famous industrialist who helped build the Queen Elizabeth’s Way, Rainbow Bridge and the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington. Three years before his death in 1885, he moved his family from Boston to Hamilton and entrusted his son, Isaac McQuesten, with his business and family fortune.
McQuesten never had the drive his father had to run the company and ended up destroying the business. This caused him to turn to alcohol abuse and drive up a crushing debt. Afraid of the social repercussions of seeking help in his own city, McQuesten ended up spending time in an asylum in Guelph.
[pjc_slideshow slide_type="whitehern-2"]
[spacer height="20px"]On one grueling night in 1888, McQuesten kissed his six children and wife goodnight and told them that he was going to work in their parlor. At midnight, his wife woke up to check up on him and found his body laying still on the floor. The remnants of a sleeping draught made from a mix of sleeping pills and a generous amount of alcohol were in a cup on his desk.
McQuesten took his own life at Whitehern that night. His body was laid to rest but a superstitious belief dictates that if a life is taken before its rightful time then the soul will be stuck in purgatory. McQuesten’s spirit is in a state between death and the afterlife, forever trapped on earth.
Fast forward to present day Hamilton, two employees of the Whitehern Museum were closing up for the night. One staff member went upstairs to ensure that no spectators were still roaming the house while the other swept the outside of the front door.
As she made her way downstairs to leave, she felt somebody push her. She braced herself against the wall to avoid tumbling down the stairs. Suddenly, she caught sight of a grey and shadowy human figure in front of her.
She watched him run down the stairs and as he attempted to reach the front door, the figure disappeared as quickly as he appeared.
According to Dumbreck, the incident is proof that Issac McQuesten is trapped within the house and every time he attempts to leave it, he is forced back inside.
This amongst other chilling tales have spooked Hamiltonians in the past and present, with new encounters surrounding the supernatural occurring in the shadows of some of the oldest parts of the city.
Whether you are a believer or a skeptic, Hamilton is a fascinating place for indulging in rich history, but you also never know what might be peeking at you from the darkness, waiting to make its move.
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