Isabel Anderson (senior): “I was trick or treating once, and it was a fairly crowded area. At one house I went to, the woman who lived there had the door open a tiny bit and she was giving each person who came to the door a few loose peanut M&M’s.”

 

 

 

Casey A’Hearn (sophomore): “I think the spookiest thing that happened to me was one Halloween, a group of friends and I were like 13, walking to my house after treating in my neighborhood, and this guy chased us in a Jason Costume. We never ran that fast ever.”

 

 

 

 

Sifan Ye (senior): “Recently, I was studying in the stacks 500 with two of my friends. Around 1 a.m., I was talking about the rumor that someone fell and died in the stacks during [the] library’s construction. Then the lights started flickering and we heard random noises and it definitely was not people upstairs moving their chairs. So we got out of there ASAP.”

 

 

 

 

 

Gabriella Murdoch (sophomore): “Last year, I lived on the fourth floor of Gilbert, and sometimes my roommates and I would hear knocking on our door. But whenever we went to go check, there would be no one there. We didn’t really care because we thought someone was just playing a prank. But I went to the bathroom one day, and I checked to see if anyone was there. There was no one. But, when I was in one of the stalls, I heard the shower curtain close. No one had opened the door because the door makes a really loud sound, and I didn’t hear it. When I got out of the stall, I saw the shower curtain open, but when I went togo wash my hands, I heard it close. I turned around and it was closed. So, I sprinted back to my room. Afterwards, for a couple of weeks, one of my roommates would wake up in the middle of the night staring into the darkness, so me and my other roommate were convinced she was possessed.”

 

 

Ryan Mournighan (sophomore): “My neighbor would put out a giant 20-foot wooden cutout of Sarah Palin every year and that was pretty scary. It was just her head!”

                                                                                    

 



UR Snapshots Vol. 4: Spooktober stories

URochester’s 2026-27 Medical Amnesty Policy now includes student organizations seeking medical help on behalf of their members. The policy says that students, and now student organizations, who reach out for help with substance-related medical emergencies will not suffer consequences for the possession or consumption of alcohol and other drugs in violation of University policy. Read More

UR Snapshots Vol. 4: Spooktober stories

Many people predict the imminent death of journalism, but Nawaz believes that the field will instead evolve with changing times. “Literally every year in my career, someone's talking about the death of journalism,” she said. “And yet, there is more journalism and more news and information content making its way out to people on this planet than at any other time in our history of humankind.” Read More

UR Snapshots Vol. 4: Spooktober stories

Performed at Lynne Lovejoy Parlor in the Memorial Art Gallery, “Dealbreaker” by Lauren Kee is a one woman show about her experience dealing with the social stigma of contracting genital herpes after a one-night stand. Read More