By ANDREA LOPEZ
Features Editor

(WARRENSBURG, Mo., digitalBURG) — Halloween may be over, but that doesn’t mean scary moments are. UCM was recently featured on a blog about the “20 Paranormal Places in Central Missouri You Must See Before You Die.”

PHOTO BY BRANDON BOWMAN / PHOTO EDITOR
UCM was recently featured in a blog about the “20 Paranormal Places in Central Missouri to See Before You Die.” Yeater Hall has been in the middle of all the talk.

From the flickering lights at night to the unexplainable white figure roaming around, Yeater Hall has been amid the gossip.

BLT, a blog for lifestyle and travel, featured UCM after hearing multiple stories from people who have experienced not so normal activity on campus. Stories of strange happenings include a student who was said to have hanged himself in Hawkins Hall and the ghost of Sarah, a pregnant student who was thought to have committed suicide, according to the blog.

Liz Ellis, editor of the BLT, who actually attended UCM herself, said an interesting fact about Missouri is that three-quarters of the universities in the state are said to be haunted.

“Nearly all of the universities had a haunted dorm – hardly any had an actual classroom which was haunted,” she said. “Most of them actually had multiple haunted dorms – I guess ghosts come in groups?”

Also on the list are University of Missouri – Kansas City, Park University, Lindenwood University and Stephens College.

But when it came to uniqueness, Ellis said UCM stood out because it had the only haunted dorm on their list that was closed to the public.

“When I attended the university, the bottom floors were open and students lived there, but the third floor was closed except on Halloween when they took tours,” she said. “It was officially closed for electrical reasons, but most people on campus agreed the hauntings probably didn’t make that decision hard.”

During her time as a student at UCM, Ellis recalls one particular time that she had a spooky encounter.

“I remember leaving Houts-Hosey dorm by the back door and walking down the sidewalk which goes past Todd and Yeater, and seeing a white figure standing on the very top floor, in the attic of the building,” she said. “It was a little blurry, and I couldn’t tell what it was, but when I looked around to find someone who could maybe tell me I wasn’t crazy, it was gone. I’m pretty convinced it was Laura Yeater, who was said to haunt the building.”

While that may have scared her, Ellis said men are the ones who have more commonly felt unwelcome in Yeater, as it was an all-girls dorm.

Hannah Ott, junior nursing major and former community advisor in Yeater Hall, could vouch the same feelings.

“Guys tend to not like being in there and get really uncomfortable,” Ott said. “Even with my boyfriend, he’s always felt uneasy. I know that some people, they would say that they would get scratches on them, not anything severe, just because if they were doing something they shouldn’t be doing with a girl, hurting them or anything, they would feel it.”

Whether students are fairly new or familiar to the school and its stories of hauntings, Yeater Hall remains a mystery to visitors, students, faculty and staff who walk campus.