Local landmarks and the ghost stories surrounding them continue to intrigue residents, visitors, and paranormal investigators
With the Halloween season upon us, anyone seeking a real-life ghost story won’t have to look far given Centre County’s well-documented history of hauntings and other unexplained and potentially paranormal phenomena.
From spooky study areas around Penn State’s University Park campus to Victorian mansions in Bellefonte that allegedly still host the spirits of long-deceased residents, the region is rife with locations that have attracted interest from paranormal investigators. In fact, this interest led to the formation of Penn State’s Paranormal Research Society in 2001, a student club that would eventually become the focus of “Paranormal State,” a popular reality television series that aired on A&E from 2007 to 2011.
Ryan Buell, the club’s founder and one of the stars of “Paranormal State,” spoke about some of the encounters he and his team had while investigating buildings on campus.
“Pattee Library was one of the most active places I had experienced,” says Buell. “We would constantly hear from people sharing their stories about stuff that happened to them, both students and staff who felt uncomfortable in certain areas — like they were being watched or almost like they were prey. Some people even saw a black shadowy mask that would move around.”
Speculation that the library holds some dark secret is compounded by the fact that a graduate student, Betsy Aardsma, was murdered in the building in a 1969 case that remains unsolved to this day.
Just a short walk away from the library sits Schwab Auditorium, a location that some say is visited by the ghost of former university trustee and the building’s namesake, Charles Schwab. Others claim that George Atherton’s presence can be felt in the auditorium, given that the former Penn State president is buried just feet away on Pollock Road.
“We investigated Schwab a couple times,” says Buell, “and when I or one of my investigators were alone in the bathroom, we usually felt something in there with us. I was also up in the attic once and literally heard a chair scrape across the floor.”
For Buell, the activity in these buildings pales in comparison to what his team uncovered about Old Botany, one of the oldest structures on campus alongside Old Main.
“I would say it’s the most active that I’ve ever had experienced, especially in the basement. We brought in investigators from all over the country, and several of them would make contact with something down there. I’ll never forget some of the staff members telling stories about how they would open up in the morning and they could hear someone walking around upstairs. One woman thought someone broke into the building, so she locked herself in a room downstairs. Something followed her down there and tried to open the door, but the building had key card access and she knew nobody else could possibly be inside at that time.”
Though “Paranormal State” has been off the air for years, Buell still travels the country to investigate hauntings, and he shares updates via his Instagram, @theryanbuell. Recently, he returned to school to pursue a career in counseling, and today he works as a licensed therapist who occasionally uses his knowledge of the supernatural to assist his patients.
“While filming the show, in a way I was operating as a sort of interventionist or a therapist without a license,” says Buell. “And we would bring actual therapists or psychologists on board, but a lot of them were afraid to do it publicly. I wanted to merge those two worlds and so today I work with patients for OCD, military, men’s health issues, but also the paranormal. Still in the year 2026, talking about a haunting and how it’s impacted you is still a little uncomfortable and taboo. I found that a lot of people are afraid to open up to their therapists about it because they think they’ll be institutionalized, so you’ve got a lot of people who are in therapy settings that are leaving out an entire chunk of their story and that’s something I’m trying to advocate for.”
While Buell is no longer based in Centre County, other investigators are still shining a light on local ghost stories. Steven Mason, a 20-year Army retiree, came to the State College area after his last duty assignment was Penn State ROTC. He already had an interest in the paranormal, and a chance encounter led to that interest growing into something more serious.
“I got a state job working as a vet rep, and in one of my local offices a lady I work with had a picture of one of the most like well-known haunted locations in America, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia,” says Mason. “Her brother turned out to be a big paranormal investigator. I didn’t know anyone to go ghost hunting with, so I got his number and then one thing led to another.”
Mason, alongside Keith Snyder and Bryan Conyers, now stars in a YouTube series called “The Ghost Investigators,” available to watch at youtube.com/@TheGhostInvestigatorsGIs. The team has investigated many locations around Central Pennsylvania, including Bellefonte.
“We made a whole series just on Bellefonte alone. The most haunted locations in my opinion are the Great Mish Mosh, the Elks Lodge, and the Reynolds Mansion,” explains Mason.
The Reynolds Mansion, constructed in 1885, is a historic building that now serves as a bed and breakfast. Based on Mason’s experiences, the building may occasionally host more than just vacationers looking for a cozy getaway.
“We set up a static camera in Mrs. Reynolds’ room, and at 10:15 [p.m.] on the dot, we caught an apparition appearing right next to the bed. It takes four steps forward and disappears right as it’s about to enter the bathroom door. It’s not fully formed, but it’s definitely enough that anybody who wouldn’t even believe in ghost stuff would watch this video and be like ‘oh my god.’”
Mason’s team has also captured compelling evidence in the Great Mish Mosh, an antique shop that features a collection of vintage jewelry, furniture, and more. The building, located at 128 S. Allegheny St., also once served as the town’s morgue.
“It was a funeral parlor upstairs and the morgue was downstairs in the basement, so my partner was down there, and they have this old coal chute. We had a camera at the end of it looking down the coal chute and he was standing in front, and he said, ‘man, I just feel like something is spying on me,’ and he turns around and looks down the coal chute, and as he turns back and looks in the camera, there is without a doubt a figure coming out of the corner, forming into this human shape. As soon as he starts to turn back around again, it darts back into the corner. That’s one of those pieces of evidence that we captured that you don’t have to believe in the paranormal to believe your eyes.”
The Ghost Investigators have also spent time in the Bellefonte Elks Lodge, a building that was once the home of Andrew Curtin, who served as the state’s governor during the Civil War. Here, they had an encounter tied to the building’s long history.
“We were downstairs in the bar area, and we have this device called a spirit box which is a modified radio that sweeps channels at an extremely fast rate, so all you hear is little blips of sound as it’s going from one station to the next. There’s a theory that spirits are able to manipulate sound waves to respond to questions, so you ask a question and then you get an audible answer through this radio. So we said, ‘who stays up on the third floor of the Elks Lodge,’ and we heard a voice clearly say Thomas Wilson. We had no idea who that was, so we found the original deed to the building from Governor Curtin, and the name on the deed was Thomas Wilson.”
As for why Centre County may be home to so many haunted locations, Buell and Mason each have a theory.
“One idea is that old locations have a lot of history to them and a kind of the energy that stays around, but then certain things can multiply that energy,” says Mason. “If the foundation of the community, like under the ground, is limestone, it can hold energy. And some people say that water is a conductor of this energy that fuels everything. On the flip side, you can go to some towns and nothing’s haunted.”
While Mason pointed out that finding scientific explanations has been a recent focus in the paranormal community, Buell offers a slightly more emotional reason for why ghosts may be lingering around State College.
“One of the things I heard consistently from psychic mediums is that State College’s energy is really ramped up,” says Buell. “If you think about it, State College is not a normal town. A big group of people come in, and it’s kind of transient. Even in life, we gravitate towards the energy of certain people or locations. State College is special to all of us, right? Maybe that’s also true in the spirit world — certain spirits want to hang around State College or Penn State because of the special connection they formed to those places. Maybe the hauntings are just some alumni who can’t let go.” T&G
Matt Farley is a freelance writer in State College.
