“Wanna go up?”
With a firm push, Corporal Justin Lunn of University of Denver Campus Safety opens the hatch door. It makes a loud screech that echoes through the old brick tower, and the rickety spiral staircase we’re climbing vibrates through my hands, which are nervously gripping the railings.
“Watch your head right here,” he warns me. “You actually have to squeeze through a bit. And watch your lower back, too.”
We pull ourselves up through the narrow opening and arrive on top of Mary Reed, one of the oldest buildings at DU and a staple of the campus.
“Now we’re way up here,” he says.
It’s 1 a.m. on a Wednesday night, and we’re looking for ghosts. Various claims of paranormal activity have surfaced over the years at DU, and Lunn and I are standing on top of the very building where almost all of those claims have been made. Believe it or not, major media outlets such as the Denver Post and 9 News have reported on the possibility of ghosts at DU, giving the stubbornest of non-believers a chance to allow the topic some further consideration.
Even Lunn says he can’t quite rule anything out yet.
“I’m definitely open to the possibility of them [ghostly encounters] happening,” he says. “Especially because so many stories are out there and they’re not very explainable. It definitely catches my interest.”
Lunn has heard some serious stories that explain his open mindedness on the topic. And despite the major media coverage of just Mary Reed, he says most of the paranormal action he’s heard about occurred in the Iliff School of Theology.
“At least half of the officers don’t like going in there,” he says while gazing at the building in the dark of night. “At least a couple of them have said books fell off the shelves and that they heard strange ruffling noises. One of our corporals last year also said he saw some sort of black, shadowy entity behind him in a mirror so he turned around and there was nothing behind him. He called it quits with that building after that.”
Another story of Lunn’s recounts a group of students who got spooked in the basement of Mary Reed.
“They [the students] were transferring some books and files from Margery Reed to here in the basement. There were probably 50 volunteer students moving everything and something happened down there that made them not want to come back and do it after that trip. Now, you’d think if it only happened to a couple people, at least a good half of that group would stay and actually finish the job. But all 50 didn’t want to come back.”
Denver historian and former professor at Auraria Higher Education Center, Phil Goodstein, has some insight to share as well. He leads ghost tours all over the Mile-High City and sheds light on the hard history behind the many ghostly claims. But even he is a self-proclaimed “total skeptic,” who just sees this topic as an opportunity for business.
“I do not believe in them [ghosts]. Basically what simply happened was, about 25 years ago, I was approached to do a Halloween haunted house tour. It was amazingly successful and still tends to be quite successful. And hearing that there is a demand for ghost stories, I set out to tell them more or less reflecting what is the lore, what is the legacy of the unity,” he says. “Things are more than what they appear to be. And it is always necessary to look behind the surfaces and question everything. Particularly what your professors tell you.”
Lunn and I head back through the hatch, and down the rickety spiral staircase. After an hour and a half of wandering through every room in Mary Reed, we call it a night and say our goodbyes.
I don’t know if there are ghosts at DU. I also don’t know if there are ghosts at all. But I didn’t think I’d ever stand on top of Mary Reed getting to know a Campus Safety officer in the middle of the night. So I’m going to keep an open mind because clearly anything is possible.
