Room 428 in Ohio University

The only known case where an American university has sealed a dorm was room 428 in Wilson Hall of Ohio University.

The building has been the focus of spiritualists for a while from being built on top of an unmarked burial ground and is positioned in the middle of a pentagram between several more in the area.

The Student Deaths

Back in the 1970s, a male student lost their life in room 428. Strangely, nobody could seem to agree on the actual circumstances of the death so accounts vary. One thing they did agree on was it was very… unusual.

A few years later a second female student chose the room for the energy she felt as she practiced occult work. This student also died in a strange event where nobody seemed to quite agree on what happened however, some other students from the dorm have claimed that the student told them she was communing with the dead.

One thing the accounts do agree on was both events were violent and angry but the paranormal activity in room 428 didn’t stop there.

Other students who stayed in the room would report objects flying across the room angrily and whispers that would quickly turn into shouting when they were ignored.

Some reported seeing the face of the female student who had lost her life in the room and apparently not been able to leave.

The Demonic Face

As the university continued to ignore the reports of spiritual activity in the room there’s one thing they couldn’t ignore. Demonic faces kept appearing on the door, scratched angrily into the grain of the wood.

At first, the university assumed it was student vandalism and kept replacing the door but the tortured faces kept appearing immediately each time.

As the reports continued to come in and students continued to transfer out of the room – eventually the university just sealed room 428 shut where it has remained closed to students.

Students to this very day still talk about the unexplained footsteps they hear coming from inside the room at night.

The Cemetery

Ohio University gets more ghost stories than any other university in the country. Wilson Hall itself rests on a cemetery but the history of the area isn’t clear if it was Native American or those from the Athens Mental Institute.

Back in 1874, the Mental Medical Center (then called the Athens Lunatic Asylum) opened its doors in the area.

For many years, the patients of the institute enjoyed a peaceful atmosphere complete with fountains and gardens. As the asylum gradually became overran with patients, the quality of the institution plummeted into the dark ages. The doctors and staff grew cold and temperamental with their charges.

Difficult or unruly patients were punished with icy cold dunks in tubs of water; electroshock therapies became the norm.

The wildest or unmanageable patients underwent a procedure called a lobotomy, permanently destroying their already broken or misfiring minds.

With that grim history, this might explain why the events surrounding room 428 are so turbulent.