The BUHS Ghost Project

I’m sure you’ve heard it all before – the haunted boiler room, lockers slamming open and closed, shadowy figures at the end of hallways. All of this comes with your entry to Bishop Union High School, almost as an initiation to the four years to come. Ghost stories at BUHS are popular, encouraged and whispered among freshman students scared out of their lives. For students like Grace Griego, these stories were simply myths conjured up to scare students, for Jordan Kost, he would simply try not to believe it to “not freak [himself] out”, and for students like me, Jeniffer Velazquez, these stories were both terrifying and intriguing. Armed with an infrared camera, matches, a blanket, and two witty teachers, we set off on the 14th of October on an adventure around our school – to see if these stories are truly real or absolutely fake.

Our adventure began at around 10:30 pm. Our first stop was the English building, where we “set up camp” and recorded any strange happenings with our phone’s voice recorders and the camera. About five minutes into asking questions through the silence, we heard a sound of a slamming locker at the end of the hallway. The sound was accurately recorded and picked up on the recorder and camera.
“I thought it was Mr. Palu,” Grace says of the incident. “I don’t know what it was.”
At the time of the sound, Grace was unafraid and brushed the noise off as not paranormal, however both Jordan and I were freaked out of our minds.
Our next stop was the boiler room, one of the most reportedly haunted locations on campus. Jordan describes the boiler room that night as “creepy…just like creepy and eerie. It’s kinda crazy that it used to keep the school warm.”
I was in charge of asking any spirits questions, then we would stay silent so any replies would be easily caught on the audio. However, we did not receive any feedback. On many occasions, in the boiler room and other locations, I felt sudden chills when my partners did not. I can assume that it is due to the fact that I was the only one asking the questions, and therefore spirits were more attracted to me, but that is simply a theory. I felt very relaxed in the boiler room, and we did not have any incidents.
We heard a rumor that if you lit a match in the auditorium, you would hear noises due to the fact that a fire occurred there many years ago. I was in charge or striking it and asking more questions, which gave me more chills than ever. We lit a total of three – two of which burned out on their own. The first got too close to my hand and would likely burn me, the second burned out as I was walking towards the front of the room, the third burned out on its own when I was standing still and asking questions. we heard shuffling noises from the third floor about four times, then the last match burned out. I felt more terrified than ever, since that meant the spirits were closer to me than anyone else. My chills were over the top. I took this opportunity to ask more questions, but I was finally ready to leave the auditorium.
We spent the rest of the night exploring the school with no more creepy incidents. It was both relieving and disappointing, but luckily we did not run into an angry poltergeist. Jordan has said that although nothing really happened on the hunt, he would “never do something like that again.” However, I have one last thing to say before I set off on my Halloween adventures tonight: I will never forget the chills and blown out flames in the auditorium.

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