Illinois College

Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois is said to be haunted by the evil and malevolent spirit of a faceless man they call “The Grey Ghost”.

Illinois College was founded in 1829. Years ago, there was a medical building on the campus and they say cadavers were secretly stored on the upper floor. Legend has it that the medical students here were not actually supposed to have real corpses. They stole the dead bodies from local hospitals and cemeteries and kept them secreted away in the building. The corpses were hidden in the attic until the stench of decaying flesh alerted college officials to their presence.

According to the stories, the attic of the building was later converted into dorm rooms, but they were closed when too many strange things started to happening to the students who lived there. They say, it is impossible to find someone who will spend the night in the building now.

At night, they would hear doors slamming, the lights would constantly turn on and off and toilets in the hall often flushed by themselves. Ghostly footsteps could distinctly be heard moving from one room to another. Often, knocking sounds were heard coming from the other side of the wall, even though there was nothing there. Some students even reported seeing objects flying about in their rooms.

One night, a girl was leaving a party had to retrieve something from the dorm. She started climbing the curved staircase, but as she reached the middle, she looked up to the top landing and saw a man standing there. He was all dressed in gray and he just stood there motionless, staring down at her. As she peered a little closer into the darkness, she realized that the man had no face! She began screaming and ran back down the staircase and out of the building.

When the girl told her friends what she had seen, they searched the building, but nothing was found. Ever since then the faceless man has been seen in numerous locations on campus. He is known only as the “Gray Ghost”.

Some years ago, in Crampton Hall, a student left a party one night. Later, he was found dead, hanging in his closet. His hands were bound behind his back and it was quickly determined that he wouldn’t have been able to hang himself. His killer was never found.

A few years later, a student didn’t show up for a meeting and his friends got tired of waiting for him. They went looking for him and found him in his closet. He was hanging there, naked and upside-down, with his hands tied behind his back. The student was still alive but he was so terrified that he was incoherent.

The student had no idea what had happened to him. He said that he had lived in the building for one semester and “would never live there again”. That night, he fell asleep with his lights on but was awakened by a noise. When he looked up, he saw a faceless man dressed in gray. The man seemed to be just standing there looking at him. The man quickly turned and vanished into the closet.

That same night, several students were awakened by muffled voices and saw a gray man standing over their beds, who would turn and disappeared through the wall. The strange gray man has never been identified.