Senior government and politics major Jon Nowinski had his first supernatural experience in Connecticut 10 years ago. Sophomore letters and sciences major Andrew Buxbaum had his last year in New Jersey. And senior elementary education major Tim Parris had his in Washington Hall, right on the campus.
All three agree – running into ghosts isn’t as fun as Casper made it out to be.
Nowinski, Buxbaum and Parris represent a growing number of college students who believe in aspects of the supernatural, according to a study done by Bryan Farha of Oklahoma City University and Gary Steward Jr. of the University of Central Oklahoma. Specifically, the survey found as students progress through their college and graduate school years, more come to believe in paranormal concepts – 23 percent of freshmen, compared to 31 percent of seniors and 34 percent of graduate students.
And the number of students who are “not sure” is also rising, signaling a decrease in students who definitely “don’t believe,” the study found.
In a detailed description of their findings in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, Farha and Steward wrote, “As people attain higher college-education levels, the likelihood of believing in paranormal dimensions increases.” Their study was modeled after a 2001 Gallup poll that found younger Americans believe more readily in aspects of the paranormal than older members of the population.
Wanting to believe
Many people deceive themselves by believing in the supernatural without any form of substantial scientific evidence, said Chip Denman, a university statistician and founding member of the National Capital Area Skeptics organization.
“All of us, no matter what our background, no matter how much our education, have the capacity to fool ourselves,” Denman said. “We’re imperfect reasoners.”
Perhaps this helps explain why the Ghostbusters Facebook group boasts 51 members, rumors of haunted dorms and buildings abound and students who “just want to believe” such as Fox Mulder cite religion, direct experiences with ghosts and scientific research as contributors to their faith.
For senior information systems major Jeremiah Abot, his Christian faith and Filipino heritage combined to cement his belief in the supernatural at an early age. While Abot doesn’t believe in ghosts as “transparent creatures that walk in haunted houses,” he does believe in other aspects of the paranormal, he said.
“I believe the Biblical description of what ‘supernatural’ is, and according to Biblical beliefs, if a demon wants to do something on Earth, it has to possess a physical body,” Abot said.
Although freshman video art major Whitney Schepf isn’t religious, she – like Abot – has always believed in ghosts.
“It’s just something that’s always been in the back of my mind,” she said. “No other explanation.”
Although some students have believed in ghosts from childhood, Buxbaum and Parris were nonbelievers until personal experiences with what they considered to be supernatural forces, they said.
For Buxbaum, skepticism changed to firm belief last year while on a trip to New Jersey.
“It was late one night, and we were driving down a dark street,” he said. “Houses down from where we parked, we saw a ghost. For a second, it looked like an old lady in really bad light because it was pale, but then it started moving and it was moving too fast and unnaturally to be human. After that night, I’m a firm believer because there was no other possible explanation for what we saw.”
Parris’ first experience with the supernatural also changed his beliefs – but his encounter occurred in Washington Hall, he said.
“Chalk it up to paranoia, but last year, I lived in one of the dorms that everybody says is haunted, and I was just lying in bed one night when I got slapped on my leg, and my roommate was gone, and I just freaked out,” Parris said. “It took me a while to calm down from that – apparently the room I was in was the room Len Bias died in.”
Legendary basketball player Bias overdosed on cocaine in 1986 in Washington Hall, but it is unknown whether Parris’ room was Bias’.
Nevertheless, Parris’ opinions on the supernatural changed after that night, and he hopes science will one day substantiate his belief, he said.
“I just think we all want to believe in something more than there is,” he said. “We just want to believe that when we die we have somewhere other to go [than] just into the ground.”
Ghost hunter
While other students explain their beliefs through religion and first-hand experiences, Nowinski uses what he considers to be scientific research, he said.
After a friend’s death in 1996, Nowinski had his first encounter with a “manifestation,” and the experiences have continued ever since, he said. To date, he has had five direct experiences with what he considers to be ghosts, he said.
“I’ve had a couple of experiences where things have happened that I can’t explain, and something inside me tells me that it’s more than just nothing,” Nowinski said.
Nowinski’s experiences and interests in technology, science and research led him to join a federally funded nonprofit organization that investigates paranormal phenomena in New England. He has been a member of the team since 1997.
The organization participates in 500 to 800 investigations a year, using cameras, audio recorders and thermal imaging to document evidence of ghosts or other supernatural beings, he said. Nearly 20 percent of the investigations document anomalies, Nowinski said.
Although his direct experiences with ghosts were life-changing, Nowinski credits his research with providing hard evidence for his beliefs, he said.
“As far as my research, it’s just really made me feel stronger,” he said. “You know, I’ve heard from hundreds of other people, and I’ve had the opportunity to go to places that are supposedly haunted, and I just come away with it thinking, ‘Not all these people can be crazy.'”
Sometimes, there is no answer
While students readily admitted their faith in the supernatural, far fewer of the campus faculty and administrators said they believed in ghosts.
Although university archivist Ann Turkos “firmly” believes, university President Dan Mote said he would not describe himself as a “ghost-believer,” and neither would Dean Stephen Halperin of the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences or Associate Dean Robert L. Infantino Jr. of the College of Chemical and Life Sciences.
Denman doubts either personal experiences or paranormal investigation teams would ever produce enough research to prove the supernatural, he said.
“I do think people are being deceived – I think people will very often encounter something they don’t have a full understanding of and leap to a supernatural explanation,” Denman said. “In my opinion, that’s an easy way out. We always want to have an answer, have some closure, but science teaches us sometimes we have to say we don’t know.”
Contact reporter Roxana Hadadi at roxanadbk@gmail.com.
