Paranormal Activity at Whitney Young: Is This School Haunted?

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This is an image of the locker. This image may or may not be cursed. View at your own risk.

Alec Thomas

Screams in the maze. Eerie lights at Skinner Park. For years, Whitney Young students have been perplexed by mysterious events taking place at the school,with many of these events having no rational explanation for their occurrence. With 43 years of history under its belt, it’s no surprise that Whitney Young has had its share of strange paranormal encounters. Three years ago, self-proclaimed ‘paranormal investigator’ Alec Thomas ‘19 made it his goal to get to the bottom of this spooky mystery, but with very little success. The mysterious events continue to take placeespecially now, as we get closer and closer to Halloween, the spookiest day of the year.

It all started in June of Alec’s Freshman year when he and a few friends were looking through lockers that had been cleared out of students’ possessions. Most of the lockers were empty. However, what Alec found in one of the lockers heavily implies that something supernatural, and possibly even sinister may be going on here at Whitney Young; what appeared to be a ceramic pig/dog’s head hanging above a pile of discarded ‘Sweet 16’ Birthday Party invitations, with a series of mysterious stains on the interior of the locker. According to Alec, “This is obviously an amateur’s attempt at creating a portal to another dimension, and may be one of the things responsible for all the mysterious events occurring here.” Unfortunately, the locker in question can no longer be accessed, as it was one of the old lockers which have since been replaced by the new blue ones.

Not surprisingly, the locker situation is only the tip of the iceberg. Several Whitney Young students have either witnessed or heard about paranormal events taking place. Kate McNamara ‘19 said that there is a ghost in the Little Theater in the Arts Building. “[The ghost manifests] when set [crew] is cleaning up, and everyone else has left, the large iron door will slam, and then when anyone goes to check [for the source of the slam], no one will be there.” Tadzio Kurka ‘19 claims he saw a “mysterious fog” coming from one of the stalls in a boys’ bathroom.

While these claims may seem ‘reasonable’ (by the standards of this article’s subject matter), other accounts are just downright bizarre. Justin Villaseñor ‘20 told the story of how he encountered the ghost of Michelle Obama, and how she encouraged him to study. The accuracy of this story is greatly disputed as former First Lady and Whitney Young alum Michelle Obama is still alive. Avery Norman ‘19 has been puzzled by a pair of shoes that always reside in one of the girls’ bathrooms on the second floor of the Academic Building. She said, “The shoes never leave the stall, and they have been there since the beginning of last year…maybe someone or something lives there…!?” The fact that she didn’t just allude to someone, but something, raises the possibility that the stall may be home to a being not of this world…or maybe someone just left their shoes in the stall and forgot about them, but the possibility of having extraterrestrial beings living in the school is more exciting.

There is even a possibility that the odd events plaguing Whitney Young may be the subject of a highly classified government investigation. Alexis Ramirez ‘19 shared his belief that the seemingly innocent ‘Penske’ semi trucks seen around the city may actually be government surveillance vehicles in disguise. “Start counting the Penske trucks you see on a daily basis- you’ll find that there is an odd amount of them,” he said in an interview. Maybe the government has noticed all the mysterious events taking place here at Whitney Young and has sent their agents to investigate.

Regardless of whether you believe in the existence of the supernatural, or the existence of confirmation bias, no one can deny that some pretty interesting events have taken place over the past couple of years at this school. Whenever you are inside Whitney Young, be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary, especially as Halloween quickly approaches.

What do you think? Is Whitney Young actually haunted, or is the author of this article just a conspiracy theorist being driven by several layers of confirmation bias?