By: Madeline Alvarez, Managing Editor
With Halloween right around the corner, now is the perfect time for spooky stories, and members of NU’s security office have a few to tell.
Director of Security Morris Floyd, who came to Newman in 2015, said that his first three years on the job passed without experiencing anything potentially related to another realm.
But then one day in February 2018, he saw a shadow move down the hallway in Sacred Heart Hall.
According to his blog, he “saw a large black mass move down the IT hallway located on the 1st floor of Sacred Heart and turn the corner to the right at the Mail & Copy door.”
Floyd said this first encounter was the only time he’s seen something that could have been something supernatural. Since then, he said, he has mostly heard spooky noises.
He said he once heard what he thought were people playing a record and talking on the south end of the second floor hallway in Sacred Heart. He was at the north end of the hallway and started to move towards the noise to investigate, but at a certain point the sound stopped. Floyd said he never heard this noise again. But two days later a third shift security guard came into Floyd’s office and sat down.
“He said, ‘You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but…’ And the exact same thing happened to him,” Floyd said.
Another time, Floyd said, he heard footsteps on the stairs in Sacred Heart.
“I really thought Father Adam was coming in one morning because it was just so plain and loud that I thought he was just getting the snow off his shoes or something,” he said. “And I looked down and there was not a soul down there.”
Floyd said the most recent encounter with the unknown happened Monday night. An employee in the Mabee Dining Center had told Floyd a few weeks ago that strange things had been happening in the cafeteria. Floyd said the employee told him that she would set something down and when she’d go back for it later, it wouldn’t be there. Then she would find it in a different spot from where she’d left it. She also kept seeing things out of the corner of her eye, and one time an object had fallen off the counter when no one was around it.
Security officer Josh Clark said he was doing rounds around 11:15 p.m. on Monday in the dining center when he saw a girl sitting in the corner.
He looked around a corner in a closed-off area of the Mabee Dining Center and turned to leave, but quickly turned back when he realized he had seen a girl sitting there. When he looked again, the figure was gone, but he said he remembers what the girl looked like.
“She had about shoulder length, dark blonde/light brown hair,” Clark said. “Kind of dressed like a tomboyish type, like almost a flannel button up shirt.”
Floyd and Clark said they have many other encounters they could share. But if you want to have the chance to experience Newman spooks for yourself, you can get in touch with the security office and ask to go on rounds in the early morning with either of these two security guards.
“You’re welcome to walk through with me and just just keep your eyes open and see what happens,” Floyd said.
PHOTO: Courtesy Photo, University Relations
