PNW Paranormal Club members are convinced the university is haunted.
Club advisor Matt Dudzik, whose day job is assistant athletic director for Facilities and Recreational Sports, never believed in ghosts. But he admits that some things are just hard to explain.
“Back when we only had one housing building, a student that came from Brazil accused her roommate of stealing her stuff,” he said. “A lot of her stuff would go missing from her closet and weeks later they would reappear.
“Her roommate left for the weekend and her stuff was still going missing. One of those nights she had heard someone call her name and when she woke up she saw a man in a trench coat standing at the edge of her bed,” said Dudzik. “After she screamed it disappeared.”
“There are some things you can explain,” he said. “But after starting to do this more often there is some of it you cannot explain. There is something there.”
Last year, the Paranormal Club was organized to look into such things – and explore spooky sites around the Region.
The club then acquired some ghost-hunting equipment. Its spirit box is a radio that scans multiple frequencies to search out electronic voice phenomena – or ghostly communications. Its REM-pod is a kind of electronic early warning system that is supposed to identify when a disturbing energy approaches.
“With a spirit box what you have to do is plug in a pair of headphones and put them on while someone else asks questions,” said Dudzik. “With the headphones on you can’t hear what’s being asked, all you can do is say what you hear. A lot of the time it lines up which is kind of creepy.
“The REM-pod will detect temperature changes and movement,” he said. “Anything that passes it, it will detect.”
The organization has found there is a lot of paranormal activity on the Hammond campus. And different buildings have their own stories.
“SULB is the most active that we have noticed,” said Dudzik. “One time we were in one of the conference rooms and the door started shaking. The one name that came up on the spirit box was Russ, who was also associated with evil.”
