9. Ghosts were reported at The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York
The United States Military Academy serves as the home for nearly 4,300 cadets and a large staff which shares the living, training, and recreational facilities with at least a half dozen ghosts. The Superintendent’s house, known as Quarters 100, has long been reported to be haunted by the families of the superintendent and by visitors. In the fall of 1972 five members of Company G-4 of the Corps of Cadets reported encountering paranormal activity, and submitted a written report. One of the encounters included seeing an apparition “dressed in a worn full dress gray coat” sitting on a toilet seat, carrying a Civil War vintage musket and bayonet. Later the apparition was spotted by several cadets in their room, where the image evidently lowered the temperature by absorbing the heat from the room.
Skeptical senior cadets and officers spent the night in the room, increasing in rank as each reported similar strange encounters, until it was decided to lock up the room rather than assign it to other cadets. The sudden appearance of the ghost, if that is what it was, was explained in several theories. One was that a recent séance held by paranormal experts in the superintendent’s house had caused it to flee those quarters, another held that a nearby abandoned cemetery had been the source of the wraith. Yet another ghost is said to reside in the basement of the superintendent’s house, that of a maid for Brigadier General Sylvanus Thayer during the early nineteenth century. At Halloween the cadets hold contests for the honor of spending the night in the locked room.