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This Issue 10/27/2005

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• Sangria Savvy
• The sexy Origins of Halloween
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As a work-study student in the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Wharton senior Greg Bryda had never given ghosts much thought before the time of his first "encounter."

One day in November, 2004, Greg was given high-security access to the subbasement, where the museum's unused artifacts are kept. His job was to vacuum a row of newly-stored South American canoes. When he reached the third canoe, he realized that the vacuum cleaner wouldn't turn on. As he began to investigate the problem, he heard "an audible scratching noise." Though he'd been sure he was alone, he first assumed that there must be an intruder. He peered down the rows and there "it" was: "a silhouette walking from right to left ... it was a person." Next came the noise, the sound of clay pots or dishes hitting the floor, or as Greg recalls, "a dull shattering." A disturbing unease settled over him. "I literally felt the hairs stand up on my arm," he says. "It was a strange, out-of-body experience."

Terrified by the shadowy figure and unusual sounds, Greg ran to get security. He and a team then scoured the basement for an intruder, or, at the very least, the shards of the clay pots he'd heard shatter. But when they found nothing, the guards never questioned Greg's sanity; instead, their suspicions turned to the paranormal. Greg, previously unaware of the folklore of the so-called "subbasement ghost," had suddenly been inducted into the museum's supernatural history. "You can call me crazy," he says, "but I know what I saw ... and there was no one down there."

There are definitely spirits moving around, I can feel it," says Marla Schenck, the security guard at the Penn Museum whom Greg first alerted after his subbasement run-in. "You got a lot of dead things here," she continues. The subbasement, as many facilities workers will gladly recount, has been the site of several bizarre incidents they believe to be the work of a ghost network within the museum.

Plenty of employees share Schenck's sentiment and many have their own stories. In fact, the whole museum seems fascinated by the the hauntings, the spirits, the ghosts and other unclassified, paranormal activity. These tales are written into Penn's oral folklore, and they continue to surface.

The facilities workers and security guards, like the ones who suggested that Greg Bryda's subbasement companion had been paranormal, are the primary keepers of this strange community lore. Mostly long-term employees who have spent 10, 20 or even 30 years perusing the museum at night, they are happy to share the strange stories that color the museum's 125-year-old past.