Sandburg’s North Tower is haunted.

Sounds like an urban legend, right? That’s what I thought, too, until a ghost showed up in my room.

The ghost first made his presence known when the hanging bookshelf in my dorm room suddenly fell. Another day, while I discussed this ghostly issue on the phone, everything on my bookshelf fell off.

Since then, our coffeemaker and TV randomly turn on. Our curtains and door handles rattle, even when the windows aren’t open. The microwave in our house lounge turns on by itself.

And it’s not just our room. Casey Thompson, who lives on the fifteenth floor, says, “The bathroom door never fully shuts, but on occasion, he [the ghost] closes it while I’m in the shower. Also, I came here with eight pairs of Hanes socks. Six of them are now gone.” Michael Bartell also had a paranormal experience.

“At night time when I try to sleep, my door shakes uncontrollably,” Bartell says. “The lounge TV is also on at random times with nobody around. In the wee hours of the morning, there‘s strange banging coming from the ceiling.”

Apparently, the ghost likes the 15/16 house, and several resident assistants claim they don’t like walking that house late at night because it gives them a creepy feeling. My own RA, though he claims he’s a nonbeliever, even seemed a little creeped out when we brought our accounts to him.

According to Haunted Places (http://theshadowlands.net), “There have been many incidents in North Tower. On the G2 level there is occasionally mysterious squeaking coming through the concrete floors, objects are known to move independently.”

So, who is this mysterious visitor, and why is he (or she) here? The obvious guess would be Carl Sandburg, the man the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s residence halls are named after. Sandburg, a Swedish-American writer, historian and journalist, lived in Milwaukee from 1907 until 1912. He was born in 1878 in Galesburg, Ill., and died in 1967 in Flat Rock, N.C. Sandburg adored Milwaukee, and said in the “Wisconsin Academy Review” in 1988: “Ah, Milwaukee, I got my bearings there. The rest of my life has been the unrolling of a scene that started up in Wisconsin.” Milwaukee was where he met his beloved wife Lillian, and perhaps this is where he remains.

Other theories as to who the ghost is are slightly more gruesome and relate to the multiple suicides that have happened in the North Tower.

Regardless of whom the spirit belongs to, the ghost, who we fondly refer to as “Nort,” made his or her presence be known — and made a lasting impression on many North Tower residents.

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