An ETSU webpage titled “Myths & Tales Here” says that the lower level of the B. Carroll Reece Museum is haunted by its namesake. According to an article in “Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture”, Brazilla Carroll Reece (1889 – 1961) was a United States Representative of Tennessee, born in Butler, Tennessee and is buried in Monte Vista Memorial Park in Johnson City, Tennessee.
In Charles Edwin Price’s popular 1992 book on ghost stories Haints, Witches, and Boogers: Tales from Upper East Tennessee, Price says that the eyes which seem to follow passersby from the painting of the buildings namesake, David Sinclair Burleson, are those of his daughter, “Miss” Christine Burleson (1899 – 1967). She was an English professor that, Price writes, shot herself in the head in the 1970s because of a “debilitating illness” that left her wheelchair bound. The seemingly eerie moving eyes of the painting in Burleson Hall are, however, nothing supernatural. As Ohio State University professor of psychology James Todd, PhD reveals on a webpage titled “Study Reveals Why Eyes In Some Paintings Seem To Follow Viewers”, the experience may seem creepy, but it is only our perception that make the eyes seem to move.
An ETSU webpage titled “Myths & Tales Here” explains that former president Burgin E. Dossett occasionally continues to use the elevator after his death. The elevator, the website says, goes to the second floor of Dossett Hall where his office was located even when no one has pushed the button.An ETSU webpage titled “Myths & Tales Here” says that Ada Hornsby Earnest, professor of home economics, moves items around in an upstairs storage room at Earnest House and occasionally people will hear her footsteps.
When Charles Edwin Price published his book Haints, Witches, and Boogers: Tales from Upper East Tennessee in 1992, the ghost of ETSU’s first president Sidney “Uncle Sid” Gilbreath was just a helpful ghost who turned lights out that had been left on, closed doors left open and closed windows when rain approached. Later, as an ETSU webpage titled “Myths & Tales Here” documents:“Sudden appearance of light from an unknown source, strange sounds, and operation of theatre equipment are strange occurrences reported in the Bud Frank Theatre in Gilbreath Hall-but no one is there! Could it be Sidney Gilbreath, the 
An ETSU webpage titled “Myths & Tales Here” claims there is a ghost that enjoys tripping people on the stairs in Hillrise Hall.
An ETSU webpage titled “Myths & Tales Here” claims elevator problems in Lamb Hall are caused by a ghost.When Charles Edwin Price published his book Haints, Witches, and Boogers: Tales from Upper East Tennessee in 1992, the ghost of Mathes Hall was only heard occasionally, walking down hallways. Today, an ETSU webpage titled “Myths & Tales Here” says:“Our music building has unexplained and intense crashing noises-not musical at all! Footsteps and talking, with no one around, aren't musical either! If you are walking through the building at night and hear footsteps behind you, turn around-maybe no one is there. You also might experience cold spots in some classrooms, with no apparent reason. Is someone In his 1993 book I'd Rather Have a Talking Frog: Tales from Johnson City author Charles Edwin Price records some of the paranormal experiences employees have had in Rogers-Stout Hall.On the third floor of Rogers-Stout Hall, a custodian saw the upper half of an anonymous criminal justice student. This is not, however, a reoccurring apparition. On the fourth floor, there seems to be a rock and roll loving ghost. The radio a maintenance woman had with her kept changing stations one evening.An ETSU webpage titled “Myths & Tales Here” says that an androgynous ghost haunts the college radio station in Warf-Pickel Hall.“The radio station originally was in Cooper Hall, demolished in 1984. Subsequently it was moved to the fifth floor, then the first floor of Warf-Pickel Hall. Guess who went with them? Alice! Alice continues her same ole pranks. She even knows how to freeze up computers. The sign over the radio station entrance says ‘Welcome Alice, you can be our ghost The ghost of former Cooper Hall grew up around the image on a stained glass window in the dormitory. Charles Edwin Price wrote about this ghost in Haints, Witches, and Boogers: Tales from Upper East Tennessee and reveals at first students assumed it was the daughter of George L. Carter, the man who donated land for ETSU; they called her Alice. Students even built a tragic story for their resident ghost. They said her father would not let her marry her lover so she committed suicide by ingesting rat poison. Then:“A female voice was heard singing in the halls. There were unearthly screams. Objects moved from their resting places or disappeared completely, only to reappear unexpectedly much later. Some of the girls experienced the eerie feeling that someone or something was peering over their shoulders. Of course, when they turned around, no one was there. Most of these supernatural events occurred in the vicinity of the stained-glass window, which was located at the head of the grand staircase. (Price, pgs. 71 -72)In an unexpected twist, Johnson City historian Ray Stahl, Price continues, discovered that George and his wife Mayetta Carter did not even have a daughter. Their son’s name was James “Jimmy” Walter Carter, who may have been an effeminate young man.Regardless of the spirits true identity, campus radio personalities seem to enjoy the otherworldly presence, even if it does occasionally cause technical difficulties.
An ETSU webpage titled “Myths & Tales Here” claims that students have seen the ghost of a young woman continuously committing suicide. Some students report that a young lady will be seen jumping from a third floor window of Yoakley Hall, but she never hits the ground.
Clement Hall is said to be haunted by two spirits. One is said to be a little boy that plays with marbles and the other is a girl who turns faucets on.The first mention of a spirit in the dormitory appeared as a submission to the resourceful Shadowlands website:“[Clement Hall] is said to be haunted by the ghost of a young boy that died in the elevator. He is known as ‘marble boy’ and can be heard dropping his marbles on the ceilings of every room in the hall. Don’t yell at him to stop or he will drop [all of the] marbles. [He has also been] known to turn TV sets off and on, or change the channel, and to turn on the water faucets. [Two] witnesses reported [that] a bottle of soda went flying through the air for no reason at all.” (The Over the years, the faucets seemingly turning on by themselves were blamed on a second spirit, one called “Sink Girl”:“Good-natured Marble Boy and Sink Girl play in Clement Hall. Marble Boy fell down the elevator while playing marbles. He's still playing. Listen for the marbles rolling across the upper floor. If you find a faucet running in a sink in this The marble-dropping ghost seems to be a motif at a number of North American universities:“Students have told stories about ghostly marbles at a number of different American colleges, including Brown University, the University of North Colorado, Rhode Island School of Design, Trumansburg State University in Missouri, East Tennessee State University, and Binghamton University. Most of the narratives are memorates that describe personal reaction to the sound of marbles overhead late at night . . .” (Tucker, pg. 54)The tragic death of falling down an elevator also seems to be a motif. At East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, in Hawthorne Hall “one spook is that of a young child that fell to its' death down an elevator shaft” (Pennsylvania Haunts & History). And in Fargo, North Dakota, the Northern School Supply Warehouse is said to be “haunted by the ghost of a small boy who fell down the elevator shaft many years ago . . .” (The Shadowlands)
