These 7 Haunted Schools Have Some Of The Most Bone-Chilling Backstories In The World

NUMBER ONE: TAT TAK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Location: Hong Kong

Tat Tak Elementary was built in 1974 and was up and running until 1998. There were no reports of anything strange happening in the school until around the time it closed down. Legend states that a woman who worked in the school had committed suicide by hanging herself in one of the girls’ bathrooms. This woman was said to be wearing a long red dress, and Chinese lore states that when a person dies while wearing all red, their spirit comes back as vengeful and sinister. Sometime after this tragedy, a young girl was claimed to be possessed by the woman’s spirit, and she started acting strange and violent and even started to attack her fellow classmates who tried to help her calm down by biting them. This young girl then tried to hang herself in the exact same spot that the woman did before her, which is strange considering this girl had never even heard of this story before. Around a decade after the school had closed down, people would often break in to explore the haunted grounds and have made reports of seeing an apparition roaming around the halls and the classrooms of the school, and she was wearing a long red dress. The spirit now goes by the name, “The Red Lady.” 

That doesn’t conclude the haunting story of Tat Tak Elementary, as the grounds it stood on came with a dark history of its own. During British Occupation, the people who lived in the village were brutally murdered and buried under the grounds of where Tat Tak stands today. Along with the tragedy that occured in 1941, when the Japanese took over, villagers were also brutally murdered and were buried in the grounds right next door of the school. There’s no doubt that more spirits roam the halls along with The Red Lady. Today, the Tat Tak building still stands, as it dwindles down more and more to nothing but an old building with a haunting tale. 

NUMBER TWO: MATTHEW WHALEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Location: West Virginia 

This story begins with a woman named Mary Whaley and her son Matthew, who sadly passed away at the young age of 9. Matthew attended a little school where Mary was also a teacher, and he loved going to school quite a lot and made a lot of good memories there. To honor her son’s memory, Mary decided to put her money into renovating the little school and improving the way it looked. The school was then renamed in his honor as the Matthew Whaley school, or what others had called it, Matty’s school. Eventually Mary moved to England and entrusted the school to the local church. In 1870, the community decided to put their money together and make another renovation to the school and remade it into a brick building with two rooms, and the original name was kept the same. In 1929, the building was renovated once again after the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation purchased the lot to make the governor’s palace. However, in its current state, it’s known as Matthew Whaley Elementary school. 

Spirits don’t just connect themselves to buildings, they can also connect themselves just to a name of something as well, which was the case for this school. It didn’t matter how many times the building was torn down and remade, it only mattered that Matthew’s name was still connected to it. Children and teachers have reported hearing footsteps in the hallways and hearing a child running around and playing inside the school and on the playground. Apparently the little boy has been seen interacting with the children as well. The apparition that people would see always resembled a little boy around the age of 9. However, much like the Tat Tak Elementary school, the land that this school is built on also has a dark history connected to it. During the 1950s, there was a lot of violence against the African American population, and wrongful lynching was extremely common, and everything got even worse during integration. It’s rumored that two young boys were lynched right on the grounds where the elementary school stands, and people have reported seeing these two boys walking around the school and playing on the playground together. People have also reported that the two boys were spotted with another little boy, who was assumed to be Matthew. 

NUMBER THREE: POASTTOWN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Location: Ohio

In 1963 a man named Daryl Wissman attended this school and made a lot of memories there. He enjoyed going to school there so much that he bought the building for $189,000 in 2004, four years after it was completely shut down and abandoned. He had the dream of renovating the school and making it his home. It didn’t take long for Daryl and his wife Brenda to notice strange occurrences happening throughout the building. Their family lived there alone, and yet they always heard voices around the building. Dary’s good friend offered to help him repair something upstairs. He was known for being a very tough man, and even he got spooked. While he was working upstairs, they heard a scream and saw him come running down the stairs looking spooked, and he claimed that he saw a ghost. The couple called in many paranormal investigators to inspect the 54-room building, and each and every one of them confirmed that the building was indeed haunted. News got out about the haunted school, and the couple thought they could make some money on it and started charging people for visits, tours, and overnight camping. People recorded their experiences there and posted them online, which helped the school become even more well-known to the public. In the recordings, you could hear people walking, running, and screaming, and you could also see doors opening and closing by themselves. But the big question came eventually: WHY? Paranormal investigators said they believed the hauntings came from two different train crashes that were only around a mile away from the school. Both of the crashes happened on July 4th, but in different years. It’s unknown how many people died in the 1895 crash, but the crash in 1910 killed 24 people, with over 30 more injured. It’s believed that the building was an emergency medical station for the people involved in the crash.

NUMBER FOUR: PARKS ROAD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Location: Missouri 

This school was built on what used to be a cemetery. Normally when new buildings are being placed on the grounds of a cemetery, the bodies and tombstones are supposed to be transported elsewhere. However, it’s thought that a few bodies must’ve been forgotten about. It’s reported that apparitions would be seen walking along the halls, and children would run frantically to their teachers, telling them that they saw a young girl crying in the bathroom. The teachers would go check the bathroom, and every time they saw nothing. There would also be a woman walking around the school who spooked children on a daily basis. She would be seen wearing a green dress and had no eyes on a pale white face. It’s said that the woman would chase children down the halls if she caught them staring at her. However, the children weren’t the only ones who witnessed spooking things. Many faculty members reported hearing blood curdling screams during times where children were not in the school.

NUMBER FIVE: FARRAR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Location: Iowa

This school was built in 1921 and closed down in 2001. It ran for 80 years until the population there began to dwindle and remaining students were moved to Anderson Elementary. Across the street from Farrar elementary resided a 150-year-old cemetery, where the number of graves grew while the number of the population fizzled. The building sat abandoned for 5 years until it was purchased by Jim and Nancy Oliver in 2006, in hopes of making it into their new home. However, that dream all came crumbling down when they realized they were not alone inside the building. They would hear voices and see figures roaming around the halls and staircases. Eventually, it became too much for the couple and they decided to sell it. The new owners of the property were warned about its haunting nature and they went along with it anyway, making it into a recording studio. The studio was rented out to a band called Ghost Hive, and another man, Ianda, took the room next door to the band. As he set up his equipment, he monitored the band next door, and suddenly his computer screen went out and became fuzzy. This was very abnormal, as he’d never had an issue with his monitor before, and fuzziness like this doesn’t happen with modern technology. That wasn’t the strangest thing though—the volume on his headset maxed out without him even touching them. He couldn’t turn the volume down until suddenly everything went back to normal. He was never able to figure out why any of this happened. He was also a big skeptic when it came to the paranormal, but even he was second guessing his beliefs after this encounter. 

NUMBER SIX: NIGHTMUTE HIGH SCHOOL

Location: Alaska 

In Nightmute high school lives a young girl who appears to be very sad and lonely. She normally doesn’t really bother anyone, and seems to come off as friendly and shy. Even though she tends to keep to herself, she will come out to play sometimes. She’ll often leave basketballs around in the gymnasium or she’ll go into the bathrooms and randomly flush toilets and turn the lights on and off. No one has any idea about who this girl is or why she’s even there. Maybe someday we’ll figure out the mystery. 

NUMBER SEVEN: EL PASO HIGH SCHOOL 

Location: Texas 

El Paso high school is one of the most haunted schools in America. It got its fancy title from one single ghost. She can be seen roaming the halls, flickering the lights, and even sounds of pep rallies come from the gymnasium when there’s nothing like that going on at all. There’s images of this ghost girl that are from decades ago, but the most famous one is a group photo that was taken in 1985 for a yearbook. Everyone in the picture can pretty much be seen clearly, while she appears to be a faded white aspiration. No one knows who that girl in the image was, and she definitely has never been seen in anyone’s classes. It’s rumored that a hallway that was walled off used to have classrooms that the girl attended, and it was closed off after images of the girl started occurring. But that didn’t keep her away. The photo remains up on the school’s bulletin board, probably waiting for someone to identify who the girl is, which will probably never happen. 

The legend states that this was a teenage girl who committed suicide in in 1921 by slitting her wrists and throwing herself off one of the school’s balconies.