East Lansing's Tallest Dorm with Persistent 12th-Floor Reports
East Lansing, MI 48824
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public university campus; exterior is freely accessible. Interior is a residential hall restricted to residents and guests.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved campus paths
Equipment
Photos OK
Michigan State University · Campus Folklore Archive
Hubbard Hall is part of MSU's East Neighborhood complex, a cluster of residential towers constructed in the mid-twentieth century to accommodate the university's rapid postwar enrollment growth. The tower is the tallest building in East Lansing and has housed incoming first-year students for decades.
MSU's campus maintains a documented relationship with its own folklore through the university archives exhibit 'Legends and Myths Surrounding the MSU Campus,' which acknowledges various campus ghost traditions. Hubbard Hall is among the sites mentioned in this context.
The paranormal tradition at Hubbard Hall is specific to the upper floors, particularly the 12th floor. Accounts describe the lights going out, sounds of running in an empty corridor, and laughter from an otherwise vacant hallway. Two male apparitions have been independently reported on the 12th floor. A separate account describes a figure boarding the elevator on the 12th floor and exiting on the 9th, at which point those remaining in the elevator experience a rush of cold air.
Sources
The consistency of the Hubbard Hall 12th-floor accounts is worth noting. Unlike some campus legends that exist only as third-hand stories, the Hubbard Hall reports describe specific, recurring phenomena in a specific location: this floor, this elevator.
Residents report the corridor lights going dark without explanation. Running is heard in the hallway, followed by laughter, in a hall that proves empty on inspection. Two male apparitions have been documented independently by students on the floor.
The elevator account is the most operationally specific: an apparition boards on the 12th floor, exits on the 9th, and the passengers who remained experience a cold draft moving past them when the doors open. This pattern is consistent across multiple accounts.
MSU's own campus archives have documented the university's haunted reputation as a matter of institutional folklore history, acknowledging the stories without taking a position on their validity. Hubbard Hall is among the sites recognized in that context.
Hubbard Hall is the tallest building in East Lansing and a recognizable MSU landmark. The exterior and adjacent campus grounds are publicly accessible. The interior residential floors, including the 12th floor where anomalies are reported, are restricted to residents. Visitors can view the building from the plaza level.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPPensacola, FL
The Museum of Shadows is the creation of Nate Raterman, a demonologist and paranormal investigator with more than two decades of casework. Raterman opened the original location in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Pensacola branch opened in late 2024. The collection contains over 5,000 objects that Raterman and his team deemed genuinely active during investigations — ranging from allegedly cursed Ouija boards and haunted dolls to items used in criminal acts and human remains. The museum bills itself as the most haunted museum in the world.
Ann Arbor, MI
Funded by a bequest from Detroit philanthropist Horace H. Rackham (who died in 1933), the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies Building was designed by William E. Kapp of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls. Ground was broken in May 1936 and the building was dedicated in June 1938. It sits on land in Ann Arbor that previously contained houses and, before that, the eastern edge of Michigan's first Jewish cemetery.
Marquette, MI
Northern Michigan University was established in 1899 in Marquette, on the Lake Superior shoreline of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The John X. Jamrich Hall, a major classroom and lecture facility on campus, houses a large ground-level lecture room used for film screenings; its attached control room is a small storage space where nursing students historically recorded their names on the wall before graduation.