As the night wears on, USC’s libraries gradually empty, leaving students alone with nothing but their thoughts. The building smells of musty books and something stranger. The dead are immortalized in writing. A noise echoes in the distance, but there’s no one else around. It could be someone reshelving books — or perhaps it’s something paranormal, a presence inexplicable by science. Regardless of what really happens in the dead of night, that is when ghost stories come alive.

On campus, the story of Bertram Hancock, the son of successful businessman and philanthropist George Allan Hancock, is especially haunting. The Hancock Foundation Building houses the Newman Recital Hall, a nod to George Allan Hancock’s affinity for music, and the Hancock Memorial Museum, which includes four rooms taken directly from the now-demolished Hancock family mansion. 

Philip Ethington, professor of history, political science and spatial sciences, led haunted campus tours until 2021 as faculty-in-residence at New North Residential College and described the Hancock Memorial Museum as his most haunting stop on the tour.

“They hear things at night attributed to Bertram [Hancock] because he grew up there, and the whole building was built as a memorial to him,” Ethington said. “That’s where he finds his home on campus.”

On June 29, 1925, George Allan Hancock and Bertram Hancock were staying at the Arlington Hotel in Santa Barbara when a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit. 

The hotel was designed with a 50,000-gallon water tank installed above the tower suites in case of a fire. During the earthquake, the tank broke loose and fell through, causing the tower to collapse. Bertram Hancock was found dead with a fractured skull and broken neck. 

“[Bertram Hancock’s] father was basically grooming him to be the heir apparent of his empire,” Ethington said. “He was taking him out to their property in Santa Maria, and this was going to be his first test of learning how to run the business.”

Bertram Hancock’s memory seems to haunt the Hancock Foundation Building not only because it contains remnants of his home, but also because his death prompted his father to insist on the building being earthquake-proof. 

“On the outside, [the Hancock Foundation Building] has all these bas-reliefs of Pleistocene megafauna, these giant animals,” Ethington said. “That’s another way that I think this building is haunted, because it has these monsters that came from [George Allan Hancock’s] fortune … [with the] La Brea Tar Pits.”

These campus stories about ghosts are not the only ones haunting USC students: Teaching professor of anthropology Tok Thompson teaches “Ghost Stories: Throughout Time and Around the World,” which explores various paranormal phenomena and their connections to history, culture and entertainment. 

The course’s curriculum includes classical literature such as “Hamlet” and “A Christmas Carol,” as well as films, songs and folklore from numerous cultures that allow students to discuss different beliefs regarding the afterlife. 

“It’s a good icebreaker,” Thompson said. “You don’t tend to share ghost stories with everybody, so you tend to create a sense of intimacy, and I think it’s a very, very interesting topic. You can do a lot by looking at societies and different cultures’ beliefs and stories about ghosts.”

In his course, Thompson requires students to collect their own ghost stories and write analytical reports of their findings for USC’s Digital Folklore Archives. The online database dates back to 2010, featuring thousands of stories cataloged by USC students. Many of these stories contain reports of hauntings on campus, primarily in the libraries and dorms.

“Before I took the class, I was a bit unsure if I believed in [ghosts],” said Isabella Sindhuphak, a sophomore majoring in business of cinematic arts who took Thompson’s class in Spring 2026. “What made me start thinking about it a little more deeply was having to go out and get field research of actual ghost stories … Maybe these energies of certain locations and spaces stay over time. They don’t just leave once a person dies.”

While ghost stories can be an entertaining forum for discussing spirits and the afterlife across diverse groups and cultures, these tales also serve as representations of culture and history. 

“History is written by the victors, but ghost stories are the opportunity [to hear] the voices of underrepresented groups like women [and] Native Americans — populations that have suffered genocides and wrongdoings in history,” Sindhuphak said.

The overlooked and underrepresented groups in Los Angeles that suffered injustices throughout history also haunt the area. An example of this is the Los Angeles Chinese Massacre of 1871, during which 18 Chinese men and boys were killed — 10% of the Chinese population in Los Angeles at the time — and was almost immediately forgotten. 

“[Injustices like this one] haunt the present, in that they inscribed a geography of injustice into the region that had long-term consequences,” Ethington said. “That haunting is like the afterlife of this injustice, and it limited many people’s lives intergenerationally until that racism was finally combated.”

The 1965 Watts Rebellion and the 1992 L.A. uprisings are similar manifestations of these hauntings: They were uprisings against systemic racism and injustices, with police brutality and violence that were left unresolved.

“It was a boiling point,” Ethington said. “They were explosions that resulted from many generations of injustice that had confined people of color to segregated neighborhoods and police violence.”

Ghost stories come with a purpose beyond scaring friends at a slumber party and stay relevant outside of the Halloween season. They can also embody cultural values, family legacies, and the tragedies and wrongdoings faced by underrepresented communities.

“[These stories] reflect our histories. They reflect what we were haunted by: ethical failures in the past,” Thompson said.