Sutcliffe: What Remains?

Sutcliffe: What Remains?

Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Anecdotes
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Buildings
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—History
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Students
Ghosts—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted places—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted universities and colleges—Kentucky—Danville

Lucas Mozingo describes strange occurrences he and his roommates experienced while living in Stuart at Centre College.

Mozingo, Lucas

2021_01_19

Pugh, Alana

All Rights Reserved

MP4

English

Oral history (literary work)

Pugh, Alana

Mozingo, Lucas

Stuart Hall, Centre College, Danville, KY

Alana Pugh 0:01
My name is Alana Pugh and today I'm interviewing Lucas Mozingo, who attended Centre College from 2016 to 2020. I'm here with only myself, Alana Pugh and Lucas Mozingo. Today is January 19th, 2021. We are recording this interview via zoom. I'm located in Pennsylvania and Lucas resides in Tennessee. Today we will be discussing Lucas's experiences during his stay in Stuart Hall, a student residence on campus. So, Lucas, have you had any paranormal or strange experiences at Centre?

Lucas Mozingo 0:39
Do you want to know about the ones that I provoked or the ones that just happened without any warning?

Alana Pugh 0:45
I think both!

Lucas Mozingo 0:47
So, like you said, we lived in Stuart. There were five guys in there, five lacrosse players in Stuart. Last year, we had a little suite in the back. And the very first thing that I remember happening with that didn't have a lot of explanation, like we'd heard that the building had had some paranormal activity around and had some reasons for maybe, maybe extra... what's the word, extra paranormal. Paranormal activity. But the first thing that happened was I just had, I had some some workout, like protein shaker bottles stacked up on my fridge, a little mini fridge in the room. And we had just got back from a morning lift. So I laid them out to dry and they were just standing there just sitting up on top of the fridge. And I was out in the main living room talking to one of my roommates, and all of a sudden one of the bottles just flies out in the hallway. So like flies out, off the top of the fridge out into the hallway, like someone had knocked it over, pushed it over. And I'm like, well, that's that's really odd, because I'm here and he's there. And there's nobody in my room. And I was just sitting there on top, like objects in motion, stay in motion objects at rest stays at rest, it was at rest. There's really no reason at all that should be moving. So that really freaked me out a little bit. That was the first incident that I remember happening on

Alana Pugh 2:07
And your roommate saw this too?

Lucas Mozingo 2:09
Yeah, I was there with Nick and Nick was like, "What just happened there?" So, I wasn't the only one there, and it was it was good for me at least because we were all super hyped about potential for paranormal activity. And it was really good for me to have somebody else there to witness it too, to say 'I'm not just making it up'. We actually saw this happen... very odd.

Alana Pugh 2:27
So that was one experience that--that was the first experience that you had.

Lucas Mozingo 2:31
That was the first thing I remember. Yeah.

Alana Pugh 2:33
So what was your first thought after that happened? If that happened to me, I'd be like: "What in the world?"

Lucas Mozingo 2:42
It was definitely, I mean things fall, things fall out of line and all that kind of stuff. But the force with which this bottle came flying off the fridge, I was really kind of taken aback by that. I felt... I mean, definitely a little fired up. Definitely a little excited. Like, oh, that's different for my Tuesday afternoon. Wasn't ready for that. Yeah, just just really excited. I wasn't necessarily frightened, I would say like a lot of people might be scared about paranormal activity. I wasn't frightened by any means. I was just like, oh, that's different.

Alana Pugh 3:14
Yeah.

Lucas Mozingo 3:15
Yeah. What's going on?

Alana Pugh 3:17
So, how did your relationship now change after that, with the space? Beforehand, there was nothing really to think about really? And then after that, it kind of changes things a little, or at least I assume?

Lucas Mozingo 3:31
Yeah, we had, like I said, we've kind of we'd heard the stories about Stuart being onto it, or possessed or whatever. But we were, I guess maybe we were actively looking for some sort of evidence to back that up. But after that moment, it really kind of became a certified like, "Oh, we're not making this up." Like this is actually something that there's something going on here. This isn't a myth. This isn't anything fabricated. This is reality for this space for this area. And at that point, it kind of, I guess, maybe even added a little fuel to our fire because I think soon after that we started doing Ouija Wednesdays.

Alana Pugh 4:08
Yeah, I was gonna say! Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Lucas Mozingo 4:13
Yeah, so I made a little cardboard Ouija board. The 26 letters of the alphabet, zero through nine. Yes, No, I forget what else you put on that. Then I just I told my fraternity brothers, told some of my friends: "Hey, we live in Stuart. Stuart's haunted and we're gonna do Ouija Wednesdays. We're gonna try and summon some spirits. See what we can get going." So we, I think we did probably four or five times. Maybe more than that, and none of my roommates wanted any of it. They were terrified. So they stayed in the room, and then we went out in the common area, out the main lobby of the building. And lit some candles, don't tell DPS, we lit some candles. And everybody laid their their finger on the planchette and started asking some questions and and letting things move around a little bit. So yes, after the bottle happened, after the bottle came flying off we started doing Ouija Wednesdays. And that started to kind of up the level, ramped up the ante a little bit with the paranormal encounters.

Alana Pugh 5:11
Oh, okay. Well, I guess the first question I want to ask you is, so your roommates were terrified about this is what you just said, and you were excited, like, kind of seeking it out almost?

Lucas Mozingo 5:24
I think that's an accurate way to say it. Some of the roommates were definitely a little more hesitant regarding the paranormal than I was, I would still definitely consider myself somewhere between skeptic and believer, I think a lot of that kind of stuff can be attributed to just science or physical causes beyond what I'm aware of. But I also still, at the same time, recognize or at least, have some sort of maybe religious belief in the idea of the soul or spirits or that kind of stuff. So I'm somewhere in between skeptic and believer, but a lot of my friends, a lot of my roommates were super, "Nope, I don't want to get it away from me. Don't tell me about it. Don't talk to me about it." But yes, I mean, so I found some other friends who weren't living with me, who weren't living in the haunted building, who were a little bit more interested in investigating what we were dealing with there.

Alana Pugh 6:14
So you're still in an in-between state about your thoughts on what to believe? Like, you're still skeptic, maybe a believer? But it's interesting, because you have already said like, there is no way that that bottle could have flown across the room like that. So what's your relationship now? Or, at least--what do you-- how do you deal with that? How do you deal with not explaining that?

Lucas Mozingo 6:38
I think it's really fun. And it's a certainly in social situations. it's really fun to kind of tell ghost stories and get people the mystery behind it and all that kind of stuff. I still think... I'm still certainly, I believe in spirits. I believe in the afterlife, I believe in that kind of stuff. I don't know how much of our... I don't know how much of that which we're seeing in the physical world in this, this human world is caused or affected by that. But... I think it's a fun explanation for it. If nothing else, I think it's just a fun, social way to kind of explain what we can't explain.

Alana Pugh 7:17
Yeah, and going back to Stuart. So, I'm assuming since you've already kind of touched on it earlier that you are aware of the past of Stuart... that it was once a funeral home? And how does that kind of... does that change anything with your relationship with a place that you've lived in for? You lived in there for a year, right? Or was it just half a semester?

Lucas Mozingo 7:41
My senior year.

Alana Pugh 7:42
Okay.

Lucas Mozingo 7:46
Shoot, I remember having some friends who actually lived in those front two rooms, which were like the showing rooms where the caskets were held. And that was I'm trying to remember how we kind of figured it out. Because we walked in the room on day one, and there's all the shelves on there. We're like, "What is going on here?" And we're like, it used to be a bookstore. Like, oh, wow, that's super whack that I'm living in a bookstore. But then as... I guess, maybe the RA or somebody else told us that it used to be a funeral home. Then we walked into the room where they had the showing rooms, and I'm like, "Wow, --that's--looks like a funeral home; like this is kind of kind of freaky." So I guess as we figured it out, it definitely, like I said earlier, maybe added a little fuel to our fire to our paranormal interests. To find out that, oh, it's not just that it's haunted. But there's a reason there's something you could point to to say, "Oh, it's haunted because it used to be a funeral home," whereas, other places might just be having odd experiences go on there.

Alana Pugh 8:43
Yeah, yeah. Well, after you started, messing or I guess, dabbling in the Ouija board. Did anything else happen? Like, the water bottle or the….

Lucas Mozingo 8:59
So I actually texted my roommates because you asked me about the interview, and I texted them to say: "Hey, what are some of the other things that happened that I might be might be blanking on?" They told me some other stories where two of my roommates were sitting in their room, I think just hanging out and playing on their phones really, and they had the TV off, and all of a sudden the TV cut on for nothing. Just sitting there on their phones and the TV's on--like what on earth? They walked over the TV and they were trying to turn it off, they're trying to hit the button on the side to get it to go off and it wouldn't go off. The TV would not turn off on these guys, until they unplugged it from the wall. So they immediately blamed the spirits, the paranormal. They said: "That's not what's supposed to happen, and the only reason I'm gonna explain that is with paranormal logic." So they blamed the spirits for that. There's another instance where they-- that little back suite that we were in has a door that opens right to the parking lot--so we'd come in and out through that door and we would chock the door with just rock. There's another instance where we have a good sized rock or a small, good sized rock right here, holding the door open. The four of us, or the five of us are sitting on the couch, and the rock just slides out the door. And the door closes, we're like, "Oooh." That one would probably, that was the most convincing of anything, because there was like, with the bottle, it's up on the fridge a little bit. So I can see maybe if it was off balance, it falls; but with the rock, it was sitting on the ground in the doorway, there was nothing acting on it. There was nothing going on. There's nobody around, and it just [crrrr] slid out the way. That was another really convincing moment of, oh, we're not alone here moment for our group.

Alana Pugh 10:45
Especially because it's like with a water bottle. Say you had a window open, say there was a gust of air, like, maybe that could have explained it. But with the rock, that's weight, that's--you can't really--a wind isn't going to move a rock, there has to be some force acted upon it.

Lucas Mozingo 11:02
Well, that was a weird one for sure.

Alana Pugh 11:04
I'm sure. So after that happened, what were your feelings then? I know, personally, I would be pretty scared in that situation. But...

Lucas Mozingo 11:13
Maybe I'm an oddball here, but I just get excited. Like, "Oh, let's go, let's keep playing with it, let's see what we can do. If it can move this rock, can it close the door? Can it turn on? Like, let's let's see what else we can play with here. But like I said, I was living with with four other guys who were a lot more hesitant in that realm. And they were very much. Not a fan of provoking any more paranormal activity.

Alana Pugh 11:34
I'm sure, my gosh. So before all of this happened, did you believe in paranormal activity? Or have you had experiences before that had made you skeptical or want to pursue the idea of the supernatural?

Lucas Mozingo 11:50
When I was in high school, we also played with ouija boards. There was a 24 hour period my sophomore year of high school or something where I was fully in - like 100%. Like, "Oh my gosh, this is real! I can't believe we're talking to spirits." But then as I did a little bit more research. My faith in ouija boards specifically as a means to communicate with paranormal activity is completely shot. I've seen a lot of things that say, or suggest that that is not really what's going on. There's a lot more human element happening there. So ouija boards, once again, just think it's kind of a fun party game, almost if anything. Any other... I can't write it off. I can't say no, I'm certainly not wise enough or have enough insight to say no, that's not happening. But I guess I kind of treated like aliens. Like, I don't, I don't have any evidence that there's aliens out there. But I also don't have any evidence to say it's not happening. So why would I? Why would I write that off?

Alana Pugh 11:56
Yeah, I totally understand that. That's like, a lot of the, like, the questions that we've been grappling with in this classes. How do you deal with not knowing? And how do you deal like, how do you deal with not knowing why that rock moved out of your door? There's no reasonable explanation; nobody came over that you saw and moved it. What else could it be? Yeah, like, those are tough questions to ask.

Lucas Mozingo 13:23
And as long as it hadn't really affected me in any dramatic way, I'm okay with not knowing. I don't need to know. If I'm possessed, I would like a little bit more of an explanation, but my TV won't turn off or something, like, as long we're doing okay, around here, as long as everybody's doing all right... I'm okay with that. I don't need an explanation. I'm okay with speculation.

Alana Pugh 13:43
So when this was happening, you never picked up on any, like, bad feelings or anything that you sometimes hear with ghost stories? Where people, you know, feel the weight of something maybe more sinister? Or you had no feelings like that, at all?

Lucas Mozingo 14:00
I certainly didn't experience anything of that nature. And I didn't hear of any my roommates doing so either. If we will, it was when we were playing with a ouija board that we got on one night and talked to a spirit for a long time. And the spirit made it clear that it was a benevolent and kind force in our world. So at that point, it was good. It was like: "Okay, if there's any if there is anything going on here, it's good to know that it is a peaceful and benevolent spirit, rather than malicious with intent to harm or do harm." Never felt anything weighing down or anything like that.

Alana Pugh 14:44
And the Ouija board... now you say you did have an experience with a spirit that you talked to, do you recall anything about that?

Lucas Mozingo 14:51
Once again, my faith and ouija boards is wavering, but I remember talking to this spirit and mentioning something about their graduation year. I believe the Spirit said that it was a student in the 80s at Centre College. Addressed that it was on the baseball team at Centre College, and we started doing the math and thinking: "If he's class of 85 or 80, whatever, wouldn't be that old, so must have died recently after graduating--soon after graduation there." I don't remember a ton else from that specific encounter. But that was the one time--we asked like, "Are you here to cause harm?" And that kind of stuff? And the planchette would always move to NO. So I just remember that kind of stuff. Not anything... I don't remember a ton more from that experience.

Alana Pugh 15:51
Okay, okay. It's very, it's interesting that at least you got answers, like you probed questions. You never felt like anybody else was moving the planchette? Did you trust the people that you were with to take it….

Lucas Mozingo 16:06
For the most part? It's always very, very telling, when when people react to it. When you see the planchette moving on the board and people are reacting to it, because at that point, you know, or you can at least assume that they aren't moving it. They aren't consciously doing what we're seeing, they aren't causing that. So based on the reaction of the people in my group, I was pretty convinced as to what was going on was at least on some level authentic. But, like I said, I still personally carry some skepticism in that realm to so.

Alana Pugh 16:38
Okay, well has this experience changed the way you think about Centre? Like when you think back? Or have you--I know, a lot of people have strange experiences at Centre. I've always wondered, how does that--after an experience like that? Does that change your relationship with the school at all? Like, does it change your thoughts regarding the school or,

Lucas Mozingo 17:01
As your recent alumni, I must - Alumnus? Alumni? I think I'm an alumnus. As a recent alum of the college, it's interesting to think back and to look back and say, "Oh, if there are the spirits that are still hanging out, there must have been a must be a good place for them. I hope it's a good place for me going forward, too." I certainly appreciate my time at Centre College and I think maybe the fact that their spirits still all around the campus might be a good indication that it's a good place to be. And it's a overall a positive force in the lives of its students and faculty.

Alana Pugh 17:37
That's a really good point, I've never really thought of it like that, that it must be a good place if so many people come back to it. So another question about your belief. So I was gonna ask, like, How have your feelings with belief changed after this event, but you're still in this kind of in between state. But, so I guess I just want to say like, generally, have you had any? Did you have any more unexplainable occurrences in Stuart, or anything that you can even think of? I know that you said before, the protein shaker had flown across the room. Did anything before that happen? Or just things that you know, maybe weren't as, you know, explicit. So things that you kind of had to maybe--like brushed off? Or didn't think too much about...

Lucas Mozingo 18:12
I don't know if I can give a great answer to that question. I do remember pretty early on picking up on like a draft of the hallway, or a draft that would close our front door, or something like that. And, like I said, we've had a little bit of exposure to the idea that it was a haunted building. So a drafty door is a great red flag or green flag that something is going on. So I remember seeing that early on and thinking: "Hm." But, I mean, at that point, you could pretty easily say it's the air conditioning that's doing this. No, I don't think I have a great answer to that question. No, I'm sorry.

Alana Pugh 19:09
No, that's you are answering these questions perfectly. So, I guess, because this is a space that you kind of only have a little bit of time in, and yet it has a big impact on you. Because in one aspect of your life that usually, you know, not a lot of people frequently have ghost experiences, you know? So now this space is one space that you have had several in. So, do you think that space now holds some sort of importance to you? Does it play a role in your life? I know it wouldn't be a major role, but I guess now that it's come and gone, is this space still important to you? Or?

Lucas Mozingo 20:05
Also might not be a great answer for the question. But I think if anything, it would be an important space for me because it was where I spent my senior year of college. But also at the same time, those memories and those experiences were integral in my experience as a senior at Centre College. So I had a had a bit of a spooky senior year, you could say. So yeah, I mean, I can imagine going back for homecoming, and going back by to see the room and reliving some of those experiences with my friends there. Yeah.

Alana Pugh 20:35
Sure. Well, I guess, to end I just want to ask you generally, what do you think about ghosts and ghost stories? I know it's general, but....

Lucas Mozingo 20:47
I can give I can give an academic answer or a personal answer. I think academically it's a very simple, it's easy to understand ghost stories as a way to explain something we don't understand. And to do so in a social manner that humans are inclined to do. I personally, I do enjoy ghost stories and I think when they're told well, they can be really enriching and really captivating. And like I said earlier, I can't say that it's not happening. I can't say that's not to blame, or that's not the reason why we're seeing these things. So I think those stories are fun and I think they play, and have played, a really important role in our understanding of the world for a long time as humans that I'm excited to... I would love to see somebody prove that there's paranormal spirits in and around our lives. I don't know if I got the last answer out.

Alana Pugh 21:45
No, that's great.

END OF INTERVIEW.

MP4

21:47