From pumpkin spice lattes to Satanic rituals, October has it all. The cheery scent of fall and the fog of Halloween rolling into to Fort Collins make it  prime ghost appearance time around town. 

Founded in 1935, Sigma Phi Epsilon is a historic frat house in the center of Fort Collins. With over 2,500 students over the frat’s lifespan. With it being such an old building you might even expect someone to have seen a ghost. And in the case of “Fizzy” the ghost, that’s exactly what happened.

 After a ghost investigation team went to explore more of town they stumbled upon SigPhi and immediately their EMF device started ringing with the promise of a supernatural presence. To be sure it wasn’t just their recording device emitting radio waves, they turned it off and the EMF spiked astronomically. When the recorder turned back on, the EMF stopped reading entirely. 

The team turned off the recorder once more and saw the same results. Fast forward to Sigma Fi’s school year: a student living at the house reported seeing a “shadowy figure standing outside of his second story window” which quickly vanished. After that, another student saw the ghost up close and afterwards he reported feeling like his chest was very heavy–almost as if he had gulped down multiple fizzy carbonated drinks. After this same thing happened again in the house, the ghost was named to what it is today, Fizzy. 

Another potential ghost can be found in Old Town Fort Collins. There is a  Starbucks located in the historic Northern Hotel. Fairly late at night you may swear you see an almost transparent woman dressed in Victorian style clothing behind the counter.Described as the “Mother of Fort Collins” after a lady bearing a strong resemblance to the phantom who pioneered in Fort Collins. 

She baked goods for passing soldiers and after her time serving people, she became the first unmarried landowner in the town. Does she haunt a Starbucks because she still deep down loves feeding people? Maybe we’ll never know?

As summer has come to a close and the chilly temperatures of fall are upon us, you might not think about going to grab some ice cream, but if you happened to go into Walrus Ice Cream in search for a cold treat you might find a revolving spirit portal linking the overworld to the underworld (and a blue razzberry cone). 

When the city of Fort Collins was in its infancy, a lady named Miss Roe opened a clothing goods store on Mountain Avenue. This shop was in the bustling center of old timey Fort Collins and was a hit with the local population. This clothing store was built above one of the largest water tables in the Front Range, which might sound weird, but in a time with well water and difficult access to the clear stuff, it makes more sense. 

Spirit portals are found on lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water. Right next to where Miss Roe’s shop was the morgue. Dead bodies were taken in and out on a daily basis through the basement of what is now Walrus Ice Cream. Over time, as the morgue brought in dead bodies, those bodies attached to the basement water and formed a gateway– a gateway to the underworld. 

Even today there have been reports of workers at Walrus hearing sounds under the stairs, in the basement where the water once flowed. They have even heard footsteps coming and going from the basement. 

If you’re looking for something spooky to do this season, grab a pumpkin spice latte, and head to one of these locations, look for ghosts, or just tell some good ghose stories!