On November 12, Bwog received an anonymous email with the subject line: “Exorcism on Broadway 9.” The email detailed an incident that occurred between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. on October 25th, that involved several students who the sender identified as Christian Koreans — despite our attempts to reach various groups, there’s been no way of verifying this. There was also a Barnard student present who had been signed in earlier that evening.

According to the email’s sender, the Barnard student had expressed concern for her  health, and so an “exorcism” was performed. Details about the procedure remain scant, though the girl’s repeated shrieking eventually caught the attention of a Broadway RA, who stopped by the scene in an attempt to break up the gathering. The RA’s attempts to interfere were brushed off, and another ResLife staff member, who was described as being a part of the group, told the RA to allow the students to continue with what they were doing. RAs for Broadway and Ruggles have confirmed that the incident occurred in the early morning hours of Oct. 25th, but few know the details of what happened, and none are willing to discuss it on record.

In the wake of the incident, rumors about the situation spread throughout the RA community. One RA said that he was forbidden by ResLife as an RA to talk about it, as it is general ResLife policy not to discuss specific incidents.

Last night, around 1 a.m. a Blue and White editor reported a similar incident occurring on the plaza between East Campus and SIPA. (Numerous students in EC also witnessed the incident.) After initially dismissing the “intermittent female shrieking” as partygoers, the editor told Bwog, “I looked outside and saw a group of about 8-9 people standing around a huddled female figure. All were wearing coats and faced towards her, largely unmoving.” With their RA absent, the editor and a suitemate went to talk to a security guard, but the group had moved away already. The editor then found the group speaking to security guards outside the Law School, before departing back to the main campus.

When the editor spoke to the security guards, they refused to discuss specifics, as Public Safety is always required to remain mum in such instances. The security guard initially claimed that the girl in the middle of the circle was having “a personal boyfriend issue” and later regretted saying as much, admitting, “I shouldn’t have even told you that.”

He then claimed the group was a sorority, even after our editor pointed out that there were men in the group. When asked whether Public Safety would be able to comment on the story, he adamantly said, “No, they wouldn’t have anything to say about it,” and refused to make any further comment.

Were these incidents a prank? An initiation? Bwog doesn’t know, but Halloween is long-gone and this is spooky.

— JCD & JNW, with additional reporting and editing by KER and AMP