Apthorp House, the residence of the Adams House masters, is also home to ghosts of Revolutionary War soldiers, among them British General John Burgoyne, who was imprisoned there during the war. "I hear them rumbling about all the time," says Hannah L. Bouldin '86, who lives in the attic of the 226-year old house. She adds that the general's ghost inspired her during a midterm yesterday.

"General Burgoyne is still complaining about the high rent of Harvard property and wants the University to do something about it," says Adams Co-Master Jana M. Kiely. "The University should provide affordable housing," Kiely, a part-time Cambridge activist, quotes him as saying.

"The ghosts can play Monopoly very well," says Kiely's nine-year old daughter, Mimi. "But they cheat."

"See how interested they are in real estate," says Jana Kiely. "They even play Monopoly."

Too Spooked to Talk Spooks

In all of Harvard's 12 residential houses and 14 freshmen dorms, there are bound to be a few goblins hobnobbing around. Two Harvard students who reported ghoulish presences in their rooms last year are unwilling to talk about their experiences.

One evening last year, an Eliot House junior told her roommates, she had seen a ghost in her I-entry room. "She said she sensed a presence and saw a specter, but it was really brief," says one of her roommates, who would not be identified. "She said it was not a fearful presence."

The woman who saw the ghost spoke on the condition that she not be identified. "I went from a light place to a dark place, and I saw an image, but it was probably just my eyes adjusting," she says. "I don't believe in ghosts."

Eliot Co-Master Arline G. Heimert backs her students' claims. "There might be one or two lurking here, but mostly we have mice."

Quincy House resident Audris S. Wong '89 yesterday refused to discuss the sighting of a ghost last year in her Weld Hall common room.

Shades of Shades

There have been other shady reports of mysterious happenings. Twelve years ago, a clairvoyant spoke at Massachusetts Hall, Harvard's oldest building, where a ghost purportedly visits each fall to take up the residence of his youth. The speaker also warned students that any photographs taken of her would not come out because of the strong supernatural presence in the room. Sure enough, the photographs came out blank.

And on old Tory Row, the Hooper Lee Nichols House on Brattle St. is said to be home to the ghosts of five Hessian mercenaries who fought in the Revolution. Legend has it they first appeared in 1915, when a library was built on the sight of their graves. They Hessian quintet has been playing cards in the room ever since.

Then there's old Christ Church, located at the corner of Garden St. and Mass. Ave., close to where George Washington stationed his troops in 1775. Several feet underneath the church lie the remains of a patriot prisoner of war shot by the Redcoats. According to popular legend, "he comes up once in a while and blows out candles," says church archivist Donna LaRue.

Over at Wadsworth House, where Washington once slept, ghosts of American patriots wearing tricorn hat and cloak have not haunted the colonial building in at least 25 years.

Students working in University Hall say if you listen at the southwest entrance, you can hear voices. Maybe they're going crazy, but then again maybe they're just hearing echoes of a foodfight from the dining hall located there a century ago.

Whether or not they exist, ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in the night have certainly made a ghastly impression on Harvard. And that's something Crimson Key doesn't talk about either.