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F. S. North[edit]
Filmer Stuart North (November 27, 1893 – October 31, 1989) was an American scientist. He received his B.A. from Beloit College in 1915, and went on to Yale University where he earned and a Ph.D. in 1924. He was appointed to the Yale faculty of the Biology Department in 1925. He chaired the Biology department from 1938 to 1940. He was also the first Master of Silliman College from 1940 to 1947.
Tragic Incident in Silliman[edit]
In September of 1940, F. S. C. Northrop was appointed the first master of Silliman College[1], one of Yale's residential colleges. Master Northrop lived with his wife and his daughter Ashleigh in the Silliman College Masters House until October 31, 1946.
On that fateful night, five Yale seniors living in N entryway left a Sunbeam Model T9 toaster running while they left their room to attend the annual Pierson College Halloween Party. The toaster burst into flames, setting fire to the adjacent Master's House next door. Ashleigh was asleep in her bed during the blaze and burned to death in her own bed before emergency personnel could reach her[2]. It was said[2] that her screams of agony could be heard from the Silliman courtyard.
Professor Northrop resigned from his Master position the following morning overcome with grief[3]. He was quoted in the Yale Daily News saying "She's not gone. I swear I'll find a way to bring her back.[4]"
Controversial Ideas About Reanimation[edit]
Following his daughter Ashleigh’s tragic death, Master North became obsessed with the scientific concept of reanimation, the act of bringing back the dead by transporting a deceased individual’s own life force or that of another object (such as a toy or doll). After publishing extensively on electrical resurrection techniques with the Italian physicist Giovanni Aldini, Master North began a series of controversial experiments on reanimation in small vertebrates. Using a spark from an electrostatic generator, he produced a twitching movement in the muscles of a dead frog[5]. As his research progressed, Master North was able to produce similar reanimation effects on dogs and monkeys and expressed an interest in experimenting on a human[6].
Final Experiment and Later Disappearance[edit]
In his final controversial set of studies, Master North attempted to reanimate his deceased daughter Ashleigh by electrically transferring "her 'life-force' and consciousness into a set of inanimate toy clowns and small dolls."[7] These alleged experiments involved injecting live human tissue into inanimate dolls and toys in order to bring his daughter back from the dead.
On the evening of his attempted final experiment in 1957, Master North went missing and was never found. Concerned faculty in the Biology department closed down his controversial reanimation lab[8].
Alleged Toy-Related Hauntings[edit]
Since these controversial experiments, there have been repeated reports of strange sightings of ghostly events involving and dolls along with mysterious student deaths. On Halloween 1976, three Silliman students illegally entered the Silliman steam tunnels and were found dead after a steam tunnel unexpectedly exploded. First responders found a small doll near the burned bodies. In 1986, a female Silliman student was found murdered inside the locked buttery. Then Master Elias Clark[1] told the Yale Daily News "I never heard her scream. I only heard what sounded like clowns laughing."
The Yale Press Office has repeatedly denied any knowledge of doll or clown sightings and has denied any odd Silliman College fatalities. Yale University's official position is that there is no evidence of any hauntings or supernatural activities related to Master North's controversial experiments.