On a brightly lit day, surrounded by reassuring friends, we can confidently say that the answer is zero. But stand under the looming tower of Science Hall at dusk, and you may wonder as you feel a shiver … Built in 1887, Science Hall is one of the UW’s oldest buildings, and its architecture — Romanesque revival, with creaky doors, brooding gables, and mysterious period after the building’s name — is certainly spooky enough to inspire ghost stories. As are the bats. Science Hall looks so creepy that, in 1944, Professor Samuel Rogers used it as a setting when he wrote Don’t Look Behind You, a horror/mystery novel. But the building’s actual history is eerier than fiction. Even before construction was complete, it had claimed its first dead body: a worker who died during construction. When the hall opened, various science departments moved in, some running odd experiments. And the UW’s anatomy department was housed there until 1957, bringing in cadavers and skeletons to educate early medical students. The most notorious of these might be that of Julian Carlton, who committed the Taliesin murders. Careless students left their lab supplies — skeletal remains, preserved body parts — in various nooks and crannies, and long after anatomy left, people were still finding those bits and pieces. A loose foot turned up in 1974. So the remains of dozens of people have left a spiritual residue on Science Hall, meaning that the number of ghosts is … well, still zero, because ghosts aren’t real. Probably.