Written for The Rago by Esmeralda Rivera and Breanna Vanaman

With warmer weather quickly approaching, Stockton students are eager to shed their thick winter coats and enjoy some cool ice cream on a hot night. However, with this strong craving for a cold and sugary treat comes temptation that is well-known by the ice cream industry. Many on-campus residents in Galloway have reported strange sightings of a “phantom” ice cream truck traveling through the residential parking lots at night, usually on weekdays between the hours of 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. Along with the appearance of a regular ice cream truck, it plays a gentle jingle and emits a delicious odor of everyone’s favorite ice cream flavors. The smells of chocolate and vanilla ice cream linger for miles!

“It was around 2 in the morning, and I was having trouble sleeping,” a Housing 1 resident, Hela Scared, said. “I suddenly smelled pistachio ice cream — my favorite flavor — and I heard the ice cream truck coming. It was so weird; I just felt like running out there and buying some. It was like I was drawn to the truck. I was about to climb out my window when my roommate, Para, stopped me and stuffed cotton in my ears. When I couldn’t hear the music, the craving sort of stopped.”

Hela Scared’s two other roommates joined in on the conversation when the Rago asked for more information. Para Noia, one of the roommates, claimed, “It was, like, drawing me to it… I almost fell for it, then I literally fell and hit my head a bit, so I snapped out of it. And then I went to get Hela.” The third roommate, who chose to remain anonymous, was quite hysterical, repeatedly insisting that her best friend disappeared when they both first heard the music earlier this week. “I keep asking around about him, and everyone says they don’t know him. I feel so helpless, like everyone’s gaslighting me into thinking he never existed,” she told us.

Rumors of sudden disappearances have been reported throughout Stockton since the ice cream trucks allegedly started appearing, but none of these disappearances have been investigated, with Stockton Police Department denying the reports’ legitimacy, even stating that these “vanished students” were not real people at all. As far as the authorities know, these people never enrolled at Stockton or attended a single class. 

A Housing 4 resident, Penny Weiss, claimed she last saw her roommate when she went to the Lodge to get a late dinner around 11:30 p.m. “I thought I heard ice cream truck music, but I thought it was just me. Then my roommate suddenly got hungry and said she was going to the Lodge. Around midnight, I realized she hadn’t come back yet and I got worried. I tried calling, but her number was just gone from my phone and her social media accounts were, too. My other roommates said they didn’t even remember her. I thought it was some sick prank, but she’s still not back and no one seems to want to look for her.”

Stockton’s law enforcement has insisted that these reports are completely false and meant to distract the officers’ valuable time. “We implore our students to stop sending missing person reports for nonexistent students immediately,” Officer Suss Pishes stated. “They never existed, and they never will. In the meantime, enjoy some ice cream and settle down. Spring is coming, and we should enjoy it.”

Crisis Existential, a Psychology professor, has repeatedly tried to “catch” this ice cream truck himself. He claims that he was talking to a student near the Lodge around midnight when both of them heard the truck’s jingle, and the student simply ran off in the sound’s direction. “He just took off, like someone had called him. I tried running after him, and he was just screaming, ‘CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE!’ Then he was just gone,” Existential claimed. He asked authorities to look up the student’s name- Sweet Addict Jr., but there were no records of this name whatsoever. The Rago reached out to Stockton’s Registrar for comment, but received no response.

The Rago looked for more information on the student’s disappearances at the Residential Life Office, choosing the usual time of the ice cream truck’s appearance to try and “catch” the apparition. At 11:30, the mysterious, yet familiar, jingle returned and roommate Para Noia ran up to us yelling that her and Hela’s fourth roommate had supposedly disappeared, but none of our reporters recalled having spoken to a fourth. “We were all distracted watching TV, and our roommate, Goodbye, just disappeared. She had talked to all of you about this. I don’t understand how there’s no trace of her.” Our reporters did confirm that they heard a faint, creepy jingle, but had no memory of Goodbye World, as Noia had claimed her roommate’s name was.

“I only remember three girls in that apartment,” The Rago staff writer, Esmeralda Rivera, said. “I don’t even remember them mentioning a fourth.”

“I know for a fact that there were only three girls that we interviewed from Housing 1,” Breanna Vanaman said. “But I did hear that jingle when Para Noia came running to us, and it was pretty creepy. I suddenly wanted to get ice cream, but the truck was pretty far, and I didn’t really feel like going all the way over. It smelled a lot like Caramel for a bit, so I was really tempted.” When the ice cream truck jingle had faded, Vanaman stated that everyone had gone back to their dormitories without any sign of panic, except Para Noia, who was escorted back to her apartment by campus police. “I still felt like having ice cream even after the truck left,” Vanaman added. “I guess I just remember the jingle.”

Students should take their minds off these silly rumors and enjoy the changing of the seasons. And if anyone hears a familiar jingle in the middle of the night, don’t resist the feeling of going out and getting ice cream as a calming, midnight snack — go get the perfect treat!