Halloween pranks began early Saturday when an unknown vandal smashed windows in five NIU buildings and stole a stuffed moose head from Montgomery Hall, police said.

The vandal tipped over cement cigarette urns outside DuSable, Watson, Stevens, Cole and Montgomery halls and heaved the broken chunks through plate glass windows in each building, police said.

A mounted moose head donated to NIU in 1984 was stolen from a wall in the lobby area north of the Montgomery Hall auditorium, police said.

James Grosklags, assistant chairman of the biology department, said the mounted head was a cape buffalo, not a moose. Grosklags said he did not know anything about the break-in.

University Police Lt. Ron Williams said the incident might have been a Halloween prank, but said he thinks the vandalism was not premeditated. “Someone idly walking by took the cement and threw it through the window,” he said.

Some people also tried to break into the Stevens Hall anthropology museum by taking the door off its hinges, police said. The vandals did not enter the museum because they activated the alarm system, police said.

“I suspect they were looking for Halloween costumes,” said museum curator Milton Deemer.

The museum has American Indian and Southeast Asian costumes in its collection, he said.