Imagine living in a dorm room rumored to be haunted by a young woman who hung herself in her closet. Picture living in a home where the previous inhabitant has died. These are the most common forms of urban legends and ghost stories surrounding the UCA campus.
Freshman Brandy Rankins said: “One room [of the Pike fraternity house]is haunted by a girl’s spirit who hung herself in her closet. Before she committed suicide, she wrote, ‘I hate you, Daddy,’ on the wall.”
There are also rumors of a girl hanging herself in the closet of room 219 in Hughes Hall.
Freshman Anetra Hamilton said, “First semester, as I visited friends on the second floor, I was afraid to go to room 219 because of the stories I had heard and read off of the Internet.”
One ghost story involves the Student Center.
Graduate student Max Carranza said: “When I was SGA president, I used to go to the Student Center late at night to either do work or homework. One time, I went to go get the key from the police station and went in. The place was locked and there was nobody in there. I went upstairs to the [old]SGA office and was going to enter through the back door. By the elevator, on one of those couches, I saw a little boy.
“He was young. He didn’t say anything or [move]. He just looked at me and our eyes made contact the entire time until I went around the corner. I went in the office and was not sure why he was there. I felt a little scared. I had to use the restroom so I had to go back out and the little boy was still there.
“Again we made eye contact as I walked but I really didn’t feel like asking him any questions. When I came out of the bathroom he was still there and he followed my every move. I went back in the office and since I was too concerned about what was going on, I could not focus knowing that a little boy was outside by himself when the building was closed. I grabbed my stuff and walked out and the boy was gone. I left the building as fast as I could.”
The story behind this little boy is unknown.
Of course, there are standard urban legends that float around campus. One in particular concerns the crosswalks.
Freshman Nicole Braddock said: “I heard that if you get hit by a car when in a crosswalk on campus, then you get tuition for free. So I always try to walk as slowly as possible when crossing the street in hopes of getting hit by a car.”
There is also the age-old urban legend about what happens if a roommate dies. According to legend, if a student’s roommate dies in the middle of the semester, then the surviving student receives straight As for the remainder of the semester.
Another popular one is the urban legend that floats around from campus to campus about turning on the lights in a dorm room late at night.
The legend goes that there were two roommates – one who studied and one who partied. The roommate wanted to go out and so as to not disturb her studious roommate, decided she was going to stay at a friend’s house.
She had forgotten something in her room and it was late when she went back to get it. She decided not to turn on the light when she went back to her room to retrieve the missing item because her roommate seemed to be asleep.
When the roommate returned to the room the next morning, she found police officers crowding her doorway. The officers reluctantly allowed her into the room; the message “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn the light on?” was scribbled on the wall in the roommate’s blood, who could be seen lying in her bed, murdered.
This urban legend has not been proven to be true.
