Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Ghosts of UNCG

Tales have long circulated about the ghosts that allegedly haunt the campus. UNCG’s most well known ghost reportedly inhabits Aycock Auditorium.

Aycock Auditorium

Raymond Taylor, who taught drama and was the director of dramatic activities on campus from 1921 until 1960, recounts his personal experiences with the ghost of Aycock Auditorium.

According to Taylor, an elderly lady once lived in a large house where Aycock Auditorium now stands. Lonely and unhappy, she one day went up to the attic and hanged herself with a rope from the rafters. When the house was torn down, she haunted the area until Aycock Auditorium was built in 1927, and then she adopted the auditorium as her home. Taylor told of an incident that happened on a hot day when he and the Aycock Auditorium janitor were working on a set for a play.

In order to be more comfortable he and the janitor removed some of their clothes. When Taylor went upstairs to dress he found his clothes disarranged and his watch chain arranged on the table in the form of a cross.

Students have given the Aycock spirit a name, they call her Jane Aycock, and say she is the daughter of the man for whom the auditorium was named; but Governor Charles Aycock had no daughter by that name.

Mary Foust Residence Hall

A ghost also allegedly haunts Mary Foust Residence Hall, which is named for Mary Foust, the daughter of the College’s second President, Julius I. Foust.

Mary Foust died during childbirth in 1925 and rumors have floated around for years about random “unexpected crying” and “funny noises” on the hall’s second floor.

Also, an unproven rumor circulates that in the 1950s, three nursing students hanged themselves from the attic rafters.

In the late 1960s, the Spencer Residence Hall ghost was known simply as “The Blue Ghost” or “The Woman in Blue.”

Bell Towers of Spencer Residence Hall

Students later gave her the name “Annabelle.” Annabelle is supposedly the spirit of a student who hanged herself years ago in one of Spencer Residence Hall’s bell towers; however, no suicide has ever been documented.

In the 1970s, Annabelle allegedly appeared as a blue shadow to staff members in the Spencer parlor, and there have been reports of a blue haze passing by a laundry room and of objects being flung across rooms.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

I am a recent graduate of UNCG, I lived in the Gray Dorm on the Quad for three years('05-'08). Even though I never heard any legends about a ghost in my dorm, I've certainly experienced enough weird things to make me wonder.

When I lived on the third floor, I would see both shadows of people and people walk past my window.

One night I also heard someone unlock my door and come in. I thought it was just my roommate because I saw a person in my peripheral vision that looked like my roommate but when I turned to ask her how her night was, there was no-one there and the door was still locked.

Other times I'd see reflections in the mirrors of people that were not in the room or outside the windows and even if there was someone outside, the position of the image wouldn't have been right.

I guess I just wanted to put it out there, that I feel there are more ghosts on the UNCG campus than just the ones in Aycock Auditorium and Mary Foust and North Spencer. They may be undocumented but I think they are there.

Princess Coleman said...
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prix said...

I very agree. There are many more ghosts at UNCG. I am staying in Reynolds dorm on the fifth floor. I saw a person in my room and their reflection in the window. I got up to turn the light on trying to ignore it all but turning on the light just made the image of the person more clear as it looked back at me.

DorkKnight said...

I stayed two semesters in Mary Foust dormitory, room 313. It's on the third floor, center of the building. I don't believe the nun story, because I saw the attic space once, and between the rafters and floor joists, there's not enough room for an average height person to hang themselves. The dorm is definitely haunted though. Many times, maybe six or eight during a semester, I would wake up at 1 or 2am to the sound of footsteps on the ceiling of my floor, the top floor just under the short attic space. The footsteps would start at one end of the hall and get louder and louder until they felt like they passed right over my room and then down to the other end of the floor. This would go on for half an hour or more. Many people heard the footsteps, and on a few occasions after students called to complain, the campus police would come to the dorm, unlock the access panel to the ceiling space and go up to find nothing. This was crazy because the only people with the key to the lock were the police and the dorm's married (with a newborn baby) residence manager. Neither the cops nor our live-in dorm manager had any reason to be in the attic space stomping around for 30 minutes at 2am. And a real human wouldn't be able to stomp around in the dark attic anyway, not without hitting their head or tripping on a floor joist repeatedly.

One morning, both my roommate and I (and his overnight gf guest) woke up at 6 in the morning to the loudest noise we had ever heard in the room. It sounded like a car wrecked into the ceiling of room 213, which was directly beneath room 313. The noise was so loud it nearly scared us to death. Later that day, I met the two girls who were in room 213 and asked them what they did to make the loud noise in their room at 6am. They looked at me and were totally confused. They were both awake and getting ready for an early class around 6am and the heard nothing. These were not jokey pranky type girls, they were serious about college and had no reason to make a giant noise under room 313 and then lie about it. My roommate decided to stay in his gfs room the rest of the semester after that.

The bottom line - even without the nun story being tru - Mary Foust dorm is haunted, especially room 313.

Unknown said...

My mother was a grad of UNCG and her dorm, Coit, was haunted by a ghost in the then-communal bathrooms. She would have late classes and wouldn't get homework finished until midnight, and would walk to the showers and hear someone in the showers crying. As per usual, no one would be in there. My mother was very rational and would normally put it off as pipe noises, until she heard footsteps in the shower with her!! Needless to say, she avoided taking showers alone after a few times of that occurring! She also used to go into Aycock and would hear the ghost lobbing about and making general mayhem.

Unknown said...

My mother was a grad of UNCG and her dorm, Coit, was haunted by a ghost in the then-communal bathrooms. She would have late classes and wouldn't get homework finished until midnight, and would walk to the showers and hear someone in the showers crying. As per usual, no one would be in there. My mother was very rational and would normally put it off as pipe noises, until she heard footsteps in the shower with her!! Needless to say, she avoided taking showers alone after a few times of that occurring! She also used to go into Aycock and would hear the ghost lobbing about and making general mayhem.

starcatcher1027 said...

I moved into North Spencer dorm 5 days ago, and tonight I was sitting at my desk on my phone when I heard the noise of something scrape. So I looked up, and the pair of scissors sitting on my desk moved toward me with no cause. It scared the DAYLIGHTS out of me and I ran out of the room trembling.

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

There is a ghost who haunts the 9th floor of the library tower because he committed suicide. He had been homosexual and a reportedly beautiful dancer in the UNCG dance program.Unfortunately he was tragically bullied by his dorm mates and on the cold night of November 22nd he broke the glass window to the ninth floor and jumped to his death. His name is Kenneth Crump, he is a now a ghost, he puts books on the shelf the wrong way around sometimes and as I right them, I give him acknowledgement, goodness knows he has been all but forgotten now,but for the wide wooden boards across the big windows overlooking the campus.

Unknown said...

What room is it? Just curious.

Davidlovesbethann said...

There is a ghost in Spencer...ripped the covers off the bed as a lady friend and I were sleeping...this is after she called me and asked me to come over because she felt like something else was in the room with her..miss ya ms.h.it is a small world..🍓

Davidlovesbethann said...

The library ghost is real....wears a blue shirt.i saw it when shelving books..the ghost haunted the second floor of the old library...