Every university campus has its share of urban legends and ghost stories. Here are some of the ones from NMSU, my alumni campus. My time at NMSU was colored with various unexplained and paranormal experiences, which I attribute to the energy of Las Cruces itself. Las Cruces is a really historic place and you can feel it. I feel the same sense of deep history and active spirits rubbing elbows with people in Santa Fe. NMSU is also historic and has been there since 1888.
The Lady of the Belltower
One popular legend is the lady in the bell tower over Rhodes-Garret-Hamiel Hall, one of the oldest residence halls still standing on campus. Some people say this ghost is actually male. This ghost can occasionally be seen sitting or standing in the bell tower on the roof of the residence hall. The legend goes that at one time, a girl climbed up there and hanged herself or jumped to her death, in some unknown year.
A review of NMSU history has found no record of anyone hanging herself from the bell tower or jumping from it. In fact, some think the legend actually morphed from the true story of a death in Goddard Hall. Goddard Hall also has a bell tower, but the ghost in that hall did not die in there. More on that legend in a moment.
I’m not sure who the ghost is, but I saw her myself one night. I swore I saw a black shadow figure with long hair sitting in the bell tower, her legs dangling nonchalantly over the edge. I asked my friend about it and he saw it too. We may or may not have been on acid, though. (hehe)
The RGH Laundress
There is another ghost said to haunt Rhodes-Garret-Hamiel Hall. Since the building has been a residence hall since 1935, it makes sense that it has a lot of history and possible hauntings. But no one knows who this ghost might be.
She is said to hang out in the student laundry room, where she sometimes folds students’ laundry when they leave it unattended. Students say that she was a maid or laundress of some type and she died either by suicide or by falling down the stairs inside RGH.
I did not live in RHG, but I had many friends who did. They often told stories of creepy goings-on in the old residence hall. One of my friends recalled creepy footsteps in the hall at night. When he would peek out his door, no one would be out there walking. Another friend recalled coming into his dorm and finding all of his chicken nuggets were stuffed in the microwave, still frozen, but no one had been in the dorm room all day. I also heard stories of doors slamming shut on their own, disembodied voices, and lights flickering.
The Ghost of Goddard Hall
Goddard Hall is a prestigious building on the Horseshoe – a ring of classroom buildings and administrative buildings arranged in a horseshoe shape around a grassy park. Goddard houses most of NMSU’s engineering department. Its namesake, Ralph Willis Goddard, was electrocuted to death in the building’s college radio station transmitter room in 1929.
Now, staff and students alike claim the building is haunted. They talk about doors slamming shut, lights flickering, and disembodied footsteps filling empty hallways with echoes. People who stay late or work over the weekends are especially creeped out by the haunting.
There is also a legend about a ghost in the Goddard Hall bell tower. This ghost is supposedly the trapped soul of a student who hanged himself in the bell tower. Again, just like with the bell tower Lady of RGH, there is no record of any death occurring in the Goddard Hall bell tower.
The Hershel Zohn Theater Ghost
When I first came to NMSU, the Hershel Zohn Theatre was still in use. (Now the theatre department has a new building that is much nicer.) The old Hershel Zohn was supposedly haunted. A mischievous ghost, called George, will make noise, bang around backstage, slam doors, or take the shape of a green orb or light. Some students and staff claim they have seen the ghostly figure of a man in a 19th-century top hat and cape meandering around the place.
Of course, the ghost is very gracious to the theatrical arts. He has never interfered with a play. But students involved in theater have seen shadow figures moving on the edge of the stage.
Since NMSU was founded in 1888, some think that George was a man who died in the nineteenth century on university grounds, perhaps from a bad catwalk fall inside the theater. But the Hershel Zohn was not built until 1932. I think that someone who loved that theater died elsewhere and came back to haunt the theater. I think some ghosts choose to stay on Earth because they really love something and they can’t let it go.
“D Block” in Garcia Hall
This is my own experience and not a legend you can read about anywhere. But I felt that the “D Block” of Garcia Hall is haunted. I lived there for a few weeks before transferring to “A Block,” where I had a better time.
On D Block, I would have constant nightmares of being chased around the gigantic square block by a maintenance man with maniacal eyes. I also entered my dorm room one day and saw a shadow figure scurry into the bathroom. I was too creeped out to stay in there alone. I sat outside and waited for my roommate to return. Of course, she thought I was crazy!
Another night, my boyfriend slept over because my roommate was gone and I could not handle sleeping alone in that dorm room. My boyfriend violently shook me awake. He looked terrified. I realized my throat was raw and I was confused. he said that I had been screaming for several minutes straight while staring at a corner of the ceiling. He also said that my cat had been sitting on the foot of the bed and watching the same corner.
Shadow figures are actually not a strange phenomena in Las Cruces. I used to see them all the time when I was younger. Now I don’t see them anymore and I don’t know why. They seem particularly prevalent around campus, especially in family housing, and also in the nearby streets where a lot of students come and go from the rundown housing and cheap apartments. Something about transient areas seem to hold onto a lot of weird energy.
I knew someone who ended up renting the room where Katie Sepich had lived when she was murdered. That friend was practically tortured in that room by shadow people. They would ring her bed at night and she would wake up to them staring at her with empty eyes. She soon moved out.
The Pit
I don’t know if the Pit still exists, but when I was in college, there was a huge pit in the desert where we would have raves and parties. The Pit was a pretty desolate spot, which is how we got away with so much mischief out there. The cops would often get called to break up the party, but we always got at least a few hours of fun in on weekends.
My dorm roommate lost something out at the Pit during a party. She and her boyfriend and a friend returned there the next night, when no one was out there, to look for it. They didn’t find it, but as dusk settled around the area, things got weird.
My roommate thought she heard her boyfriend call out, “I found it!” She ran to the area of mesquite where she thought he was and he wasn’t there. Meanwhile, her boyfriend was down in the Pit and he saw my roommate come to the edge and peer down at him. He said her name and she just smiled at him slowly without saying anything. Then she ran away and he ran after her, only to find her in a completely different area, where she could not have been if she had just been staring at him from the edge.
The friend they brought with them also saw a shadow figure dart into the brush. He became creeped out, so he ran into the Pit to find my roommate and her boyfriend. They weren’t there of course so he called their names. They both called back to him and he ran toward the sound of their voices. He came out of the Pit and couldn’t see them so he called their names again. He kept following their voices deeper and deeper into the desert as the light completely faded.
Finally, they saw the beam of his cell phone and they shouted and waved their cell phones. He made his way back to them and told them he had been following their voices. They both claimed they had not heard him calling to them and had not called his name at all.
They realized they had all had confusing experiences and seen shadow figures and heard disembodied voices. They also felt watched. So they left the area expediently.
Back in the dorm, we were hanging out, eating ramen and smoking pot, college stuff. My roommate and her boyfriend went to sleep in her narrow dorm bed. We all woke up to the sound of her screaming. She was shaking as she described seeing a gargoyle with glowing red eyes sat at the foot of her bed. None of us saw it but we believed her.
I don’t think any of us ever went out to the Pit again.