The Top: Spooky Spots on Campus

Five of the most Halloween-appropriate spots on campus

Share this article:

Happy Halloween! Pictured is Cheryl Hayashi, professor of biology and spider expert.

Welcome to Inside UCR’s newest feature, The Top!

Each issue, we’re presenting a list of UCR staff and faculty favorites — from restaurants to Zen gardens to events. This week, we’re featuring the most Halloween-appropriate spots on campus. If you have a place or activity you’d like to share, email lille.bose@ucr.edu.

1. The ranch house, built in 1828, which used to stand on the site of Glen Mor 2

Mike Terry, assistant director of facilities and maintenance, lived in this ranch house as a single man. (A paranormal investigation group found what they considered to be evidence of a haunting in the house of five spirits, including one little girl.)

“Creepy things happened; you’d hear sounds downstairs if you were upstairs and vice versa. Once, my phone rang upstairs, and I heard footsteps and running around from below. When I went upstairs to check it out, the phone was off the hook!”

Another time, he said, “I had friends over for dinner one night, and we heard a clicking sound – just to see salt and pepper shakers dancing apart from each other, before stopping back in their original positions!”

And that wasn’t all: “I had a lady friend I was trying to impress over for dinner – I had candles, wine, and a fancy meal prepared. I had just lit the candles with a box of Blue Diamond matches, which I placed on the corner of the table. We saw it float up off the table then fall! My romantic dinner ended with us pushing each other to get out of there.”

2. The Tomás Rivera Library

Home of the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy (and horror!), stories have circulated about ghosts that have been “experienced” in the third-floor restrooms of the Tomás Rivera Library. Lights flicking on and off, people in the stalls feeling cold hands on the backs of their necks. … Others say it’s the fourth floor that’s haunted. Maybe ghosts like sci-fi?

3. Steam Tunnels

UC Riverside has an extensive — and complicated — system of pipes that conduct high-pressure steam and chilled water through the service tunnels to various buildings across the campus. The steam tunnels are primarily used to provide heating and cooling throughout campus buildings.

Pipes for steam and chilled water as well as high-voltage electrical cables line the steam tunnels. Temperatures can reach as high as 160 degrees in some areas, and it’s dangerous to go in there because high-pressure steam is such a dangerous medium to work with; it can give you third-degree burns. If it is released through a small hole at high pressure, it can cut through the skin.

4. KUCR

KUCR’s program director Louis Vandenberg says that there’s a widely held belief that KUCR founder and longtime chief engineer Bill Elledge remains a benevolent “presence” at the station. “There are a couple of people [who’ve expressed how] genuinely spooked they were, saying they could hear him in the studios. They insist on keeping all the studio lights on at night,” Vandenberg says. “I don’t share the belief that Bill haunts the station, but his spirit is present in all that he contributed. I am reminded of him everyday.”

5. The Entomology Research Museum

What’s Halloween without spiders and other creepy crawlies? The Entomology Research Museum (which is home to the second-oldest insect collection in the UC system) is made up of about 3 million specimens. The huge collection of insects and related arthropods come from places near (Southern California and Arizona, Mexico) and far (Thailand, Brazil, Honduras, Russia, India, and Australia). It’s also a great place for the curious to get information on any insects they may find.

Archived under: Inside UCR, Halloween, lists, the Top

Top of Page