The Dead Professor

I’m not sure how accurate this one is but as a student at the University, especially one that uses the lifts, I find it spooky.

Anyone that has ever been to Adelaide Univeristy knows that the elevators in the ‘Napier Block’ of the univeristy are notoriously unreliable. Often they will go to floors (there are nine in the building) in a haphazard order. Sometimes you can wait up to three or five minutes for one of the three elevators to reach your floor. Its possible that this urban legend developed out of pure frustration, something I can relate to having had to wait for the lifts before. Anyhow here it is;

A female student at the Adelaide Univeristy campus was up all night finishing an assignment that had to be in before the next day. The deadline for it was 12 o’clock that night, and it had to be in the ‘assignment completion’ box outside the English Department on the University campus.

The student finished the assignment with little time to spare and quickly ran off to the university to hand it in. Needless to say it was nearly 12o’clock and, of course, it was raining. By the time the student reached the Napier Building, where the English Department was located, she was soaked.

The student decided to take the lifts as the English Department was on the sixth floor. The student became a little spooked when she noticed that the building was mostly empty - the lights were off, all the doors were closed and nobody was around. Even the cleaners exited the elevators to go home as the student got into them. Although this was not suprising considering the time of night.

When the student got out at the English Department floor (the sixth) she did note that the light was on in the last room at the end of the hall several doors down from the English Department’s ‘assignment completion’ box.

The student handed in her assignment and pressed the button for the elevators to come to her floor. By the time that the elevator arrived a lecturer had come out of the door at the end of the hall, turned off the light and was running to catch the elevator that the student was on. The student was wet, cold, and a little self conscious about just the two of them being in the lift at this time of night when no one else was around so as the lecturer went to get in the elevator she pressed the ‘close doors’ button saying “sorry you’ll have to take the next one”. The lecturer had a shocked and terrified look on his face as the doors closed but the student tried to put it out of her mind, running out of the building to get home to avoid having an argument with him.

The next day the student came to the university to apoligise to the lecturer for being rude, but found his door locked. When she went to the English Department to find out where he was they said that he had had a heart attack last night and was found by one of the cleaners in the morning. Apparently the heart attack had not been that serious but he had been unable to press the button to call the lifts and collapsed outside of them, by the time the morning came he had died.

It is said that when you are waiting for the lifts late at night in the Napier Block at the Adelaide University they will always take you to the sixth floor where the English Department used to be (this does happen often), and if you look in the mirrors at the back of the lifts when the doors close you will see the shocked, terrified face of the lecturer who had the heart attack.

Also it is said that on really rainy nights at the university if you look from outside the Napier block at the sixth floor around 12 o’clock you will see the light at the end of the hall (visible due to a window at the end of the hall) blink on and off several times as the ghost of the lecturer vents his frustration.

Incidently I have spoken to the lecturer that now operates out of the office at the end of the hall on the sixth floor and she says that sometimes she leaves the light on just to continue the urban legend. But also she complains that often late at night when it is rainy the office does become very cold - of course the building is made out of brick and has dodgy air conditioning.

I write in mainly though because me and a few friends were wandering through the university late one night and dropped by the Napier block to see if the lights flickered - they did. (Of course we had consumed large amounts of alchohol.)

Submitted by Justin