UNM was founded in 1889, so ghosts have had over a century to come to campus, get an education and decide they like it here. They can stay to haunt the old buildings and the students that dwell in them. The lifeguards at the Olympic Pool in Johnson Gym confessed to the Daily Lobo that one of their locker rooms might be haunted. They tell of hearing faucets and showers turn on even though no one is in the building.
Here are some of their personal accounts:
Junior De La Cruz
“Me and my co-worker George, we vacuum the pool on Thursday nights. We have to sweep those locker rooms for the therapy pool, and they can get pretty dark. I was walking through one of them and when I shut the light off, the shower came on. So I turned the light back on to see, and I looked in the showers, and these showers aren’t sensor showers so they can’t turn on by themselves. So I kind of freaked out and I just shut the door and booked it out of there.
It’s kind of weird because sometimes we feel like there’s someone in there standing in that room watching you. Being in there kind of gives me that eerie feeling that you get sometimes.
I’ve worked back in the old pool and often in the corner if you’re walking from the men’s locker room to the Olympic Pool, there’s a corner with a blue door and a fire hydrant and I swear up and down, I have seen it twice. I’ve seen an older gentleman stand in that corner with a maroon shirt on, that the janitors wear here at the Johnson facility. And he just vanishes into the wall. So I always tell people I think there’s something up with that blue door that the ghost must haunt that certain area.”
Tara Brown
“You can always tell at the end of the night that there is something around because things just get kind of creepy. Once the lights go out you can just feel some sort of other presence. One time I was closing up and I was going to the therapy room locker room because that’s the only place that I feel this presence, and I feel sort of out of my element. I remember doing my last sweep to make sure there was no one in there and I could hear something kind of like a humming and clanging. It sounded like someone was in there just having a dandy old time. It concerned me that, as a lifeguard, I had missed someone in there. So I remember calling back in ‘Is anyone in there?’ and I turned back on the lights and there was no one in there. I immediately left because I know I didn’t just hear that. It sounded like this person was kind of younger and just having fun in there.”
Linda Peirce
“The first thing that I thought was scary was when I was there opening the pool really early. I walked into the therapy pool locker room, and I was going in there to turn off the lights, and I heard this woman’s voice talking really nicely and then I said ‘Oh, excuse me. Sorry.’ Then I thought to myself, ‘How is there someone in here? I just opened the pool.’ And I looked and there was no one in there but I swear I heard someone really well. There was another time where I was driving to the swimming pool really early, and I saw someone (through the window) standing on the stairs of the pool, and thought that I was late to practice. And then I got into the building and everyone was still waiting outside.”
