It’s a climate ripe for the supernatural.
Every place has its stories, and UNM is no exception. With All Hallows’ Eve approaching, there may be spirits that are coming out to play. Perhaps it is illusion; perhaps the only spirits causing mischief are those that choose to share their stories.
Two locations on campus report the presence of supernatural happenings: Coronado Residence Hall and Zimmerman Library.
Coronado Residence Hall
Sophomore Augustus Pedrotty, a Coronado hall resident advisor, said he fulfills his duty by walking rounds in the building to make sure everything is okay.
Coronado has been a large traditional residence hall for 56 years and holds an obscure past of happenings largely unknown to its current residents, he said.
Walking the halls during the dead of night has proven creepy and sometimes unexplainable, he said.
“Normally, the third floor is nice and quiet,” Pedrotty said. “It is just this little hall at the top of the building, but every now and then you just get that one audible noise coming from that room.”
Two more RAs have confirmed this occurrence and are slowly getting weary of the unexplained sound, Pedrotty said.
“It is a slow, scratching sound, and once you open the door to the room there is only the same, gnarly-looking tub,” he said.
No resident has been seen making use of service room number three, and even more peculiar is that this room is one-of-a-kind at Coronado — the only one that holds an old, unused, handicap-accessible bath tub, Pedrotty said.
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“The huge irony in this is that the bathtub is not actually on any floor that is handicap-accessible; it’s on the third floor,” Pedrotty said.
To this day service room #3 remains an anomaly, he said.
Zimmerman stack towers
In 2006 the library staff was tasked with inspecting all nine floors of one of Zimmerman’s book stack towers, former UNM librarian Teresa Marquez said.
“All librarians and staff were assigned security duties,” she said. “I had to make sure that no one was there, and that no fires were starting up.”
While checking the fourth and fifth floors, steady footsteps seemed to be approaching her, said Marquez.
“I looked back and saw nothing, so I started walking around looking for who had walked up behind me,” she said. “I thought it was somebody coming up the stairs to meet me — and no, there wasn’t anyone there.”
It is commonly discussed that a ghost wanders the library towers, a supernatural type of presence believed to be the first librarian of Zimmerman, she said.
“Some time ago a mechanic in Zimmerman’s boiler room reported having seen a woman appear in his office, and as he followed her toward the door she just went right through,” Marquez said. “The librarian may have appeared to the mechanic, just how she appeared to me. If that is what they say it is, it sure as hell frightened me.”
Mateo Rocha is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo
