Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a five-part series exploring the ghost stories and urban legends of Athens.
Wilson Hall’s fourth floor might have a number of double rooms for incoming freshmen, but some are finding out that they have to share their room with a third person.
“We named her Christina, and she likes the name because ever since we started calling her that she seems to like our clothes,” said Emily Jucikas, a freshman studying nursing. “At two or three in the morning we were making food … and all of a sudden the plate flew off (the table).”
Jucikas and her friend Molly Sheline, a freshman studying pre-medicine, have experienced some spooky hauntings from their respective fourth floor rooms in Wilson Hall, which is considered to be one of the most, if not the most, haunted places on campus.
The hauntings have been very real for Jucikas and Sheline, who said they have experienced rattling door handles, appliances being tampered with, the sound of jewelry or marbles being shuffled around above them and motion-detecting hand dryers going off in the bathroom when no one else was in there. Jucikas said “Christina” likes her clothes and opens her wardrobe doors at night to check them out.
Someone or something even carved a swastika about one-fourth inch deep into the inside of Sheline’s door while both roommates were out.
Others, however, think the stories are steeped in untruths. The legend is filled with rumors about student suicides, deaths and Wiccan rituals. It is also believed that Wilson Hall was built atop one of the patient cemeteries from the Athens Lunatic Asylum and that it lays dead center in the middle of a pentagram connecting the cemeteries of Athens.
Patrick Quackenbush, author of Haunted Hocking and a ghost hunter, said there are more than 200 cemeteries and family plots surrounding Athens, making it easy to form a pentagram.
“To be honest with you, we don’t believe that one because none of the background fits the story,” Quackenbush said. “We found no police records of a murder or anything that happened in there, so we’ve never been able to substantiate anything in Wilson Hall.”
The infamous room 415, now a boiler room, was in fact two dorm rooms — rooms 402 and 403 — when the building was constructed in 1965, said Joshua Bodnar, assistant director of Residential Housing.
In 1986 the university converted the space into the Wilson Hall Annex, or West Wing, which houses research rooms and labs that needed extra fans in the legendary rooms.
However, some still believe the university did this to hide the never-fading blood stain that was supposedly once on the wall.
“Wilson Hall has been a big part of the lore for a long time,” Bodnar said. “The town has a history and a legend of ghost stories. … People find (them) intriguing and once one gets any form of traction, they tend to have staying power.”
Although Quackenbush doesn’t believe in the story of Wilson Hall, he has had plenty of experiences with ghosts. He believes that the lore comes out of the rich history of Athens, including the industry and poverty that has swept through the hills.
“When it comes to ghosts and spirits, for the most part they want attention,” Quackenbush said. “It’s probably a fairly lonely existence I would imagine. … Sometimes it’s friendly, sometimes it’s not so nice, sometimes it’s playful. When you got students you’re dealing with, why not mess with them a little bit?”
Jucikas has since moved from the fourth floor of Wilson because of roommate disagreements and said she and Sheline never felt threatened by “Christina” — only that she wanted attention.
Sheline also said she had a strange feeling once opening the door to the boiler room — an almost presence of sorts.
“It’s just the door itself,” Sheline said. “I walked up that stairwell 70 times, but as soon as I opened that door it just hit me. I have never felt that before.”
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