Students reflect on the more peculiar parts of campus
Questionable places can be found on campus if you know where to look for them. Creepy messages on staircases, a worn jail-like bed in the bathroom and a building designed for people to get lost can lead students to ask, “Why?” and “What does it all mean?”
If you’ve ever had a class in Storer Hall, you may know about the room on the basement floor hidden inside the women’s bathroom. If you haven’t, it could be worth taking a trip down to go see it with your own eyes.
After taking the elevator down to the basement level of Storer, turn directly to the left and you’ll see the women’s bathroom. The bathroom looks like any other, except for the fact that there is an out-of-place door that is closed on the right side of the stalls. Open it, and you’ll find a run-down bed with indents marking the presence of someone- or something- that has used it. Chains lie on the floor beside and underneath the bed, giving off an eerie impression of a jail cell. But why would a jail cell be in the women’s bathroom?
Third-year Rayven Hernandez has heard rumors of what the room might’ve been.
“I had a class in Storer my first year,” Hernandez said. “I had a classmate who told me that the room was used for zoology research. She said the chains were used for animals who had to be isolated because they were too feral.”
However, Hernandez also heard rumors that the room is haunted and the chains inside rattle at night.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Building is perhaps the more obvious example of an unusual building structure on campus. More commonly known as “The Death Star”, students have reported numerous warnings about getting lost in the buildings complicated architecture.
According to the creator Antoine Predock’s website, the “forms of the facility suggest the geological forces that created the great Central Valley of California,”
While the building stands as a remarkable representation of the Central Valley, there is no doubt that newcomers should pay close attention when walking its halls.
“I was told that the Social Sciences and Humanities Building was built intricately, kind of like a maze, on purpose to set the whole building up as an experience so that you had to socialize with someone to find your way out of it,” said Nicole Chin, fourth-year psychology major.
She also advised that anyone who is new to The Death Star should probably get to know the building when the sun is still out.
“Battling The Death Star can be spooky at night, especially if you get lost,” Chin said.
The Art Building contains many displays of artwork ranging from paintings, portraits, sculptures and more. However, there is one particularly unusual sculpture that lurks on the staircase leading toward the roof. This staircase goes up to the fourth floor of the Art Building, but it doesn’t stop there. If you continue to venture one more flight up the staircase, you’ll find a latched door that opens upward onto the roof.
The staircase that leads to this latched door is marked with many cryptic messages and graffiti, but the thing that stands out the most is the life-sized sculpture of a “triangle-man” pointing toward the flight of stairs. It is almost as if the sculpture is asking you to look at the graffiti or go up the staircase. Written in big, blocky writing on the steps of the staircase is the phrase, “Nowhere Is Safe Everything Will Be Used Against Us”.
Unusual places like these can be found scattered throughout campus. UC Davis has a long history due to its unique beginnings, starting as an agricultural extension and morphing into its own campus, and each building has its own unique story.
“There’s still so many places I’ve heard about that I need to check out on campus,” Hernandez said. “There’s all these rooms and buildings that spook people, but I still haven’t found someone who knows a 100 percent true explanation for them.”
Written by SIERRA BURGUENO — features@theaggie.org
Omg this is so interesting! I wish there were more articles that talk about the spooky sites on campus