It’s October, so you know what that means! Okay that gif may not be very spooky, but hopefully one of these urban legends of Davis will give you a good chill. Note: None of these legends are confirmed unless stated. More information can be found at the main source of this article: https://daviswiki.org/urban_legends
*Trigger warning: suicide mentioned
Unconfirmed Legends
Suicide note in the Malcolm Hall elevator shaft
This story (like most) has different versions, but the common theme in all of them is that a girl once hung herself in the elevator shaft of Malcolm Hall…but not before writing a suicide note. According to legend, if you take the elevator to the 5th floor of Malcolm and look up through the crack between the door and wall, her suicide note can be seen. If the stories are to be believed, the note simply says “sh*t, give me a chance.”
Missing Mathematician in Kearney Elevator
Apparently in the winter of 2008, during finals week, a math major accidentally dropped his calculator down the elevator shaft of Kearney Hall. Of course he wanted to retrieve it, but no one thought he would actually follow through and do so. But he did. No one knows what really happened, but since then the only trace of him has been his calculator under the Kearney elevator… and the knocking sounds his ghost makes every night at 2am when he’s trying to escape.
Cow on a Roof
In the 1980s, residents from Tercero D allegedly stole a cow and led it up the stairway to the roof of the building. They wanted to test out for themselves the fact that a cow can be lead upstairs, but is physically incapable of walking downstairs because of her knees. The test was, of course, successful. But they were now left with a cow stuck on the roof, and Student Housing didn’t know what to do with it. It was decided that the cow would be killed on spot. Now if you sit quietly on the stairwell, you can hear the “faint moos of dear Betsy’s ghost”.
Verified Legends
Swords and Sandals, A Campus Secret Society
There is an active campus secret society at Davis. The organization serves as a place “for open discussion of morals, politics, philosophy, and discussing the future of UC Davis.” Some known honorary members are: Robert Gordon Sproul (as in Sproul Hall), E.C Voorhies (as in Voorhies Hall), S.B Freeborn (as in Freeborn Hall), and more! For more information, check out https://daviswiki.org/Sword_and_Sandals, which includes photographic records of the traditions and rituals of the “secret” society.
A Russian spy was caught in Davis during the Cold War
The “Walker Spy Ring”, among various other deeds, stole information from the United States Navy and sold it to the Soviets during the Cold War. One of the Walker’s main contacts for spying was a recruit named Jerry Whitworth, who was found living in Davis at time of his arrest in 1985.
The Unabomber Visited UC Davis
This one creeps me out a lot. UC Davis librarians found a book with handwritten markings scribbled around text that closely resembled the manifesto of Ted Kaczynski, a terrorist and anarchist who killed 3 people by planting and mailing homemade bombs. This was brought to the attention of the authorities and eventually taken by the FBI. This means there is a very real possibility that the Unabomber wrote and researched parts of his manifesto at our very own Shields Library.