There is something foreboding about Science Hall. Something other than dreaded tests, menacing professors and daunting lab assignments. The ominous image of Science Hall, with its impressive architecture, \sickly-sweet incinerator odors,"" long and twisting hallways and heavy, creaking doors has inspired fear for many years.
According to UW-Madison emeritus Professor David Cronin, who co-authored books on the history of the university, the original Science Hall burned down in 1884, and to this day the cause is unknown. Strangely, when the fire department arrived to put out the flames, firefighters discovered that the fire hydrants in front of the building did not fit the hoses, making it impossible to attempt to squelch the flames, Cronin said.
The building became notorious among students because it housed the Anatomy Department in the north wing of the fourth floor. There was a morgue in the basement of the building, so students frequently saw hearses drop off caskets at the building's rear.
To move the bodies from the basement to the dissection labs, students and faculty used a rope and pulley ""cadaver lift"" to move the bodies from the basement before the elevators were installed.
Students and faculty found body parts in the fourth floor attic as late as the 1970s, including an embalmed human foot and the hip to toe bones of an adult male.
In areas like the current teaching assistant offices, which were once dissection labs, there are reportedly strong odors of blood, flesh and formaldehyde on occasion, as well as strange electrical problems, like flickering lights.
In the back stairwell by the offices, is a door between the third and fourth floors with the inscription: ""Open me and enter thy doom."" Opening it leads only to a wall with admonitions such as, ""The dead are still alive in
Science Hall.""
Wisconsin Paranormal Research Center investigator Richard Hendricks said that while there have been no objective studies of the paranormal possibilities of the building, something spooky could be going on.
""There were a lot of dead bodies around there, so it's very possible a spirit got detached and is still wandering around the building,"" Hendricks said. ""However, when stories like this have been around for a long time, people expect strange encounters, so when something anomalous does occur, it is interpreted in paranormal terms.""
The effects of the dissections in Science Hall do not end in the building itself. The University Club, which used to be a dormitory, was home to many of the anatomy students. One night, several students reportedly stole a cadaver from Science Hall and put it in a friend's bed as a practical joke. Funny enough, but the cadaver disappeared. Apparently the spirit of the cadaver still lurks around the top floor and occasionally makes its way to the kitchen.
Whether these stories have any truth to them or not remains to be seen. Hendricks noted that most college campuses have many legends and stories that students pass down and exaggerate over the years. Even so, it is certainly tempting to believe, especially around Halloween.
After all, as Hendricks said, ""ghosts happen.\
