NAME.....The Dead Professor
CODE.....HO4601
ORIGIN...Australia
STATUS...Undecided

A female student taking English at Adelaide University (Australia) was finishing off an assignment that had a dead line of 12 o'clock that night. By the time she had finished, she was running late and had to dash across campus in the pouring rain to hand her assignment in. The 'assignment completion box' was outside the English Department on the 6th floor of a building called the Napier Block. By the time she had reached the Napier Block, the girl was completely soaked to the skin.

While the girl was waiting for the lift to take her up to the 6th floor, she felt increasingly uneasy. The building seemed empty, even the cleaners had gone home. The building was in complete darkness, as no lights had been left on. Although the girl knew that this was not unusual considering what time of night it was, she still couldn't help getting a little spooked.

When the student got out of the lift on the 6th floor, she failed to notice that a light was on in a room at the end of the corridor, about seven rooms away from where the assignment completion box was situated.

After handing in her assignment, the student pressed the button to call the lift. By the time the lift had come, she was shivering from the cold and just wanted to go to bed. Just as the lift doors opened, a professor came out of the room at the end of the corridor and turned the lights out. When he saw the lift doors open, he ran down the corridor to catch the lift. The student saw him coming, and feeling scared, quickly closed the lifts doors shouting out "Sorry you will have to take the next one". She knew it was silly, but the girl felt very vulnerable and uneasy about the whole situation. As the doors closed, the professor looked very shocked and distressed. The student felt very guilty but put this out of her mind as she ran back across campus.

The next day, the student went back to the Napier block to apologise to the professor and explain the situation, but found his door still locked. When she went to the English department and asked where he was, they explained that he had died of a heart attack during the night. Apparently the heart attack was not a major one, but he had been unable to press the button to call the lift as he had collapsed on the floor. By the time he had been found by the cleaners in the morning, he was already dead.

It is said that when you wait for the lifts in the Napier Block late at night, they will always take you to the 6th floor. Also, if you look in the mirrors at the back of the lifts when the doors close, you will see the horrified and shocked face of the dead professor.

It is also rumoured that if look at the Napier Block on a rainy night, at exactly 12 o'clock, the lights in the end room of the 6th floor flash on and off several times as the ghost of the professor vents out his anger.

Summary

This simple ghost story is what I would class as a 'Proto-legend', which basically means an Urban Legend in the making. Whether this story will make it to the status of UL only time will tell, perhaps I have helped it on its way by re-telling the story here!

I am unclear of the origins of this legend, as I have only spotted it a couple of times on the Internet, both times written anonymously. I have E-Mailed Adelaide University three or four times asking them if they could cast any light on the subject, but either the legend is shrouded in secrecy or the University is not one for correspondence as I have had no replies to date. In one of the versions I read, it described the story as a local Adelaide legend. With this in mind, I have tried to contact various organisations within the Adelaide community, again with no results. It seems that no one wants to talk about this ghost story, how mysterious!

Final Thoughts

The Dead Professor is a typical campus horror story, similar to thousands of other legends told by students in Universities across the world. Each University will own at least one legend that gets told across the campus year after year. This legend may have gone no further than the Adelaide University campus. If it has, I doubt if it has spread any further than the local Adelaide community.

Whatever the origins, this is simply a good old fashioned classic ghost story.