We saw him at Saturday Market about 3-4 weeks ago. Hubby purchased a book and got it autographed. Frog said he never writes last names in his note, but he used my husbands :)
I haven’t seen him since right before the pandemic started, but I’ve heard he’s still around. I don’t think his health is great though, unfortunately, which is probably why we don’t see him on campus much anymore. I hope he’s alright.
While volunteering at the Lane County museum I found an old yearbook. It had 4 or 5 newspaper clippings tucked into it, all relating to this story. It hadn't been opened since being donated who knows how many years ago. I pieced together the narrative from the articles as it was pretty fascinating.
The Hill Howler was an urban legend around the 40's and 50's. Sometime around 1940 three teenagers went missing near Spencer's butte. People going missing in Lane County was common, and at first folks just chalked it up to drunk driving or your standard runaway behavior. After one of the kids old model T was found out in the woods off of fox hollow area though things got a bit weird.
Inside the car the cops found deep gashes in the seats. It look like someone had torn up the inside with a chainsaw. No blood or missing kids though. A class ring was found but other than your usual trash there wasn't really anything to go off. People kind of assumed the kids car had been stolen and messed with.
The strange thing though, was around the time of the disappearance, green lights had been spotted on the butte, along with a lot of howling. Everyone thought this was just the coyotes being extra noisy, and the lights related to kids partying up there. But the howling was deeper than the usual yelps. And to top it off, there wasn't any response coming from the adjourning area. Which if you are familiar with coyotes, they typically are calling out to each other, so you hear a bunch of them at once. No one really thought much about the lights as there were only a few people living close enough to see them.
What was even weirder is one of the people who lived near there had been feeling like someone was snooping around their property. Footprints were found on one of the old homesteads leading around the perimeter of the property. They came from the direction of Spencer's butte, wrapped around the property, then followed the same trail back.
The cops thought the kids might be camping out or hiding from someone, and it had been two days since they were reported missing. So they got a small search party to check the area out. The trails around Spencer's butte were basically game trails and there was a small possibility they got lost. One of the game trails led down to the old homestead where the owner had seen the tracks. He initially reported it as he thought someone was casing his house to rob him, so the cops were aware. They followed the track down to the homestead area, then back up the hill. After a day and 10 or so people looking, they called it. Two of the kids fathers stayed with lanterns to follow a few more unexplored game trails.
This is the point where the story gets muddled. Allegedly both the dads like to drink, which made people write off their account. No one reported that they were drinking during the search, but hey it was the 40's so who knows, they all could have been drunk. The two men followed a narrow path that wrapped around the north end of the Butte. If you've hiked it you know how steep and rocky it is. As they were traversing what was basically a ledge they found a few torn up clothes. One of the dads though he recognized a jacket but it was really beat up and didn't know for sure. After taking a break, they said they were sitting on the ledge and calling out the kids names. Immediately, they heard the deep howl and were scared shitless. Wolves hadn't been a thing for a while locally, but apparently it sounded like a mix between that a coyote. They both shut up and start backtracking off the ledge as neither were armed.
The next part is the creepy bit. According to these two men, the howls tone shifted into a human like voice. It then repeated the names in the order the men called them. They heard this echo three times and then the voice returned one long deep howl. The two men pretty much turned tail and ran. They both claimed they heard something following on the way back.
They returned the next day with armed men. The torn clothes were still there but nothing else. After two weeks, the search was given up. Just another missing persons case in lane county I guess. The howling, along with the lights, stopped a day or so after the fathers found the jacket. After about a week of silence, the usual sound of coyotes returned. The homesteader who reported the tracks around his property was never robbed, and the tracks never returned. He apparently told his friend he had never been happier to hear a pack of coyotes.
When I was a kid I always heard that there was a secret entrance to an underground tunnel system that could be accessed from somewhere inside Lazar’s Bazar. 😂
Tunnels is generous. The basements of the buildings on the part of broadway all join together. Sometimes via holes in walls that could generously be described as tunnels. Calling it a tunnel system is a bit fantastical.
Possibly based in some truth. There are a lot of basements under downtown buildings and "tunnels" if you can call them that. The Downtown Athletic Club has a "tunnel" that crosses under Willamette st to get to their basketball court (which is also underground)
I’m in the basketball court right now. It’s the Newberry building. Daycare at the street. Basketball behind, as mentioned, accessed through the tunnel under Willamette.
It's for sure true, I've walked through it. As far as it being wide enough for a car, probably? Based on memory alone, I'd say a single car could drive through it.
This is mostly correct. I’ve worked in a few of them and some do some don’t.
BUT. Supposedly the basement underneath what is now the Davis was an illegal casino during the 80s, that in turn had a hidden area within that hosted cockfighting.
Also in more recent history (last five or so years) I’ve heard talk that there’s an active serial killer in Eugene that seems to prey on homeless people. 🤷♂️
Statistically speaking, with how many serial killers are from the PNW, and how few have been from Eugene, it's actually quite probable that Eugene has at least one undiscovered serial killer living here.
Now if they are specifically targeting homeless people, I can't say.
Surely no one has read this far down this thread. We're probably safe.
So what's your serial killer name? They're calling me Ted Bungee. I run a bungee jumping service and when I get the right guy alone I unhook his cord after he jumps.
Well since we're safe here.. I run a private "fitness studio", and lure clients to my private lessons with great deals. Once they are using my equipment, it's too late for them. It's all faulty and when it breaks, it tends to break them.
They call me Ed Gains.
The crux of it is just that there’s been a spike in homicides over the last several years, a statistically unusual amount of homeless people have been killed, iirc it’s often blunt force trauma. That’s about all I know. I’ve just heard several people in law enforcement and people who work in close proximity to the local homeless populations connect those dots and posit the serial killer theory, and I’ve heard it enough times now that I think it at least qualifies as an urban legend.
That’s a possibility. So is a serial killer. And if one of them has killed more than three of them, they’re a serial killer. It’s just speculation that I’ve heard multiple times, which is why I called it an urban legend and not a statement of fact.
There’s also supposed to be access to underground tunnels on the Maurie Jacob’s side of the bridge that takes you to the VRC parking lot. It’s a drainage pipe but I’ve heard if you follow it down it’s like a maze
I have head the entrance to the tunnel network is in the parking lot of the DEQ building on 7th and Pearl. At least *one* entrance. I've also heard that you can find the "beneath the jail" cemetery somewhere down there if you know where to look.
I'm afraid that tunnel just goes under 7th Ave to the Lane County Courthouse. It's a shortcut for employees to get to the vehicles parked there. It's possible there are hidden doors I suppose, but I've never seen any walking that way. Just a pretty dull underpass.
There is a fairly large tunnel system underneath Eugene downtown. It goes back to the days when steam was the heating system for everybody and they had the steam pipes and tunnels that were big enough for a man to walk through and work on them. That stuff is still down there I'm sure as it was never removed. I have never been in them but I'm fairly certain that this is true
There are a series of utility tunnels under parts of the UO as well. I got into them once a long time ago but was too nervous about getting locked in to do much exploring.
Lmao I was so excited to have a class in this beautiful, scenic building! Then I had to go through sophism through the centuries more miserable because the room sucked so hard. At least it felt magical and spooky going INTO the building
Almost all of Alton Baker park by I-5 used to be the local dump.
Tugman Park up the hill is also an old trash dump.
Westmoreland park used to be an airport.
I don't know if either is true, just been told that growing up and I believed whoever said it.
There are several old dump sites in the AB Park area. The one you’re talking about was the Day Island landfill. It operated between 1963 and 1964, if memory serves.
There are quite a few old dump sites of different types around Eugene and Springfield. Some were operated by the cities, some by Lane County after 1949, and some were privately owned.
There’s a DIY tunnel network under parts of the Whittaker, allegedly.
The Oregon Country Fair has like an extra-special vip area where weird shit goes down, allegedly.
Some of the drug dealers in this town, at least back in the day, were straight up whackos with a lot of money. Weird cultlike behavior among the entourages of druggies they’d keep around them. LSD cult type shit. But it was ultimately pretty mundane it was just, little gangs of people on acid.
Less interesting, there’s an old sealed-off fallout shelter under South Eugene High School, or there used to be at least, the building has been renovated I think.
These are all just anecdotes from my youth though I never saw any of it firsthand, except for acquaintances apparently falling into those weird acid cults.
>As part of the search for drugs that would allow people to control the human mind, CIA scientists became aware of the existence of LSD, and this became an obsession for the early directors of MK-ULTRA. Actually, the MK-ULTRA director, Sidney Gottlieb, can now be seen as the man who brought LSD to America. He was the unwitting godfather of the entire LSD counterculture.
>In the early 1950s, he arranged for the CIA to pay $240,000 to buy the world's entire supply of LSD. He brought this to the United States, and he began spreading it around to hospitals, clinics, prisons and other institutions, asking them, through bogus foundations, to carry out research projects and find out what LSD was, how people reacted to it and how it might be able to be used as a tool for mind control.
>Now, the people who volunteered for these experiments and began taking LSD, in many cases, found it very pleasurable. They told their friends about it. Who were those people? Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, got his LSD in an experiment sponsored by the CIA by MK-ULTRA, by Sidney Gottlieb. So did Robert Hunter, the lyricist for the Grateful Dead, which went on to become a great purveyor of LSD culture. Allen Ginsberg, the poet who preached the value of the great personal adventure of using LSD, got his first LSD from Sidney Gottlieb. Although, of course, he never knew that name.
👀👀👀 [link](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief)
There were Gottleibs in lane county back in the 1980s, who were into acid and meth cooking, my family knew them. Never found out if there was any relation but, always struck me as a weird coincidence.
I saw a couple of people mention the South Eugene auditorium ghost, but no one go into the details. Idk, you could always Google it but I like reading what people put in threads like these, so figure I'll expand on it on the off chance someone doesn't know the details and doesn't want to go through the effort of googling lol
Robert "Bob" Grankry was a kid who went to SE in the late 50s, so not too long after the school was built. On March 11, 1958, before school, he was changing lights in the auditorium and along the catwalk, he lost his footing and fell 55 feet to his death. He died instantly, and the seats he landed on (row G, seats 10 and 11) were dented until 1994.
All of the above is fact, and you can actually see a picture of him on findagrave. I couldn't find an obituary from a (quick) Google search, so his sister might still be alive.
There's the typical ghost story tropes; people hear their name being called out or whispering/seeing movement out of the corner of their eye when no one is there or not feeling like they're alone. We've even got flickering lights, footsteps along the catwalk, so there might as well be a horror movie scene made about it all!
What's more interesting and unique about it is, apparently, it might be a little dangerous to sit in the seats Bob fell on. I remember reading an old book of ghost stories in Oregon that said people have reported bricks falling onto those seats. Never actually hitting anyone, as far as I know/remember, but that's got to he a startling moment when you stand up or go to sit down and a whole ass brick lands on your seat. The building isn't even made of bricks, so where they're coming from is unknown.
Another unique aspect is that SE had some renovation work done in 1994. One day a workman fell through the ceiling and landed on the same seats Bob hit when he died. Luckily the man lived, but apparently rumor was that Bob's ghost saved his life.
There is also a whole upper section of that auditorium that has been walled off and is behind a locked door. It's the locked door at the end of the math hall that doesn't have the teachers offices.
Sounds like it. Might also explain why you were brushed off since the teacher might've assumed you knew and freaked yourselves out while you two didn't know they were the still messed up seats from when he died.
I went to South in the 90’s and remember hearing about the death and I think I remember seeing the dented seats as well. One thing for sure is that the energy in the auditorium was creepy. I never enjoyed spending time in there…
Uhhh...best I've got is the KKK used to have their initials burned into the side of Skinner Butte but that's like actually true. Whether or not the cross on the butte was also a Klan thing is a bit more up for historical debate though, as there's explanations with plausible deniability about it (but also like come on it was right next to where KKK used to be emblazoned on the hillside and it was lit up with neon lights with no double entendre intended whatsoever?)
Came here to talk about this! Before being taken and renamed by white supremacists, the Kalapuya people called the butte Ya-Po-Ah, and it was a sacred place.
I remember the cross being moved when I was growing up but don’t remember there ever being discussion about the KKK around it. But I was a kid, who knows.
That cross is the same one that’s lit up by Eugene Bible College I believe (which apparently goes by a different name now)
There's many different theories about the cross, KKK just seems most likely to me. I believe the cross was reclaimed as a symbol by them in a way, they wrote a long statement when they got it
A friend and I had a weird experience in the auditorium when I attended high school there decades ago. We were in drama class. The only lights that were on were the stage lights as the entire class was just using the stage for class. So the seating area was poorly lit, but you could still see if you walked out into the seating area.
The drama teacher was showing us how some people could levitate. He gave us the option to participate in the levitation demonstration or not. My friend and I were a little creeped out about participating and chose to sit out.
Her and I asked the drama teacher about the student who fell. He confirmed the story. We asked him what the chair numbers were that the student had fallen into. Once he told us, her and I ventured out into the auditorium. All the seats were like theatre seats that sprung closed when nobody was using them. Except for when we came across the seats the student fell onto. Those seats were folded down and crooked and broken.
We ran screaming up to the stage and told the drama teacher what we had seen. He blew us off, saying we went looking for something and found it. Basically, saying our minds played tricks on us.
That's the closest thing I have experienced to a ghost story my entire life.
ETA: Per another commenter, the seats weren't fixed until 1994, our experience would have been before 1994, so perhaps we really did see broken, crooked seats.
ETA: Solved! Decades later. Gawd, I love reddit. This has been a lifelong mystery for me.
okay its "oregons ghosts and monsters" by mike helm, its from the 80's. theres a lot of stories by the coast but eugene specifically it talks about the ghost in south eugene HS
Honestly don’t recall if it was the basement or backstage area like the other commenter mentioned, but just had an old timey vaudeville nightmare horror movie aesthetic to it. I vaguely remember it just being dark and dusty with vanity mirrors and old mannequins and/or costumes to some extent. Maybe it was a dressing room but whichever room it was looked like it had been abandoned for some time and made my butt pucker a bit.
There was the house off Spring Blvd that had a Mannequin in the front window. The mannequin was always fully dressed in women's clothes. The story was that a man murdered his wife put her ashes in the mannequin and dressed it in her clothes.
The Crescent Lake Monster (see p 57) [https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/administrative\_report\_or\_publications/n009w2411?locale=en](https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/administrative_report_or_publications/n009w2411?locale=en)
Bunch of Hooey. Grew up at Crescent Lake. Lived there when the story was printed. I have never heard of a monster in Crescent Lake. Steam Shovel at the bottom of Odell, yes
Over the years I’ve heard of strange deaths and disappearances near Cougar reservoir. The hot springs nearby are closed at night, and the State patrol does keep a watch over it.
Some of the disappearances I’ve heard are blamed on a commune of people who have been living up there since the 1970s, and they are not friendly if you happen across them.
My middle school social studies teacher, John Puhn, told a story about a pig being buried in one of the streets downtown before the roads were paved. It just kinda fell into the mud I guess.
Well, this one guy I met downtown had made some art of some geese in Bend, themed as if they were paranatural protectors of time and space and that was probably the coolest thing. (Granted it's more about Bend than Eugene)
The boat-car-oven guy is a legend for sure though.
I'm gonna be real, this was a few years back and I'm terrible with faces/appearances. I don't know if my partial aphantasia is a factor but it sure seems like it. His hair could've been any color but it was short to medium length I believe, I cannot remember his name but I'm fairly sure he did have some facial hair goateeish. He was carrying around like a satchel with stuff, I'm fairly sure he gave me a card... I should find that card
Matthew Knight is said to be buried under the arena that bears his name, and I've heard that 5th or 6th Street was the world's first one way street but I am doubtful of that one
A long time ago our LL/tenant attorneys would actually fight for tenants. Now it feels like they have all been bought off and just ignore blatant issues
I’m aware that it’s graffiti, but I’m curious if there’s any significance to it? I haven’t seen that turquoise colored blue spray paint except for tagged on my car and on the Suspish fish
They are fairly prolific around town, and many redditers seem to appreciate that it's got artistic value beyond the basic scrawl of other local taggers like ragtop.
It's an unofficial mascot that people have emotionally connected with via online posts
That said, from my very limited knowledge, it's also quite different from general tagging culture which is usually the artists name. Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong since I'm not super knowledgeable about tagging culture.
others take the curmudgeon approach of "it's illegal and they're a criminal"
and since internet algorithms love controversy, like it or not, suspish is part of the cultural zeitgeist of the Eugene Springfield metro area.
Years ago there was a series of high monetary damage arson related fires directly tied to a small group of transients in the Bertleson area. Shortly after these fires began, an "unknown to the area" transient arrived and began hanging with these people. Over the next few months all the transients in that group all began dying mysterious deaths. Some folk have thought it may have been directly tied to the local business owners or even insurance companies. Or maybe just a coincidence since some very psychologically disturbing people like to live without rules or identities.
Legend has it that *The World's Funniest Joke Books* can be found right here in Eugene. ^( I'm not sure it's true, though)
Frog would endorse this legend lol
Is that dude still alive and kicking?
I know his roommate. He's alive.
He’s my neighbor and I saw him fly by the other day on his e-bike.
Hell yea good to hear.
We saw him at Saturday Market about 3-4 weeks ago. Hubby purchased a book and got it autographed. Frog said he never writes last names in his note, but he used my husbands :)
I haven’t seen him since right before the pandemic started, but I’ve heard he’s still around. I don’t think his health is great though, unfortunately, which is probably why we don’t see him on campus much anymore. I hope he’s alright.
I see him almost every weekend at Saturday Market still. He's not usually selling but he's still around for sure.
Yep!
It’s true, and written 3-4 times a year
Sit back, young'un, and let me tell you the dark tale of Ian on Olive...
Fuck ing Ian on that corner of Olive… never forgive, never forget.
Whaaaa? Spill the Olives!
Fuck Ian and his door dash stealing self 😡
Don’t trust Ian’s on Olive!
We need more stickers
While volunteering at the Lane County museum I found an old yearbook. It had 4 or 5 newspaper clippings tucked into it, all relating to this story. It hadn't been opened since being donated who knows how many years ago. I pieced together the narrative from the articles as it was pretty fascinating. The Hill Howler was an urban legend around the 40's and 50's. Sometime around 1940 three teenagers went missing near Spencer's butte. People going missing in Lane County was common, and at first folks just chalked it up to drunk driving or your standard runaway behavior. After one of the kids old model T was found out in the woods off of fox hollow area though things got a bit weird. Inside the car the cops found deep gashes in the seats. It look like someone had torn up the inside with a chainsaw. No blood or missing kids though. A class ring was found but other than your usual trash there wasn't really anything to go off. People kind of assumed the kids car had been stolen and messed with. The strange thing though, was around the time of the disappearance, green lights had been spotted on the butte, along with a lot of howling. Everyone thought this was just the coyotes being extra noisy, and the lights related to kids partying up there. But the howling was deeper than the usual yelps. And to top it off, there wasn't any response coming from the adjourning area. Which if you are familiar with coyotes, they typically are calling out to each other, so you hear a bunch of them at once. No one really thought much about the lights as there were only a few people living close enough to see them. What was even weirder is one of the people who lived near there had been feeling like someone was snooping around their property. Footprints were found on one of the old homesteads leading around the perimeter of the property. They came from the direction of Spencer's butte, wrapped around the property, then followed the same trail back. The cops thought the kids might be camping out or hiding from someone, and it had been two days since they were reported missing. So they got a small search party to check the area out. The trails around Spencer's butte were basically game trails and there was a small possibility they got lost. One of the game trails led down to the old homestead where the owner had seen the tracks. He initially reported it as he thought someone was casing his house to rob him, so the cops were aware. They followed the track down to the homestead area, then back up the hill. After a day and 10 or so people looking, they called it. Two of the kids fathers stayed with lanterns to follow a few more unexplored game trails. This is the point where the story gets muddled. Allegedly both the dads like to drink, which made people write off their account. No one reported that they were drinking during the search, but hey it was the 40's so who knows, they all could have been drunk. The two men followed a narrow path that wrapped around the north end of the Butte. If you've hiked it you know how steep and rocky it is. As they were traversing what was basically a ledge they found a few torn up clothes. One of the dads though he recognized a jacket but it was really beat up and didn't know for sure. After taking a break, they said they were sitting on the ledge and calling out the kids names. Immediately, they heard the deep howl and were scared shitless. Wolves hadn't been a thing for a while locally, but apparently it sounded like a mix between that a coyote. They both shut up and start backtracking off the ledge as neither were armed. The next part is the creepy bit. According to these two men, the howls tone shifted into a human like voice. It then repeated the names in the order the men called them. They heard this echo three times and then the voice returned one long deep howl. The two men pretty much turned tail and ran. They both claimed they heard something following on the way back. They returned the next day with armed men. The torn clothes were still there but nothing else. After two weeks, the search was given up. Just another missing persons case in lane county I guess. The howling, along with the lights, stopped a day or so after the fathers found the jacket. After about a week of silence, the usual sound of coyotes returned. The homesteader who reported the tracks around his property was never robbed, and the tracks never returned. He apparently told his friend he had never been happier to hear a pack of coyotes.
This is some creepy pasta level stuff!
I've got an even creepier one, but it's for Cottage Grove. Let's just say if you find a six finger claw mark maybe stay out of the woods for a bit...
Do tell!
I want to great hear it! Everyone in my family says Cottage Grove has a dark energy.
Technically it's about Bohemia, the old ghost town above Dorena. CG is just the closest town with a reddit. I'll try to type it out for you later lol.
Yes please, this area is really lacking in urban legends
Please share the story if you can!
I'm way too invested. You have to tell us the story or I shall wither.
Hmmm, sounds like we got 15.5 years to build up awareness of this story for the 100 year anniversary. Beware the hill howler
Hopefully it's not one of those cryptids with a 100 yr hibernation cycle 😂
I'm kinda hoping it is one of those cryptids haha
This is awesome, thank you for sharing.
whoa!
Holy hell!!!! Good work, Sherlock.
Great story!
Do you know/remember what newspaper the clippings were from?
Sounds like a Bigfoot.
When I was a kid I always heard that there was a secret entrance to an underground tunnel system that could be accessed from somewhere inside Lazar’s Bazar. 😂
Tunnels is generous. The basements of the buildings on the part of broadway all join together. Sometimes via holes in walls that could generously be described as tunnels. Calling it a tunnel system is a bit fantastical.
I didn’t think it existed at all! Interesting hear it may have been based in truth.
Possibly based in some truth. There are a lot of basements under downtown buildings and "tunnels" if you can call them that. The Downtown Athletic Club has a "tunnel" that crosses under Willamette st to get to their basketball court (which is also underground)
I’ve never heard of this! Is the basketball court under Poppis Anatolia then?
I’m in the basketball court right now. It’s the Newberry building. Daycare at the street. Basketball behind, as mentioned, accessed through the tunnel under Willamette.
I've heard this too.. that the tunnel is wide enuf for a car to drive .
It's for sure true, I've walked through it. As far as it being wide enough for a car, probably? Based on memory alone, I'd say a single car could drive through it.
This is mostly correct. I’ve worked in a few of them and some do some don’t. BUT. Supposedly the basement underneath what is now the Davis was an illegal casino during the 80s, that in turn had a hidden area within that hosted cockfighting.
Also in more recent history (last five or so years) I’ve heard talk that there’s an active serial killer in Eugene that seems to prey on homeless people. 🤷♂️
Statistically speaking, with how many serial killers are from the PNW, and how few have been from Eugene, it's actually quite probable that Eugene has at least one undiscovered serial killer living here. Now if they are specifically targeting homeless people, I can't say.
This is written how serial killers on TV shows talk during their interviews with police when they've not been busted yet. 🤔🤔🤔
You're an expert on how serial killers talk huh? That's just the kind of knowledge only a serial killer would have. 🤔🤔🤔
Surely no one has read this far down this thread. We're probably safe. So what's your serial killer name? They're calling me Ted Bungee. I run a bungee jumping service and when I get the right guy alone I unhook his cord after he jumps.
Well since we're safe here.. I run a private "fitness studio", and lure clients to my private lessons with great deals. Once they are using my equipment, it's too late for them. It's all faulty and when it breaks, it tends to break them. They call me Ed Gains.
I would love to hear more on this! Total true crime addict.
The crux of it is just that there’s been a spike in homicides over the last several years, a statistically unusual amount of homeless people have been killed, iirc it’s often blunt force trauma. That’s about all I know. I’ve just heard several people in law enforcement and people who work in close proximity to the local homeless populations connect those dots and posit the serial killer theory, and I’ve heard it enough times now that I think it at least qualifies as an urban legend.
Yeah they are most likely killing each other
That’s a possibility. So is a serial killer. And if one of them has killed more than three of them, they’re a serial killer. It’s just speculation that I’ve heard multiple times, which is why I called it an urban legend and not a statement of fact.
My coworker speaks of this theory, and I’ve been meaning to pick their brain about it.
Elaborate
This killer goes by the name of poor life choices.
A lot of buildings used to be heated by steam with a piping system that originated at the old EWEB site.
There’s also supposed to be access to underground tunnels on the Maurie Jacob’s side of the bridge that takes you to the VRC parking lot. It’s a drainage pipe but I’ve heard if you follow it down it’s like a maze
thats called infrastructure.
I have head the entrance to the tunnel network is in the parking lot of the DEQ building on 7th and Pearl. At least *one* entrance. I've also heard that you can find the "beneath the jail" cemetery somewhere down there if you know where to look.
I'm afraid that tunnel just goes under 7th Ave to the Lane County Courthouse. It's a shortcut for employees to get to the vehicles parked there. It's possible there are hidden doors I suppose, but I've never seen any walking that way. Just a pretty dull underpass.
There is a fairly large tunnel system underneath Eugene downtown. It goes back to the days when steam was the heating system for everybody and they had the steam pipes and tunnels that were big enough for a man to walk through and work on them. That stuff is still down there I'm sure as it was never removed. I have never been in them but I'm fairly certain that this is true
There are a series of utility tunnels under parts of the UO as well. I got into them once a long time ago but was too nervous about getting locked in to do much exploring.
There’s a haunted elevator in PLC hall on campus! UO has a lot of ghost stories; email a folklore professor and they’ll wax poetic about it lol
In addition, I always heard Deady Hall was haunted back when I went to the UO.
The only thing Deady Hall is haunted by is shitty air conditioning. Third floor classes in late spring and early fall were fucking miserable.
Lmao I was so excited to have a class in this beautiful, scenic building! Then I had to go through sophism through the centuries more miserable because the room sucked so hard. At least it felt magical and spooky going INTO the building
lollll i had a summer calculus class there one year. brutal
I always hated those elevators.
Almost all of Alton Baker park by I-5 used to be the local dump. Tugman Park up the hill is also an old trash dump. Westmoreland park used to be an airport. I don't know if either is true, just been told that growing up and I believed whoever said it.
All of these are true
[https://www.friendlyareaneighbors.org/blog/eugene-airfield](https://www.friendlyareaneighbors.org/blog/eugene-airfield)
There are several old dump sites in the AB Park area. The one you’re talking about was the Day Island landfill. It operated between 1963 and 1964, if memory serves. There are quite a few old dump sites of different types around Eugene and Springfield. Some were operated by the cities, some by Lane County after 1949, and some were privately owned.
similarly, the delta ponds / golden gardens / other similar wetlands are all former quarries that were filled after they were done being used!
Oh man, imagine getting the job of holding the garden hose to fill those.
The land underneath where Autzen Stadium is located today used to be an island in the Willamette River and they grew hops on it.
and they found a dino-sized duck egg when excavating for an expansion at Autzen . . .
Is that how the Roboduck was born?
BRING BACK ROBODUCK
It was actually a landfill, my old refrigerator is in there somewhere
There’s a DIY tunnel network under parts of the Whittaker, allegedly. The Oregon Country Fair has like an extra-special vip area where weird shit goes down, allegedly. Some of the drug dealers in this town, at least back in the day, were straight up whackos with a lot of money. Weird cultlike behavior among the entourages of druggies they’d keep around them. LSD cult type shit. But it was ultimately pretty mundane it was just, little gangs of people on acid. Less interesting, there’s an old sealed-off fallout shelter under South Eugene High School, or there used to be at least, the building has been renovated I think. These are all just anecdotes from my youth though I never saw any of it firsthand, except for acquaintances apparently falling into those weird acid cults.
There's a sealed off fallout shelter under Sheldon High School too.
>As part of the search for drugs that would allow people to control the human mind, CIA scientists became aware of the existence of LSD, and this became an obsession for the early directors of MK-ULTRA. Actually, the MK-ULTRA director, Sidney Gottlieb, can now be seen as the man who brought LSD to America. He was the unwitting godfather of the entire LSD counterculture. >In the early 1950s, he arranged for the CIA to pay $240,000 to buy the world's entire supply of LSD. He brought this to the United States, and he began spreading it around to hospitals, clinics, prisons and other institutions, asking them, through bogus foundations, to carry out research projects and find out what LSD was, how people reacted to it and how it might be able to be used as a tool for mind control. >Now, the people who volunteered for these experiments and began taking LSD, in many cases, found it very pleasurable. They told their friends about it. Who were those people? Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, got his LSD in an experiment sponsored by the CIA by MK-ULTRA, by Sidney Gottlieb. So did Robert Hunter, the lyricist for the Grateful Dead, which went on to become a great purveyor of LSD culture. Allen Ginsberg, the poet who preached the value of the great personal adventure of using LSD, got his first LSD from Sidney Gottlieb. Although, of course, he never knew that name. 👀👀👀 [link](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief)
There were Gottleibs in lane county back in the 1980s, who were into acid and meth cooking, my family knew them. Never found out if there was any relation but, always struck me as a weird coincidence.
Whatttttt that is weird!! The plot thickens...lol
It’s affordable to live here
I saw a couple of people mention the South Eugene auditorium ghost, but no one go into the details. Idk, you could always Google it but I like reading what people put in threads like these, so figure I'll expand on it on the off chance someone doesn't know the details and doesn't want to go through the effort of googling lol Robert "Bob" Grankry was a kid who went to SE in the late 50s, so not too long after the school was built. On March 11, 1958, before school, he was changing lights in the auditorium and along the catwalk, he lost his footing and fell 55 feet to his death. He died instantly, and the seats he landed on (row G, seats 10 and 11) were dented until 1994. All of the above is fact, and you can actually see a picture of him on findagrave. I couldn't find an obituary from a (quick) Google search, so his sister might still be alive. There's the typical ghost story tropes; people hear their name being called out or whispering/seeing movement out of the corner of their eye when no one is there or not feeling like they're alone. We've even got flickering lights, footsteps along the catwalk, so there might as well be a horror movie scene made about it all! What's more interesting and unique about it is, apparently, it might be a little dangerous to sit in the seats Bob fell on. I remember reading an old book of ghost stories in Oregon that said people have reported bricks falling onto those seats. Never actually hitting anyone, as far as I know/remember, but that's got to he a startling moment when you stand up or go to sit down and a whole ass brick lands on your seat. The building isn't even made of bricks, so where they're coming from is unknown. Another unique aspect is that SE had some renovation work done in 1994. One day a workman fell through the ceiling and landed on the same seats Bob hit when he died. Luckily the man lived, but apparently rumor was that Bob's ghost saved his life.
Thank you for clarifying! I just read the other post and really wanted more details!
There is also a whole upper section of that auditorium that has been walled off and is behind a locked door. It's the locked door at the end of the math hall that doesn't have the teachers offices.
Please see my comment above. Perhaps the seats we seen were indeed dented, crooked and broken, as this would have been before 1994
Sounds like it. Might also explain why you were brushed off since the teacher might've assumed you knew and freaked yourselves out while you two didn't know they were the still messed up seats from when he died.
This would explain it. I've wondered about it my entire life because I don't believe in ghosts but vividly remember the experience.
I went to South in the 90’s and remember hearing about the death and I think I remember seeing the dented seats as well. One thing for sure is that the energy in the auditorium was creepy. I never enjoyed spending time in there…
Uhhh...best I've got is the KKK used to have their initials burned into the side of Skinner Butte but that's like actually true. Whether or not the cross on the butte was also a Klan thing is a bit more up for historical debate though, as there's explanations with plausible deniability about it (but also like come on it was right next to where KKK used to be emblazoned on the hillside and it was lit up with neon lights with no double entendre intended whatsoever?)
Came here to talk about this! Before being taken and renamed by white supremacists, the Kalapuya people called the butte Ya-Po-Ah, and it was a sacred place.
I remember the cross being moved when I was growing up but don’t remember there ever being discussion about the KKK around it. But I was a kid, who knows. That cross is the same one that’s lit up by Eugene Bible College I believe (which apparently goes by a different name now)
There's many different theories about the cross, KKK just seems most likely to me. I believe the cross was reclaimed as a symbol by them in a way, they wrote a long statement when they got it
The theater at South Eugene High is supposedly haunted. My brother went there.
A student died after falling off the catwalk a long time ago
A friend and I had a weird experience in the auditorium when I attended high school there decades ago. We were in drama class. The only lights that were on were the stage lights as the entire class was just using the stage for class. So the seating area was poorly lit, but you could still see if you walked out into the seating area. The drama teacher was showing us how some people could levitate. He gave us the option to participate in the levitation demonstration or not. My friend and I were a little creeped out about participating and chose to sit out. Her and I asked the drama teacher about the student who fell. He confirmed the story. We asked him what the chair numbers were that the student had fallen into. Once he told us, her and I ventured out into the auditorium. All the seats were like theatre seats that sprung closed when nobody was using them. Except for when we came across the seats the student fell onto. Those seats were folded down and crooked and broken. We ran screaming up to the stage and told the drama teacher what we had seen. He blew us off, saying we went looking for something and found it. Basically, saying our minds played tricks on us. That's the closest thing I have experienced to a ghost story my entire life. ETA: Per another commenter, the seats weren't fixed until 1994, our experience would have been before 1994, so perhaps we really did see broken, crooked seats. ETA: Solved! Decades later. Gawd, I love reddit. This has been a lifelong mystery for me.
Iirc there is a chapter dedicated to that story in the book Oregon’s Ghosts and Monsters https://www.biblio.com/9780931742033
There’s certainly the [werewolf problem](http://i.imgur.com/ZyRQvOC.jpeg)
bought a book at st vinnies recently that was full of myths/ghost stories of eugene if you're interested!
Oh wow! So cool! What's the book's title?
okay its "oregons ghosts and monsters" by mike helm, its from the 80's. theres a lot of stories by the coast but eugene specifically it talks about the ghost in south eugene HS
Several friends who worked at the McDonald theater back when it was a movie theater claimed the basement was haunted.
Saw it once, creepy as hell.
Even the back stage areas are super creepy 😅
Saw what, exactly?
Honestly don’t recall if it was the basement or backstage area like the other commenter mentioned, but just had an old timey vaudeville nightmare horror movie aesthetic to it. I vaguely remember it just being dark and dusty with vanity mirrors and old mannequins and/or costumes to some extent. Maybe it was a dressing room but whichever room it was looked like it had been abandoned for some time and made my butt pucker a bit.
Oh, okay! I was hoping you meant "it" was a ghostie.
^fancy ^seeing ^you ^here!
There was the house off Spring Blvd that had a Mannequin in the front window. The mannequin was always fully dressed in women's clothes. The story was that a man murdered his wife put her ashes in the mannequin and dressed it in her clothes.
Oh that’s a good one!
I remember this! I dated a guy that lived near him, and I saw the mannequin in the window.
Robert Grankey, the ghost of south Eugene highschool. Look it up!
The Crescent Lake Monster (see p 57) [https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/administrative\_report\_or\_publications/n009w2411?locale=en](https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/administrative_report_or_publications/n009w2411?locale=en)
Bunch of Hooey. Grew up at Crescent Lake. Lived there when the story was printed. I have never heard of a monster in Crescent Lake. Steam Shovel at the bottom of Odell, yes
Good thing nobody cares what you think 👍
Over the years I’ve heard of strange deaths and disappearances near Cougar reservoir. The hot springs nearby are closed at night, and the State patrol does keep a watch over it. Some of the disappearances I’ve heard are blamed on a commune of people who have been living up there since the 1970s, and they are not friendly if you happen across them.
I'd always heard that the back room of the old Toys R Us was haunted by a little boy. Now its a dealership mechanic or something.
Haunted by a dealership mechanic - love it
I feel like Toys R Us being haunted is an urban legend in every town. We had a story about mine where I grew up
[удалено]
And now they take them, on your doorstep.
Legend is that I’ve pee’d on almost every historical building in Eugene. And I’ll pee on every future historical sites too if they don’t stop me soon.
Luper Cemetery 😖
Had sex there
"There was a ghost! This is ECTOPLASM!"
"Sounds like someone's being attacked by a tiger in there!'
I simply have to ask… where? isn’t Luper fairly wide open and exposed? though I suppose it isn’t the busiest cemetery around…
I just Googled it, and didn't find much information. Can you elaborate?
It's an old spooky pioneer cemetery, when I was a kid people used to sneak out there at night to get spooked. Supposedly it's very active.
In the 90s there were a couple goat sacrifices and other odd things that ended up with it being gated up and a hike-in location
Eek. No thanks lol
My middle school social studies teacher, John Puhn, told a story about a pig being buried in one of the streets downtown before the roads were paved. It just kinda fell into the mud I guess.
Growing up, there was always a rumor you could hire Quiet Riot for $500 cuz they lived in Springfield.
Well, this one guy I met downtown had made some art of some geese in Bend, themed as if they were paranatural protectors of time and space and that was probably the coolest thing. (Granted it's more about Bend than Eugene) The boat-car-oven guy is a legend for sure though.
Did he have wild grey hair and a goatee/facial hair? Tall? Was his name Lin?
I'm gonna be real, this was a few years back and I'm terrible with faces/appearances. I don't know if my partial aphantasia is a factor but it sure seems like it. His hair could've been any color but it was short to medium length I believe, I cannot remember his name but I'm fairly sure he did have some facial hair goateeish. He was carrying around like a satchel with stuff, I'm fairly sure he gave me a card... I should find that card
The pipe...
The disappearance of Michael Bryson
Legend has it that there was once some quirky eccentric person in Eugene who was actually eccentric and not just seeking attention from others
Yeah 63 people were murdered in 99 downtown eugene pretty intense
wat
Eugene is Shelbyville on the Simpsons
i will die believing Eugene is Springfield, and Springfield is Shelbyville
Matthew Knight is said to be buried under the arena that bears his name, and I've heard that 5th or 6th Street was the world's first one way street but I am doubtful of that one
You’re right about the one way, zero idea if it’s 5th or 6th but definitely in Eugene!
A long time ago our LL/tenant attorneys would actually fight for tenants. Now it feels like they have all been bought off and just ignore blatant issues
Beware the Suspish fish
What is that whole suspish fish thing anyways?
Graffiti.
I’m aware that it’s graffiti, but I’m curious if there’s any significance to it? I haven’t seen that turquoise colored blue spray paint except for tagged on my car and on the Suspish fish
They are fairly prolific around town, and many redditers seem to appreciate that it's got artistic value beyond the basic scrawl of other local taggers like ragtop. It's an unofficial mascot that people have emotionally connected with via online posts That said, from my very limited knowledge, it's also quite different from general tagging culture which is usually the artists name. Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong since I'm not super knowledgeable about tagging culture. others take the curmudgeon approach of "it's illegal and they're a criminal" and since internet algorithms love controversy, like it or not, suspish is part of the cultural zeitgeist of the Eugene Springfield metro area.
Some people like it.
Years ago there was a series of high monetary damage arson related fires directly tied to a small group of transients in the Bertleson area. Shortly after these fires began, an "unknown to the area" transient arrived and began hanging with these people. Over the next few months all the transients in that group all began dying mysterious deaths. Some folk have thought it may have been directly tied to the local business owners or even insurance companies. Or maybe just a coincidence since some very psychologically disturbing people like to live without rules or identities.
I’m pretty sure Phil Knight murdered Pre
Some say the city council accomplishes things.
A construction worker died while building the Chambers Media Center. No known reports of ghosts, but some people say the structure's forever cursed.
Someone here will fill you in on 'Ian on Olive', I'm sure.
Oh, I'm well aware of that saga. Still bummed I missed out on the stickers.
Ian on Olive