Ep 21 – Haunted College Tour Pt 2 – The University of South Carolina

In this episode’s stop on our haunted college tour, we explore the hauntings, history, and urban legends of our alma mater, the University of South Carolina! Learn all about the ghosts of the Horseshoe, Longstreet Theatre, and Columbia Hall—as well as the Third Eye Man, who dresses in silver and allegedly lives in the tunnels beneath the university.

Robin also shares her personal ghost story from UofSC, involving a figure in the window, moving photographs, and a ghostly hand shaking her awake.

But first, for our Something Southern, Zoey makes mint juleps!

Hey, y’all! Robin here. Zoey and I were wondering how to do the blog posts for these joint episodes, but since I talk about my own ghost story at UofSC, I figured that would be a fun thing to write about.

I know people who can sense when a ghost’s presence is in the same room, but I’m by no means one of them. In fact, I think I’m one of the least “sensitive” people I know. That’s not to say that I don’t believe ghosts are there; it’s just that I don’t have the same sixth sense that others are working with.

Maybe it’s a matter of not trusting my instincts. Often when I sleep in a new place, I’m weary to turn out the lights for fear that something could be haunting the room. So, whereas other people might confidently say, “Yes, there is something haunting this room,” I would say, “Oh, I’m just a little scared all the time.” My point being: When I moved into my dorm at the beginning of my freshman year of college, I was concerned about ghosts, and that concern was nothing out of the ordinary.

What was out of the ordinary, however, was everything else.

I can’t remember when I started to think that my dorm room was haunted, but it must have been pretty early on because all the specific memories I have only added fuel to the ongoing fire. Meaning I never had an aha, my dorm is haunted! moment — or at least I don’t remember it.

In fact, there’s likely quite a bit I don’t remember, or that I barely remember. Last year, I was bringing up the possibly-haunted dorm room to a friend of mine who often used to come over. I was talking about all that I experienced, assessing and reassessing all the information and coming to the same conclusion I came to years ago: something was haunting my dorm room. In that conversation, she said, “Oh yeah, and the shadows.”

Me: “The shadows?”

She said the two of us were in my dorm room when I pointed to the window and the wall beside it where shadows were moving. I told her back then that nothing could have been casting them, and she saw that I was right. These shadows in my room were existing and moving on their own.

Looking back, I think I vaguely remember that moment. I remember the image of shadows on the wall, silently shifting. But I wouldn’t have thought of it without her jogging my memory, and I definitely didn’t see the next thing she said coming.

“You said it happened sometimes.”

So not only did I have to be reminded of seeing something without explanation occurring in that dorm room, but apparently I couldn’t remember on my own any of the times this happened. That conversation was a little disconcerting, to say the least.

I texted my freshman roommate to let her know I’d be telling this story on the podcast. (She said she’s been waiting for me to bring it up in an episode, lol). I want to save a lot of this story for the podcast, so without getting too much into the haunting: there was a time when my roommate was walking home and saw a woman standing in our dorm room window. A woman who I can say with absolute certainty wasn’t there.

That night truly freaked me out, and I have the memory locked in my brain to a tee. But when I recently told my roommate about how I couldn’t remember the shadows, she brought up how she couldn’t remember seeing the woman in our window, texting back: “Maybe there’s a reason we forgot.”

And isn’t that a terrifying thought.

Third Eye Man Sources:

https://americanghoststories.com/southern-ghost-stories/third-eye-man-columbia-sc

https://newsfromthefringe.com/home/2018/11/27/the-third-eye-man

“Ghost tours bring UofSC’s haunted history to life” by Annika Dahlgren, University of South Carolina website

https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/undergraduate_admissions/connect_with_us/uofsc_admissions_blog/ghost_stories_uofsc.php

“The legend of the Third Eye Man” by Jenna Schiferl, The Daily Gamecock, Oct. 27, 2016.

https://colatoday.6amcity.com/underground-tunnels-columbia-sc/

https://mostlyghosts.com/the-third-eye-man-of-usc/

“Columbia: the city beneath the city” by Kirby Knowlton, The Daily Gamecock, Apr. 9, 2015.

“Creepy Encounters with Underground Humanoid Monsters” by Brent Swancer, Mysterious Universe, Oct. 24, 2018.

Horseshoe Sources: