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Under both UNB campuses lie networks of subterranean tunnels that are home to eerie and unexplainable sounds, and the occasional campus legend. They are also strictly off-limits to students, and for good reason.

As Canada’s oldest English-language university, the University of New Brunswick has its fair share of supposed haunted buildings and creepy stories.

Campus lore has it that a lonely and expansive maze of tunnels—where ghostly shadows linger and unexplained sounds trill and echo—snake beneath both the Fredericton and Saint John campuses.

But are the rumours true?

“[The tunnels] are very real,” said Tom Gilmore, director of energy and sustainability at UNB.

In Fredericton, over five kilometres of underground tunnels wind under campus.

“There are many dangers in the tunnels,” Gilmore warned. “Students who have attempted to access them in the past have gone through strict academic discipline processes as they are clearly marked as restricted and dangerous.”

In October 2001, Chris Wilson-Smith, a former student and then editor of UNB Fredericton’s student publication The Brunswickan, satirically wrote about his sanctioned tour of the tunnels, which house critical utility infrastructure like water, steam and high voltage electricity.

“I have always liked to believe that there actually are mysterious things going on underneath the campus,” he wrote in his mock-ominously headlined story What lies beneath, which was published on Oct. 19, 2001.

“ ... I have learned that there are other people who know stories ... involving alligators, mutant turtles trained in combat, and hermit people seem to be the most common,” Wilson-Smith mused.

The student reporter began to regret his decision on the elevator trip down.

“My anxiety level increased as the SUB elevator delved deeper into the underworld,” his story continued. “I was starting to have second thoughts. What if there are monsters? Will I ever see daylight again?”

Wilson-Smith, now a journalist and long-time editor at the Globe & Mail, wrote that as the elevator doors opened, “a wondrous world of misty tunnels and awesome pipelines unveiled itself before our eyes. The endless stream of ceiling lights seemed to go for miles—giving dim light to the claustrophobic path that both intimidated and aroused curiosity.

“I also thought I saw an alligator, which turned out to be a crocodile—much to my disappointment,” he wrote before further describing the tunnels low and varying ceiling height as “... at some points high enough to stand, at others barely enough to crouch.”

Wilson-Smith ends his story by asking his tour guide, retired former maintenance coordinator, Allan Cogswell, if the rumours of gators and ghosts haunting the tunnels were true. The seasoned staff member replied plainly, leaving little room for nuance: “No. There are no monsters, alligators or ghosts. Just pipes.”

Can the same be said of the tunnel system beneath the Saint John campus?

There, the overheated steam tunnels coil beneath campus. Many describe the boiling hot tunnels as eerie, and few willingly venture in alone.

Facilities management logistics clerk, Tammy Hicks, has worked on the Saint John campus for many years. She remembers her time in the tunnels well.

“When I used to have to go down there, I’d call my supervisor to say I was going in and that if I wasn’t back in five minutes to come get me,” she said. “I was always worried I’d get locked in.”

“It’s very creepy, like out of a horror movie.”

A Saint John campus engineering department technician said it’s easy to become disoriented in the tunnels, and cell service is spotty or non-existent. He also said that the creaks, bangs, gurgling and knocking that echo through its thick concrete walls can’t always be explained.

Another mystery lies several hundred feet down the tunnel, where a laptop-sized hole in the wall reveals a small, windowless room, garishly lit with fluorescent light. In the middle of this room sits a lonely, unoccupied chair, and nothing else.

According to the engineering department tech, no one knows how to access the room, or why its cold, glaring light is always on.

Read Chris Wilson-Smith's full account of his journey into the tunnels beneath UNB’s Fredericton campus.

Thank you to the Facilities Management and UNB Archives & Special Collections.