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The following is a tale written by Hilary Creamer Robinson (BA ‘11), content specialist at the University of New Brunswick.

In 2008, I was an undergraduate student studying at the University of New Brunswick’s (UNB) Saint John campus. It was a Friday evening in the fall, and I had settled into one of the study corrals on the main floor of the now-demolished Ward Chipman Library.

The place was nearly empty, and as far as I knew, I was alone. Outside, the sun had just set over the Kennebecasis River, painting the sky a deep pink that lined the horizon.

Despite the glare of my own reflection in the window, I couldn’t resist the urge to snap a photo using my new flip phone—a pink, Motorola RAZR (If you know, you know).

But when I looked down at the photo, I froze, and a cold chill crawled up my spine.

Standing behind me in the photo was the unmistakable outline of a man—a figure with a dark coat and bald head, his ears distinctly visible, his face blank.

I turned around, my heart pounding, but saw no one.

I scanned the empty stacks, row by row, searching for the eerie figure, but only a few students remained, working at the computers near the front desk, far from where I had been sitting.

No one around matched the figure in my photo.

I was filled with unease and left the library with chills prickling my skin. The next day, I showed the picture to my sister and a few friends, asking if there could be another explanation, or if my tired eyes had played a trick on me.

They all agreed: there was no denying the dark figure standing behind me was the outline of a man.

Over a decade later, I still spend my days on UNB’s Saint John campus—only now as a member of the university’s Strategic Communications & Marketing team.

A few weeks ago, I pitched the idea of writing a fun Newsroom story about strange happenings on campus in the lead up to Halloween. I began the hunt for creepy campus lore on a windy, overcast day in mid-October and quickly learned that this elusive figure wasn’t unique to me; that his unsettling presence had been felt by others before and after my encounter 16 years ago.

Security staff in particular have had an uncanny relationship with the man in the window.

Kevin Wilson, a seasoned UNB security officer who has worked on campus for over 20 years, spoke of an unshakable sense of dread while patrolling the library at night.

“It wasn’t just the darkness and the quiet,” he told me. “There was something about the place—the strange layout, the nooks and crannies. It always just felt off.”

One of Wilson’s former colleagues, a retired security officer, seemed especially attuned to the presence. He saw the apparition regularly, watching him from the locked building's windows.

“I saw him again last night,” the officer would tell Wilson.

It became an unspoken rule among security staff: don’t look up at the windows of the Ward Chipman Library at night.

As Wilson recounted his memories of the man in the window, the hair on my arms rose.

I had not shared my own experience with him, but his story confirmed my own.

That evening, as I drove home from work, I called my father, UNB alum Robert Creamer (BBA‘80, LLB‘85), who also completed his undergraduate degree on the Saint John campus. He long regaled his children with stories about late-night study sessions on both campuses.

I shared with him my story and Wilson’s, then asked what things he might have seen—or felt—when he was a student in the late 1970s.

My father was quiet for a moment.

“Well,” he said, a slight hesitation in his voice. Then he told me about the eerie October night almost 50 years ago when he too experienced something that has haunted him to this day.

“Maurice Mazerolle (BA’79) and I were among the last students studying in the library that night,” Dad said. “The librarian came over to where I sat to tell me he was closing for the night. I packed up my books and walked outside to the quad to wait for Maurice, who was studying upstairs.”

As he waited for his friend, he remembered seeing the silhouette of man standing in one of the library’s main floor windows, motionless.

My father went back inside to tell the man in the window that the library was closing. But when he entered, he found nothing but silence. The man had vanished. He searched the stacks, but found no one.

That was just the first of a number of sightings my father experienced throughout his four years on the Saint John campus.

“I don’t know how many more times I saw him,” he said of the figure, “but it was always at night.

“He would be sitting cross-legged on the floor, by the end of the stacks, wearing a long dark coat.”

The most chilling detail was that the figure was always making the same eerie gesture: slowly and methodically running his long fingernails up and down his calf.

Unsettled, my father sought out a history professor known for his knowledge of campus lore. But when asked about the eerie figure, the professor had no answers, and the disconcerting memory has remained clear in his mind to this day.

These encounters tell me one thing: the Ward Chipman Library and the unknown figure who lingered there may be gone, but for many, his memory remains.

In 2023, the building was emptied for demolition, and a time capsule was discovered.

Dave Gillespie, director of environmental health, safety and security at UNB Saint John, wonders if its contents could hold clues to the mysterious man in the window.

Was he a former student, a restless soul or simply a figment of campus imagination?

“Now that the building is gone,” Gillespie said, “where is the man in the window?”

Did the lonely figure find peace—or is he still wandering campus, waiting to be seen again?

Have you experienced mysterious happenings at UNB? Email communications@unb.ca with your strange tale.

Photo credit: UNB Archives & Special Collections