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Urban Exploring at ISU

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CycloneYoda

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Jan 27, 2009
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SOPROUD said:
A couple of summers ago some buddies of mine and I rode our bikes around to several points of interest. We spent a couple hours exploring Spangler Lab. It was pretty eerie. Lots of old machinery and chemicals still bottled up in cabinets. The offices had a lot of personal items laying around as well (glasses, magazines, family photos, and most interestingly a 2L bottle of russian beer). It almost looked as if everyone up and left in a hurry. There was also an old trophy case full of awards and historical relics...the lights still had power. Apparently the railroad club still meets there. I found a set of keys in a desk drawer and was able to get into the railroad club's room. Pretty weird stuff. Anyways, that night we rode to Hilton which happened to be unlocked. We raced around the concourse for awhile before discovering that someone left the stairs down into the ceiling. It was pitch black and just as I was warning my friends to stay on the catwalk I slipped and busted through the floor. Luckily I grabbed onto an I-beam and they hoisted me up, we got out of there after that. The football field was open so we ran around on the turf for awhile before exploring the Jack Trice Club and climbing the new scoreboard. We didn't break in anywhere, everything just happened to be open...must've been our lucky night. That was probably one of the more memorable nights of the summer. I went snooping through Friley's basement once but couldn't find anything interesting. Also poked around in the steam tunnels after my 21st birthday, just popped up a big trap door by the armory and looked inside.
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I usually don't like calling people liars. I have no problem this time.
 
jaretac

jaretac

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Nov 26, 2006
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CycloneYoda said:
I usually don't like calling people liars. I have no problem this time.
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I don't know. He nailed Spangler. That place looks like it was abandoned 30+ years ago. Even spider webs across hallways in places, but it still has power and is being somewhat maintained.

I can also attest that it is not uncommon to find buildings unlocked after hours. I know of about 5 buildings that I can get on the roof of at anytime I want with no keys and without having to "break in". I was able to get all the way to the roof of the press box without keys one time, I had keys if needed but I didn't need them.
 
geburgess

geburgess

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Jan 19, 2010
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jaretac said:
I don't know. He nailed Spangler. That place looks like it was abandoned 30+ years ago. Even spider webs across hallways in places, but it still has power and is being somewhat maintained.

I can also attest that it is not uncommon to find buildings unlocked after hours. I know of about 5 buildings that I can get on the roof of at anytime I want with no keys and without having to "break in". I was able to get all the way to the roof of the press box without keys one time, I had keys if needed but I didn't need them.
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He's lying for sure. People already pointed out the scoreboard piece, but I know that the steam tunnels are triggered by alarm upon opening unless you enter from inside the power plant, you can't just "poke around" in them. (I know this by working at Campus Services while at ISU and needing to go to them, not by my own exploring.)
 
jaretac

jaretac

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geburgess said:
He's lying for sure. People already pointed out the scoreboard piece, but I know that the steam tunnels are triggered by alarm upon opening unless you enter from inside the power plant, you can't just "poke around" in them. (I know this by working at Campus Services while at ISU and needing to go to them, not by my own exploring.)
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Not all the steam tunnel entrances are alarmed and/or monitored. I know this by working for ISU Police. Many of the more notable or sensitive places are, but not everywhere. Even if they were, it normally would take about 10 minutes for cops to show up and check it out, partly because raccoons tend to set them off all the time so it is a bit of the "little boy that called wolf".
 
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SOPROUD

New Member
Sep 7, 2012
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Oh totally forgot, here are some pics, forgot to mention the guys house "shrine". His name must be Jon Samuelson, although that youtube video pretty much covers all aspects of that legend. It was nightfall by the time we went to hilton/jacktrice. Unfortunately I don't have any better pics. Last 2 are Spangler. Ah, the beer was Arsenalnoye, thought I had a pic of it, oh well.
View attachment 14744 View attachment 14743 View attachment 14745 View attachment 14748 View attachment 14746 View attachment 14747
 
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CEcyclone

CEcyclone

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Dec 15, 2011
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The concrete canoe team meets at a shed in Spangler and we often explored the labs looking for tools and such. There defiantly is a fridge on the bottom level with some 30 year old beer in it that we always joked about drinking. Plus there are cabinets that are marked with radiation signs. These contain nuclear materials that were used in nuclear densometer tests. For that reason we referred to the surrounding area around Spangler as the nuclear forest. Very cool, secluded and tranquil place to go check out.
 
RayShimley

RayShimley

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Sep 9, 2008
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CEcyclone said:
The concrete canoe team meets at a shed in Spangler and we often explored the labs looking for tools and such. There defiantly is a fridge on the bottom level with some 30 year old beer in it that we always joked about drinking. Plus there are cabinets that are marked with radiation signs. These contain nuclear materials that were used in nuclear densometer tests. For that reason we referred to the surrounding area around Spangler as the nuclear forest. Very cool, secluded and tranquil place to go check out.
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That's funny, I believe the actual name for that area is Reactor Woods, for obvious reasons...
 
jbhtexas

jbhtexas

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Oct 20, 2006
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KFitzy87

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My family is visiting today and we were killing time before going to a movie so we decided to drive past the shrine.. we drove past going away from Ames and then turned around in the driveway on the left past the place. Then on the way back past it, the guy was in the shrine and he stared us down!
 
majorcyfan

majorcyfan

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Feb 18, 2007
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Look up the history of the ammo bunkers that used to be right near or at the corner of Stange and 13th Street and what was in them or the history of the onboard ship AckAck guns that used to sit outside the old NROTC building, that I played on as a kid. Lots of neat ISU history out there.
 
kevdiv48

kevdiv48

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Apr 21, 2011
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majorcyfan said:
Look up the history of the ammo bunkers that used to be right near or at the corner of Stange and 13th Street and what was in them or the history of the onboard ship AckAck guns that used to sit outside the old NROTC building, that I played on as a kid. Lots of neat ISU history out there.
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Keeping it alive!
Is this on the corner where the disc golf course and parking lot now is or is it one of the other 3 corners?
 
CysRage

CysRage

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Oct 18, 2009
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Good bump! I almost forgot about this thread. I have been to the Shrine 3 times now and I have never seen the guy. Does he still prowl?
 
CysRage

CysRage

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ornryactor said:
Yeah, they're down in Dodds, on the first floor of old Hughes Hall (the west end of the building). I can't find the story (I've never seen it online, only heard it orally), but a kid hung himself in the second room on the right.

The DoR placed new residents in there the next semester (without telling anybody what had happened in that room) but they both moved out and dropped out of school after just a few weeks of class. Two more students moved in, and the exact same thing happened. This continued for nearly two years, with multiple students moving into the room, only to move out and drop out of school with little explanation. In the meantime, students in the rooms on either side began to complain of some kind of noise (I think it was really loud thumping, like someone hitting or kicking the walls), and those noises and the complaints intensified as time went on.

Eventually the problems got bad enough that they were widespread legend in the building and on campus, and students started refusing to live in those rooms. The Friley hall director felt like it was being made to look bad, so she(?) very publicly volunteered to spend a full day and night living in that room to prove that it was not haunted. She "moved in" one morning and spent the day doing paperwork with no problems. The next morning, when the 24 hours was to expire, a few students were waiting outside her door for her to wake up and come out. She emerged right on time, but her face was drawn and pale, and she had obviously had not slept and had been crying for a long time. She walked out of the room without a word to anyone standing there, went to her office, packed her things, and quit her job on the spot. After that, those rooms were no longer used for student housing, and aren't to this day. Some of them have been converted into shop space for maintenance, and even they complain about weird stuff that sometimes happens. The three rooms that were most afflicted are completely sealed off and unused.

Has anybody ever heard an approximate year for this story? That's the one thing I've never heard.
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Wow this is really creepy. I never lived in Friley but I heard that nobody lives in the basement but never knew why. I love reading the old posts in this thread!
 
CysRage

CysRage

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Oct 18, 2009
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cmjh10 said:
Group of us went there last year and took a picture, he was there, scared the **** out of us.
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Picture of him or the gate? Either way you should post it. Did he have a shotgun like others have claimed? I am really surprised he didn't come out for us. His light was on in the house and my friends decided it was a good idea to try to climb the gate and sneak into the shrine area.
 
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