I just came across a printed copy of a ghost story I contributed to the UofT magazine many years ago. I thought it would be fun to repost the text, as the currently available one at any time.
An Electrifying Presence
I was a first-year engineering student, my lab partner and I were working on an electronics assignment in one of the old labs in the Wallberg Building. We were having some trouble with a circuit we’d been asked to build and analyze, and we were scratching our heads over what should have been a very simple problem to fix. Eventually, we noticed a man watching us.He wasn’t the course professor, and he wasn’t one of the lab technicians or tutors. He asked us what was wrong, and we told him we didn’t know. We had built the circuit exactly as described, but it was not behaving as expected. The mysterious man told us to double-check our wires because they sometimes break. We took his advice and soon found that, indeed, there was a broken wire. We replaced it and completed the assignment.
We turned to thank him, but he was no longer there. Surprised, we asked the other people in the lab where the man had gone. No one else could remember seeing anyone who matched his description. Neither of us saw this man again during our time at the university.
Maybe he was an older professor who had retired or moved on. Or perhaps he was Emil Wallberg himself, helping out a couple of frosh in the building that had been named after him so long ago. (Insert spooky music here.)
Leo Comitale
BASc 1997