 "Photo: Photo Illustrations by Jon Huang and Larissa Mueller")
A college student goes to a party hoping to have a good time. He meets a hot woman who wants to give him more than just a drink refill. This gorgeous stranger goes home with him ... and steals his kidneys to sell on the black market.
For those unfamiliar with this urban legend, the details of the student discovering the crime make the story memorable. The student is surprised to awaken in a bathtub full of ice, and he can't remember the night before. He is worried about the lipstick (or sticky note, depending on the storyteller) on his chest that warns him to immediately call 911. After a few lines of dialogue with the emergency operator and a telling look in the mirror, a quick deduction is made. His kidneys have been stolen by professional kidney thieves.
Different versions of the kidney-thief story circulate the Internet, but the popular college version of the tale is set at the University of Texas in the mid '90s. Part of the legend also suggests that UT medical students are behind the crime.
But UT-Austin doesn't have a medical school, although the UT System has a medical branch. Other versions of the urban legend include references to The Daily Texan, implying the location of the tale is Austin.
A telling Daily Texan editorial dated December 9, 1996 dispells claims that The Daily Texan even reported the story. The editorial begins by announcing, "The Texan has been receiving substantial amounts of e-mail lately regarding a story that allegedly came from our pages."
After describing the story and its flaws, the editorial says that "Several versions of this story attribute it to a woman the writers call the editor of The Texan." According to the paper, this woman has never been a Texan editor.
Web sites like www.snopes.com and www.thefolklorist.com piece together what this editorial is talking about. A woman named Kimm Antell worked as an administrative assistant in the mechanical engineering department in 1996. When she supposedly forwarded the e-mail detailing the generic version of this college partying tragedy, she forgot to remove her official signature. According to legend, the details were apparently changed, and Antell was labeled as The Daily Texan editor.
Not all of UT's urban legends are the stuff of teen slasher movies, though. Many of the urban legends that haunt the UT campus only hide a more interesting story that UT historian Jim Nicar is happy to tell.
Nicar, director of the UT Heritage Society, is often asked about the validity of these legends during his Moonlight Prowl tours. The Web site describes these unofficial tours as "packed with anecdotes of student life, history and all sorts of UT lore" and said they "explore little bits of its history."
"The Tower is one of them. I still hear this and it drives me up the wall," Nicar said.
The legend claims that the Tower's architect, a Rice graduate, pulled a fast one on UT by designing the Tower to secretly look like the Rice mascot, an owl.
"If you look at it from the corner, two of the clock faces look like eyes and the corner of the Tower looks like a beak. All of that is totally untrue," Nicar said.
In reality, a French architect named Paul Cret designed the Tower. Before coming to UT, Cret was head of the University of Pennsylvania's school of architecture. He also had a separate practice in Philadelphia before UT hired him in the 1930s to work on the campus master plan, explained Nicar.
"He's the one who created the Tower as well as the Union, and designed what's now the "Six Pack." He planned for growth, what the buildings should look like, the style," Nicar said.
Besides the Tower looking like an owl, another supporting detail for the legend comes from an old nickname for the top of the Tower - "the bird's nest," explained Nicar. William Battle, a famous professor in UT lore, probably wasn't expecting an urban legend to be on his list of contributions to the University. Battle not only created the UT seal, but also founded the University Co-op with his own money and chaired the faculty building committee, where he approved campus buildings from the '20s and '30s on.
"His office when he first came to UT was in the top floor of the old Main Building that used to be there before the Tower. He traded with an older professor who didn't want to hike up all the stairs because they didn't have elevators back then. They winded up calling that office the 'Owl's Nest' because it was the top floor," Nicar said.
When they rebuilt the Tower, Battle received the top floor again as his office, which UT students, faculty and staff continued to call the "Owl's Nest," unknowingly supporting the tale of the Rice architect's practical joke on the University.
The Tower's urban legend is not the only one which dwells on the loyalties of UT's architecture. Supposedly, Confederate Major George Littlefield donated the land for the original campus with the one stipulation: that the buildings face south.
"In reality, the Main Building, the first building on campus, faced south, because the campus was on the north edge of Austin. It doesn't make sense to face away from town," Nicar said. "Littlefield wasn't even in town until 10 years after UT opened."
Other UT urban legends resemble ghost stories with supporting details changing from year to year. One of the famous UT ghosts is the woman who reportedly haunts the Scottish Rite Dormitory.
According to this ghost story, a young girl loses her boyfriend or fiance and throws herself down an elevator shaft in despair. Variations include how and why the young girl lost her significant other. Some say he died in combat; others say he wrote her a letter ending their relationship.
Mary Mazurek, the dormitory's registrar, has heard both versions since she first came to UT more than 12 years ago.
"The first time it was World War II. The other time it became Vietnam," Mazurek said. "Older residents like to take advantage of the younger residents by scaring them with it."
Mazurek partly thinks the legend exists because of the dormitory's resemblance to the house in "The Shining."
Communication studies professor John Daly hears most of UT's urban legends, including the one of the Scottish Rite Dormitory's ghost, at the beginning of his lecture on rumors and gossips.
"Urban legends are a form of rumor when you think about it," Daly said in an e-mail. "Plus, they are lots of fun!"
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