The giant red button at the end of the 200 hall tempts BV students daily. The large-print, bold “Do Not Push” sign only serves to add appeal to the thrill of pushing the forbidden button.
Physics teacher Nicholas Deffer watches students’ reactions to the button, which has been there for the past three years, as they pass his classroom each day.
“It is constantly pushed at this point — I wouldn’t even necessarily want to touch it because of the number of people that walk by and actually push it,” he said. “Some seniors literally push it every time they pass.”
Many students have come up with theories to make sense of the
mysteriously conspicuous button.
“I’ve heard people say it’s an experiment designed for the AP Psych class wanting to see if people will push it or not,” Deffer said. “I’ve had people say the button is tracking how many people actually push it.”
In addition to trying to figure out the real purpose of the button, a few
people have come up with some “wild stories” to mess with their friends.
“Some kid was ribbing another one of his friends and said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s connected to a light somewhere randomly in the building that turns off and on every time you hit it,’” Deffer said.
Despite the prevalence of these theories, many students believe the
button doesn’t do anything. However, it once had a very clear-cut purpose.
“There used to be doors right here that went outside, and so that is the old handicap button that opened up those doors,” Deffer said. “As they took those out, they just didn’t remove the button.”
At first, the button remained just the same as it was when the doors were removed, but one day when Deffer got to school “all of a sudden it was red.”
Because the button has a very obvious history, it seems clear that the button must not do anything — yet Deffer proved it is still very functional.
“The funny part is, the mechanism or actual hardware is still inside it, so when students push it, it does transmit a signal,” he said.
Where this signal is sent or what it’s used for remains a mystery, which only encourages people to invent more outlandish theories and to continue to press the button every time they pass.