President John C. Bravman’s office issued a statement Saturday morning denying unequivocally the rumor that he is the Batman. However, we can find no record of this rumor prior to the statement. Now that they have mentioned it, our investigative reporters have found a significant amount of evidence that President John C. Bravman may, in fact, be the Batman.

An excerpt from the statement is included here for context:

“To my fellow Bucknellians, I wanted to address the recent rumors that I, President Jonathan Crimefighter Bravman, am the Batman. These rumors are categorically false. Any reports of me climbing buildings or throwing smoke bombs are at best exaggerations and at worst outright lies. I am a normal president of the university, and any suggestion to the contrary is preposterous.”

A recent geological survey conducted by geology professor Job Racob revealed an expansive cave system under the President’s house. Professor Racob was quoted as saying, “Holy ****, that’s a lot of bats!” upon entering the cave. No further exploration of the caves was conducted, due to what observers described as “more bats than should reasonably exist in one place.” When asked about what some have dubbed the “bat-cave,” on account of it being a cave that really does have too many bats in it (trust us, we checked),  Bravman reportedly threw a smoke bomb and vanished. It took the brilliant work of our investigative reporting team to determine that these two events may be linked. 

Something else discovered by our reporting team was the repeated theft of certain chemicals from the chemistry department, all of which appear to be ingredients in common smoke bomb recipes. A chemistry professor, who wishes to remain unnamed, confided to one of our reporters that they had seen someone, who appears to have been of a similar build to Bravman stealing the chemicals one night several weeks earlier. Upon his discovery, the thief dropped a smoke bomb and vanished. When asked for comment, President Bravman dropped a smoke bomb and vanished.

Also discovered by our intrepid reporters was a report from a student from several weeks ago that, while waiting for a meeting outside the president’s office, they heard the president mumbling gutturally. They couldn’t make out most of what the president said, but they say that they distinctly heard President Bravman say, “I’m vengeance.” When our reporters asked him about this over the weekend, Bravman threw a smoke bomb and vanished, in what some are calling “a pattern we really should have recognized by now.”

We at the Bucknellian considered reaching out to the president’s office for comment about this article, but reconsidered after we figured that the chemistry department probably needs those chemicals and anything that makes Bravman use any more smoke bombs than absolutely necessary should probably be avoided.