Featured Image Credit: ABC
Topics: Conspiracy Theory, Weird, History
Jess Battison
When you think of a trip to Paris, you’re probably imagining the sparkling Eiffel Tower, those viral hot chocolates, or maybe snacking on a croissant by the Arc de Triomphe.
But just like any other major city, there’s some hidden parts to the French capital that you probably wouldn’t be rushing to visit.
A maze of tunnels sits underneath the Parisian streets and rather eerily, they’re filled with the remains of millions of people.
The Paris catacombs are actually open to visitors though, there’s just a large part of them that are a total no-go.
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And let’s be honest, you probably wouldn’t want to go near them anyway, especially with people still calling the terrifying footage of a ‘lost man’ the ‘scariest thing they’ve ever seen’.
There’s plenty of tales of people living down in the catacombs stealing torchers or maps from adventurers as some ‘disappear’.
But most do tend manage to find an exit and eventually return to the surface.
Only one confirmed death has occurred down there, that of hospital worker Philibert Aspairt in 1793.
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It's thought he lost his light source and couldn't find his way out of the darkness with his body discovered 11 years later, a short distance away from one of the many exits.
After such a long time down there the only way he could be identified was his hospital keyring and his jacket buttons.
Other ‘evidence’ of people in peril in the catacombs has been unearthed over the years.
In the early 1990s, a discarded camcorder was discovered which appeared to show a man exploring the tunnels beneath the French capital.
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He starts running at one point, sprinting deeper into the darkness of the catacombs as though being chased by something.
Then he drops the camcorder, which lands on the ground and shows his feet disappearing off down a tunnel.
As you can imagine, the idea of getting lost underground in a maze of tunnels with no idea how to get out had people fairly creeped out.
One person said you could 'add to my anti-bucket list' going into the catacombs, while others guessed that the guy 'panicked because he was lost' and started running.
But before you go expecting this to be the case of another catacombs victim, there’s not exactly any proof to what happened.
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Nobody ever came back to claim the found camcorder as theirs, nothing was ever shown to be chasing him, and there was never a body found.
It's possible he was a panicked man who got lost under Paris and started running, dropping his camera before eventually finding a way out, or the whole thing is simply just a hoax.