I kind of think it has much I would absolutely never never never go back to the catacombs.
Hey you and welcome as always, my name is Mike...
also as always.
Today we're going to look at some supposed found footage that has scared the living daylights out of people for years.
A man gets lost in the Paris catacombs, begins to panic and then, well...
That's what we don't know.
The story of someone getting lost and trapped deep underground in what are essentially
Claustrophobic tombs, is most people's worst nightmare.
That and sharks.
*shark screams*
But this frightening footage, is it real?
That's the question we're going to look at today.
Paris, the capital of France.
Home of... well, French people.
Also, Quasimodo.
*Quasimodo singing*
But beneath the city lies something dark...
literally.
The catacombs of Paris began as tunnels for stone mining,
then began to spread and later became one giant sprawling tomb.
When nearby cemeteries began to overflow in the 17th century,
the bodies were brought down into the catacombs.
Places are littered with countless numbers of bones, many arranged in hideous fashion.
They are believed to be six to seven million bodies down there,
spread out across the more than 200 miles of catacombs, nearly all unmapped.
No one really knows the full size of the catacombs beneath the city,
only a small section is open to the public for tours and such, as much of it is deemed unsafe
and it's illegal to enter the rest of the tunnels.
Woman: "We're exploring"
"Yeah, we just wanted to see some...
some new rooms"
Man: "I've heard a lot about thecatacombs. I like the art, but it's my first time down here, so..."
But that doesn't stop others from going down in the dark,
claustrophobic, endless tunnels.
If you get lost or have no source of light down there, you're gonna stay down there.
Our story consists of alleged video footage of a man who got lost down there in the early 1990's.
The short video seemingly tells the story of a man lost in the catacombs.
Terrified, he begins to panic and run through them looking for a way out.
Or is something chasing him?
Finally, he drops the camera and runs off into the darkness.
The tape continues to film until it runs out.
The identity of this person is unknown to this day.
No one knows where he went or what happened to him.
It's been reported that the footage is from 1993
but no one really knows for sure.
What we do know is that the first time it was shown to the public,
or at least the general public became aware of it,
was when it was broadcast on a TV show in the year 2000 on "Scariest Places on Earth."
TV: "We've all been there : you take the wrong exit off the freeway, go out a different door than the one you came in,
and before you know it, you're asking:
Where am I?
But one place you definitely don't want to be caught asking that question
is in the endless labyrinth of tunnels deep beneath the city of Paris."
The show introduces us to Francis Freedland, a French filmmaker.
He came into possession of the video after it was given to him by a catacomb explorer who found it in the tunnels.
Freedland: "This video camera was found deep in the catacombs. It was picked up by a catacomb explorer,
so the people who wander down there. This person occasionally stops and he photographs bones, often in the shape of an arrow.
These arrows point in a direction.
Occasionally also he stops to photograph (?) and bones.
Which means that he's very very deep inside the catacombs."
The camera operator's name is never given, though whoever he was,
it seems he was probably an amateur explorer who got lost as the footage is from very deep within the catacombs.
Though why would an explorer panic?
Well, the panic bit is probably explainable. But why would he drop his only source of light?
Therefore ensuring he would never find a way out or even be found himself.
Francis Freedland, however, was determined to find out who the person was and solve the mystery of the footage.
He goes below with a crew to try and find out what happened to the person
Freedland: "How do you get into the catacombs? Illegally, of course.
And the idea is to find an entrance.
The problem is that the authorities keep shutting them down."
They venture down deeper and deeper into the extremely claustrophobic tunnels.
Checking the footage with the maps they have,
they see that the footage was taken nearly
300 feet below street level in some of the deepest parts of the catacombs.
Six miles in they decide to give up the search.
It's already creepy as hell, especially at this point when you see how difficult it can be to get out.
We're supposed to be open, to get out, but apparently it's locked.
We're gonna have to backtrack and (unintelligible)
That'd be hours and hours and hours.
(unintelligible)
It's pitch dark down there and if you lose your way or your light dies,
you die with it.
At one point however, Freedland does spy something that was caught on the original tape.
Following where the footage showed the man running to,
they stumble across an entire room
filled with the remains of people who died over 300 years ago.
Freedland's expedition, however, after 12 hours exploring two catacombs, it's unsuccessful.
Freedland: "We didn't solve the mystery.
I don't think anyone ever will. Just too many, too many, too many miles."
In 2014, Ghost Adventures' host Zak Bagans met up with Freeland in Paris to discuss the footage.
It seems that 14 years later, Freeland still has yet to solve the mystery of who the person was.
Francis Freedland refuses to take Zach back to the location, saying:
"I cannot take you to that spot. I wil absolutely never, never, never go back to the catacombs.
I refuse to go back down."
But the question remains, is the footage real?
Or did Freedland or someone else stage and fake the footage in order to spread some kind of urban legend?
Or early viral video.
Some skeptics have dismissed the video as a fake,
likely staged by the creators of the "Scariest Places on Earth"
Or possibly, by Freedland himself.
But the original footage it does match up with what we see when Friedland goes down there with the camera crew.
So whether the footage it was fake or not
It was definitely filmed down there at 300 feet under the streets of Paris
Unfortunately, though there's just not much information on who filmed it or when it was filmed, if it is a hoax
nobody's talking about it. And you'd think all these years later, someone would have let something slip.
All we really have is Freedman's word on how he came across the footage and its authenticity
Also only clips of the footage have ever been released
So we never actually see the entire
film itself just about a minute and a half of footage which if it's real is
strange because you might gain more clues about who it was and what happened to them if we could see more but
Either that's all there is or they're not showing us.
Freedland: "...After about 40 minutes of these point of view shots and these pictures of bones..."
Therefore that would lead me to believe it's fake.
Some claim mysterious sounds can be heard on the tape after digital enhancement
and cryptic markings found later by Freedland on the tunnel walls suggest the man stumbled upon something
he wasn't meant to see or that he was chased by something.
If real it seems more likely that the person panicked in the extreme dark and claustrophobia of the tunnels
And this wouldn't be the first time someone perished in the catacombs
At the end of the day though, we simply don't know if it's real or fake.
Some people lean more towards it being a hoax, some people lean the other way
but they're simply there's not enough evidence to prove or disprove it.
And if it is a fake,
they've been sitting on that secret for, you know, over 20 years now.
One thing's for sure though, the footage is damn creepy and unnerving
Maybe I'll fly over to Paris and go down there take a look for myself.
What am I talking about?
Screw that! I'm not going down there! Did you see the-
Thank you so much for watching
I really really appreciate it. If you would like to see some more, please don't hesitate to subscribe
and I will see you, as always,
real soon in the next video.
Mic out.