This Paranormal Life - #341 The Paris Catacombs - What's Hidden in the "Forbidden Zone"?

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

Paris - the city of love. That is, if you love BONES. Because hidden under the surface of the city is a network of catacombs filled with over 6 million human remains. Over the years it’s become a tourist attraction, drawing thousands of visitors a year, but beyond the path of the guided tour is the “forbidden zone”… and the secrets that are kept from the public... Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunitySupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeIntro music by www.purple-planet.comEdited by Philip Shacklady Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Would a spider get caught in Spider-Man's webs? Why don't NASA ever send a spaceship underground? All of these questions you can find an answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new tale and come to a conclusion at the end as to whether or not it truly is paranormal. As always, I am joined by my wonderful co-host, sitting just opposite me, Kit Greer-Molvena. Rory, it's fantastic to be here. It's fantastic to be together in Ireland for a change,

not in the London studio for once. Yeah, we're finally back here, which is actually a little bit of a nice break for me because I don't know if I told you this, but I haven't been sleeping so well, actually, in my apartment in London. Oh, why is that? I'll tell you why, Kit. Because recently, pigeons have been having sex on my balcony. Okay. Pigeons as in the birds. Okay. Sorry. Is that loud? I've never heard that. These guys? Oh, yeah.

Right. Maybe not normally, but these kinky SOBs. These pigeons showed up, I'd say, a few weeks ago. And at first, I didn't think much of it. I assumed there was possibly a nest on my balcony. So I thought I'd do the polite thing and say, hey, you guys raise the kids. I'm not going to interfere. You guys have that side of the balcony. I'll stay over here. You do your own thing. Little did I know they were setting up some kind of BDSM pigeon sex club every morning. It's cooing, cooing coming through the walls. Right. But if it's just cooing, I mean, how bad can it be? That's the noise they normally make. So what's such a problem? I need you to do an impression is what I'm trying to say.

You don't want to hear what it sounds like, okay? A month ago, if you'd asked me, how do pigeons have sex? I wouldn't have been able to tell you a damn thing. You would have said quietly, I think. I would have. Because I've never heard it. Turns out it's passionately. It's passionately, it's loudly,

and it's at 7.30 a.m. every morning. God. So it's very punctual. This is interesting. You know, normally, we've talked about it before, normally in London, the only animal you ever hear having sex is humans, unfortunately, through the walls of your hotel room,

and foxes. Foxes, yeah. Right. Fox humans, unfortunately, through the walls of your hotel room and foxes. Foxes, famously because they sound like something out of a nightmare dimension. It's screaming, horrible screaming. I will admit the pigeons aren't as bad, but if these pigeons are having sex loud enough to wake me through the walls of my building, that's pretty loud. It's also not a problem that you can go to your landlord about. Right. Not something they have any power over. It feels like word is spreading apparently because more and more pigeons have come. Have I mentioned also they are shitting everywhere? Well, they are one to do that. Yeah.

The whole, it looks like one side of my balcony is painted white. Something has gone very wrong if I'm living in a high-rise building in central London and I have to buy a scarecrow. Why? How does that work? When Rory says he lives in London, he really means in Surrey. He lives in a field. But it's fine.

It's nice to be back in my childhood bedroom I'm getting a little bit of sleep And it's good that I am, Kit Because after today's story Neither of us are going to be sleeping, brother Really? Now, I actually know less than the listeners Because the listeners at least have seen the title of this episode

Presumably in their podcast app I don't know what we're talking about But you did warn me that this was a genuinely scary one yeah which is quite rare for this podcast you know we like to take things seriously when they need to be taken seriously but we also like to keep things light today's story is one of the cases that while researching uh i was pretty spooked i was pretty freaked out. Damn, and you know, you're a guy who has to listen to pigeon sex 9 to 12 hours a day. So this is not a guy who's easily spooked. Right, exactly.

So you know I mean it when I say that this case today is one of the most terrifying and creepy cases we have ever investigated on this podcast before. And we're going to get right into it, just after a quick word from today's sponsors. And a reminder, you can get every episode of the podcast ad-free over on Patreon.com. Our story today starts with a strange post that appeared on Reddit, under a discussion about paranormal experiences in Paris. Now, most people know Paris for the Eiffel Tower, the great wine, and of course, amazing food cooked by a rat controlling a man by his hair. I think that was a children's movie, but go on.

But as paranormal enthusiasts know, there's more to Paris than meets the eye. Because hiding down beneath the earth are the catacombs. Our Reddit post today began with. Back at the start of summer, my family and I went on a trip to Paris. Unfortunately, my mother wasn't a fan of planes. And after our long flight over from Canada, she wasn't exactly feeling great. So while she rested, the rest of us decided to go to the catacombs. After a three hour line, we finally got to go in. At first it was cool, wandering around under Paris in tunnels hundreds of years old. However, it wasn't long before things took a turn for the worst. It started to go bad when I got to the main chamber

that holds the remains of thousands of people. The bones are shattered. Skulls are cracked. I was feeling something. Something angry. Something did not want me there. It was something that wanted no one to be there. I tried to stay with my family.

My dad, bless him, has absolutely no empathy. He was getting my brother to take pictures of him posing with the bones. I'm not sure that's empathy. I think that's basic kind of human rights or something. Or a sense of decency. Okay, he's saying that he was absolutely not impacted by the thousands of souls that perished and their remains lie there. Yes, there's a lot of bones down in the catacombs.

So I assume, you know, the nice thing to do is to treat it with a little bit of respect. I assume the father was kind of pretending the larger ones were his penis, kind of holding one up, doing the speech from Shakespeare, all your classic bone gags, you know. I mean, clearly this is built into human nature, isn't it? Because we kind of see this every sort of three days on social media

that someone gets cancelled for, you know, soldier boy cranking that at a war memorial. Right, doing something inappropriate in a setting that requires a bit of decorum. Yes, something we know a little bit about because me and Rory, whilst we didn't pop into this world with decorum, you could argue we still don't have it.

You only have to get a couple of ancient Egyptian curses under your belt by watching episodes of Family Guy on your iPad and Tutankhamen's tomb before you then know how to act in a certain setting, how to show respect. Because we know

in the world of the paranormal there can be real repercussions. Yeah. You know who else had a little bit of a lack of decorum? Indiana Jones. And people think he's a pretty cool guy

for stealing ancient artifacts. Right. Not saying that Kit and I stole any ancient artifacts. Not making that implication at all. Yeah. We found them inside the glass case in the museum. Okay, stop talking. Not saying that Kit and I stole any ancient artifacts. Not making that implication at all. We found them inside the glass case in the museum. Okay, stop talking.

Absolutely. So they were inside the museum. They were in a museum, yeah. You can still find things in a museum. Bathrooms, keychains, mummy skulls. The finder's keeper's law still applies to exhibitions. Yeah, Indiana kind of, he kind of made a career out of just accepting the repercussions of tomb raiding didn't he i mean that's his catchphrase isn't it as of the most recent movie is it belongs in a museum does it does it in the ad or does it belong

exactly where it was before you ganked it. So as I said, the family were messing around while this individual was wandering through the catacombs. Then they wrote, That's when I heard it. Something spoke to me. We are watching. We will not forgive. We will not let you go.

The voices continued, getting louder and louder. I started to run, crying while I bolted it up the spiral staircase and out of the catacombs. I got out to the sun and collapsed onto the sidewalk. But I didn't stop hearing the voices. I didn't stop hearing them for two days. Whoa! Two days? Two days. I think little homie had a psychotic episode or something. Yeah.

I mean, if you're hearing them down in the catacombs, fine, maybe. But if you're like at McDonald's that night ordering the Big Mac and they're like, you should get the fries with that. Right. It's like, guys, leave me alone, please. Yeah. Also, they stopped adding salt.

You've got to ask for salt packets. Ask for salt packets. One ketchup's never enough. Get six. Get six. There's like three of us here. Just kind of a little demon on your shoulder. Yeah, two days is a very long time.

Not saying I don't believe the story at all, but if I started crying because I was scared of the catacombs, I probably would make up a story about hearing a voice. I mean, look, can you blame this person? If you haven't guessed by now or you haven't read the title of this episode, we are talking today about the Paris catacombs. One of, I believe, the most cursed and scary, horrific locations on this earth. Yeah, Roy, I think it might even be worth mentioning what they are for anyone who's been living under a rock and doesn't know what the catacombs are. Absolutely. You know, the catacombs are essentially a huge network of tunnels

underneath the city of Paris that are filled with the bones of about... Brace yourself. Actually, you know what? Can you guess? Can you... of Paris that are filled with the bones of about brace yourself actually you know what can you guess can you how many people yes how many the remains of how many people are down in the catacombs okay I'm gonna think it's something absolutely absurd so I'm gonna say like

10,000 it's not confirmed but they believe it is the remains of around 6 million people. What? What? 6 million human remains. Okay, now I'm starting to worry about where they find all these people.

I'm starting to think some of these people weren't dead when they got signed up to be in the catacombs. Yeah, unfortunately the conditions were so terrible down there that originally it was only 10,000 people that had to be buried. Took about 6 million people to bury those 10,000 and they just kind of died down there alongside him. That is so many people like that is. But if you even like going back in the day, surely like how many people were dying in France every year? Surely that's like a year supply of dead people for like years. It was quite a lot. I think, you know, when you're talking about when this was around, we're talking about the plague.

We're talking about the French Revolution getting wrapped up in this. Regular deaths. I mean, if you have never heard of this place before, if you've never seen pictures of this place, you should look it up right now. Google it. Because it looks like it doesn't exist. It looks like it's literally the tunnels to the entrance to hell. Yeah, it looks like downloadable content for Bloodborne. We're not exaggerating. We are talking about tunnels lined with human skulls.

Rooms where the floor is just filled with so many bones if you dig you don't find the bottom. That's how horrific and spooky this place is. I know what you're thinking, Kit. How does something this unbelievably cursed exist? Well, it all starts back in the middle of the 18th century. At this point in history, Paris was booming. The population was growing, the city was flourishing, and there was only one problem.

A lot of people were dying. That's a pretty big problem. Yeah, it's pretty bad. This isn't typically a problem that good cities should have. Yeah, you know, if you're kind of the mayor, and you're like, hey, the city is flourishing. Nobody said the city isn't flourishing. Yeah.

Most people are dead, of course. But that's a normal city thing. People die. Yeah. You know, I could say this is the youngest the city's ever felt. Things got so bad that it was actually becoming a bit of a health issue. The cemeteries were located worryingly close to the food markets. And the last thing you wanted was those two get mixed together.

Right. You don't want to go to the market to buy some kidney for a kidney pie and you end up with a human kidney. Right. If you're halfway through a KFC chicken bucket and you're just, you know, chomping down on that last wing. And then you look down and, uh-oh, that wasn't a KFC chicken bucket, and you're just, you know, chomping down on that last wing, and then you look down and, uh-oh, that wasn't a KFC bucket. You've had your hand in a sarcophagus for the last half hour. You just licked a guy's ribs clean. I thought it was a bit cold. Yeah, separate those two places. You're just licking the bone just like

i'll never know what goes into that secret recipe of 11 herbs and dust your friends are like we think you knew it was a human because you're wearing all of his rings but hey i i do agree you've could you've created conditions that are lackluster at best. But, you know, you never know the conditions that must have been faced by the town planners. You know, you talk to them and you're like, hey, is there anywhere else we could put this goddamn food market? And they're like, I don't know what you want me to do. We've got too many dangerous things. It's like I've got other people barking at me,

telling me we can't have a school next to the Wolverine pit, but we've got to put the Wolverine somewhere. So it's either the old people's home or the f***ing playground. One of the two. Oh, you guys are always complaining. Why did you build the fireworks factory next to the matchstick factory? Unbelievable. So what could they do Kit? They had two problems to deal with. They needed to do something for the

good of the public, but they also didn't want to disturb the graves of the people who'd been buried. In the end, they realized that one of those groups couldn't really complain. So they began digging up the remains of those in the graveyard. Which I think is a kind of a ballsy move because those are two groups of people. You gotta piss off one of them. Would you rather piss off the humans who, yeah sure, they could maybe kick off a little bit, they could complain, or do you want to piss off the skeleton people who were 99% sure aren't going to come back to life, but all it takes is one of them. Right. And you've got a pretty big problem on your hands.

It is very true. But this is a classic kind of tragic comedy situation we see in historical stories all the time. People who don't understand the paranormal taking risks because they think the paranormal is not going to bite them in the ass again something we are not going to do yeah we've proven it even in the commune that when it comes to treading on the people who make up the commune or treading on the spirits of the undead we will tread on people all day long absolutely yeah it's just a safer move because the people how long are they going to be around for? You know. Ask me how long a skeleton boy lives. How long?

Forever. Exactly. Exactly. Now, this wasn't an overnight job. For example, just one of the city cemeteries contained around two million bodies. Jesus Christ. And with the other sites, this climbed to around 6 million skeleton people. Starting to see where they got all the bones from for the catacombs, yep.

So the problem now was, you've dug up all these bodies, but where do you put 6 million skeleton people? Luckily for the people of Paris, they were already sitting on top of the answer. The Paris catacombs. sitting on top of the answer. The Paris catacombs. 200 miles of tunnels that went deep underground that had been formed when the builders were harvesting the very limestone that built the city.

Oh, okay, that's fascinating. I had no idea why they existed in the first place. I see, so they had dug away under the city not to create some kind of cool mole people cathedral paradise, but actually just because they needed the stone. Yeah, I think it kind of worked out.

They originally just took the stone and then eventually they were like, hey, these are just cool mining caves. I think at one point the city started sinking into the caves. For sure. So they were like, can we reinforce these to make them safe? And when they did that, the Paris Catacombs were created. These tunnels are huge. They are so large that there's even now portions of it that are completely submerged

under water. Wow. I had no idea. So in the 1780s, every night, thousands of bodies were dug up, piled onto wagons, and taken down into the catacombs. A priest would accompany each wagon and chant the Catholic Office of the Dead prayer cycle to ensure that the skeletons remained at peace. It feels like the bare minimum, doesn't it?

It feels like this is the religious equivalent of shouting five-second rule before you eat a chicken drumstick you just dropped on the ground. It gets people off your back for a couple of seconds. Right. But everyone knows deep down you didn't do the right thing. I really love the idea of them wheeling these bones about like they're babies in a pram. And then as soon as the bones start, like, kind of shaking a little bit and being like, the priest is like, go to sleep. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior.

And the bones are like, going back to sleep again. Like kind of subduing them so they rest and then you can kind of take them down into the catacombs. Yeah, this is like in a nature documentary. You know, whenever they trunk the black bear to like perform life-saving surgery on it right and then right at the end of the surgery the bear's like and they're like hurry up trunk them again trunk them again into the catacombs yeah it's it's pretty naive to think a little song is gonna do it after like i don't know if they've been buried in the ground, presumably beside their loved ones for a hundred years. Yeah. And then the first interaction with

humans they have is the sight of a shovel cracking into their skull and be like, we got another one here. Let them in the barrel. They're just kind of chucking these bodies into barrels and bringing them underground. It took two years of nightly work to empty the majority of Paris's cemeteries. But the work continued up until around 1859, moving millions of bodies and stuffing them deeper into the ground. I actually read there was a story in the New York Times this week of some kind of anthropologist was in a like vintage store or some kind of memorabilia store or something like that i want to say in arizona somewhere like that and this shop as decoration i think it was for sale i think they were charging like four thousand dollars they were

like buy this cool skull we've got a cool skull and it's like a cool decoration you could put it in your house or put it in your and this anthropologist was like holy f**king s**t that is a real skull and uh and they called the police and and got the the place like raided and everything and uh yeah and i think i think the person running the shop i guess is probably being tried now or whatever but the point was that they were like, it shows that there's kind of a weirdness about this, that I guess the person running the shop was like, eh, it's like an ancient skull.

Who cares if it's real? It's like a thousand years old. I can sell that. That's fine. But then I think, no, there is like specific laws about like human remains. Doesn't matter how old they are you can't sell them you sorry so i'm a bit worried that you can't sell i kind of stated that in a way

skulls i was hoping for a resounding yes and but you actually look so confused no i'm just trying to like understand the story so the skull was stolen originally then i guess and that's why it's illegal because it was he he didn't have the no i think they just they came into possession of it one way or another okay the sheer fact that they owned it and were selling it was illegal in for some in like this weird country whatever would you say it was america okay usa but here it's fine but here it's fine. But here it's fine, surely? All right. I need to know if what I've done is a crime.

So I'm going to tell you what I've done, and you just say if it's a crime or not. You don't need to tell me it is a crime. I sold skulls. Yeah, I know. On the dark web. The fact you did it on the dark web, you're like, yeah, well, eBay wouldn't let me. eBay wouldn't let me. They were weirdly tight-fisted about it. They were a little bit squeamish about the skull.

I said, it's fine. It just needs a good clean. That's messed up, man. That it's illegal. Not that they sold the skull. That's crazy. All right, Kit. It's this time in the podcast where I'm going to send you some pictures of the catacombs

so you can look at them yourself. I would love to see them, honestly. Listeners of the podcast, feel free to Google Paris catacombs and take a peek yourself. Otherwise, we're going to be posting some pictures on socials, on Twitter, Instagram, wherever you follow us. Okay, photo one. We're looking at a seemingly endless cave filled with water.

This is horrible already. Very creepy. Have to say, not somewhere I would personally be queuing for three hours to get into. Right. At my lowest, I've probably queued for three hours for a cronut or something like that. What the f*** is a cronut? A croissant donut invented in the last ten years, I would say. It became quite a sensation.

Oh, okay. Okay, moving on. Alright. I was wondering when we were going to get to the good stuff. F***ing hell. Right, this is... This is... What is it, Kit?

Is it bones? By any chance? Yes. It is a six-foot-tall, six-foot-wide pillar made of bones and a bit like a lasagna there is kind of intricate layers of kind of femurs then skulls

then tibulas then skulls then a lot of smaller bones then lots more skulls and then thousands of more bones at the bottom holding it all up. Which is extra f***ed up because that just I mean that alone shows you that they just took bones from different

people to build shit down there right this is to be clear this isn't a kind of like wall of skeletons that are kept complete and they're kind of hung up in a in some kind of macabre fashion yeah no no no no no they. They really said, like, they really put the skeletons through a paper shredder and then took the kind of potpourri of these skeletons and just mashed them into walls. Like, this alone would be over 100 people. Oh, well over.

Also, worrying in that picture, the roof of the catacombs looks like it has essentially claw marks of skeleton hands where it looks like people have tried to escape back to the earth. Yeah, I'm not sure, as I say, everyone here started off as a skeleton. I will say the pictures that you've seen so far mostly are of the areas that are open to the public.

There are areas of the catacombs called the forbidden areas. And the following pictures that are left, they're from the no-go areas. Okay, so I'm going to continue the slideshow on to the no-go areas. All right, yeah. All right. It's more bones. This is... Listener, what comes to mind when you hear the words bone tsunami? What comes to mind when you hear the words bone tsunami?

I mean, honest answer, a sick thrash metal band, probably. But after that, this. This is, like, how deep do you think that is? It's several feet of just discarded bones, human bones. I'm going to keep going. Okay, wow. An even bigger sea of bones. This is astonishing.

It's so creepy, isn't it? It's genuinely terrifying. How does this exist? So just coming back to the pillar of bones. Okay. Why is this fine? So just stay with me here. Sure. If one serial killer did this, they would be Hitler.

And we would make Netflix documentaries examining the sick, sick mind that even thought of this. But apparently when French people do it, it's fine. Yeah, I think at some point the Paris catacombs were repurposed as a tourist attraction. uh, the Paris catacombs were repurposed as a tourist attraction and maybe it was a slippery slope, but opening it to the public then invited the opportunity for people to start having more fun with the bones, giving people a reason to visit. So instead of just going down and seeing this horrific site, you know, because it was just remains dumped and dumped in piles and piles, I guess at that point people were like, well, look, let's just put all the skulls in this wall. piles and piles. I guess at that point, people were like, well, look, let's just put all the skulls in this wall. Let's create a wall of legs, you know, like let's do something with it that

turns this into an actual nice place people can visit as part of French history. Well, do you know what is nice is I think sometimes in this day and age, when we go on our phones and we scroll TikTok and the stuff that we see people getting up to you think to yourself truly every day we stray further from god's light but actually if you're paying attention and you look at the paris catacombs i think things are getting better right i think there is a very little chance that that would happen the catacombs would happen in the modern age and maybe that is something to celebrate yeah you know we have a lot of problems. Inequality.

Right. Homelessness. Climate change. Climate change. We don't have a bone world living beneath us in most places. When people are buried, we keep them there. The closest thing to boning world is Rory's balcony, where the pigeons are getting it on 24-7.

Bone city, yeah, my balcony. Well, if you build an underground city out of Skeleton's kit, it's truly no surprise when people start experiencing the paranormal. And while most people explore the catacombs as part of a properly organized tour available to the public, there's also those who have explored deeper into the quote forbidden zones. These explorers are referred to as cataphiles and some of their stories are terrifying. You know what the monthly meeting of cataphiles, there's got to be a furry that turns up and he's like so disappointed. Right, I'd be kind of bummed out if I was someone who's like an urban explorer who

like lives on the edge I'm crawling through holes I've got rations and like a knife in my boot to fight off anyone and they're like that's so cool man we're gonna call you cave perverts it's like whoa it's like because you're you're horny for caves it's like I don't want to f**k the cave don't call me that all right what about a catophile can we call it something cool like Nightman or something? Even that actually doesn't sound great, does it? It's like, I don't want

to f*** the cave. I might have a boner but that's just because I like the dark. While exploring the tunnels after midnight, some cataphiles have claimed to experience strange phenomena. Noises echoing in the tunnels, figures peeking from around the corners that disappear when you point the flashlight on them. And maybe most worryingly of all, if you go deep enough into the catacombs,

the walls begin to speak to you. I will say, just talking about these cataphiles, I don't know if anyone has deserved bad paranormal things happening to them more than these people. Sure, you're really begging for it. Going into the forbidden area of an underground skeleton graveyard. Just like the story at the beginning

of the episode, it's said that disembodied voices will try and persuade you to venture even deeper into the catacombs until you can't find your way out again. Oh, interesting. So this is kind of a siren's call. They are tricking you, trying to get you to lose your own life in the catacombs. And I really can't stress how dangerous this place is.

It's essentially an underground maze buried so deep that it is in complete darkness. Everything is bones. The walls and the floor, so everything looks the same. And there are horribly real accounts of people who have gone in and never come out before. Jesus, they got lost? All it takes is for you to be in there

and your flashlight battery to die. And it's nothing. It's complete darkness. The sun never rises. You're 300 feet below the surface. You are essentially gone. There's just huge holes you can fall down. There's maze-like areas where you'll just get completely lost. Unless someone finds you, you'd be stuck down there. Good God, man. One of the most famous stories involving the catacombs comes from around the time of the French Revolution. A man named Philibert was working as a doorman at the Val-de-Grace Hospital, and one night, while hunting for a particular liqueur down in the cellar,

he accidentally ended up entering the catacombs. Easy mistake to me. All been there. Right. You know, you're stumbling around. You just polished off that last bud light. And you're like, all right, you guys chill here. I'm going to, I think I got another case. Yeah, hey, Tommy, you want a Diet Coke? I got you, bro.

I'm back in a second. You like go down. You're like, I think I left some behind here. I'll just turn it around. And then there's skulls everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did it again. You ended up in the catacombs.

F***. Not again. And whenever you say the bones start talking to you, I'm imagining some real, like, Mickey Mouse, jaunty, kind of honky-tonk skeleton music. Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. Right. Welcome to the catacombs.

We are the skeletons. We live here. They're, like, playing their ribs like a xylophone. Yeah. They eat children. Okay. The bones eat children. So it's actually not that funny.

Sorry. That's incredibly f***ed up. Yeah. I just, because you're taking it like light and you're like having fun with it and saying like it's Mickey Mouse. Yeah. I was just, you know, comedy podcast. I just thought I would

throw something out there. We can delete that from the podcast if you want. No, no, it's funny. You want to like make fun of it and like have a good time and stuff. Yeah. So,

Philibert was strangled by a skeleton man. Really? And they put their bony hands through his eyes and said, be one with us. That's crazy.

Become one with the bones. Yeah, that is crazy. Is there going to be comedy to the podcast, though? Yes, because after they killed him, he did like a chuckle, and it was like a chatty little bone laugh, so it was good. Yeah, it was good. No, Philibert, he entered the catacombs with just a single candlestick to guide him. Terrible move.

He began walking deeper into the pitch black tunnels. Maybe it was the voices calling him deeper, or maybe it was the fact that many believe he was drunk at the time. But he continued until the candle's wick ran out and he was submerged in total darkness. Luckily, his body was found 11 years later by a group of cataphiles. Oh my god. He was identified by the hospital key ring hanging from his belt, and his grave is now marked down in the catacombs right where he was found.

Those who explore the tunnels have claimed that every November 3rd, Philibert's ghost can be seen wandering the tunnels, still trying to find the exit. This is crazy, man. I'm like too distracted with the tale to even start thinking about the paranormal. I'm now panicking about where I go in my daily life

and whether I'm going to go missing. I need to strap an Apple AirTag to the back of my neck to make sure that no matter what happens, I don't go AWOL. Yeah, I mean, look, we can think that this guy is a dum-dum for going down into the catacombs with just a candle, but you know I would be going down in there

with a 30% charged iPhone 12. That battery is not lasting me more than an hour and a half. I'd be begging for a candle. I'd do anything for a candle down there in that situation. It happens. But by far Kit, the most terrifying story from the catacombs comes from just 30 years ago and it involves real camera footage discovered in the catacombs comes from just 30 years ago, and it involves real camera footage discovered in the catacombs. Wait, what? Found footage? Yeah. Jesus. We're going to play that footage right

here on the podcast, just after a quick word from today's sponsors. All right, welcome back to the podcast. We are just about to watch some footage that was recovered by cataphiles down in the tunnel. I will say, this part is actually pretty spooky, not for the faint of heart, so if you get a little claustrophobic or anything has spooked you so far, this is your time to tune out. While wandering the Paris catacombs, an urban explorer came across a VHS camera that looked like it had been dropped and left abandoned for years. And when they played the tape inside, they knew they had to call the police. This video camera was found deep in the catacombs. It was picked up by a catacomb explorer, some of the people who wandered down there.

So basically he's filming what he's seeing. After about 40 minutes of these point of view shots and these pictures of bones, the person begins to walk faster and faster. Then he begins to run. We hear his breathing get louder and louder, as though something was scaring him. He's frightened, he's frightened. He's running faster and faster and faster,

deeper and deeper into the catacombs. And all of a sudden, he drops the camera. He just dropped it. The camera just drops on the ground and keeps rolling. And you see his feet just run away. And it keeps rolling until it runs out of tape. Pretty spooky stuff, huh? But what do you think happened? Is the point that he got lost? Is that why he's freaking out? I don't know, Kit. There's a lot of different theories.

You know, it does look like maybe he got lost down there while he was recording. Some people say that they can hear noises in the tape, almost like he was being chased by something down there in the tunnels. Okay. Now, the man that's talking in that clip is actually filmmaker Francis Friedland, who claims that the tape as he said was given to him by an urban explorer who discovered it in the tunnels. Francis dated the footage back to around 1993, meaning the camera had been sitting down there for years. After finding the tape,

Francis was determined to solve the mystery of the lost catacomb explorer, so he gathered a crew to take him back into the catacombs through a secret entrance that could lead him in the direction of where the camera was discovered and see if they could solve the mystery. Now unfortunately, they didn't really have a lot to go on, as we know we've seen the catacombs it all starts to look the same after a while, and it's all point of view so it's a little messy, but there were a few pretty distinct weird things in the video. There was 1.

Arrows made out of bones on the floor leading the man in certain directions. Two, a strange painting of a human body on a wall. And three, a room where the floor is full of so many bones that you could dig and dig and not find the bottom. These are all in the forbidden zone of the catacombs. Right, right, right, right. And of course, yes, they mention in the clip we've just watched that there was over 40 minutes of exploration on this table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it just drops to the ground and the man is running away into the darkness. Now, they did go into the tunnels. They traveled for more than six miles and reached about 300

feet below street level. But after coming up empty-handed, the men decided to call it quits. But when a blocked exit forced them to change their path, they came face to face with a familiar marking on the wall. The exact same marking of a human body that they had seen in the found footage. Oh, they were on the trail. I think I saw this on the tape. This figure with the arms outstretched, the legs outstretched. And I think after this, the camera turns right.

They're 320 feet below street level right now. And they're just seeing on the ground an arrow made out of bones. Just like the found footage. The main guy looks like he's becoming a skeleton the further he goes. It's led them around the corner into the room full of bones. Yeah, this looks like one of the photos you showed me. Yeah. There's a lot of bones.

Just to give you an idea of how many bones are in this room, they've been wandering in the catacombs for six hours, and they a room that made the main guy go that's a lot of bones i'm standing on dozens of corpses just walking on you can't see the bottom i don't even know how how deep this is we could be walking on thousands of corpses here. It looks like the killing fields. According to Lazar, if you search through these catacombs, you could find the gate to hell. Perhaps this person found it by accident.

This is the gate to hell. dispersal founded by accident. This is the gate to hell. It just, he said that and then it did a big sweeping close up of his face as if his face is the scariest thing down there in the catacombs. It is great that at one point

he says, he's like, you know the legends say that if you search long enough you can find the gates to hell. He kind of peeks around a corner and looks point he says, he's like, you know, the legends say that if you search long enough, you can find the gates to hell. He kind of peeks around a corner and looks into another room and he's like, I found it. This is it. This has to be it. I've never seen something so scary in my life. There's something funny about their kind of like guide saying that is like, you know, normally just from your guide. I kind of want factual, grounded information.

It's like, yeah, we're actually 300 feet below sea level now. This is one of the least accessed points. As you can see, there's a small amount of graffiti. This has been found by some people up to this point. Not the legends say that if we take one step further, our eyes will come out our assholes. And we'll see the god Hades himself. Your guide shouldn't be the one saying that.

You should have a different guy for that kind of stuff. Yeah, I'd also like to have been informed of that little bit of information before we got this deep into the catacombs. You know, after like six hours, if he's like, oh, fun fact, some people say if you go this far, you don't ever come out.

You're like, what the hell, Larry? We're like six hours in now. Tell me that before I came in. Yeah. I got dinner with my wife tonight. He's like, fun little bit of trivia.

We have three minutes of oxygen left. That's not trivia. What the hell? They say when you get this deep, you're essentially inhaling so much bones, you'll never have a full erection again. Larry, this is all information we could have done with

before we set foot in the catacombs. He's like, oh, you wanted to live? Oh, that's crazy. I thought there was no way you wanted to live oh that's crazy i thought there's no way you wanted to live if you came down this far um that there is no amount of money on earth to get me to go down there right yeah what about you this is what i'm saying this is i'm having a hard time hosting this story, just trying to get across how genuinely terrifying this is, this location is. Not just the part that's open to the public, but these tunnels. I mean, the video that Kit and I are watching, there's parts of that video where the individuals are having to crawl on their bellies through bone holes so small they can barely fit. bellies through bone holes so small they can barely fit with flashlights that are flickering on and off where if they all die down there the flashlights it's oh it's game over yeah you're

literally gone there's parts where they're walking around enormous holes that just lead down into complete darkness no idea how far they go or what's at the bottom uh and there's parts of it that you know steps just descend into black water. It's really intense. And then this little part at the end, you know, we're basically watching Blair Witch-esque found footage of someone that kind of, I mean, one of the reasons that I show this footage is there's a ton of theories about what happened. The paranormal one being this guy went too far.

And as I said in the footage, he was either being chased by something down there in the about what happened. The paranormal one being this guy went too far. And as I said in the footage, he was either being chased by something down there in the catacombs or this mother f***er found the gates to hell. Right. Which we haven't talked about yet on the podcast, but it is a theory that's popularized by the horror movie As Above So Below,

which I think is how a lot of people know about the Paris catacombs oh it's a horror movie that was released a few years ago the narrative being that if you go deep enough into the catacombs uh you can find the entrance to hell you know whenever people say that uh rich european countries were built on the bones of people who went before. They don't usually mean it literally. I mean, I love Paris. I love France. We all love Paris.

It's really nice and romantic. I don't think people literally meant the country is on top of bones. Yeah, if people say, oh, the Paris catacombs, they're just built different. You think that they're like extra special or something. Not that they're built out of human remains right literally skeleton bones it feels like one of those things like i'm definitely for sure down with somebody doing that someone should definitely find out where that is i have a wife and kids right i. I'm all set. I'll, like, you show me the video of the catacombs,

I'm cool with that. As you say, maximum the public tour. But even then, I'll be honest, I kind of still want to be able to see the exit at any point. Right, you want to be able to Pokemon-style escape rope out of there. Well, you know, even though we haven't seen the catacombs in person just yet, we do have to make a decision right here at the end of the podcast as to whether or not, based on the evidence we've seen today, that we think the Paris catacombs is or isn't paranormal. What are your thoughts today, Kit? As you say, what a terrifying case to have covered. Really fascinating stuff.

Kind of, it's one of those things in life, isn't it? That it's hiding hiding in plain sight it's commonly known about the wikipedia page is there we can all read about it but it's not until you really talk about it and not until you really think about it you realize actually how f***ed up it is yeah with that said um we have had some descriptions online of what people have encountered the kind of paranormal elements, people hearing things, seeing things. But actually, when it comes down to paranormal evidence, it becomes a bit, ironically, thin on the ground, unlike the bones. We've had this in other cases where sometimes the vibe and the kind of sense of the place is so overwhelmingly paranormal.

But actually, when you really drill into it and just write down on paper, what is the evidence for paranormal things happening? There's not that much. Yeah. And I mean, I think this was kind of eye opening for me investigating this case and looking at some of the stories from the Paris catacombs. Because honestly, for a whole city underground built out of human remains, you'd think there'd be a bit more paranormal shit going on. Right, I mean, if you look at haunted houses, usually it's like one mother****er died, then we have one ghost in that house.

It's a one-to-one, 100% success rate of ghosts. Yeah. Whereas here, we have six million bones, six million skeletons. We would at least hope for a conversion rate here of of we're at least hoping for a few thousand ghosts. But we actually don't have many. Yeah. It feels like some of the most evil and horrible stuff is happening to the living people. Stupid enough to go in there.

Right. So unfortunately, I don't know. I think for me, until we go ourselves and do a bit of investigating I don't think there's enough evidence today to say definitively that the Paris catacombs are paranormal damn I guess that makes it a no a double no this week I mean the thing is if you talk to people who live in Paris and who go down to the catacombs quite a lot I think there is also another side of it that we didn't talk about, which is basically like this place is cool as hell. I think people throw underground raves there or like just go down and

hang out and have parties. There's a cool side to it as well that I think for the locals, it's really not that scary. I think they've got a little too used to it, I would say. Sure. I can see people partying in a place like that maybe you do get used to it very quickly thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast unfortunately another double no we're on such a bad streak right now we've had so many double no's week after week there's got to be a yes coming at some point and honestly watching that found footage i thought that might be a yes but it just wasn't enough to push it over the line

Rory this is the name of the game this is the game that we are playing you know like the guys in that video we are just as brave

as them sure we stay in our cushy air conditioned studio investigating the paranormal and yes they get on their hands

and knees and wade through thousands of bones to find the paranormal but we are the same we are adventurers and we we take the L's

with the W's yeah I gotta get on my hands and knees and push my way through hundreds of thousands of Reddit stories yeah

to find some golden nuggets in there you know which honestly would make you want to kill yourself as fast as you would probably starve to death of oxygen in that damn cave.

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. Looking forward very much to the near future where Kit and I book a one-way flight to Bone City. All right. I think that could do with a little bit of workshopping the wording. I'm just realising at the beginning whenever the ghosts talk to the guy

in the tunnel yes why didn't they speak French sorry what remember the guy the guy in Reddit he heard the voices in the tunnel

that's classified information alright maybe he did maybe he did ok maybe he was like je m'appelle Bone. Don't try.

Don't try to speak. Je suis Bone. Yeah, that's not. Something like that, you know? My name is Bone. I am Bone. I mean. It's not wrong.

It's not a lie. I am Bone. I think there is a French word for bones, though. Hey, Siri. What's French for bone? She just stopped listening okay i've never seen siri do that before halfway through the sentence she just turned off was like i'm not even gonna humor this that's more than fair uh but you are right we have to go as soon as possible we really really do but thank you anyway for listening we hope you enjoyed this story bit of a spooky one

this week but I had a blast researching it and you know if you're a paranormal investigator you just gotta research the Paris catacombs

you have to if you enjoyed it here's an idea right why not leave a review if you're listening to this somewhere

you know why not just like only if it's nice obviously just let us know how we're getting on right give us a little bing little five star review people who are enjoying the podcast always say hey how

can i help how can i support it's not always you know joining us on patreon which does have some very cool rewards but it's as simple as you know just leaving a review on your podcast app of choice whether that's apple podcast spotify hit that five stars, leave a nice comment, spread the good word to friends and family like a curse. Yeah, if you're listening, because I was saying to Rory, I think more people, for years, most people were listening on Apple Podcasts.

Now I think it's swapped over to Spotify. Wherever you get it, that's cool. Make sure you're subscribed on there or following us, whatever the parlance is they use. We're on YouTube now, obviously, too. Yeah. So you can hit up YouTube, search This Paranormal Life, and we're putting up pretty much every weekly episode now as a full-length video, which is crazy to say. For a long time, that was a pipe dream, and now it's happening.

If you want to see some of the footage that we watched today on the podcast that's the best place to see it over on youtube but you know a long time ago we did operation if you're listening for a long time you might remember operation storm the charts oh yeah when we were trying to because if you don't know or don't care i mean like charts are like what makes the podcast world go round we've for a long time we've've had the luxury of being in like UK charts, US charts for comedy and improv and entertainment and stuff. And I guess I'm saying this because whenever people give us a review

or subscribe to us, that bumps us up those charts and it actually makes an enormous difference to us making the show. Exactly. So if you want to support the show, that's one of the easiest and best ways to do it um and you can look forward to the near future where kit and i

go underground in paris and take a couple bones back with us just to investigate and as rory says the only other place patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life if this wasn't enough for you if you want to dig into the underground f***ing content boneyard that is the Patreon catacombs that's the place to do it there's some really cool rewards

over on Patreon including I mean you can get shoutouts at the end of the podcast you can get extra weekly and monthly bonus episodes

one of the coolest ones we don't talk about is we have an actual members, essentially medallion that you can get. You think it would come up more on the podcast. Real gold and silver metals being used to forge this coin. An insane amount of work was put into creating this coin that signifies you are a knight of the commune in this paranormal life society. So check it out. that signifies you are a knight of the commune in the This Paranormal Life society.

So check it out. That's a really cool reward along with all the others over on patreon.com forward slash thisparanormallife. And as I said, for some of those tears, you actually get a shout out at the end of the podcast. And that's what we're going to do right now. Thank you to Sarah. Sarah, I just feel like you don't care.

I feel like you just don't care Enough about the bones Oh what the fact that they're there Or that people are standing on them When Sarah eats a KFC She eats a bone and all I said you sure you don't want some kind of boneless She said no I'm fine So she does she cares a lot about the bones

No but she doesn't even notice them. It's just straight down. I mean, we're all part bones. Think about that. Oh, damn. Yeah, you didn't think about that. So Sarah's maybe right. Thank you also to Waffles.

Wow. I mean, the question is always are you a pancake or Waffles guy? And hey, I guess if Waffles is a supporter of the show, friend of the show, friend of the pod, I guess we're a waffles household. There's people in the paranormal commune that would kill for a waffle. They really would. All right, keep it light, though. Because that's better than what they've been eating currently for breakfast.

Nothing. Oxygen sandwiches. Thank you also to Gabe S they put Gabe in sport mode that's crazy oh yeah he's running around

he can hit 100 miles per hour which is pretty paranormal I would say Jesus yeah that's insane after all the bones

he's been eating that guy's got some strong legs that feels like some shit a little kid would say in a playground they would go like, I can go 100 miles an hour

but only for a split second. Right. As long as he says that and he says, I can run 100 miles per hour but only if I eat bones. Yeah. Keep an eye on that kid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thank you lastly but not leastly to Holly Perdue. Holly Perdue sounds like something rich people say along with fiddlesticks and... Right. If they stub their toe or something. Holly Perdue. Holly Perdue sounds like something rich people say along with fiddlesticks. Right, if they stub their toe or something.

Holly Perdue. Holly Perdue. It's a load of Holly Perdue. Which is something that's being said quite a lot in the paranormal commune, because it's mostly just misfortune every day. I just don't want you to paint a bad picture of the commune. No, no, no, no, no. So, like, Holly is fine.

She's having a great time. Of course. Recently moved up from District 8 No, no, no, no, no. So like Holly is fine. She's having a great time. Of course. Recently moved up from District 8 to District 7, which is a big move. Hey, congratulations. Congratulations. You now no longer have nightly curfew, which is great.

That's a really exciting time to be part of the district. Yeah, I always forget that's a District 8 thing, yeah. And, you know, maybe who knows? One day you'll make six and no higher than that. Yeah, good luck with that, Chief. No one's ever made it two districts in a lifetime before. Thank you so much, Holly,

and thank you to everyone who supports us on Patreon.com. As we said, head on over, check out some of the rewards or leave us a review if you're enjoying the show. We will be back next Tuesday,

of course, with another paranormal tale until then i need to book some flights to bone city with my buddy kid all right that's enough good night everyone