The Catacombs of Paris | Ep. 67

Is it time for a new Believing the Bizarre already? Oui!

This week, we head underground to the Catacombs of Paris, where over 6 million bodies were transferred. Some folks claim to hear disembodied voices, see shadow figures, and more.

But how believable are these spooky urban legends? Listen today!

Is the city of Paris built on the bones of its ancestors? Are there spirits roaming underneath Paris?

What’s up Bizarro’s? This week we dive into the catacombs of Paris.

Starting in the late eighteenth century a concern swept the city of Paris.

King Louie decided to dig huge tunnels to move the masses of overcrowded bodies piling up.

In 1785 they started to transfer the bodies at night to avoid hostile reactions from citizens. This task wasn’t completed until 1814 when all of the 6 million bodies were moved.

The people of Paris continued transferring bodies from overcrowded cemeteries after the French Revolution. They finished their configuration of the catacombs themselves in the 1860s.

The catacombs were open to the public much earlier than when they finished transporting the bodies. In 1809 you could book an appointment and go on a tour. In 1860 Napoleon the 3rd took his son into the depths.

A maze of bones and tombs underneath a city lends itself to macabre and paranormal. What is going on in the catacombs under Paris? Are there conspiracies or anything bizarre going on there?

Many believe so.

Secret Society

In 2004, a group of police officers was exploring a part of the Paris Catacombs that was restricted from public access and began to uncover very strange things. They found a PA system with pre-recorded guard dog barking noises, 3,000 square feet of gallery space wired with phones using pirated electricity, and several communal spaces including a bar, living area, workshop, lounge, and even a 20 seat cinema.

The cinema seats were carved into the stones of the Catacombs. The creepiest part was, the cameras mounted on the ceilings that were recording them.

A few days later the police squad returned to perform further investigations on their findings. Everything they had discovered, from the phone lines to the Paris Catacombs cinema, had vanished. The only thing they found was a note that read: “Ne cherchez pas,” meaning, “don’t search.”

What about ghosts, spooks, and spirits?

Legend says that after hours during the late evening the catacombs start to speak disembodied voices urging you to go deeper and deeper until you get lost.

The Tour Guide

This, by far, is one of the creepiest Paris Catacombs legends. In the early 1990s, a group was walking through the dark chambers of the cemetery.

They happened upon a video camera on the ground. To their surprise, the camera had footage on it. As the group watched the footage, they heard disturbing noises.

It became apparent that the man holding the video camera was lost, and had no idea how to escape. In the video, something is affecting the man. Causing him to go mad inside of the underground network of tunnels.

The video ends abruptly, with the man dropping his camera on the ground. To this day, no one knows who this man was, or if he came out alive. Many believe that the movie “As Above, So Below” was inspired by this tragedy.

Philibert Aspairt

Philibert Aspairt was working as a doorkeeper at the Val-de-Grâce military hospital during the French Revolution when he mysteriously went missing in 1793. His disappearance was not solved for many years, until his body was found in the catacombs in 1804, a full 11 years later. 

It is thought that Aspairt went down the stairs into the catacombs one day, where he lost the light and could not find the way out. He died slowly and alone in complete darkness. 

It is not known why he went down, but some think that it might have been to try to break into the basement of the nearby brewery. It is an unfortunate fate, as Aspairt was only a few feet away from a staircase.

Not much was left of Aspairt when he was finally found in a tunnel in Gennevilliers outside Paris, but the buttons on his jacket and the keyring were enough to identify him. His remains were buried where they were found in a small personal tomb. The stone gravemarker roughly translates to: “In the memory of Philibert Aspairt, lost in this excavation of 3 November 1793; found eleven years later and buried at the same place on 30 April 1804.” 

Today the room where Aspairt is buried is a popular meeting place for cataphiles, people who enjoy exploring the dark tunnels beneath Paris.

Some people now question if Philbert was even real but because of his kind nature and helping those that become lost in the catacombs he has become kind of a patron saint of the urban explorers of Paris.

What other things could be learned in the catacombs? Maybe other things are responsible for whispering voices in the dark. Perhaps this following tale could tell us.

I want to leave Paris.

I’m 21, female. I was raised in England but am living in Paris. I speak fluent French because my father is a Frenchie. When I moved here at the age of 19 I desperately needed a job. I would spend hours and hours going through the local bakeries searching for job ads. But nothing seemed to come up. One day I noticed an ad stating that people were needed to patrol the catacombs of Paris.

Sounds exciting right? Not for me. I hate any kind of creepy shit and am very skeptical of it all, but I needed money.

My job was to help maintain the areas of the catacombs that are closed off to the public. Of the 200 miles, only 1 mile is open for people to visit. But the rest need to be somewhat maintained to make sure that nothing collapses etc.

Another worker, Valentin, introduced himself to me on my first day and said he was assigned to train me. A lot of it involved cleaning graffiti from walls, making sure there were no severe leaks, and that the walls were in good condition, with no risk of collapsing. Overall my job covered roughly 5 miles of the catacombs, the area closest to the public. 

Something important to note is, once you leave the public area, it is very easy to get lost. If you’re not careful you could turn the wrong way and never find your way out, you’re on your own. Therefore, French health and safety laws state that I must attach myself to a rope at the front door of my worksite, to help me find my way back at the end of my shift.

Once my training with Valentin was finished, he returned to working in the public areas. Before he left though, I remember him saying, ‘watch yourself in these tunnels ok? Don’t forget that you’re a trespasser here’. 

Weird, but whatever. I started my job. I surprised myself by not finding it that weird, being surrounded by millions of human bones day in, day out. I got into a nice routine, arriving at 9 am, descending into the tunnel. MP3 player, packed lunch, warm coat, and thick boots. There was a lot to do that kept me occupied and I didn’t have too much time to think about where I was.

Until one day. 

It started as a typical day. I turned up in the morning and went to my tunnel, attached myself to the incredibly long rope, and entered, Pulling the door closed behind me so the public couldn’t enter. I had a heavy-duty flashlight that became my best friend and with it, I set off to inspect a leak I had discovered the day before. Headphones in and music blaring I started my journey, which would end almost at the end of my work zone.

I got about 1.5 miles in and I paused my music to change songs, in the sudden silence I could hear Valentin calling my name. 

Shit, I hope he hasn’t been looking for me for long. I turn around to reply and head in his direction when I notice something.

The rope has been cut. There was no sign of it anywhere. 

Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap.

 I call out to Valentin in a panic. Desperately hoping this was some kind of sick joke he was playing on me. After the 5th time, I said his name I was greeted with laughter.

A lot of laughter. From a lot of people. 

It came out of nowhere and filled the whole space. I ran in a blind panic in the direction I had originally come in, dropping my MP3 player but not giving a damn. I ran for what felt like forever, the sound of laughter surrounded me, almost chasing me, but I knew I couldn’t stop. After running for what must have been 20 Minutes I rounded a corner and stopped dead in my tracks.

My MP3 player was laying in the middle of the path. Where I had dropped it 20 Minutes before. It wasn’t possible. I had run in the same direction and didn’t do a circle, these tunnels don’t work like that.

I slowly approach the player, my breath caught in my throat. I almost reach it when the laughter stops suddenly and a sound behind me makes me turn around. I turn and I am faced with something that still haunts my dreams today. 

A thin, long creature was approaching me from the shadows. Contorting its body, almost dancing across the piles of bones stacked against the walls.

I couldn’t move. I felt like I was glued to the spot, staring at this thing. Its naked body was impossibly pale, it had a head full of black straggly hair. Its eyes were white and void of any detail. And it was grinning at me with evil intent. 

The closer it got the louder the sounds it was making got. 

It wasn’t Valentin whispering my name. It was this thing. It was chanting. Faster and fast with every move it makes until its nose is pressed to my nose.

I woke up in the hospital. Surrounded by worried faces.

My parents had flown over from England with my younger siblings. The other workers in the catacombs got alerted when I didn’t clock out of my shift that evening, when they went down to investigate they found the door to my tunnel wide open and the severed rope next to it. A huge search party was launched and they found me 75 miles away, unconscious, covered in a weird, black tar-like substance.

When one of the big bosses of the catacombs spoke to me, with the police, to find out what could have happened, I mentioned the first time I heard the voice and that I thought it could have been Valentin. I was met with a confused face. Apparently, nobody worked there who was called Valentin, they asked around the team and nobody had shown me around on my first day or trained me up. 

They all assumed my team member had done it. By team member, I mean the person who was supposed to work in the tunnel with me at all times, as per health and safety rules. However, upon research, they discovered that nobody had actually been assigned to work with me. I should never have been alone in those tunnels.

I don’t know what happened that day and I haven’t been back since. Apparently, whenever maintenance needs to be done now they send down a team of at least 15 people to do it.

One thing that still worries me is this; I closed the door behind me when I entered the tunnel that day. The other workers found it open. For the past 5 nights, I have been woken up to the sound of laughter outside my bedroom window, and the sound of my name being chanted hungrily.

What do you think Bizarros? Are the catacombs home to secret societies, ghosts, and ghastly creatures? Or is it merely the dark and shadows playing tricks on people?