Six Million Corpses in Paris

Okay, did we banter? Did we banter? We did not have any intro clip? What is our intro clip? I don't know. I think it'll be shut up. You can't say that at the beginning. That's a cop out at the beginning. You gotta at least try to think of something. Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edwin, I'm Michelle. In today's story, we will be going to France, or France, as that woman says in that video, I know what you're talking, foe. Anyway, we are in Paris, the city of Lights. When we think of Paris, think of beautiful French cuisine, fine art, romance, the sparkling lights of the Eiffel Tower. The land itself has been inhabited since before Roman times. What we don't think about is that the dead actually outnumber the living, with a population of two million above ground. Below ground, there's six million corpses that line an underground maze of tunnels that span two hundred kilometers under the city of Paris. I love this. I love this, and I know where this is going, and I love that. So also two hundred kilometers for our American people is about like one hundred and twenty five miles. Just FYI. I had to look that up because I was like, I don't know, I don't know what two hundred kilometers is. Yeah, either, like I don't know. It's embarrassing, but like you get over it because there's a lot of us. It feels like and we we will not use kilometers. We never will. And I think we're more stubborn than the rest of the world. Like, you know, I think that's why English seems to be winning the dominant language. And also miles is coming for you kilometers. It's just we're just too stubborn. We're just too stubborn for it. Yeah, Americans refuse to learn. But you know what we do have as Americans a time machine because we're gonna have to go back and figure out why where those tunnels came from underneath the city of Paris. So get in that time machine. Is it all guessed up? Edwin? Yeah? Yeah, it is like diesel this time just extra preparedness, full tank of diesel. Okay, let's go. I love these watching machine effics. Okay, here we are back in the twelfth century. And the Holy Innocent Cemetery built in the of Paris. As is often the case in big cities, outdoor space was limited and as more people flocked to the city, it became very hard to bury the dead. So the people at the Holy Innocent Graveyard decided they'd just start doing mass grave burials with about fifteen hundred bodies, like a pit, you know, like you just do a big old pit. That is a recipe for ghosts. Yeah, it's a big you know, it's a fifteen hundred body pit. They'd fill it in, dig another pit, you know, like they just did that. That was what they did, and it seemed like a way to solve this problem in the twelfth century, because it didn't really become a problem again until the seventeenth century. So they did big burial pits and I just wrote Trestinque for five hundred years. Yeah, for five years they just hug pits and through people. And as we know, Franz went through a lot of shit during that time. I mean, you get the French Revolution, you get like I'm sure some plagues that came through endless Wars with England. Like there's just like a bunch of stuff going on. Yeah, oh man, they did. They bury them like just I mean throw them in there, like whole, like not ashes, nothing is just they just threw the whole body in. So this worked until the seventeenth century. The bodies were simply stacked too high and couldn't be very deep enough, and in that five hundred years that had passed, more and more bones began to protrude from the soil, and the graveyard was littered with skeletal remains of Parisians long past, which, oh god, can you even imagine. I just can't even imagine. That is terrible. I just imagine them like like layers of a cake. Oh oh yeah, there's a there's a phrase coming that I think you'll appreciate. So decomposition is really fascinating and it's complex. You have to have the right conditions in order for bodies to decay. So when a graveyard like that is like body pits like that and release gases and noxious fumes above the soil which don't let any oxygen enter the soil. Soon the graveyard is not only full of bones, but also the substance called corpse wax, which is exactly as it sounds. Just got a weird. I don't know if you saw it. I just got like a weird taste in my mouth. Uh, delicious, delicious corpse wax. Is it like the fat of the dead or is it? Yeah, it's the fat of the dead, the fat of the dead, Fat of the dead. It's one hundred percent the fat of the dead. It's just like all the goo was like a terrible movie. Did you see Fat the Dead? It was so good. So the surrounding area smelled so horrific. No one wanted to live or set up shop in that area. And King Louis the sixteenth, well, he was forced to take action about it because a basement nearby collapsed and then body soup filled it up, and I kind of imagine it like a tsunami of body goo pouring into that basement. Does this smell? Does this think? Yeah? People didn't want to live, they didn't want to have businesses, so people weren't moving there. So the king, that's why the king kind of got involved. And this incident of the tsunami bodygo so the king closed all graveyards, but there was still a problem at the Holy Innocent Graveyard because I mean, the bodies were still publicly rotting, and so they needed to figure out a way to put them deeper into the ground. And so over the next two years, workers exhumed and moved millions of bodies from the Holy Innocent Graveyard to the winding catacombs that existed under the city. But wait, where did these catacombs come from and why were they the answer? Wait, so the catacombs were already there. Yeah, so the catacombs had existed underneath the city of Paris since Roman times. They were basically limestone mines and they'd use the limestone they'd mined and build the buildings up. There's like a bizarre amount of mine shafts and tunnels, and over time people just simply forgot where the mine shafts and tunnels were, and so they built the city on top of these things. And so you know, they they did have a big house collapse into the cavern in the seventeen hundreds, so everyone was aware that these catacombs were there, so they like that, like brought it back that there's these big tunnels, and basically they removed all the bones from the graveyards and simply stacked them in the tunnels. Workers eventually decided to create designs with the human remains, designs like you know, they'd stack skulls and femurs and they'd make them into a beautiful shape like a heart. There's different designs. And the people that really benefited the most from moving all the bodies were the candles and soap makers of France because they used the corpse wax to make soap and candles and sell it back to the inhabitants of Paris. I thought, because people needed candles in there, so they oh no, oh no, no, no no. They were like, I'll take we'll take that, And then I wrote entrepreneur is after all the French were hurt. Wait, hold on, so they made candles out of dead people? Basically, yeah, it's the fat. It's like, uh, did you watch Fight Club back in the day long I don't even remember. Well, that was like the whole thing that they steal the liposection fat and then they get into like soap or whatever. I am so curious to see if we can get a candle made of corpse. Yeah. I don't know why, it just what would it smell like? I guess that's my question now, is like pork, oh, everything smells like pork. So anyway, we can go back to the present time. Now, jeez, the past is terrible. I always imagine it as like a dark, gloomy we went to a very stinky place. I mean, look, I wouldn't want the job of throwing people's bodies into a pit. Oh. Also famous person alerts it's hot celebrity goss, the guy who wrote uh Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella's buried in the catacombs? What yeah, go figure, Wait when was it written? Do you know? Like this back in the I think they buried people and until like the nineteen nineteenth century. So they buried people in there until the nineteenth century. Okay, so that's a little while. I mean there's six million bodies in there. Wow, it's just really fucking crazy. And now they went back to just cemeteries. I don't know what they're doing. I mean, I have no idea what they're doing currently, but I don't think they still put stuff in there, you know, for obvious health and safety reasons. The catacombs are like have It's been illegal to go into the catacombs as like a person, just as a normal person since like nineteen fifty five or fifty three or fifty five. And also because in France there's this weird law where if you buy property, you also own the ground underneath it. So like technically, if you bought a house in Paris, you'd own that piece of the catacombs that was underneath your house. So people don't want Randos in there underneath their their property. Yeah, so it's trespassing. Also, it's incredibly dangerous. Most of it's not lit. There's not like a full public map of things down there, so you don't know what where anything is or how to get out. It can be pretty creepy, but you can do it. Oh yeah, you can do it. There's like secret entrances. There are all these people called cataphiles that do it. I'll talk a little bit about them. It's like tons of area that's off limits, but that doesn't stop people from exploring them. And that's what that's what a cataphile is, are these underground explorers. And I feel like it's almost like a rite of passage in France. Like I bet as a teenager, you probably, hey, you want to be cool, like in Paris, you have to like go, like go and like explore the catacombs. The tunnels are home to like people throw like raves down there. People throw parties, they do art installations, secret performances, which would be rad. Yeah, that would be fucking rad to go see. And then in twenty seventeen, a gang of criminals used the catacombs to dig their way into a wine cellar of a rich Parisian townhouse and stole two hundred and fifty thousand euros worth of wine. Fun fact. We must have our wine. We need our wine. They would do anything for their wine anything. Geez, I didn't know was that that complex, Like it's the whole thing. It's like it's its own culture. It's interesting because I didn't come across this, but you know, in New York, there's like the mole people in New York that leven. I wouldn't be surprised if there was something along the lines of that here. But there was nothing that specifically said that people live down here. But there was this, There was this one example, and nobody knows what this is about. But in nineteen eighty one, a group of six teenager cataphiles pulled off an incredible stunt because they used the tunnels to mine into the Department of Telecommunications in Paris and stole one item and it was a complete map of the catacombs. So they have this one map and the group is now known as lays UX or the Urban Experiment, and they became an established group which now has subdivisions dedicated to the task of like preserving the tunnels, taking care of the tunnels. But in two thousand and four, police in Paris were conducting a routine training session in the catacombs, which they do a lot, like the police train down there, rescue teams will train down there, like that's like kind of one of the main things it's used for. So the police were training down there and suddenly they were met with the disturbing sound of a pack of howling dogs. Determined to continue the exercise, the police made their way deeper into the tunnel, seemingly abandoned for centuries, and as they neared the tunnel that opened into a cavern, they were halted in their tracks because it wasn't just a cavern anymore. It was a fully functioning cinema, complete with a bar and a restaurant. Yeah. Lasux had carved seats into the stone walls, built and built the working bar and the small restaurant and hooked up electricity and phone lines. And the dogs they heard barking were actually a motion warning system to give cinemagoers time to escape if they in the event they were disc by the police. Also, there were surveillance cameras all around watching the police as they like if you know, like walking around the I know, I know. And so the police left, and they returned with a few few days later with like reinforcements, just in time, just to find the entire cinema had been dismantled. The bar was gone, the restaurant was gone. The only thing left was the carved seats in the limestone from the cinema. And there was a note written that just said, don't look for us. Okay, that sounds okay, Now that's cool. See like that is cool, Like, I mean, that's so French, like the attitude is so like. And of course they have a restaurant with like a bar, and I'm sure they had like I'm sure they could smoke down there. I'm sure they could smoke. I'm sure they had vaguettes. I'm sure they had a beret shop and like the Eiffel Tower, keychains, yeah, of course. You know when I went to Paris when I was in high school, the thing I bought under the Eiffel Tower wasn't a Paris keychain, but it was this monkey and you could squeeze it and its penis would come out, like they sold those, like they sold the Eiffel Tower keychains, and then they sold these weird monkey penis keychains, and that's the one I bought. I don't know if those are just an every tourist trap, but it was definitely like a weird like I mean, it does its job. Like you remember Parish, I do you see that, It's like it's not some generic Eiffel Tower key chain. It's more of a monkey peen is keychain. Yeah, a monkey pen is keychain. Yeah. It had a loin cloth and he squeeze it and then it's penis would come out of it and then it would roll back inside. Anyway, that's my Paris story. So basically, when you the area that you can get to as a tourist and as someone who's going to tour this thing as a member of the public, this is you enter through the ashuary, which literally means a container or room in which bones of the dead people are placed. I had the that's what ausuary means. I mean, I didn't even know there was a place for that, so I was just like, oh, okay, so yeah, a container or room in which the bones of the dead are placed. Also, there's an inscription over the door that reads and this isn't French, but I'm going to read the English one stop, this is the Empire of the Dead. Stop. So which definitely is. But in nineteen ninety, a group of cataphiles were exploring the catacombs and came across a curious little item. They found a video camera sitting in the middle of one of the tunnels. Naturally curious, the catophiles took the camera and brought it along their journey. When they eventually got above ground, they removed the tape and were delighted to find that the tape was still intact. But their delight turned to horror when they watched the footage, and the footage was grainy and dark, and it appeared that the camera had been held by a singular person, most likely a man who was on his own deep in the tunnels, and they could tell that he was in a deep part of the tunnels that was only frequented by experienced cataphiles because there was no graffiti on the wall. Was the sounds that really disturbed the cataphiles. The man was clearly lost within the tombs, and he was panicking, breathing heavily, and then suddenly he drops the camera and runs, sprinting into the tunnels, into the darkness, and the camera continued to roll until the tape ran out. And I don't know if you've seen this shot, because the it kind of makes the rounds, but the tape he drops it, it's sideways, it falls into water, and then you just see like him running away, like the feet kind of running away into the and his only light source was that camera. Is is that real? Is that right? So this is so that tape does exist. Of course, there are people that believe that the footage is fake, like you know, like Blair Witch style. Oh man, whenever something like that happens. I always think of the your friend with the crop circles. I always think of that. I know, I know, it's like you can't not think of that. But anyway, so these cataphiles took this tape to this filmmaker and they launched a search for the man, and so they basically searched. They tried to search as much as they could, and they knew there was little chance of finding him alive or finding him at all, and he was never found. But the but the reason like this video stays in the paranormal conversation is that many people believe the man is being chased. And if that is the case, then what is chasing him underneath? With tunnels in Paris? I kind of think because there is so this footage was used in a documentary that came out in like two thousand and four or something like that. I actually think I watched the documentary because I have I remember, like I've seen footage. I just watched some of the footage online. This video footage is well, it exists, it is real. Is it real? Real? Is somebody just doing a blair witch thing? We don't know, but it is quite eerie. So it looks like there's it looks like there's some sort of ritualistic drawing on the wall. So that gets all the conspiracy theories in there about like Satanists and cult people and all that. You know, like he saw something he shouldn't have. Also, people think he could have just gone. Uh. There's like a term for it when you're in the dark for a very long time and you get turned around. I don't remember what it's called, but you you kind of go a little nuts. And so people think that he might have just been having a like a panic episode where you start to realize you're lost and then you just freak out. Yeah, you might start hearing noises, ye might feel like you're getting you're being chased. Then you mix thing, you know, you're running into the dark. Wow. Yeah yeah, And then some people just think it's the filmmaker who faked the footage and wanted it to be his time in the sun or whatever, you know, wanted the attention for the fake footage. It could be all those things. It could be none of those things. We don't know. The guy was never found, We have no idea. You never see his face, you never like, it's just this mysterious guy who starts to breathe heavy and panic and then takes off into the dark. She's Okay, I want to see that. I want to see that footage because if it's a short clip, then it might be fake. But if it's like, oh, he's actually exploring forty five minutes, it's oh wow, okay, yeah, So I don't know. It doesn't seem like the filmmaker really made like a ton of money off this clip, so in a way, it kind of feels genuine. I don't know if it is. It could have been someone playing a prank in the tunnel and then the filmmakers actually genuine. You know, you never know, you never know what's going on with people, but it's still fucking eerie as shit. Yeah. Wow, what are we going to talk about next week, Michelle? I don't know, but I think it'll be a surprise always Bye guys,