Clandestine Explorers Roam Ancient Paris Tunnels

dr. what · Post by **dr. what** » 2004-10-10 04:04am

Enter oh seeker of knowledge...

PARIS (Reuters) - Deep beneath the streets of Paris, police are playing a game of cat and mouse with a band of explorers who have turned the city's underground tunnels and chambers into their personal playground.

The so-called cataphiles, equipped with waders, torches and rucksacks, drop through manholes to explore disused medieval quarries and catacombs, spray graffiti and throw parties.

"You can just as easily come across the chairman of a big French company as a scruffy punk," said Alex, a 24-year-old history student who has been sneaking in for three years.

In the pitch-black corridors 65 feet below ground, everyone goes by a pseudonym. Cataphiles with names like Bad Trip, Silence and Nexus leave fliers printed with drawings and poems tucked into crevices in the centuries-old stones.

"It's part of the idea, not knowing what people do in real life. It's like living a double life," Alex explained.

Down there, the temperature is a constant 59 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity 100 percent.

While visitors line up at the official Paris catacombs museum to view mountains of skulls and bones extracted from overcrowded cemeteries, the clandestine groups prefer to strike out on their own.

At the weekend, up to 400 people can be found roaming through hushed galleries where 18th century plaques bear the names of old streets and royal engineers.

Skilled cataphiles elude police by ducking into corridors or moving in the dark. Some drop smoke bombs to cloud their tracks and deter newcomers they disparagingly refer to as "tourists."

TOUGH COPS

Although the intruders keep a low profile, the recent discovery of a fully functioning underground cinema -- complete with bar and toilet -- has embarrassed the authorities in charge of patrolling the 185-mile network.

The set-up, including electronic sensors that set off the sound of barking dogs, was the work of a brazen group that has also infiltrated the Paris metro and electricity grids. "Don't look for us," it said in a note.

Police Captain Luc Rougerie has little patience for pranks.

"Nobody has any business down there," he told Reuters at the headquarters of his division, which also includes rollerblading policemen and sharpshooters.

His mission is to bar access to sensitive sites and prevent people from getting lost or injured in the maze of corridors.

Specially trained officers conduct regular patrols and systematically issue a court summons to anyone they catch. Offenders risk fines ranging from 60 to 150 euros ($75-185).

This rigid application of the law has left some nostalgic for the days of his predecessor Jean-Claude Saratte, who tolerated experienced cataphiles and shared their passion. They in turn would tip him off if they saw anything unusual.

"He was surrounded by a parallel police of informers," said Alain Clement, co-editor of the "Atlas of Underground Paris."

Though a veteran cataphile himself, Clement deplores the vandalism that has flourished in the last 20 years.

"I went down there for the first time in 1973, and when I go these days and see the state of the quarries, it makes me sick," he said. "It's full of young people who go there to escape from society, to drink and smoke joints."

SECRET HELPERS

Clement has founded a non-profit organization, approved by the state, to preserve a section of the quarries located underneath the Cochin hospital on the Left Bank.

Visitors enter through a yellow door by a car park and climb down seven flights of stairs to the warren, which volunteers are restoring by the light of sodium lamps.

There, Clement and his group meet regularly around a rough stone banquet table to fry up the mushrooms they grow underground -- an attitude non-members criticize as elitist.

Clement would like to see the rest of the quarries sealed for good, but he thinks authorities are reluctant to close the network due to fears that terrorists could strike in Europe.

"If the quarries were completely shut, there would be no way to control them. The cataphiles, in fact, are like a clandestine control network," Clement noted.

Police officials acknowledge that regular patrols are essential to prevent a potential attack, but deny that they secretly welcome the presence of cataphiles.

"The cataphile scene is very mixed and you have different groups that are opposed, which could potentially lead to violent clashes," Rougerie said, without elaborating.

Alex said the only tensions he had witnessed were between graffiti artists and those who want the quarries left intact, and those arguments were limited to verbal exchanges.

He believes that contrary to their bad reputation, most cataphiles care about preserving their underground kingdom, but they are powerless against officials and property promoters who are pumping concrete into sections they want to seal off.

"The network is shrinking imperceptibly every year but in the end, in 50 or 100 years, it will be chopped up so that it is no longer accessible," he predicted.

Dennis Toy · Post by **Dennis Toy** » 2004-10-10 04:59am

you know i have always wanted to go into the sewers of Washington DC. I always wanted to see what the underground would look like.

Post by **weemadando** » 2004-10-10 05:11am

So France is just getting its Cave Clan started. I had a "trip" with the Cave Clan down here in Hobart. Its was a pretty big thing (relatively speaking) in Australia from about 96 onwards. Sorta disappeared recently.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2004-10-10 05:22am

Urban explorers have quite a few sites up on the net, from all over the world.

I eat that shit up, nothing gets my blood pumping like snooping around abandoned buildings, old cemeteries, and underground catacomb-y things, the older and spookier the better.
Vandalism pisses me off, though. Vandals call attention to the fact that people come and go in these places, and heightened security is a result.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-10-10 04:22pm

You couldn't pay me to go into France's "Empire of the Dead". That's 20 miles of tunnels lined with bones. Human bones.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2004-10-10 04:36pm

catacombs and drum&base. that´s just cool.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-10-10 05:03pm

Dennis Toy wrote:you know i have always wanted to go into the sewers of Washington DC. I always wanted to see what the underground would look like.

We dump dangerous sewage in ours, explore all you want
Don't mind the mutants

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2004-10-10 05:19pm

I need to go to Paris....

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-10-10 07:15pm

What the sewers are really like. At least the Philadelphia sewers.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2004-10-10 07:45pm

SO how long till MJ12 and the MiB's bust the resistances ass?

Post by **weemadando** » 2004-10-10 07:56pm

2000AD wrote:SO how long till MJ12 and the MiB's bust the resistances ass? :D

Bah, they never had a chance... Ain't nothing like a GEP and white-phos.

Dennis Toy · Post by **Dennis Toy** » 2004-10-10 08:24pm

Actually sewers are surprisingly clean. The waste is directly pumped into the filtration center by use of seperate pipes. What flows in the sewers is actually rainwater and cleaned water that comes from the pumping station.

We dump dangerous sewage in ours, explore all you want
Don't mind the mutants

Is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles up there. I want to meet them.

Dennis Toy · Post by **Dennis Toy** » 2004-10-10 08:29pm

http://www.dcwasa.com/about/facilities.cfm#intro

this is all the info you will want on DC sewer system..

Post by **Gandalf** » 2004-10-10 08:49pm

Dennis Toy wrote:Is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles up there. I want to meet them.

The Turtles lived in NYC. Manhattan to be specific.

Dennis Toy · Post by **Dennis Toy** » 2004-10-10 09:22pm

( i know...)

i still wanna see em? anyone know where in NYC i can find em..

Korvan · Post by **Korvan** » 2004-10-11 12:44am

Back when I was attending the University of British Columbia, I had the oppertunity to tour some of the various underground bits. UBC has two main underground places of note. First are the main steam tunnels connecting some of the major buildings. These tunnels are about 5 metres in diameter and sort of looks like the tunnels leading to the second death star's main reactor.

The other attraction is a series of three bunkers connected by tunnels. The bunkers served three naval gun emplacements which were part of Vancouvers shore defenses during WWII.

After exploring those places, I got bit by the exploring bug and set off to discover the holy grail of tunnels... a legendary tunnel that was said to connect the main library with one of the residences. Nearly a mile in length, it was said to have been closed after a series of sexual assults during the 70's. I did some asking around and while I couldn't find anyone who could say it existed, neither did anyone say it didn't exist.

I never did find the tunnel, but in the course of looking for it I:

-almost fell into a fuel oil storage tank
-crawled through 50 metres of dense brambles
-slid over 100 metres down a storm sewer (like a very small waterslide)
-got a buddy trapped down a maintenance pit for over an hour while I searched for a ladder

Good times, good times...

Symmetry · Post by **Symmetry** » 2004-10-11 09:17pm

Google "Order of random knights"

One of the many mit groups devoted to this sort of thing.

Anarchist Bunny · Post by **Anarchist Bunny** » 2004-10-12 12:14am

weemadando wrote:
2000AD wrote:SO how long till MJ12 and the MiB's bust the resistances ass?
Bah, they never had a chance... Ain't nothing like a GEP and white-phos.

Fool, you tranq their ass and use them for the less friendly side of nanotechology research.

Post by **Edi** » 2004-10-12 02:17am

94 fucking gallons a day?! That amounts to almost 360 liters a day of water use per person! We get by with an average of between 150 to 170 liters a day per person, less than half of what an average Philly citizen uses...

And 5 gallon toilet tanks? That's fucking insane, 2 is quite enough to flush down everything but a totally massive crap that you would have to spend a week accumulating in the first place.

Edi

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-10-13 05:45am

We get by with an average of between 150 to 170 liters a day per person, less than half of what an average Philly citizen uses...

It gets hot in the summer.

And 5 gallon toilet tanks? That's fucking insane, 2 is quite enough to flush down everything but a totally massive crap that you would have to spend a week accumulating in the first place.

And we like our cheesesteaks.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-10-13 07:31am

I doubt even Joseph Bazalgette could design a sewer to work in Philly it seems.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-10-13 08:39am

A dark confined space that is 59 degrees celsius with 100% humidity and filled with skulls, bones rats and snakes. Sounds fun.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-10-13 08:41am

So, isn't there the danger of a sudden...um...burst of steam coming through the "steam tunnels?" Or what?

Symmetry · Post by **Symmetry** » 2004-10-14 09:07pm

HemlockGrey wrote:So, isn't there the danger of a sudden...um...burst of steam coming through the "steam tunnels?" Or what?

Nah, the steam is in pipes. Just make sure not to touch them, and walk with your hand on your head since burns on your hand are easier to explain than burns on your forhead