The Paris Catacombs are one of the scariest locations on Earth. An endless dark labyrinth filled to the brim with the bones of the dead, stretching for miles and miles underneath the capital of France, could you imagine a place more terrifying? Now imagine being lost in that desolate maze all alone.
If the found footage is to be believed then that is exactly what happened to one unfortunate soul who decided to venture down into the Paris Catacombs on his lonesome one day in the early 1990s. The footage has gone viral online multiple times as new people stumble across it and try to decipher what exactly is going on, but nobody seems able to provide a conclusive answer as to what happened to the person in the video.
What does the Paris Catacombs footage show?
The footage is in black and white and was likely recorded on an 8mm device according to theghostinmymachine.com. We never actually see the person recording as it consists entirely of point of view shots but we can see the walls lined with bones and the long dark corridors stretching away into nothingness.
While most of the footage is relatively unremarkable, the last few minutes are truly chilling. It begins with the man recording picking up his pace. Then he breaks into a full on run, his breathing intensifies, he sounds panicked. The camera swings violently, making it hard to make out what’s going on and then it drops onto the ground and the man recording disappears into the darkness.
Unfortunately that’s all the information we have. The camera was supposedly discovered sometime later but nobody has come forward to claim it and a body was never found. This has led some to speculate that the individual in the video never made it out of the catacombs and subsequently perished down there, although they differ on how exactly he may have died.
Was he being chased?
Judging by the sudden panic that seems to take hold of the man in the video, some have wondered if he was being chased by something off-camera. If that were the case, what could be lurking down in the Paris Catacombs that would be threatening enough to terrify a full-grown man?
Is it some sort of demon, or supernatural entity? Maybe something akin to the found footage horror, As Above, So Below (which also takes place in the Paris Catacombs)? After all the catacombs are filled with the bones of the dead, if a paranormal being were to be found anywhere, it would likely be in a place like this. But is there a more rational explanation?
Well it’s possible he simply got lost, the tunnels stretch on for miles and miles. Maybe, upon realizing he had no clue where he was he began to wonder if he would be trapped down there forever, the claustrophobia set in and he panicked, running to try and escape as fast as possible.
The other alternative is that it’s a hoax, which wouldn’t be a surprise at all. The clip seems to originate from an episode of Scariest Places on Earth and the show was known for embellishing the truth. Judging by the lack of additional information on the matter this seems a very plausible explanation.
