So Supernatural - HAUNTED: The Paris Catacombs

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Beneath the streets of Paris lies a labyrinth packed with the bones of more than six million people—relocated centuries ago when the city's cemeteries overflowed. Today, visitors descend into the darkness and come back with stories: disembodied whispers, footsteps in empty passages, the feeling of being watched. Some are convinced the restless dead never left. Others say the mind simply unravels in the silence. But one question lingers in those tunnels: are the catacombs truly haunted… or is it the living who can't be trusted down there? For a full list of sources, please visit: https://sosupernaturalpodcast.com/haunted-the-paris-catacombs   Did you know you can listen to So Supernatural ad-free? Join the Crime Junkie Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/fanclub/ to view the current membership options and policies. So Supernatural is an Audiochuck and Crime House production. Find us on social! Instagram: @sosupernaturalpod Twitter: @_sosupernatural Facebook: /sosupernaturalpod Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The famous French novelist Victor Hugo, who wrote the hunchback of Notre Dame and Le Miz, once said, quote, Breathe Paris in, it nourishes the soul. And guess what? He wasn't wrong. There's something about Paris that captures your heart. Every corner feels timeless, romantic, and full of history. From wandering through its breathtaking architecture to getting lost in the halls of the Louvre and the food.

Give me escargo and palm fritz and a cafe to sit at and watch the world go by. I am in heaven, y'all. Paris is just one of those places that stays with you long after you've left. But when you're there, you just feel so alive. Yet, beneath the cafes, the cobblestone streets and the life, reflecting off the sin. Paris is hiding something. Hundreds of miles of tunnels

carved out of the earth long before the city above them existed and lining the walls as far as the eye can see are the remains of more than six million people. The catacombs are the one part of Paris that will make you feel the opposite of alive. More like the Grim Reaper himself,

The stone walls are stacked with human skulls arranged into sculptures. And no matter where you turn, the bones never stop. There are signs on the walls with messages in French warning visitors that death is coming for them too. But maybe death isn't the end. Because according to countless visitors and tour guides, the Paris catacombs are incredibly haunted. And if you're not careful, you might find yourself joy. joining the spirits who lurk there for all of eternity. I'm Rasha Pecorero.

And I'm Yvette Jindal. Welcome back to another episode of So Supernatural. If you've ever planned a trip to Paris, you already know the bucket list. It's definitely on mine. The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre. There's almost too much to see, which might explain why roughly 50 million tourists,

go to Paris every year. It's one of the most visited cities on earth. And it's not just tourists. Paris is one of the major economic engines of Europe. International banks, global fashion houses, some of the biggest names in tech all have a huge presence in the city. Paris Fashion Week alone draws the entire industry to its doorstep twice a year. By every measure, Paris is a booming city. which is pretty remarkable since it all grew from a swamp. And Russia's right. In 52 BCE, when ancient Roman soldiers arrived on the banks of the sin, they didn't find a gleaming metropolis.

They found murky waterlog land that was home to an indigenous tribe called the Parisi. The Romans conquered them, claimed the territory as their own, and built a fort to defend it. That fort, or what's left of it, is still there today, tucked into what's now known as the Latin quarter. With time, that fort expanded into a town and then a city. The Romans gave it an official name, Lutetia, derived from the Latin word for mud or swamp, which tells you everything you need to know about what they thought of the place. In ancient times, the Romans were mainly interested in the time.

territory because it was rich with limestone. It could be used to build houses and other buildings. So soldiers built mines just outside of the city to gather as much as they could. When the empire eventually fell, residents renamed it after the people the Romans had displaced, the Parisi. And that's how Lutetia became Paris. As the years went by, the city grew. Paris's borders expanded outward, getting closer to the mines. In the meantime, the tunnels also kept growing. Each time workers needed to find a new limestone deposit, they'd dig a little deeper and carve out new caverns and tunnels. Most estimates say they were about 200 miles long. Eventually, people began building homes, businesses, streets, and parks right on top of these existing mines. But by the 1700s,

many of these caverns were centuries old and not very stable. It was only a matter of time before they crumbled. And that day came in 1774. The ground gave way underneath a public square called Rue Don Fair, which roughly translates into English as Hell Square. These days, it's not too far from the catacombs exit. The sinkhole swallowed part of a city block. houses and buildings collapsed into the mile-long trench.

Many Parisians were terrified after hearing the news. Was this the fate for the entire city? Were other tunnels due to collapse soon? And because record keeping was so poor back then, no one knew for sure if they were living right on top of one. So shortly after the collapse around late 1774 or early 1775, King Louis XVIth hired architects to explore the mines and identify weak spots. These surveys took roughly three years to complete,

and while they were working, people's fears came true. More tunnels collapsed all throughout Paris, including one that appeared on April 24, 1777. It was small, but it was a huge concern because it was very very, very close to the center of the city. That's when the architects warned the king, sinkholes were going to keep appearing. Paris was in danger of being swallowed up

unless they hired teams of engineers to map and reinforce all of the tunnels. It would be time-consuming and very expensive. But it was the only way to save the capital. Well, it turns out, King Louis was dealing with another major problem at the time. one that would also require money and effort. Paris's graveyards were becoming dangerously overcrowded. The city had existed for over 1,500 years by that point.

There were more dead people buried in the city than there were alive. People were being buried on top of each other. Stone tombs were breaking open because they were overstuffed. In 1780, a wall collapsed in a restaurant's basement. and dead bodies fell through the hole. As it turned out, the restaurant was right next door to a graveyard that had been so packed full, the remains were literally spilling over onto other properties.

I mean, something needed to be done. So in 1785, King Louis decided to kill two birds with one stone. He made it illegal to bury any new bodies anywhere in the city. He also ordered all of the remains to be removed from the city's most overcrowded graveyards and placed in the mining shafts beneath the city. This worked out to be about 6 million people in total. The project took two years. Gravediggers worked overnight because they thought it would be too disturbing for ordinary Parisians

to see dead bodies exhumed and brought to the mines in the light of dead. Then they just piled the remains into the tunnels. The remains were treated more like rubbish than once-living people. And more were added every year. The people of Paris still needed somewhere to bury new bodies, so they were thrown into the mining tunnels after their funerals. Many Parisians failed to treat the mines like a tomb at all, especially in 1787 when the French Revolution began.

To make a complicated chapter of history short, the people of France wanted a democracy, not a monarchy. They'd already heard about the American colonists successfully rebelling against Great Britain. And at that time, the French economy was weak. A bad harvest year meant food was very expensive and people couldn't afford to feed their families. To make a bad situation worse, the king and queen tried to raise taxes to make up for that weak economy, and the people who could barely afford to survive had had enough. The rebels needed somewhere to meet, somewhere the government couldn't find them, and according to some sources, they found the perfect hiding place beneath the city in the same dark sprawling tunnels as those

buried bodies. Down there in the dark, a revolution was planned. For two years, unrest simmered above ground. Noble scrambled to offer reforms, hoping to suppress the uprising before it consumed them. But it didn't work. The people kept pushing, attacking palaces, government buildings, and prisons, tearing down the old world piece by piece. Finally, August 4, 1789, marked the abolition of feudalism and the end of an old. regime. But the French Revolution itself continued for another decade. Four years later in 1793, the king and queen were beheaded. And there was a lot of infighting and political turmoil

afterward. Too much for us to unpack right now, but it's just fair to say that a new era had begun. The new government understood that portions of the mining tunnels still needed to be reinforced. So they picked up where they left off. It took roughly 20 years, but finally, on July 1st, 1809, the tunnels opened to the public. People no longer had to sneak in to plan political revolutions. If someone wanted to pay their respects to an ancestor, they could file for a special permit and make an appointment to go underground.

Still, the tunnel visits were risky, because the stacks of bodies inside were unstable. So were the mine walls, which hadn't been entirely reinforced yet. Plus, the underground chambers were maze-like and poorly lit. It was easy for visitors to get lost or even injured. So in 1810, a famous engineer named Louis Etienne, Ericart de Turi, decided something had to change. It wasn't fair to the deceased to leave them lying in a hole

or to make their loved ones wander through the dark, maze-like mine shafts when they wanted to pay their respects. Unfortunately, he couldn't give these skeletons traditional burials. There was no way to identify the deceased in the mines. So instead, Louis Etienne rearranged the remains and turned them into works of art. In some cases, Louis Etienne and his colleagues literally built walls out of bones and skulls. They stacked them in neat rows until the tunnels seemed to be lined floor to ceiling with bones.

Some of these walls had patterns within them. Like one area called the heart of skulls, where 14 skulls are arranged in a perfect heart shape, surrounded by more bones that hold it in place. Other formations were more elaborate. The tunnels were dotted with columns and barrel-shaped sculptures made entirely of disassembled skeletons. They also made plaques explaining which graveyards they'd pulled bodies from and placed in that area. And they surrounded those plaques with more skulls, almost like a mosaic.

When it was all set and done, only a small part of the area was renovated, about one miles' worth. The area open to the public had only one official entrance and one official exit. Beyond that, there were more than 200 miles of tunnels that were still off limits. Officials couldn't guarantee these underground passageways were safe and stable, even after the renovations. There was still a risk that certain chambers might collapse. Because of the risk, they felt it was safer to keep visitors in a smaller store. stretch that could be tracked and monitored. But the locals didn't always follow these restrictions.

People kept going into the forbidden parts of the catacombs. And in those chambers, far up the beaten path, they reportedly found something even more unsettling than ancient remains, the souls that once inhabited them. In 1810, roughly one mile of the Paris catacombs opened to the public. But not everyone stuck to that area like they were supposed to. A small community called catafiles formed. People who went into the forbidden tunnels to explore just for the thrill of it. Many of them identified entrances that were well off the beaten path.

Many were outside of the city. Some were tucked away in railroad tunnels or abandoned mine shafts. Sometimes the passageways were so small and poorly maintained, explorers would have to crawl through them on their hands and knees. But once the catafiles got inside, they had the whole city at their fingertips. They learned how to navigate underground, which tunnels connected to one another, and how to get to any destination in the city from the mines. These skills came in handy during World War II.

In 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France, and they quickly defeated the French army and took the army. control of the country. Almost immediately, another resistance movement started up. The French people met in secret. They published newspapers exposing German propaganda. They created fake IDs for Jewish people so they could avoid being deported or sent to concentration camps. The resistance also collaborated with Allied forces and sometimes committed terrorist acts against German leaders. And they often gathered in the catacombs under Paris, specifically in the tunnels that were supposed to be off limits to the public, much like the soldiers did in the French Revolution. In 1944,

Allied armies planned to invade France, and word got to the resistance ahead of time, so members plotted, prepped, and sabotaged German equipment. The Nazis weren't prepared when battles broke out, and France's allies had an easier time of beating them. By August 25th, Paris was liberated. The people of France were free again, except many of them continued to sneak into the off-limit parts of the catacombs, not for political activism, but for fun. And some of them came back with stories, stories about things that they couldn't explain, things that they saw or heard or felt down there in the dark. Because as it turns out, the catacombs don't just hold bones.

According to those who know them best, they held something else entirely. Some of the first tales date back to the height of the French Revolution. It started on November 3, 1793, when a doorman named Filippeer Aspierre went missing. He worked at a local hospital in Paris, and given all of the political unrest at the time, his disappearance wasn't a high priority for police or city officials. They didn't even bother to investigate his case. So it went unsolved for 11 years. In 1804, before Louis Etienne's installations,

a group of construction workers descended into the Paris catacombs. It's unclear what they were working on, but the tunnel they were in was off limits to the public. There, the construction workers stumbled on a body they weren't expecting. It looked different from the others because it wasn't as badly decomposed, plus it was wearing clothes that looked more modern. And it wasn't in a pile with the other remains. It was on the ground seemingly as though the person had dropped dead in the middle of their journey.

When the construction workers searched the body, they found a key ring with the name of a local hospital printed on it. So they presumably notified the police who concluded this was Filippeer-askier, the missing doorman. It still wasn't clear how he'd ended up underground, but the investigators had a theory. On the night he went missing, they believed he'd snuck into the tunnels, though nobody knew why. Philebert wasn't the explorer type, but he found himself lost in the catacombs. He could have been down there for hours or days searching for an exit, but since the tunnels weren't lit, he couldn't find a way out. He likely collapsed from exhaustion or dehydration, which caused his death, and his body went undiscovered for the next 11 years.

One of the most tragic details of this story is that his remains were found just a few short feet from the exit. If Filippeer had made it just a little bit further, he could have survived. The construction workers placed a plaque on the wall near the place where his body was found, and it stayed there through later renovations. His grave is the only individually marked one

in all of the catacombs, likely because his body is one of the only ones that could be identified. Today, that section of the tunnel is still close to the public, but catafiles know exactly where it is and how to get there. Every November 3rd, on the anniversary of his disappearance, they gather near his final resting place and pay their respects to Philebert. And something in that tunnel seems to respond to it. That's right. You see, many visitors report strange sensations inside the catacombs. Some of them experience intense, oppressive feelings of sadness and a heavy weight that's pressing down on them.

There are also accounts of a shadowy figure appearing near the plaque itself. People have reported seeing a man who appears to be stumbling through the dark. His hands are extended in front of him like he's feeling his way forward, and he desperately grasped at the empty air as he walks. Rumor has it, it's Philever's ghost still searching for a way out. Others have seen a man wandering through the tunnels dressed in old-timey clothing, but he's usually only visible for a few seconds before he fades away. Many believe he's the spirit of a quarry worker who helped in the mines before they became catacombs.

But thanks to poor record-keeping from that era, it's impossible to say who he was or even how he died. There are also accounts of a woman dressed all in white who frequently walks through the caverns. She lingers near the sculptures, looking the skulls over one by one. It's like she's searching for a particular set of remains, something that she's searching for a long-lost loved one

who was actually buried there. Another theory says she was a noble one, woman in the late 1700s, who during the revolution fled into the tunnels to escape an angry mob, and inside she became so disoriented and died before she could even find her way back out. Each time the Lady in White appears, the tunnel is said to become incredibly cold, and the people who spot her often feel a wave of intense sadness. But the Lady in White seems to be a friendly ghost, because she often appears to visitors who have become lost or turned around.

Others report the sound of a child crying in the tunnels, but they can never find where the noise is coming from. Some have reported seeing spirits dressed in clothes from the era of the French Revolution, either dressed in rebel uniforms or as royalists. It's said that whenever someone lays eyes on a revolutionary soldier, regardless of which uniform he's wearing, the spirit will simply fade away until there's no sign he was ever there at all. There are also accounts of disembodied footsteps or moans echoing throughout the chambers, or of singing. Specifically, several maintenance workers and catafiles have heard

what sounds like a church choir chanting old hymns, and these songs are only audible when the catacombs are completely empty of visitors. When people try to walk toward the music to find out where it's coming from, it tends to fade away into nothing. There are some who say they get the eerie sensation that they're being watched, even when they're the only one in a particular stretch of the tunnel.

They might feel the gaze of an invisible spirit, but some people believe the catacombs themselves are alive and sentient. Legend says that they feed on fear. They want visitors to feel nervous or even panicky. So they make noises or create shadows just to unsettle people. We don't know how many people have fallen victim to the catacombs, but one particular incident in the 1990s drove home just how dangerous the tunnels could be.

Because around that time, someone encountered something strange, maybe even demonic in the chambers. And he got it all on film. At some point in the early 1990s, a group of catafiles were exploring the tunnels beneath Paris. We don't know any of their names because they didn't want their information to be made public. But at one point during their adventure,

the explorers spotted something strange. There was a camcorder lying on the ground, And for those of you who don't know what a camcorder is, it's basically a video recorder. I'm just saying. There was no sign of who'd left it, and they couldn't tell how long it had been there. But when they looked inside, they saw that it had a tape. The footage showed a man who was exploring this same stretch of tunnel. He appeared to be on the journey alone.

The footage showed him scrambling across uneven walkways, wandering through, through winding maze-like passageways and trudging through tunnels that were dark. The only light was from the camcorder. Sometimes he recorded graffiti scratched on the walls. It included letters, arrows, and strange symbols that couldn't be interpreted. Maybe messages left by previous catafiles.

Either way, the man seemed to be in a good mood, at least at the start of the journey. We don't know how long he ventured for because he wasn't filming continuously, but at one point, the filmmaker started to get lost. His mood shifted as he realized he didn't know how to get out. He was breathing heavily as fear set in, and then the man sped up, almost running as he darted down the tunnels, making turns more or less just at random.

Except he only became more confused and confused, disoriented. He started rambling and not making any sense. In other portions of the tape, listeners could hear heavy breathing that didn't seem to be coming from the filmmaker. Instead, something seemed to be chasing him as he ran. The footage ended with the man dropping the camera and the tape cutting out. So it was impossible to say what happened to him after that. The catafiles gave the tape to a friend who went public with what he'd found. The footage swept across the internet and it made it onto news reports around the world. To this day, the man in the footage has never been identified. We have no way of knowing if he escaped from the

catacombs or if he died underground. Which means it's possible that the entire thing, could have been a prank. A skeptical blogger named Jacob Robinson suggested someone may have scripted and recorded the footage pretending to get lost in the tunnels. Then they released the tape, claiming it had been found in the catacombs just to mess with people or maybe make a quick buck. Except many believe the clips were real. After all, reputable news stations like ABC broadcasted the footage. And the events of the tape feel so believable. given that the tunnels are so long and maze-like, it's not hard to believe that some people would get lost in them and panic,

just like he did. Well, there are some people who believe the catacombs drove the man mad. I mean, after all, rumors said the tunnel walls themselves can speak, which could also explain the voice from the recording. But according to a blogger from the travel website, the tour guy guidebook, the walls only talk after midnight. They claim the voices always encourage visitors

to step off the beaten paths, to go down passageways that take them further from the exits. They encourage people to get lost. The good news is that those whispers don't pose any risks to ordinary tourists. The public portions of the catacombs are only open until 8.30 at night. So visitors have plenty of time to see the tunnels and get the heck out of there well before midnight.

And it's pretty difficult to sneak away from the tourist-friendly areas into the forbidden parts of the catacombs. French authorities have blocked or sealed off chambers and exits. They don't want tourists to venture to. If you buy a ticket for a tour, you're led down an old spiral staircase. The stairs come to an end once you're 60 feet underground. There, the mind chefs are cool and a little damp. A sign hangs over the one and only exit. When translated into English, it reads, quote,

Stop, this is the empire of death. If you ignore the warning and walk forward, you'll find yourself going through a long, windy tunnel deep into the earth. It's dark. There isn't much fresh air, and some people struggle to catch their breath here. And that's all before you reach the chambers that are lined floor to ceiling with bones. Well, the tunnels wind deeper and deeper until you're a full 65 feet underground. That's the equivalent of being roughly six stories down.

If that sounds intense, y'all, just be glad you're not in the other non-public tunnels. At times, they can drop hundreds of feet below you. street level. In that environment, it's only natural for your imagination to start playing tricks on you. The lower oxygen levels here can trigger hallucinations too. Plus, noises can bounce off the tunnel walls in unpredictable ways. Because of the way the sound travels, it might sound like someone is right next to you when they're actually down another corridor. So it's no wonder so many people think, they see and hear things down there in the catacombs. However, you can't explain away every sighting with psychology.

The ghost encounters in the catacombs feel too consistent to all be hallucinations. For decades, visitors have seen the same spirits doing the same things. They can't all be imagining it. Instead, it's entirely possible ghosts are attracted to the catacombs because that's what happens when you bury six million people in one place. Some paranormal researchers say the spirits are restless because they were removed from their original tombs. Their bones are stacked and displayed with no grave markers.

Their remains are treated like a tourist attraction rather than with the respect that they deserve. So their spirits are doomed to wander the catacombs in search of a final resting place. It's also possible spirits linger here because it's heavily associated with death, not only because of the bodies, but because of other tragedies that have happened in the catacombs. Like the death of Filippe Arspierre, the Dorman who was found in the catacombs, 11 years after his disappearance.

There have been documented crimes committed in the catacombs as well. Cattophiles say muggings underground, happen more often than you'd think. The robbers probably know that they can get away with it because there are very few witnesses around. Some catafiles have even set up illegal businesses down there, ones that are, let's just say, really hard to find, unless you know exactly where to look.

In 2004, some police officers were walking through the tunnels when they discovered an underground movie theater. If you're picturing something like an old projector and a couple of beanbag chairs, think again. This was an incredibly modern, elaborate setup. Someone had run wires into the theater area so they'd have electricity. The theater even had a kind of concessions area attached. When police went through it, they saw a pressure cooker heating up cuss-coose for a future screening.

The police didn't find anyone in the theater, so they didn't know, who was operating it or who their customers were, but they did spot a security camera recording them. The officers assumed whoever ran this theater knew they'd been caught. They must have seen them on the camera's live stream, because when the officers returned with reinforcements three days later, every single trace of the theater was gone. The screen, the seats, the concessions, the electric wiring, it had all been packed up and shuffles. out. There was only one sign that the theater had ever existed in the first place. A note was hung on the entrance and translated into English. It read, do not try to find us. That wasn't the last

time the police busted illegal operations in the catacombs. There were many reports of officials breaking up illegal raves and parties, particularly during the COVID-19 lockdowns. But catafiles know those tunnels better than anyone, and most of them were gone long before the officers even got close. Evette and I have never personally been to the catacombs, but we know our biggest fan, the one and only Lolo, who is the exact person who inspired this episode, has. That's right. Right, Yvette? Yes, and Lolo shared so much of her adventure. Like, and so many things that we just talked about, she confirmed. She said that when she was down there, she felt like there was a presence down there and there were eyes like watching her, even though they're all skeletons,

right, that have no eyes. And she said that she would walk through certain parts of the tunnel and it would get really, really cold. So she said that she could feel that mana, that energy that was down there. And I asked her, I said, you know, for me, I get claustrophobic. So what do I need to do to prepare myself to go down there? And she said, well, you just have to take some deep breath. And then once you get down there, you know, you'll be okay. And she said, something she said that was really important. She said, you just have to have respect for all those people that are down there.

I mean, this, this girl just steals my heart every time. Like, she is just an old soul. So thank you, Lolo, for sharing. and maybe one day we can all go back together. That would be amazing. And if any of you so supernatural listeners have been to the Paris catacombs, we want to know.

Please let us know on social media. Well, what we know for sure is this. Six million people are resting in those walls. People who once walked the streets of Paris above, who loved and lived fully, and dreamed and fought revolutions. And now they're there in the dark, in silence. Death is one thing none of us can avoid.

None of us know how it will happen, when it will come, or what waits for us on the other side. But the people of Paris figured something out a long time ago. You can build a beautiful city anyway. You can fill it with food and art and light, you can fall in love, you chase something worth chasing. Meanwhile, the catacombs will always be there, just below the surface.

But up above, Paris is still sparkling, still thriving, and maybe, just maybe, that's the entire point. This is So Supernatural, an audio chuck original produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at so supernaturalpodcast.com. Joining vetting me next Friday for an all-new episode. I think Chuck would approve.