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This new Ghostly Gallery is devoted to haunts ouitside of the United States. Pack your bags and passport! Join Spectral Traveler Hilber Graf as he globe trots in search of spooky places... |
This stone stairway beckons us to the underworld...
The air is damp and musty. Some tunnels have small lights installed to illuminate the way. Otherwise, you and I would be surrounded by darkness, like corpses in stone coffins.
Hold my hand... | | | |
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"EMPIRE OF THE DEAD"
Paris' Underground City of Death |
 This unassuming doorway is the entrance to a macabre subterranean world beneath the streets of Paris, France. Welcome to Denfert-Rochereau Ossuary - The Empire of the Dead. Here lie the bones of seven million people. Their skeletons disinterred from church graveyards now form the walls of catacombs. Why, you ask?
During the 18th century, Paris suffered from overcrowding. Not in the streets, mind you. But in her cemeteries. Graveyards had become so full that bodies were stacked on top of each other. In some cases the graveyards rose as high as 20 feet! Cemetery walls collapsed, spilling rotting flesh and decayed corpses into the streets, spreading disease and death. A solution was desperately needed.
Beneath Paris are the catacombs. These run for almost 180 miles and date back to Roman times, when limestone was quarried to construct the city. The tunnels provided centuries of building materials, but continued quarrying threatened to collapse the streets above. So they were abandoned. In 1785 a decision was made to empty the graveyards and redistribute bones of the dead to the catacombs. Initially, 3 million bodies were moved, the combined dead of four hundred years. That amount would eventually climb to at least seven million.
It was a sickening task. Bones were gathered up with no regard as to who they belonged to, race or social class. The wealthy were intermixed with the poor, pious scrambled with murderers and so on. If desecration of cemeteries is cause for restless spirits, then it's no wonder the Catacombs of Paris are considered to be haunted. Follow me below....
At the bottom of those stairs is a long dark tunnel. Wet gravel on the floor crunches under our feet. The dampness here fills our nostrils and chills to the bone. Speaking of bones...
This is a "workshop", where collected bones were dumped and sorted into types - femurs, skulls, etc.
But workers didn't just sort these bones and stack them haphazardly. They incorporated bones and skulls into the walls and intricate columns.
Dead eyes stare at us from dead faces in the walls as we pass. This is not a place for the squeamish.
Some bone heaps are more orderly than others. Many skulls are missing all bone below the cranium. All are missing the lower jaw and teeth.
Occassionally the silence is disturbed by drips of oily water falling from the ceiling. My lungs fill with cold air and I cough. Do you shiver as I do?
These catacombs exert a morbid fascination over the citizens of Paris. The living who frequently haunt these tunnels are known as "cataphiles." They are obsessed with seeking out secret entrances (reputed to exist throughout the city) and explore miles and miles of uncharted tunnels. Ever so often a cataphile enters and is never seen by the living again. Such tragedies have generated many haunted tales of ghosts wandering below.
A recent story claims a young female "cataphile" became separated from her friends while exploring down here. She saw a light glimmering in the distance and followed, thinking it was her companions. The light always moved ahead of her, no matter how fast she pursued. The woman cried out, but no one answered. Then she panicked and ran faster until she eventually discovered herself inside a dead-end vault. Propped against the wall was a skeleton dressed in rotting modern-day clothing. She snapped and now ran in blind terror, thinking a shadow followed her through the twists and turns.
She was lucky and managed to to find her way out. This woman was later found huddled in the corner of a cafe, smeared in blood and grime with a vacant stare in her eyes...
No legimate paranormal photographs have surfaced, however So such yarns of spooks remain just that - stories. Hmm...we seem to have reached a dead-end ourselves.
Wonder how we get out of this place....
Ah, there's the exit. Time for me to go, but you can remain behind, if you wish.... | |
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