The city of New York has seen its share of strange happenings, but recent reports of individuals appearing out of manholes have left many wondering. It’s been a weird late-night occurrence, and now one of the city’s most talked-about mysteries, with the people involved nicknamed “mole people” and compared to the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The mystery first arose on May 5 when three people were seen in the early morning hours in Queens. The group, wearing hip waders and flashlights, was ready to go at about 2 a.m., when they came to a manhole in the middle of the road. While they were removing the heavy cover and descending to the dark below, witnesses saw them, and then closed the entrance behind them.
Initially, the occurrence was a strange and unusual incident. But it got even more interesting when other similar incidents were reported later in the month. The second group was spotted entering a sewer system on May 28 in South Brooklyn via a manhole. A different team was caught going into a North-Bronx sewer opening only a few hours later. The repeated incidents soon caught the eye of the local residents, news outlets, and the police.
Witness Aki Jakupovic, who witnessed the first event, said he was suspicious of the mysterious visitors. They seemed to know what they were doing to enter the sewer and replace the cover,” he said, “as if they were there the first time. Because of their odd clothes and behavior, he thought of them as the fictional “Ninja Turtles” who lived in NYC’s sewers.
The incidents have been taken seriously by authorities, though they’ve been amusing many New Yorkers. New York police said their intelligence unit is involved in the sewer digests. But there is no current threat to public safety, officials said, despite the odd nature of the events.
The incidents have started many speculations of what the deep explorers may want to find. One of the most widely considered ideas is that they’re looking for the treasures that are trapped inside the expansive sewer system of the city. The system of sewers in New York measures about 7,400 miles and is served by about 5,000 manholes, making it a vast underground maze.
It sounds like a wild notion, but it has been done before. A trainee for New York Department of Environmental Protection was arrested in 2015 after being spotted in the sewers. Three men were arrested more recently in Brooklyn for allegedly entering the sewer to look for gold. In fact, even decades before, there were reports of the police discovering thousands of dollars in the sewers of New York City.
City officials have emphatically discouraged entry into the sewer system, despite all the rumours surrounding the mystery. The city’s infrastructure is still sound and there have been no reports of infrastructure damage due to the recent incidents, according to representatives of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
Authorities stress it is illegal and very dangerous to enter sewers. Underground tunnels may be filled with toxic gases that can severely injure or be fatal. Other risks are uneven surfaces, closed spaces, flash floods and restricted access to emergency services. DEP strongly recommends that the public do not enter drains, manholes, catch basins or sewer pipes under any circumstances based on these risks.
The recent events have been in the news, but New York has a long tradition of people going underground. Terry Williams has been studying people who live in tunnels and abandoned railways and other secretive, underground areas of the city for over 20 years. His work, featured in Life Underground: Encounters with People Below the Streets of New York, illuminates a little-known world that exists beneath one of the world’s busiest cities.
New York is by no means alone in having underground houses, or underground adventure. There are also lots of tunnels in Las Vegas with its original purpose being to control the flood. Estimates from the non-profits put the number at hundreds, maybe thousands, of people living within these underground passageways and turn them into entire communities that are hidden from the public.
The mysterious manhole explorers of New York are yet to be identified and for now, no motives have been found. They are city explorers, treasure hunters, researchers, or simply thrill-seekers, whatever it may be, their activities have created a buzz in the city. Many New Yorkers are watching the streets, waiting to see if more videos will be released and what investigators are discovering as they hunt for answers, and who will be the next face to pop up from under their feet.
The “mole people” of the city are one of the strangest urban stories of the year, but it continues until the mystery is solved.
