People Were Caught On Camera Emerging From A New York City Manhole And Nobody Knows Why

A TikTok video recorded at approximately 4:19 AM Tuesday near West 31st Street and Seventh Avenue, right by Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, shows about five people climbing out of a manhole.

Some appear to be in dark clothing with headlamps. "Oh s---! They really do that s---," says the man filming. The NYPD confirmed it is aware of the video and said the investigation is ongoing. No arrests have been made.

It is the third such incident this year. In May, police said groups of seven and eight people were separately spotted entering manholes in Gravesend and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, then emerging hours later.

One surveillance clip showed men lowering themselves into a manhole in Astoria, Queens around 2 AM. Another showed men carrying shovels emerging from a sewer in Williamsburg into active traffic.

After the May incidents, the NYPD sent its Emergency Services Unit into the sewer system to check for anything left behind. They found nothing. Police concluded there was no immediate threat to the public.

The leading theory has been urban scavenging, treasure hunters going underground in search of valuable metals, lost items or scrap.

New York's sewer system includes more than 6,000 miles of pipe, 300,000 miles of subsurface infrastructure and access points throughout the city. The infrastructure was built in layers across more than a century and contains utility tunnels, historic artifacts and in some cases items of real value.

The Department of Environmental Protection has consistently warned that members of the public should never enter manholes, citing noxious gases, unstable surfaces, flooding risk and confined space dangers.

Nobody has yet explained why they keep going down there. The NYPD says the investigation is ongoing.