New Yorkers, lock your manhole covers, the underground weirdos are back.
Shocking new video captured multiple shadowy figures rising one by one from a street-level manhole in the Penn District around 4:19 a.m. Sunday, climbing into the empty streets like something straight out of a horror flick.
The clip, filmed from behind metal barriers with American flags fluttering above a glowing building, shows the group casually emerging under the cover of darkness before melting into the night near parked cars. One even appears to linger on the sidewalk as if catching his breath after a long underground shift.
“Multiple people seen rising from a manhole in New York City at 4AM,” viral accounts blasted the footage across social media, instantly reigniting the city’s wildest mystery.
This isn’t the first time the so-called “mole people” have surfaced. Back in late May and early June, security cameras across Brooklyn and Queens caught similar crews, sometimes seven strong, prying open manhole covers in the dead of night, disappearing into the steamy sewers for hours, then re-emerging covered in grime, stripping off filthy waders and boots, and hopping into waiting cars.
Police and city officials have fingered them as treasure hunters: urban scavengers diving into the city’s vast sewer system hunting for lost jewelry, coins, wallets, scrap metal, anything of value that washes into the “doo-doo water.
”One Queens witness who spotted an earlier group in waders around 2 a.m. said they looked “like the Ninja Turtles.” Another described them calmly changing clothes on the sidewalk after hours underground, flashlights still glowing.
Cops launched probes after the spring sightings. The Department of Environmental Protection warned that entering the sewers is both illegal and extremely dangerous, think toxic gases, sudden floods, rats the size of small dogs, and who knows what else lurking below.No arrests have been made. The investigation remains open. And now, with this fresh Manhattan appearance just blocks from Penn Station, the question is hanging over the city once again:
Who are these night crawlers… and what the hell are they really finding down there?
Sources tell The Post the latest crew appeared equipped for the job and moved with purpose, not like lost tourists or drunken party-goers. They came up, looked around, and vanished into the early morning gloom.
New York’s underbelly has always had its secrets. But these manhole marauders are turning the city’s sewers into their own private gold mine, and giving every late-night walker a brand-new reason to watch their step.
Stay tuned. The next time that metal cover scrapes open at 4 a.m., somebody’s going to be waiting with a camera… and maybe a flashlight of their own.
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