The manhole people are back.
Early Saturday morning, just after 4 a.m., a group was filmed exiting a manhole in Manhattan.
The footage, captured and shared by independent New York photographer Viral News NYC, shows the individuals climbing out of the street in the dead of night once again.
The manhole people are back .
— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) August 22, 2026
They were spotted at 4 am in Manhattan exiting another man hole . pic.twitter.com/F2VUD7DwAE
A clearer image of one of the men soon followed. Commenters immediately noted the resemblance: “Dude really looks like the Mexican Mario.”
At least now we have a face.
— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) August 23, 2026
Dude really looks like the Mexican Mario pic.twitter.com/w2tUoL0Ubx
This is the latest odd chapter in a pattern that first gripped the city in late spring.
Groups of men in waders, boots, headlamps, and carrying tools have been repeatedly documented prying open manhole covers, disappearing into New York’s vast sewer network for hours, then resurfacing to change clothes on the sidewalk before vanishing in waiting vehicles.
In June, there were a wave of sightings across Brooklyn and Queens.
Those incidents included a group of roughly seven men emerging around 2 a.m. from a manhole on McDonald Avenue in Gravesend after spending hours underground. Another crew entered near Heyward Street and Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg around 1 a.m. and exited more than two hours later. An earlier episode in Astoria, Queens, on May 5 showed three men in hip waders lifting a cover and descending while a vehicle idled nearby.
Surveillance from a local auto shop owner in Astoria captured one of those moments. Aki Jakupovic, who was working late, said the men “acted like I wasn’t even there.” One witness described the Queens group as looking “like the Ninja Turtles.”
Police and the Department of Environmental Protection investigated the spring cases. Emergency Services Unit teams went underground. Officials reported finding no explosives, no damage to infrastructure, and “no known threat to public safety.”
The leading explanation offered by sources was scavenging: men hunting for coins, wallets, jewelry, scrap metal, or other valuables that wash into the city’s 7,400 miles of sewer pipes.
That theory has history. In 2015, a part-time city worker and two companions were arrested after spending four hours in Brooklyn sewers looking for “gold, jewelry and guns.” Then-Police Commissioner Bill Bratton remarked at the time: “God knows what they were looking for. I know damn sure I wouldn’t be crawling through the sewers of New York, but these three evidently were up to something down there.”
A similar arrest in April 2025 produced a more straightforward confession from one of the men, Willer Green: “The reason we went down there is that people lose their gold down there. We got to sell it to make money.”
Urban explorers consulted by WIRED in June largely rejected the idea that the recent crews were part of their scene. One creator put it bluntly: “There’s nothing of value down there besides ‘doo-doo water and a few needles.’ And sewers are pretty risky because there is basically zero cell service down there.”
Another observed that the groups appeared “way too sophisticated” and that multiple crews hitting different locations across the city “seems fishy to me. This might be more than just exploration.”
The Department of Environmental Protection has been consistent on one point: unauthorized entry is “both illegal and extremely dangerous.” Toxic gases, sudden flooding, structural collapse, and the complete lack of cell service make the system a death trap for the unprepared.
Yet the pattern continues. The latest Manhattan sighting comes months after the spring wave, with no public arrests, no named suspects, and no visible escalation.
A NewsNation discussion later examined the broader implications, including whether unauthorized access to critical underground infrastructure raises national security questions beyond simple scavenging.
New York’s sewer system runs beneath banks, businesses, transit hubs, and sensitive sites. In a city that has absorbed large numbers of unvetted migrants under sanctuary policies, the repeated appearance of organized teams equipped for prolonged underground work is not a curiosity. It is a vulnerability.
Officials prefer the scavenger narrative. Residents watching the videos see something else: purposeful crews operating with near impunity in the middle of the night. The absence of swift consequences only deepens the skepticism.
When unidentified groups can repeatedly breach a major city’s subterranean network and walk away, the “no threat” assurance starts to sound like institutional preference for quiet rather than clarity.
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