A TikTok video showing three people in overalls and headlamps climbing out of a Manhattan manhole near Penn Station at around 4am has prompted a fresh NYPD investigation, reigniting questions over why groups keep emerging from New York City's sewers before dawn.
The footage, filmed on 18 August at 32nd Street and 7th Avenue close to Madison Square Garden, is the latest in a pattern police have yet to fully explain.
The person who posted the clip told NBC News the incident happened shortly after 4am. A New York Police Department spokesperson confirmed officers are aware of the footage.
5 guys coming out of a Manhole in NYC at 4:19am! What are they doing down there? Why is this happening so often? #manhole #nyc #onlyinnyc #oliviadean #nypd
This is not the first time such scenes have surfaced. In May, multiple videos circulated showing groups of men climbing out of sewers in various parts of the city, notably Brooklyn, several dressed in similar protective clothing and headlamps.
One clip filmed near McDonald and Bedford avenues showed a man in a white shirt and shorts lifting a manhole cover at 2am, letting seven others out before they changed clothes on the street.
A second video, taken hours later near Heyward Street, showed a further seven men stepping directly into a road with cars still moving past them. At least three were carrying shovels.
A senior law enforcement official told NBC News at the time that investigators believed the men were most likely scavenging for valuables rather than engaged in anything more sinister, though that theory was never confirmed as fact. It remains, for now, the closest thing to an official explanation.
Williamsburg Brooklyn NY. It appears 6 or 7 more individuals was spotted coming out of a different manhole . It appears the men all had tools on them as well .We have a real problem on our hands. pic.twitter.com/TTmvTaBgT8
Whether the August sighting connects to those earlier incidents is unclear, and the NYPD has stopped short of drawing that line itself. The overlap is circumstantial: similar clothing, similar hour, similar disappearing act once the manhole cover goes back on.
What has changed is where it happened. Brooklyn residential blocks are one thing. Doing this two minutes from Penn Station, one of Manhattan's busiest and most surveilled corners, is another.
Addressing the most recent footage, police said in a statement: 'There are no arrests and the investigation is ongoing.'
Back in June, the department disclosed it had gone further than issuing statements, sending officers from its Emergency Service Unit down into the sewer system to check whether anything had been left behind.
'Nothing was found,' police said, adding the operation was carried out specifically to rule out any threat to the public.
That reassurance has not stopped the footage from generating fresh unease each time it resurfaces.