Does a video on social media portray "a hidden world of underground cities" and "tunnels for trafficking"? No, that's not true: The clip shows the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland.
The claim originated in a video (archived here) posted on TikTok on May 28, 2023. The text overlay said:
There Is a Hidden World of
Underground Cities
Tunnels for Trafficking!?
And... children who have
never, ever seen the light of
day... many generations of
them... used in SRA 🙏🏾❤️🌱
The last line referenced satanic ritual abuse. It continued:
They have built massive cities.
These are beautiful cities
complete with lakes, animals,
birds and 🪴🌱, using holograms
to create the effect of a sky 🌤 ☀️
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Jun 1 16:22:42 2023 UTC)
Contrary to the claim, the video does not show "massive cities" under the Earth's surface, or "lakes, animals, birds," or "holograms" mimicking "the effect of a sky" -- no people, dwellings or living creatures appear in the frame at all. The only two landscapes in the clip are the ones filmed in the mountains above the ground.
What is predominantly seen in the video is a space similar to subway tracks or underground train tunnels.
Based on the open-source information available online, the place in question is likely to be the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the flat underground railway path in the Swiss Alps, built to connect Southern and Northern Europe through the mountains, decreasing travel time and boosting commerce. Known as the world's longest tunnel of its kind, it was opened in 2016 after 17 years of construction.
An event of such transportation significance was heavily covered in the news.
While low quality, the video on TikTok still contains several clues. One of them is the design of the tunnel, incorporating yellow lines and in-built green lights on the walls:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Jun 1 21:20:09 2023 UTC)
The footage from the Gotthard Base Tunnel (for example, here, here and here) shows the same details:
(Sources: YouTube screenshot taken on Thu Jun 1 18:03:36 2023 UTC; YouTube screenshot taken on Thu Jun 1 17:53:17 2023 UTC; YouTube screenshot taken on Thu Jun 1 21:02:21 2023 UTC; composite image by Lead Stories)
Another identifying feature is the green door seen inside the tunnel on TikTok, which is consistent with another, older image of this location, also showing the same large dark tiles on the floor and the same shape of luminescent lamps on each side of the door :
(Sources: TikTok screenshot taken on Jun 1 14:41:38 2023 UTC; Avax screenshot taken on Jun 1 19:14:04 2023 UTC; composite image by Lead Stories)
Images of the same doors can be also found on the website of the Amberg Group, which was involved in the design of the project.
Additionally, previous video coverage captures the point where one larger tunnel gets divided into two smaller ones, one of which ends with what appears to be a door to some technical room. That is also seen in the video on TikTok, although the specific frame appears to have been flipped horizontally:
(Sources: TikTok screenshot taken on Jun 1 18:44:25 2023 UTC; YouTube screenshot taken on Jun 1 17:55:44 2023 UTC; composite image by Lead Stories)
A conspiracy about purportedly existing underground cities implies that those spaces are used for ritual satanic child abuse by the so-called "global elite." Lead Stories debunked such claims here.
The rumors about ritual satanic abuse started to circulate in North America in the 1980s after Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder published a book in which his female patient and wife recalled such things as a result of recovered-memory therapy, now thought to be unreliable. That led to many similar claims. Law enforcement investigated them but found no evidence to support the theory. Similar cases occurred in other parts of the world. One sex abuse ring hoax was debunked in the United Kingdom during the 2010s.
