Truth Or Tale: Are The Gates Of Hell Really In A Clifton Tunnel?

CLIFTON, NJ — Anyone who lives in the Garden State has heard rumors of haunted happenings and urban folklore close to home. In fact, there was an entire magazine, Weird NJ, devoted to them.

Patch is taking up the task of exploring these myths throughout October in the hopes of compiling a master list comprised of the best of the unexplained throughout New Jersey. Today we are discussing what is aptly labeled — with spray paint — as the Gates of Hell.

According to local tall tales, the tunnels found off Paulison Avenue are either the stuff of nightmares, or, as a Herald News report put it in 2006, "pretty standard teenage stuff."

Weird NJ featured the Passaic County site, referring to it as a "legendary passageway" that for years carried legend of "satanic sacrifices, decaying carcasses, upside down crosses" and a variety of other Satanic and demonic imagery and activity.

As recently as June, particularly daring urban explorers have created videos exploring the tunnels, hoping to find the gate in question, which is supposedly guarded by "Red Eyed Mike".

A number of these videos, of which there are plenty, reveal similar themes; spiders, ample graffiti and the occasional noise of a passing NJ Transit train overhead.

As far as the urban legends behind the Gates of Hell, they range from extreme to rather tame, with little middle ground.

Some believe the real gate is a room found deep within the series of tunnels that can only be entered by someone who possesses the strength to lift the thousand-pound axes which guard the door, revealing a glowing human skull.

That, or the room was at one point used for "devil worshippers" and the Ku Klux Klan, respectively, according to Atlas Obscura.

So what do you think readers? Buy it or boot it? Are the Gates of Hell really located in Clifton? Or is this the work of narrowly focused graffiti artists and storytellers?

Maybe you have another, even scarier tale of your own to share. Drop them in our comments or send them to montana.samuels@patch.com.