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the winter, making it impossible for even a small adult to get inside.

   "’I saw it where the tunnel turns.’ Ernest sa1d. ‘The last I saw, it was heading off into the dark. The passage-way seemed to drop down very quickly and go a long way back.’

   “Ernest believes the tunnel leads to the sewer system that runs beneath Metro and that the entrance beneath his apartment may have been only an access point used by the creature to the surface.

   “Metro's sewer department agreed to inspect the tunnel since it could be a safety hazard. Children might try to enter it.

   “A long-time sewer worker told the SUN it was possible although NOT probable, that the tunnel led into the sewers.

   “He said the tunnel was probably the result of poor drainage over the years which had caused erosion underground, hollowing out the passage.

   "’Who knows where it leads, or hew far it goes?’ he said. ‘You'd have to get in there the way it is now, it would take a lot of work.’

   “Despite the strangeness of Ernest’s story, the workers did not scoff at the tale.

   “‘People who work on the surface just don’t know what it's like down there,’ one said. ‘It's a whole different world. Who would have thought a few years ago that people would live in sewers, and yet that's what they found in New York a few years back. Even in Toronto we've occasionally had to pull mattresses from the chambers beneath the manhole covers where the winos have been sleeping.’

   “Another worker said he'd heard of animals like beavers and raccoons occasionally getting into the system, but never anything like that described by Ernest.