I was living in Denver, Colorado and driving home from work one afternoon, when I heard the coolest interview on NPR about some guys in New York City who wore suits and explored old subway tunnels. When I got home, I started surfing the net. Shortly, I had found an incredible new world in websites like "Infiltration", "Dark Passage" and "Zone Tour". In August of 2000, I moved to Chicago, not in th
e hopes of starting an urban exploration group myself, but to find and join explorers in the Chicago area who already knew the ropes. After searching desperately through the internet for anyone who might be exploring in Chicago, I came across nothing. (There was a fantastic site somewhere about CTA(Chicago Transit Authority) exploration, but no one to contact.) I could not believe that in the "Second City" no one was exploring! It is unthinkable that a place so full of people, magnificent buildings, miles of tunnels, plagued by factories and so rich in history would not have a mass of explorers or urban archaeologists! In February of 2001, I posted a message on "Rotten Eggs" requesting that anyone with information about exploring in Chicago contact me. After a few responses and a slow growing interest, I started a club on Yahoo and then an accompanying website on geo-sh*tties. People responded and started posting their ideas and experiences about exploring Chicago. Initially, all of our members were pretty much "UE" virgins. Sure, we snooped around as kids, but this was something more. We spent that summer, hunting for places to explore. We investigated rumors, urban legends and went on ghost hunts. We dove into the deep end and began to swim. THE WEBSITE
In September of 2001, I bought the domain name "chicagourbanexploration.com" and purchased a host plan with A-Plus (highly recommended!). It just seemed that the free hosts were becoming horribly obnoxious with pop-ups and increased limitations as to what you could do with them. I wanted to have a place where explorers could feel free to post whatever they wanted, be creative and be unburdened by advertising. Later that year, I found a great little program called "AnyBoard", by Netbula. Being a CGI moron, myself, it seemed to be the best deal in scripting. This was the program I implemented into the website for a BBS system or Forum. Initially, it was pretty cool software, but I really wanted to take advantage of features such as chat and post by email, so I purchased a license and installed the upgrade. (Unfortunately, Netbula's customer service completely sucks, and we still don't have a proper chat room or email function!)
As this site continues to grow, you will always see some change and evolution. There is a great effort put forth to consistantly maintain and update it's pages and content. THE INCIDENT
In the late fall of 2001, CUE met up with an avid explorer who called himself "Derailer". We were thrilled by his incredible photographs, stories and his technical expertise. He had been places that we had only dreamed of. At once, I decided to give him space on the new CUE site to showcase his work, because I knew that I would never see the places he was exploring. (I just wasn't THAT daring!)
One night in March of 2002, I was wakened by a TV news report about someone being busted in the CTA tunnels. I listened and looked but I didn't recognize the photograph of the person that they said, had gone by the name of "Dr. Chaos". Shortly thereafter, my phone started ringing. Other CUE members were calling me up asking if I thought it was Derailer. I didn't think so, but none of us were sure. It started to bug me. Later, much to my disbelief, I found out that it was indeed, Derailer. In March of 2002, Derailer was busted while exploring with a minor in some college tunnels. The minor then told authorities about Derailer stashing small amounts of cyanide in a CTA tunnel room. CUE was in complete shock! Although we did not know this person well, we still felt that he never had plans to hurt anyone. We had also never known about his true past. Shortly after this discovery, I was left a card by the FBI on my front door requesting me to call them. I agreed to speak with them and insisted that as far as we knew, "Derailer" never had evil intentions and that he had seemed like a really nice guy. I told them how I found the entire situation rather unbelievable and that anyone in CUE would tell them the same. There was no further questioning. (The truth was simple...If "9-11" had never have happened, it probably wouldn't have even made the news!)
I was then sent a letter by an attorney from the Chicago Transit Authority demanding that all of Derailer's unauthorized content and photographs be removed from the site. I contacted them immediately and complied. Lesson learned...Be careful about who you explore with and who you think you know!
