From the realm of ‘too far fetched’ to be believed comes word that mem­bers of the UX, a shad­owy under­ground lounge.jpgorgan­isa­tion, have been cleared of charges in their dar­ing, but clandes­tine oper­a­tion to restore an antique clock at the Patheon in Paris. Accord­ing to Urb­an­Re­sources, the Unter­Gun­ther is “Swiss-French urban explorers team whose activ­ity is to restore the invis­ible parts of the her­it­age in total clandes­tin­ity.” This latest caper involved a year long pro­cess to secretly repair a huge clock in the Pan­theon which had fallen into dis­repair. Not only did they carry out this task undetec­ted over the space of a year, they built a lounge within the dome of the Pan­theon, wired into elec­trical cir­cuits clock.jpgand even installed a net­worked com­puter, all under the unsus­pect­ing nose of Pan­theon staff. When the Unter­Gun­ther cell fin­ished their res­tor­a­tion, they made the decision to reveal their work to ensure the clock received ongo­ing care. The Guard­ian has a story in Eng­lish on their acquit­tal.
The group were charged with tam­per­ing with a lock (their some­time means of ingress and egress) and the head of secur­ity for the Pan­theon took retire­ment. Des­pite the fact that the group has demon­strated the clock to have been fully restored, the staff at the Pan­theon have, for undis­closed reas­ons, chosen not to wind or cause the clock to oper­ate. Appar­ently the group is already at work on their next oper­a­tion. Encroy­able!