- Two Americans were reportedly found sleeping in the Eiffel Tower Monday morning.
- The pair "appear to have got stuck because of how drunk they were," Paris prosecutors told AFP.
Paris prosecutors told AFP that two American tourists were found sleeping inside the Eiffel Tower on Monday morning.
Before the Eiffel Tower opened to the public at 9 a.m., the men were discovered inside a part of the Parisian monument that's normally closed to the public, Eiffel Tower operator Société d'Exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE) said. Paris prosecutors told AFP that the pair "appear to have got stuck because of how drunk they were."
The pair had reportedly purchased tickets to enter the Eiffel Tower at 10:40 p.m. on Sunday, but instead of exiting afterward, authorities say the duo hopped a security barrier into a typically prohibited area between the tower's second and third floors where they spent the night.
Security guards woke the men early Monday morning and firefighters were sent to remove them from the tower, according to AFP. SETE told the outlet that it ultimately determined that the men "did not pose any apparent threat," but that it would file a criminal complaint. Neither Paris prosecutors nor SETE responded to Insider's request for further comment, made outside of regular working hours.
Both tourists were brought to a police station for questioning, AFP reported, and their discovery delayed the Eiffel Tower's opening by about an hour. Their overnight stay came just days after the Eiffel Tower had to be evacuated for several hours on Saturday due to a bomb threat.
The tourists' overstep is just the latest example of people misbehaving while abroad. This summer, on two separate occasions, two tourists were seen defacing the Colosseum in Rome. Another visitor to the city was recently filmed climbing the Trevi Fountain to fill up her water bottle.