'Creepy' boat full of artifacts surfaces as water levels drop at Lake Mead during drought
Lake Mead, the reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, is drying up at a concerning pace following the drought across the United States. New footage shows an eerie boat that has been recovered from Lake Mead which contains many interesting artifacts. The YouTube channel Man+River posted a video of its scuba-diver-cum-treasure hunter, Dallas Rowley, along with other explorers stumbling across the old ship on the Lake's shore.
They were exploring the shores for about 20 minutes until they found the wreck in all its glory. They have been on the look out for interesting objects on the shores for about two days and call this ship their "creepiest" find.
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In an interview with Newsweek, the explorers talked about their find and why they started searching Lake Mead in the first place. "It still had all the eating utensils, telephone, and plaques in the rubble. We couldn't take anything since it's within a national park, but it was cool to explore and film," he said. "I originally wanted to explore the lake for two reasons. One, normally I strap on a scuba tank and go search for this kind of stuff underwater. With the water levels being so low, it was like a day of scuba diving, but with unlimited air! 2, I wanted to spread awareness about the ongoing water issues in the American west."
There were many interesting objects one could spot amongst the debris. An excited Rowley showed a nail polish to his viewers, asking them to guess how old it was. Other remains included an old phone, a US Yachting flag, and a plate which read, "On the order abandon ship, women and children first, follow your captain."
The video then includes chatter among the crew: "What happened to the women and children, I want to know... That's crazy. This is all so old, it's already disappearing into the earth. This is definitely recently exposed. We're only ten feet off the water line. And so this thing was underwater two months ago. And it's been underwater for decades." Rowley assumes the boat to be a tourist lighter but no one has confirmed this as of yet. Many other notable finds have been unearthed from Lake Mead. These include human remains and corpses and a World War II landing craft.
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The 'megadrought' in the Southwest has seen water levels drop to an unprecedented low, affecting the 25 million people who depend on Lake Mead as a water source. According to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller, the lake stood at around 1,042 feet above sea level on Monday, July 25. It is down about 25 feet from the same time last year in 2021 and 44 feet below its 2020 depth.