Hi, it’s Katrina! From lost airplanes to missing limbs, here
are 8 strange discoveries that were found in lakes! 8. A TRANSPORTATION GRAVEYARD Lake Washington in Seattle is unique mainly
because of the sheer number of planes, trains, and boats found abandoned in the water, among
other things- making it a kind of graveyard. In June 1988, a 100-pound World War II-era
live bomb was discovered in the lake. The bomb is far from the only disturbing item
that has been found on the floor of the lake, however. In August 2014, KUOW journalist Sarah Waller
took a boat ride with five scuba divers who had previously mapped the entire bottom of
the lake using sonar. One of the first places within the lake that
Waller and the divers visited was the location of a large World War II-era bomber plane,
known as a PB4Y, which was a naval version of a B-24. The plane crashed into the lake shortly after
takeoff on August 26, 1956, when the crew of a routine naval training mission failed
to set their flaps, and sank in 175 feet of water. Luckily, the entire crew survived, thanks
to life rafts. A salvage effort to bring the plane out of
the water failed when a shackle pin broke and the plane was dropped back into the lake. To this day, it remains at the bottom of Lake
Washington, along with the remains of at least six other plane wrecks. Waller likened the lake floor to an “underwater
museum, a place where you can’t go more than a few feet without discovering something.” Near the middle of the lake, there are twelve
coal train cars, which are considered the oldest wreck within the body of water. They sank to the bottom of the lake 144 years
ago, when a barge traveling from Newcastle to Seattle met with a destructive storm, and
many of the cars remain upright and loaded with coal. There are an estimated 400 or so boats that
sit on the floor of a shallow part of Lake Washington, where the Lake Washington Shipyards
once were, including ferries, barges, and Navy minesweepers. As cool as these underwater pieces of history
may seem, there is a dark side to the contents of Lake Washington. Unfortunately, it has essentially become nothing
more than a dumping station for unwanted materials to many people. Some have even tried to sink yachts with concrete
blocks. Maybe for insurance? In any case, people are hoping that here,
things will just disappear. There’s also plenty of garbage in the water. 7. A GHOST TOWN Upon the completion of the Buchanan Dam in
1937, around 20,000 acres of land in the Texas counties of Llano and Burnet were submerged
by the rising Colorado River waters, including the town of Bluffton, which was located along
Old Highway 29. Some 50 families were forced to relocate and
sell their land to Lower Colorado River Authority. Although some agreed to to the transaction,
others didn’t, and the LCRA instead condemned their homes. A new Bluffton was formed about seven miles
away, but many people simply chose to leave the area. For around 75 years, the remains of the old
Bluffton remained underneath Lake Buchanan, the body of water created by the dam. In 2009, however, parts of the old town began
surfacing due to severe draughts. Boat tours of the exposed town are available,
depending on water levels at any given time, courtesy of the Vanishing Texas River Cruise. Visitors can see the old foundations of homes,
hotels, a school, and other buildings, several of which were moved before the area was flooded. Smaller objects have been found, as well,
including silverware, parts of an old desk, gravestones, and old medicine bottles. 6. MISSING CARS...AND PEOPLE In 2013, police testing sonar equipment discovered
two long-missing vehicles at the bottom of Foss Lake in Elk City, Oklahoma. One of the cars, which had gone missing on
November 20, 1970, was a blue 1969 Camaro. Tragically, the bodies of three teenagers
who had gone missing at the same time were found inside the car. The car had been purchased just six days before
the accident by a 16-year-old young man named Jimmy Allen Williams. The teen and two of his friends, Leah Gail
Johnson and Thomas Michael Rios, were the crash victims. The other car was a 1952 Chevrolet and also
contained a trio of bodies, who were also eventually also identified as missing persons. Thanks to DNA testing, the decades-old cold
cases were finally solved, providing closures to the families of the victims. Police did not suspect any foul play and the
incidents appear to have no connection to one another. All six drownings were ruled as accidental
by the state Medical Examiner’s Office. 5. A STONEHENGE STRUCTURE In 2007, a bizarre, seemingly ancient object
was discovered at the bottom of Lake Michigan by a team of archaeologists from Northwestern
Michigan University College, who were scanning the water for shipwrecks. Among the ruins was what appeared to be a
carving of a mastodon, along with a series of boulders arranged in a “Stonehenge-like”
manner. Despite the exciting nature of the discovery,
the scientists were hesitant to jump to conclusions. During a news conference featuring photographs
of the unexpected find, Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology from the college,
stated: “When you see it in the water, you’re tempted to say this is absolutely real. But that’s what we need the experts to come
in and verify.” If the petroglyph is, in fact, real, it could
be as much as 10,000 years old, reflecting a post-Ice Age era when mastodons and humans
lived together in what is now the Upper Midwest. In order to determine the authenticity of
the carving, petroglyph experts wanted to see the object for themselves. But because petroglyph experts typically don’t
dive, there were some initial complications with making the object available to them. Little information is available regarding
any further developments in the matter, so it’s probably safe to assume that it’s
still being studied. 4. A STATUE OF JESUS The mastodon carving and Stonehenge-like assembly
aren’t the only odd things that have been found at the bottom of Lake Michigan. There’s also a, 11-foot-tall, 1,850-pound
Italian marble statue of Jesus. It sits underneath 22 feet of water, at the
bottom of Traverse Bay, and boasts the title of the world’s only crucifix that is submerged
in freshwater. The sculpture was commissioned by a grieving
family in 1956, when their 15-year-old son died in a farming accident. But the family refused to accept the delivery
of the statue from Italy, because it was damaged. A member of a local diving club purchased
the statue with intentions of lowering it to the bottom of Lake Michigan in honor of
a fellow diver who had passed away. In 1985, after sediment began taking over
the statue, it was moved closer to the shore. A year later, the first public viewing of
the statue was held. It became an annual tradition to offer the
public a glimpse of the crucifix through a circle cut in the frozen surface of the lake. However, from 2015 until this year, the event
was canceled due to bad weather or thin ice. This January, people were finally able to
visit the statue again. 3. A MYSTERY AIRPLANE It’s fascinating enough to find an entire
airplane at the bottom of a water body, but when nobody knows where the plane came from
and can’t trace it to any known crashes, things get downright creepy! That’s what happened in September 2013,
when firefighters from the Charlotte, North Carolina Fire Department, who were using sonar,
discovered a sunken seaplane in Lake Norman. The plane, which was not visible from the
surface, was found near the deepest part of the lake, under 90 feet of water. To get a closer look, the fire department
sent divers down. They discovered that it was a single-engine,
single seat plane. The crew couldn’t get the doors of the plane
open, but searched thoroughly enough to know that there were no remains of crash victims
inside. One woman, Barbara Anderson, thought the plane
might be hers. Thirty years before the discovery of the sunken
seaplane, Anderson’s plane went missing. She ultimately learned that it rolled into
the water and sunk when flight instructors who were using it for training forgot to engage
the parking brake properly. Anderson had spent years and thousands of
dollars searching for her missing plane, to no avail. As of November 2013, the Federal Aviation
Administration was attempting to figure out who the owner of the plane was, and vowed
not to remove it from the water until that determination was made. Whether or not the owner has been reunited
with their plane remains unknown, as the story has remained conspicuously absent from the
news since then. 2. UNDERWATER TEA PARTY In May 2015, a concerned snorkeler called
the La Paz County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona regarding suspected human remains at the bottom
of the Cienega Springs boat launch. Now, that would be a scary thing to discover
during a leisurely swim! A diver was sent into the water to investigate
by the Buckskin Fire Department, only to discover that the skeletons, who were seated in lawn
chairs, were fake. Although the search was labor-intensive and
extensive resources were used to get to the bottom of the matter, the authorities were
relieved that the remains weren’t real. The dive was captured on camera and the amusing
footage of the “tea party” was publicly shared. 1. A PROSTHETIC LEG In 2016, a 49-year-old Green Bay, Wisconsin
man named Mark Warner lost his prosthetic leg when his canoe overturned during a fishing
trip on Range Line Lake in Wabeno. Although it wasn’t Warner’s “everyday
leg,” but an older one that he used specifically for outdoor activities like fishing, he still
wanted it back, and posted an ad on Craiglist in search of it. The leg was found in a creek just three miles
from where it disappeared by a pair of men named Elliot Fuller and Jason Franklin. At first, they panicked, thinking they had
stumbled upon human remains. Upon realizing that the terrifying sight was
a prosthetic leg, they took to Craigslist in search of its owner. The men found Warner’s ad, which was posted
20 days prior. Fuller and Franklin returned the prosthesis
to Warner and received a $50 reward for their good deed. Thanks for watching? Have you ever found anything strange in a
lake? Let me know in the comments below!! Be sure to subscribe and I’ll see you next
time! Byeeee!
