Hi its Katrina!
From space shuttle debris to murderous weapons, here are 10 bizarre discoveries found in drained
bodies of water…..
10.
Echo Park Lake, California
Municipalities often have to drain bodies of water to clean them out to ensure they
drain properly, and that’s exactly what happened to Echo Park Lake in 2011.
It turns out the site had become a favorite place for people to hide things, and officials
were surprised to find the wide range of objects that were found in the 29 acre lake.
The $65 million project to revitalise the area found 20 park trash cans, 36 construction
cones, 7 shopping carts, 3 stereos, 6 skateboards and a pay telephone.
Ominously they also found 2 hand guns, which were sent off for testing to see if they had
been involved in any crimes, and one parking enforcement boot.
Most bizarre of all were two model boats that couldn’t cope with the calm waters of the
lake and, for some reason, an entire toilet.
9.
Tempe Town Lake
Tempe Town Lake was created in 1999 after a section of the dry riverbed of the Salt
River that passed through Tempe, Arizona was chosen to be the site of a large body of water
to help improve the water quality available to local residents and businesses.
It opened to the public on November 7 of that year, and soon became a local hotspot for
art installations and sports activities.
Initially the lake was built by using rubber barriers to keep water in the area, but this
turned out to be an unreliable design, so the city decided to drain the lake to upgrade
it.
The process of replacing the rubber barriers with a steel-gate dam meant that all the water
had to be removed, and some dark secrets of the area were revealed.
Among the usual trash that had accumulated in the waters, such as bottles, tires and
huge amounts of plastic- officials also found a number of weapons.
A knife, three pistols and part of another gun were all found in the mud and it looked
like someone had been trying to destroy the evidence.
On further investigation it turned out that one of the guns had been stolen, and there
were suspicions that they had all been used in crimes since the lake had opened.
Unfortunately the weapons had decayed too much to gain any definitive evidence, but
it just goes to show that despite how sure you might be that a lake bed is the perfect
place to hide incriminating evidence, there’s always a chance that it might be found.
8.
Canal Saint-Martin, Paris
The Canal Saint-Martin is one of the iconic waterways that flows through the 10th arrondissement
in Paris, but with increasing visitors to the area comes a higher volume of trash.
To combat this in 2016, a $11 million dollar project began to drain 90,000 cubic metres
of water from the canal, and the objects that were subsequently found surprised everyone!
After three months the water levels had reduced to just 50 centimetres, which allowed workers
to relocate 4.5 tonnes of wildlife, and then the remaining water was removed.
Cleaning crews were finally allowed to start work, and they removed; countless bikes, hundred
of chairs, a motorbike, supermarket trolleys, a fire extinguisher, dustbins, street signs,
umbrellas, suitcases, and a handgun.
While this may seem like quite a haul, officials were relieved at what they had found.
This was the first time the canal had been drained for 15 years, and the last time they
had found two 75mm shells from the first world war, gold coins, and at least 4 different
safes.
It's always a surprise!
7.
Castaic Lake, LA
After 4 dry years in California, the waters started receding in the local lakes, and all
sorts of treasures were revealed.
The national park service started issuing permits for people to visit a sunken B-52
bomber in Lake Mead near the Hoover dam, but it was the nearby Castaic Lake that revealed
something unusual.
So the story goes- in 1992 a federal agent was out boating with a friend.
He had put all of his belongings in a backpack, which fell overboard and was lost to the murky
depths.
When the water level dropped, though, a fisherman found the partially decayed bag- and inside
was the agent's’ badge, a calendar, an old newspaper, and his handgun.
Amazingly, local police were able to track down the agent after the discovery, and return
the items to him- apart from the gun that had rusted away and was disposed of in the
appropriate manner.
Which, I don’t really know what that means.
And now for one of the most troubling discoveries, but first!
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6.
Frederick, Maryland
The town of Frederick in Maryland is not somewhere you would immediately assume would be the
home of a bioterror scare, but in 2003 the FBI began to drain ponds in the local forest
because of some troubling discoveries.
In 2001, anthrax was posted to several media outlets and two Democratic Senators and was
responsible for the deaths of 5 people and the infection of a further 17.
This all began the week after 9/11 and sparked fears worldwide because of how easily the
deadly spores had been sent to people.
The trail went cold in the following months, but following a tip off in 2003, the FBI set
to work.
In the ponds that they drained, they found equipment that could have been used to prepare
the attacks, including vials, an airtight chamber with built in gloves, and various
other items.
While the perpetrator was never found, the discovery at least answered how the letters
were made, and why no evidence had been found any sooner.
5.
Lake Buchanan, Texas
In 2011 following a year-long drought, the waters of one of Texas’ largest lakes began
to recede.
Most of the lakes in the area are man made, so as their depths were revealed, eerie memories
of the past were exposed.
Lake Buchanan was formed after a dam was completed in 1937.
In the process the town of Old Bluffton was flooded and submerged under water.
While the residents had plenty of warning to move out to nearby towns, most of the infrastructure
remained, and was revealed following this drought.
Visitors soon started to arrive to explore the ruins, with the concrete foundations of
buildings that had been moved, and even the former baseball field becoming visible.
The creepiest things to be discovered, though, were the cracked tombstones that still lay
in the former cemetery next to coffin lids that were half buried.
Objects like medicine bottles, the remains of the local Texaco station and town well,
and a number of other artifacts were also uncovered- leading to more than 20 looters
being arrested for trying to remove them.
It’s a piece of history, and makes you wonder what else has been hidden underwater because
of man made designs.
4.
Hampstead Heath Pond, London
Hampstead Heath is one of the most famous parks in London.
It covers an area of 790 acres, and is used for a wide range of sports such as running,
swimming, and kite-flying.
It’s probably most famous for being one of the safest cruising grounds for the local
gay community, and was one of George Michael’s favourite places.
As with all parks, the Heath has a number of ponds, but when one of them was drained
in 2015 the contractors made a surprising discovery.
While carrying out maintenance on a model boat pond to improve dams so it didn’t flood
as much, the water was completely emptied, and revealed a rusty Ford Cortina and an unusual
metallic eagle.
Now, it might not seem so strange to find a car in a pond, but this one is nowhere near
any roads, and surrounded by parkland and trees, so the question remains, how did it
get there?
The City of London Corporation has been responsible for the site since 1989, and it is thought
that the car had been there since before then.
The Ford Cortina model was the best selling car in the UK in the 1970’s, having first
been available in 1962, so it could have been there for as long as 50 years.
There were no clues inside as to who owned the vehicle, which was barely recognisable
after being so long underwater.
The council towed it away and stored it as evidence just in case it was involved in a
crime, but it seems as if this mystery will never be solved.
3.
Lake Nacogdoches, Texas
Lake Nacogdoches is another one that saw its water levels lower during the drought that
hit Texas in 2011.
It’s located near the city of the same name in the East of the state, and is a popular
site for game fishing because of the presence of largemouth bass.
Residents found a very rare and unusual item in July of that year, that resulted in officials
from a government agency being called in to help.
On the lake’s edge, deep in mud, there was a large shiny object.
Upon closer inspection it seemed to be a spherical aluminium tank, about 4 feet in diameter that
was cracked across the top.
After news of this discovery spread, investigators from NASA were called in to take a look, and
it turned out that the metallic object was an important part of space exploration history.
It was, in fact, a cryogenic tank that would have been used to store oxygen and hydrogen
to provide electrical power to a space shuttle.
This particular one had been a part of Columbia, the shuttle that tragically disintegrated
as it was reentering the earth’s atmosphere in 2003.
Debris from the disaster fell to the ground across a huge area, and this particular piece
managed to find its way into the lake.
NASA took the debris back to the Kennedy Space Center, and announced that following this
discovery, there was only one other cryogenic tank that had still to be accounted for.
2.
River Soar Lock, England
River Soar is a tributary river of the River Trent in the UK and has been in constant use
since the 18th century when it was connected to the wider canal network of Middle England.
To manage the water flow, lock gates were built.
In 2015 the river was drained to conduct maintenance on these gates since they were of course deteriorating
after 200 years.
With such frequent use of the waterway, it perhaps comes as no surprise that there were
a lot of objects embedded into the mud at the bottom, with cleaners finding, amongst
other things, a car engine, beer barrels, bicycles and even a small boat.
Most surprisingly, though, was that they also found a number of looted safes- sadly with
all the valuables removed a long time ago.
Detectives were called in to investigate, and suspect that a local gang had used the
river to dispose of incriminating evidence after they had looted the safes from nearby
buildings.
We’ll probably never know what cool things were inside or who benefited from these crimes,
as they most likely died a long time ago.
But it sure makes you wonder what the thieves managed to get from the safes before getting
rid of them.
1.
Longyou Caves, China
Possibly the most bizarre thing to have ever been found in a drained pond was discovered
in the Quzhou province of China in 1992.
The locals had used the pond for washing and fishing for as long as they could remember.
Said to be endlessly deep, a group of curious villagers decided to get to the bottom of
the legend and began to drain the water out.
Rather than finding a bottomless pit, they actually found that the pond wasn’t actually
a pond but, instead, the flooded entrance to a series of ancient man made caves.
They then drained a further 23 ponds, with the same results, each of which revealed a
cavern that was about 100 feet deep.
The walls of all the caves are covered in carvings in a language that no-one has been
able to translate.
Historians have tried to trace the roots of them after they were dated back to the year
200 BC, but there’s absolutely no record of their construction, or evidence of the
tools or communities that may have built them.
It’s thought it would have taken a thousand workers to build them, which is no mean feat,
but with no clues as to the reasons for their construction, the mystery continues.
Thanks for watching!
Have you ever found anything strange in a lake or pond?
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