Lake Mead gives up its secrets, including the dead

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Unlike Lake Superior that never gives up its dead, Lake Mead with its unusual dropping water levels during the summer of 2022, gave up many of its secrets, including those who'd been enjoying a watery grave for at least 40 years.

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New settlers arrived in the town of St. Thomas and farmed the land, growing the population to 500. The Gentry Hotel offered lodgings c.1880s (Source-Lost City Museum)

Lake Mead is located in Nevada and Arizona. It's a reservoir created by the Hoover Dam and the Colorado River, a project completed in 1936. In terms of capacity, it's the largest reservoir in the United States and has a surface area of 247 square miles. It provides water to 20 million people and three states in the Southwest.

In 2022, increasing water demand and drought brought Lake Mead to below full capacity since 1983. It was at 31% of full capacity.

During the construction of the Hoover Dam the town of St. Thomas, founded in 1865 by Mormon settlers was abandoned and flooded. It was a stopping point between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City along the Arrowhead Trail. The 500 settlers were forced to vacate their homes, and the last hold out left in 1938. The tallest structure lay under 60 feet of water, but the drought revealed the ruins of the ghost town.

However long before the Mormon's settled St. Thomas, there were other people who lived in this area. About 1,000 A.D., Native Americans came to the Moapa Valley of Southern Nevada, which would eventually become Lake Mead. The Hopi call them "ancient ones" or Hisatsinom. Archaeologists identified them as Anasazi or the Ancestral Pueblo People.

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On May 1, 2022 a barrel with human remains is strewn on the shores of Lake Mead

In 1827, Jebediah Smith found artifacts while exploring the area. These belonged to the Pueblo Grande de Nevada. In 1924, John and Fay Perkins stumbled across the ruins of the "Lost City". With the construction of the Hoover Dam, the Lost City was covered with water as well.

In 1948, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress which was testing a prototype missile guidance system known as a "suntracker" crashed and ended up at the bottom of the lake. There are also two small planes that are lying at the bottom of the lake as well.

There is an urban legend that a man was caught releasing alligators into Lake Mead not long after the B-29 crashed into the lake. Like the storyline of a cheap B-movie, the theory is that the alligators had grown too large to handle which is why they were released. The aviation fuel and possible radioactive fallout from the crashed bomber produced mutated alligators that grew so large they devoured all the fish in the lake.

In 2021, a woman and her family saw something mysterious in the waters at Echo Bay.

In 2009, a 3-1/2 foot alligator was caught in the lake at Sunset Park, and in 2020 a fisherman at the same park said he saw something pop up and eat a duck.

There are also stories about giant catfish at the bottom of Lake Mead, so large they could swallow a man whole.

Some believe that creature seen in the water is a beaver, but it's not been confirmed one way or another.

Since 1930, there's been more than 300 persons who have drowned at Lake Mead. Most of them were recovered and identified, but not all of them​


​In June, 2011 a man's body was found near Callville Bay in the Lake. It was Ruben Aguirre, 38, a boater who had been missing since May 31. 

​However all these discoveries, while interesting were documented, but after May 1, 2022 the receding water levels finally reached the tipping point where secrets could no longer hide in the depths of Lake Mead.

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Composite images of a man found dead in a barrel in Lake Mead. (Source-Clark County coroner’s office)

The first was a rusted barrel strewn up on the shore; a body crammed inside. There's good reason to believe the remains belong to someone who met with foul play, besides being stuffed inside a barrel that is. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said the man died from a gunshot wound, and based on his clothing and shoes he's been in the lake since the mid-1970s to early 1980s.

A few days later, a second barrel was spotted close to the Hemenway Harbor boat ramp not far from where the first one came onshore. It had a small hole in it which revealed it was empty.

By 2024, the man in the barrel was unidentified, and the coroner's office published a composite of what he looked like.

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Human jawbone with filling in the teeth

Before the end of the month, someone paddle boarding came across bones, which they thought belonged to a bighorn sheep. However sheep don't have teeth with silver fillings. That's when it became apparent the remains were human.

Located only 30 miles east of Las Vegas, many believe these might be victims of organized crime. Instead of a ride into the desert, it seems that a ride to the lake would be the last one you would make.

During those years, Las Vegas tried to downplay its connection to the Mafia, now tourists can pay to take a "mob tour". It's not a far stretch to believe these two discoveries are tied to Las Vegas mob violence.

Amid the discovery of the lost remains, others continued to lose their lives in Lake Mead. On July 6, 2022 the body of a 22-year-old woman was recovered after she disappeared while riding a personal watercraft. He cause of death has yet to be determined. On July 28, 2022, the body of a kayaker was recovered after he was reported struggling to retrieve an inflatable kayak that had blown away the evening before. This was near SCUBA Beach, and rangers had to suspend the search temporarily due to severe storms through the evening. The 31-year-old man was not wearing a life vest.

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Lake Mead has always been a popular spot for fishing and boating

In May, 2022 human remains were found and verified to belongs to Thomas Erndt, 42, a Las Vegas resident who drowned in 2002 while in the Callville Bay area. 

By August 15, 2022, four more bodies had been found.

One was identified as belonging to Claude Pensinger, 52, who disappeared in 1998. He went missing on a fishing trip with his brother. They had gone on separate boats and he failed to meet his brother at a location on the lake they agreed upon. It was believed he drowned despite being a Navy and Coast Guard veteran.

A fifth body was discovered up by the reservoir near Hoover Dam. Those belonged to Donald P. Smith who drowned in 1974.

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Todd Kolod, infant held by his father Daniel Kolod c.1956

As the remains were being recovered Todd Kolod, 67, said he believed the second set of remains found belong to his father Daniel, who drowned in Callville Bay in 1958 when he was 3 years old. His father's body was never recovered after he was thrown from a boat which flipped due to a wake. The boat the two men were riding in was found circling on its own about a mile from the drowning site, however Daniel Kolod, 22, was never found. The other man in the boat survived.

The remains discovered on May 7, 2022 at Callville Bay, were a partial denture which appeared to match Daniel Kolod's teeth. He had lost his front teeth in a car accident a year before his drowning and wore a partial denture.

Todd Kolod's childhood was not only marred by the death of his father, but he endured  a turbulent upbringing marked by his mother's drug abuse and homelessness.

DNA samples were taken to confirm the identity of the remains. The coroner said the person was aged between 23 to 38 years. Todd Kolod noted on his father's memorial  that following about his grandather: "His father was a mobster named Ruby Kolod, although there is no suggestion that Daniel's death was a result of foul play."

​In 1954, newspapers listed Ruby Kolod as one of the owners of the Showboat Casino and Hotel which opened that year. He was also one of the principal owners of the Desert Inn which was bought in 1967 by Howard Hughes. In 1965, Kolod was convicted of extortion in federal courts. He died in 1967, from a heart attack while awaiting an appeal to the supreme court for his conviction.

In 2022, Todd Kolod, who lives in Spain confirmed the remains matched his father's DNA.

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A speed boat, stuck in a vertical angle pokes out from the waters of Lake Mead c.2022

​In 1976, Johnny Pappas disappeared. He worked in the Las Vegas casino industry, and he had underworld connections to Chicago.

​​On the night of August 18, he left to meet two men who were interested in buying a boat he owned. It was kept at Lake Mead. Three days later, at the parking lot of Circus Circus, his vehicle was found with the keys in the ignition. Without proof he was dead, the news stories about his disappearance faded from the newspapers.

Unofficially, police thought Pappas' disappearance was the work of Tony Spilotro who was suspected of more than 20 murders linked to the mob. Made famous by Martin Scorsese and Joe Pesci, Spilotro died in 1986.

Could any of these remains be Spilotro's handiwork, or any others who became the victims of Vegas' dark underbelly?

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Lake Mead Corpse Water

An Ironic Twist 1974
Leo Duane Baird, 31, and his uncle Charles Black, 47, went to celebrate July 4th at Lake Mead. The holiday ended tragically when Black drowned despite his nephew's efforts to save him. At the end of the month, Baird returned to Lake Mead and was camping on an island in the lake. Later witnesses told the National Park Service they saw him thrashing around, before he disappeared below the water. It was at the same location where his uncle drowned a few weeks before.

Kathy Hobbs 
Kathy Hobbs, 16, a teenager from Las Vegas disappeared on July 23, 1987. She went to buy a magazine from a nearby grocery store. Nine days later her body was found by Rick Paculta a geologist working in a remote desert area near Lake Mead. This was 15 miles from her home. Her body was next to two large rocks that were splattered with her blood. Tire prints were found near the body. The coroner determined  she was raped and died from repeated blows to the head.

Strangely Kathy had premonitions that she would not live beyond the age of 16. She told her friends and family that she had a dream of being killed by a man with a moustache and a baseball cap. Her mother reported waking up around 3 AM on the night of her disappearance, feeling as though she had been hit on the head, followed by a sudden peaceful feeling.

An anonymous tip came into the Las Vegas Police Department 3 months after Kathy was killed. It gave details about the girl's abduction and murder, that could only have come from someone with firsthand knowledge. The tip included the abductor's car make and a license plate, also the name "Robbie". Unfortunately the tag number did not exist, and police never heard again from the caller.

Despite extensive investigations and several suspects, including Michael Lee Lockhart, David Middleton, and Gerald Gallego, no one has been convicted in her murder, and the case remains unsolved.

Lake Mead Corpse Water
Charlie Hanks the owner of the Blaspheme Boutique on the Vegas strip, who are purveyors of dark products, started to sell small bottles of what looks like dirty water, labeled "Lake Mead Corpse Water". The actual ingredients were a concoction of witch hazel, glass rocks, dirt and green mica.

Lake Mead recovered its water, and in October, 2025, it was noted that the lake had dropped to 1,041 feet in 2022, it was the lowest it has been since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s. 

​"Meanwhile, Las Vegas and the desert Southwest continue to endure the megadrought. The water shortage has continued since 2021, and scientists have warned that the region that drains into the Colorado River is just getting drier. The river is carrying 20% less water than it did before a megadrought that began 25 years ago."

According to Travis Heggie, a former public risk management specialist for the U.S. National Park Service, Lake Mead along with Big Bend National Park stand out as parks with a high potential for criminal activity because of their location. He suspects that not only what's left of the dearly departed can be found there, but the instruments that departed them from this life as wel

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Redstone Picnic Area, Lake Mead

In October, 2025 reports have come into the local police near the Redstone Picnic Area which is about 30 miles from Las Vegas and next to Hoover Dam. Thunderous booms have been heard coming from the canyons around Lake Mead. The sound is described as rhythmic and sound out in intervals. It's described like a giant metal door groaning. 

Some thought the noise was produced by fracking, but a local gas company said they were not carrying on any work at the time , or releasing any gas from its pipelines.

The exact point of origin has not been pinpointed. Others think the noise is caused by secret projects drilling underneath the Nevada desert.​ Area 51 is sits on the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) and is less than 140 miles from the site of the new noises recorded at the Redstone Picnic Area..

Previous to this there had been reports over the years from campers and boaters around Lake Mead who heard groans and strange rumbles.

According to a TikToker: "'It's the construction of the underground city they are building [to] prepare for what's coming to Earth."​

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