Lake Mead: shrinking waters uncover buried secrets and grisly finds

Drought has a way of revealing things. Receding waters can highlight the precarity of the crucial systems that keep societies functioning and expose hidden ancient cities.

A grueling drought in the American west has depleted the lake, a crucial water source for 25 million people, drying out tributaries, threatening hydropower production and closing boat ramps at the popular recreation site. It is now at its lowest level since the lake was being filled in 1937.

Officials expect more grim finds, and have already received calls from visitors about possible remains that turned out to be animal bones or prop skeletons left by local scuba divers years earlier.

A week after that discovery, two sisters paddle-boarding on the lake came across what they thought were the bones of a bighorn sheep, but which turned out to be another set of human remains.

Earlier this week, someone alerted park rangers to additional human remains, partially encased in mud, along a beach. The investigation is continuing, the park said in a statement.

This summer a sunken second world war-era boat began to jut out from the water. The Higgins landing craft, models of which were deployed at Normandy, was once used to survey the Colorado River and then sold to the marina before it sank.

The lake also covered archaeological digs, said Green, who teaches about the history of Nevada and Las Vegas, meaning there could be historical items in the water.