After speaking with my friend, he suggested that the Cousteau/dead body
myth got started after a 1978 article in the San Jose Mercury News
newspaper that described University of California-Davis limnologist Dr.
Charles Goldman's excursion to Tahoe's depths in a submersible.

I can't vouch for this. Needs a bit of follow up, but at least it's a lead
for you.

The deepest depths of Lake Tahoe may soon be seen for the first time.

Tahoe Deep Blue -- a project involving a scientist, deep water explorer and a videographer -- aims to take a remote operated vehicle 1,645 feet to the bottom of Lake Tahoe in October.

What sits at the bottom of the lake is anybody's guess. At the very least the Tahoe Deep Blue team knows an old steamer, the S.S. Tahoe, sits 300 feet down 1 mile out from Glenbrook Bay. They also believe another steamer, the Comet, was scuttled in the middle of the lake.

But are the bodies of mobsters at the bottom, their feet encased in cement? Or is there a once Virginia City-bound stagecoach somewhere in the lake? Stories abound about what the frigid tomb of Tahoe contains.

"With all the crawfish in Tahoe I don't think we'll find bodies, but you never know," said Charles Goldman, a University of California, Davis professor who founded the Tahoe Research Group. "This unit is by far the most sophisticated I know of in terms of deep exploration. It's equivalent to the kind they used on Titanic."

The exploration project, a nonprofit venture, is scheduled to last about three weeks and happen in the fall when tourist numbers are down and the clarity of Tahoe tends to increase because there is less algae.

The project is estimated to cost about $250,000. Mike Conway, co-owner of K-MTN television at South Lake Tahoe, is in the process of tracking down people interested in financing Tahoe Deep Blue. He will also be in charge of videography.

"A group out of Silicon Valley is coming up (Tuesday)," Conway said. "They may toss in some large amounts (of money). A couple of billionaires have taken some letters of intent already."

Tahoe Deep Blue may become a reality in 2003 because the owner of Deep Seas Systems, Christopher Nicholson, recently became the sole owner of the remote operated vehicle, called a Max Rover, to be used for the project. It is worth about $1.4 million and is equipped with sonar that can detect wood and metal within 1,000 feet.

"It hits metal and it rings like a bell," said Nicholson, who used a remote operated vehicle to shoot video of the S.S. Tahoe in 1994. "The hope is that we can go out and locate unique and interesting sites and come back with an HDTV camera system on an underwater vehicle. That's like being there, looking through a pane of glass."

In 1979, Goldman went down 1,000 feet into Lake Tahoe in a submersible craft near Incline Village.

"It was quite exciting," Goldman said. "We made important discoveries -- that algae can grow in an area one presumed to be in complete darkness."

Goldman says in October he hopes to use the Max Rover to study fault lines in the lake, a landslide that took a chunk out of the West Shore and learn more about the movement of sediment particles.

Goldman said it is just a rumor that Jacques Cousteau, the famous underwater explorer, has been beneath the surface of Lake Tahoe. But a relative of Cousteau's did visit the lake at one point, Goldman said.

UC Davis in the News

1.15.2004

Tahoe World
On the trail of Tahoe Tessie: Dr. Goldman gives lowdown on lake monsters

by Melissa Siig, Tahoe World

Since man first started navigating earth's waters, tales of sea monster sightings put fear in the hearts of sailors. But reports of these creatures have not been limited to the world's vast oceans - they have also been seen in lakes.

Shaped like a giant serpent or water-borne dinosaur, these mythical beasts have brought fame to places such as Scotland's Loch Ness and Lake Champlain, which borders New York, Vermont and Quebec. Even Lake Tahoe reportedly has its own sea monster, Tahoe Tessie.

But do these creatures really exist? Dr. Charles Goldman, a limnologist and the foremost expert on Lake Tahoe, attempted to answer this question at the Resort at Squaw Creek last Thursday in a lecture, "USOs: Unidentified Swimming Objects." Presented by the Squaw Valley Institute, Goldman discussed his recent trip to Loch Ness and possible explanations for such mysterious sightings.

Last August, Goldman was invited to study Loch Ness by Professor Robert Rains, head of the Applied Science Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rains, a firm believer in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, used sonar in the 1970s to take strobed photographs of "Nessie." These photographs determined the creature was 20 to 30 feet long and had humps. While other photos of Nessie, such as the famous one showing a long-necked creature rising out of the water, have been determined to be hoaxes, Goldman said Rains' photos are more difficult to discount. One is of a flipper "that looks terribly authentic," according to Goldman, and another shows a 20-foot-long body and head.

Nevertheless, Goldman said, as with Loch Ness, most sea monster sightings tend to be in deep, cold lakes which produce mirages brought on by temperature changes in the lake.

"That is why people see things that really don't exist," he said.

Other mysterious sightings have occurred at Lake Manitoba and Lake Okanagan in Canada, Lake Van in Turkey and Nahuel Huapi Lake in Argentina's Patagonia region.

The difficulty with verifying the existence of lake monsters, said Goldman, "is that you can prove something is there, but you can't prove something is not there." Thus far, the search for a lake creature has yet to produce any concrete evidence, he said.

Twenty years ago, Goldman held a conference at the University of Nevada, Reno on the subject of USOs. A number of scientists there testified they had seen Tahoe Tessie. All Tessie sightings have one thing in common, said Goldman - no one ever sees the head or tail, only dark objects in the water. Based on this, Goldman decided to conduct a number of experiments. He created a photo of "Tessie" by capturing the splash from rocks thrown in the water. Another photo shows what looks like a series of humps in the lake, but in reality are only waves.

"You have a flat lake with no boats visible, but boats did pass hours before, and the waves come back and amplify," explained Goldman.

However, Goldman also gave another possible explanation for Tessie spottings. While the 11,000-year old Lake Tahoe is too young to have a prehistoric creature swimming in its waters, it could be the home of a very large sturgeon.

Sturgeon have been known to reach 1,500 pounds and live for up to 100 years, and could have been introduced into the lake with fish stockings over the years, said Goldman. With more than 5,600 prey fish in Lake Tahoe, a massive sturgeon would have plenty of food supply to sustain it. Just in case the existence of a giant Tahoe sturgeon turns out to be true, Goldman has given it a scientific name - Acipenser Tahoensis.

On the other hand, "Tessie" may just be a mistaken river otter or beaver, Goldman told the audience.

Goldman would most likely be the one to know if Tessie is real, since he is the only person to have been to the bottom of Lake Tahoe. In 1979, he descended 1,000-feet below lake level in a submersible vessel. All he spotted were 400-year-old tree stumps left over from a serious drought. Goldman said he hopes to get a better look at Tahoe's depths next summer in "Project Deep Blue." If funding is available, Goldman would use the same remote-operated sub employed by Rains in Scotland to explore Lake Tahoe's bottom.

While the existence of Tahoe Tessie is unlikely, the Loch Ness Monster is more probable. Since the Irish Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean through a series of lochs, technically something could swim in from the ocean, explained Goldman. Oarfish, the longest of all fish, is a ribbon-like fish that has reached 20 to 30 feet and 400 pounds. Although it lives at 700 feet, Oarfish have occasionally been spotted on the surface and been mistaken for sea serpents. However, this summer Rains flew Goldman over Loch Ness to look for Nessie's remains. The monster, who has not been seen in a while, is believed to be dead.

Le monstre de Cousteau

Puisque nous voilà sur le chapitre des prodiges aquatiques, profitons-en pour régler son compte au fameux "monstre de Cousteau", dit aussi "monstre de Djibouti". Régulièrement, quelqu'un y fait allusion dans un article de journal, ou dans le courrier que nous recevons à la Fondation. La fable est la suivante : en 1952, lors de son premier voyage en mer Rouge, l'équipe de la Calypso aurait aperçu près de Djibouti un animal fantastique, gigantesque, incroyable, qu'elle aurait photographié et filmé. Mais, pour d'obscures raisons, le commandant Cousteau refuserait de montrer ces images en public.

Cousteau ne montre pas ces images pour la simple raison qu'elles n'existent pas et qu'elles n'ont jamais existé... le "monstre de Cousteau" est une invention de journaliste. Comme la conversion du commandant à l'Islam...