August 23, 2007
Cousteau and Tessie
The subject of Jacques Cousteau and Lake Tahoe has been talked about here on Cryptomundo in the past, for example, when it was brought up by mystery_man in the post Cryptomundo’s Ultimate CZ FAQs and in another post entitled Another Bowness Monster Sighting?.
What can be added on this topic?
Tom Stienstra of the San Francisco Chronicle, who has written his share of Bigfoot articles for the newspaper, said the following in his article Mysteries of the deep at Lake Tahoe.
Even famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau is said to have had a brush with something horrific in a deepwater dive in the mid-1970s. “The world isn’t ready for what was down there,” is the quote most commonly credited. Cousteau never released any photographs or data from the dive, adding to the mystery and legend.
Some believe Cousteau was talking about a Loch Ness monster-like creature that locals call “Tahoe Tessie.” Unlikely. But if I could get a loaner sub, maybe I could find out.
Many have told me that, if you were to take a submarine down 900 feet just off South Shore, you would see hundreds of bodies suspended in the water, preserved perfectly like an underwater wax museum, most wearing clothes from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.
The legend is that this is where the Mafia killers dumped bodies after executions. Some fishermen even call the spot The Grave. At Tahoe, many locals talk as if everybody knows about this, that there are lots of gangsters down there, wearing pinstriped suits, with sneers on their faces and bullet holes in their foreheads.
This makes sense. It has long been verified that Tahoe is a lake that does not give up its dead. That is because the lake is so deep, with an average depth of 989 feet, and so cold, with the temperature hovering just above freezing. So that prevents the creation of gases that would otherwise bloat and float corpses to the surface as in other waters.Tom Stienstra
San Francisco Chronicle
Gregory Crofton of the Tahoe Daily Tribune quoted Charles Goldman, a University of California, Davis professor who founded the Tahoe Research Group thusly in his article Scientist to plunge to floor of Lake Tahoe.
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.Gregory Crofton
Tahoe Daily Tribune
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Email • Facebook • Twitter •
Filed under Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Expedition Reports, Eyewitness Accounts, Folklore, Lake Monsters, Loch Ness Monster, Sea Serpents