Aug. 18, 2026Updated Aug. 19, 2026, 3:58 p.m. ET
Authorities are investigating the Aug. 16 discovery of human remains at Lake Mead outside Las Vegas, the latest gruesome discovery there as the nation’s largest reservoir continues emptying.
Due to ongoing drought, Lake Mead has now fallen to never-before-seen levels, exposing new shoreline and uncovering hidden debris. Officials have recovered multiple bodies from the shrinking lake, including one found stuffed in a barrel in 2022.
The National Park Service in a statement said there is no indication that the most recent body found on Aug. 16 is suspicious. The park service manages public access to Lake Mead and the surrounding area. The Clark County Coroner’s Office said investigators are working to identify the cause and manner of death, along with the identity of the deceased found at Boulder Beach.
“A non-criminal, dead body report was taken for the remains,” the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told USA TODAY in a statement.
In 2022 ‒ when lake levels were a foot higher ‒ boaters discovered a still-unidentified body stuffed inside a barrel in the Hemenway Harbor area of the lake. Investigators said the man inside the barrel appeared to have been shot, possibly sometime in the mid-1970s to early 1980s, based on his clothes and footwear. At the time he was shot, Lake Mead was almost completely full and the water in the area would have been at least 20 to 30 feet deeper.
Authorities that same year recovered the body of a man who reportedly drowned in 2002, another man who drowned in 1974, and the body of a man who died of as-yet-undetermined causes after disappearing in 1998.
Experts say Lake Mead’s proximity to Las Vegas – 20 miles from the Strip as the crow flies – makes it highly likely that there are more bodies to be discovered in the lake, especially given the reputation of Sin City as a home for the mob. Authorities have also recovered firearms and sunken boats from the reservoir.
Lake Mead is also the final resting place of a surplus WWII B-29 that crashed in 1948. The lake’s receding waters are also uncovering ghost towns flooded when the Hoover Dam was built, along with prehistoric salt mines.
The lake began filling in 1935.
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