March 13, 2025 • 20 mins
Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe have been surrounded by dark mysteries since the beginning. Tales of entities that surround the bodies of water and are the ones responsible for the many disappearances in the water. We explore some first-hand accounts, along with some of the legends from the Washo and Paiute people that add to the significance of these eerie lakes.
You can find Edwin social media as @edwincov
Have an idea you want to send? Send me an email or DM! hello@horrorstory.com
Voicemails: fanlist.com/scary
You can get these ad-free through ScaryPlus.com free for 14 days, then 4.99 per month. Cancel anytime.
Get in touch on HorrorStory.com
You can find Edwin social media as @edwincov
Have an idea you want to send? Send me an email or DM! hello@horrorstory.com
Voicemails: fanlist.com/scary
You can get these ad-free through ScaryPlus.com free for 14 days, then 4.99 per month. Cancel anytime.
Get in touch on HorrorStory.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
On July twenty three, twenty eleven, a group of divers
was exploring an area of a lake about two hundred
and sixty five feet below the surface, and that's when
they spotted a body when of a diver with a
wet suit buckled into a weight belt and air tank
and everything. Confused at first, thinking that it might be
a member of their own group, they decided to get
(00:24):
some help. Eventually they find out what actually happened. It
was nineteen ninety four summertime on July tenth, when a diver,
Donald Christopher Windecker, was out having a dive in Lake
Tahoe along with a friend, which, by the way, this
lake can go very deep up to sixteen hundred feet
or a little bit more than that, making it the
(00:45):
second deepest lake in the United States, so divers are
not an unusual site around there. So anyway, these two
people were exploring for a bit, keeping an eye on
their equipment and pressure, before finally deciding to ascent. But
as they were ready to head back up to the surface,
there was a problem. Donald's friend noticed that Donald was
(01:06):
sinking quickly with this respirator out of his mouth. His
friend tried to help but he soon started running out
of air, so he was forced to surface. They attempted
to rescue him, but he was never found well until
this group of divers that I mentioned at first had
the encounter About four days later. Many submarine with the
(01:27):
claw was able to retrieve his remains on July twenty
seventh on the west side of the lake by Rubicon Point.
What was most surprising was that the diver was found
nearly intact, although completely motionless, in the lake, and to
this day they say that about four other divers are
unaccounted for. This brought up a lot of speculation about
(01:51):
the place and its many myths and stories that surround
Lake Tahoe, although one of them really stood out to
me stories of people that had been found there but
didn't disappear at Lake Tahoe, but at another location one
hundred miles away, Pyramid Lake. And if that's the case,
how does it happen and why is there so much
(02:13):
haunting history surrounding it, including the tales of spirits that
seem to lure others to their deaths at Pyramid Lake.
In this episode, will be exploring a bit of both
of them, the myths and haunting stories of Pyramid Lake
and some of the legends from Lake Tahoe places. They
say that I've witnessed murders, curses, and a reoccurring cast
(02:37):
of mysterious entities. My name is Edwin and here's a
horror story. Can you please research Pyramid Lake and Reno, Nevada.
I lived here for over twenty years and I've heard
about the water babies since i moved up here. That's
from an email from Lisa, the listener of the podcast.
(03:00):
Here's another one from Gina. So I am a tribal
enrolled member of a tribe located just outside Reno, Nevada.
There's a story of beings that occupy the lake. The
lake is called Pyramid Lake, and armed with these emails,
I started investigating, starting off in TikTok and Instagram to
find out more about these strange creatures, especially the name
(03:22):
water babies. And then when I started researching, I found
a string of terrifying stories of hauntings, missing people, and
mysterious drownings. So let's stay in this lake, Lake Tahoe
at first before we go to Pyramid Lake, because there's
an interesting legend that may quite literally connect both of them.
(03:42):
Here's what they say. Back in the sixties or seventies,
a famous underwater explorer, Jacques Cousto, got on a submersible
craft and made his way down to the depths of
Lake Tahoe. When he came out to the surface, he
was pale and scared, and they asked him why he
was so scared. What had he seen down there? He said,
(04:04):
the world isn't ready for the horrors I have seen.
Supposedly he was referring to the many floating bodies dressed
in period clothing floating along the depths of the lake,
a legend that with a quick search will return many
stories of people dressed up simply floating right there at
the bottom of Lake Tahoe. Some, they say, are Chinese
(04:27):
laborers who, instead of being paid, were thrown into the
lake in the eighteen sixties, while others are mafia victims
that were thrown in there to never be found. The
legends said that those who drown remain in perfect physical
state for decades. And you know, this makes a lot
of sense when you look back at the stories of
the was Sho Indigenous Native Americans who say that Lake
(04:49):
Tahoe's water would cause instantaneous death because it was so cold.
It served as a type of cautionary tale to be
careful of the lake I told you about. Donald Christopher
Windecker from Lake Tahoe was said to remain in an
amazing physical state despite being gone for seventeen years, and
(05:09):
this only brought the stories back to the surface. Although
an explanation to this that the lakes thirty five degree
water and the pressure at that death conditions that can
keep a body looking intact, even avoiding the crayfish because
of the wet suits that provide a barrier, seemed to
make some sense. But how do these stories still survive?
(05:29):
What about the famous underwater explorer and what he had
said that there are many humans in regular clothing completely
motionless at the bottom of Lake Tahoe. Researchers have chimed
in and consider them myths, although from what we saw
with Donald Christopher's wind Decker and his remains, they can
in fact remain intact after many years underwater. But now,
(05:55):
let's look at Pyramid Lake in Nevada, United States that way,
because there's a formation that looks like a pyramid on it,
but still over one hundred miles away from where this
diver was found. Pyramid Lake is in the Paiute Reservation
in Nevada. At its deepest point is about three hundred
and fifty feet and about one hundred and twelve thousand
(06:16):
acres large. It has underwater caves and natural structures that
you can see only from underwater, and it's known for
a rare species of trout, a large one known as
cutthroat trout, that people travel across the world to be
able to find. As I was researching the material for
this episode, I did not expect to find first person
encounters with one of the scariest stories of Pyramid Lake,
(06:38):
but one of the renal subreddits. There were a few,
and these are freaky, so get ready. A man and
his friends went out to camp at Pyramid Lake, taking
with them two tents in a trailer. They were having fun,
drinking and enjoying themselves when one night, after one of
them had too much to drink, told the others that
(06:59):
he had he had just heard a kid crying out
in the lake. Of course, he wanted to go out there,
literally swim out there and save the child from drowning.
The friends who were at the campsite were yelling for
him to come back. From the shore, but he kept
hearing the child screaming for help, so he kept swimming
out there. They could all hear the splashing and barely
(07:20):
be able to see him, until suddenly there was silence
darkness out toward the lake. Nothing could be seen beyond
the blanket of darkness over the water. The man never
came back to shore, and one of the theories is that
they could sense as of The man who went out
into the water kept thinking that he was getting closer
to the child, but really the boys kept luring him
(07:43):
out deeper and deeper into the lake, eventually making him
run out of energy and drown in the dark waters.
The man who lost one of his friends at the
lake eventually revisits in twenty fifteen with his son to
go fishing. They had talked about going for years, but
understandably the men didn't want to go. They were there
(08:04):
early in the morning, between five and seven. They were
waiting in silence for about an hour until they began
to hear strange sounds like moaning from the lake. They
looked around and couldn't find the source of it, and
they looked at each other. The man nods his head.
They simply keep fishing. This was shared by Reddit user
(08:27):
code mister underscore p on Reddit and the son of
the man who lost his friend at Pyramid Lake. Another
user with a now deleted account contributed with the following story.
He was out there at around three or four in
the morning to take his dogs out to do their business,
when out of nowhere he hears screaming and crying like
babies crying in the direction of the beach. He had
(08:51):
grown up there, so he knew what it was. They
got in the truck and left right away. If you notice,
both of these accounts have something in common, the mention
of crying, perhaps a child out in the water. The
explanation might just be exactly one of the eeriest legends
of Pyramid Lake, the water babies. Western Native American tribes
(09:22):
have folklore that can creep a lot of people out,
but this one mentioned spirits known as water babies, entities
that roam around bodies of water, appearing as babies, and
when they cry it means disastrous coming. But was it
water babies that these previous stories mentioned. Let me tell
you some of the folklore as viewed from different tribes
(09:44):
in the Great Basin area and others, the Paiute, those
that have the reservation where Pyramid Lake is on, say
that water babies are dangerous and mysterious spirits. They cry
like babies to lure victims into the body of water,
where they eventually drown. They say that some part of
the legend happens because malformed or premature babies were thrown
(10:07):
into the lake in order to keep the tribe strong,
where they now roam crying in agony, and a legend
from this tribe from the Owens Valley mentions water babies
as spirits that live in Owen's Lake, and in an
article from Boom, California, written by William J. Bower Junior,
for he mentions oral traditions and stories, also mentions a
(10:29):
scary story told by Susie Baker in nineteen thirty five,
saying that a giant approached the Alabama Hills and as
he reached them, he screamed. Everyone got scared and ran,
but some weren't fast enough, being picked up by the
giant and then killed. He wanted to take the victims
to eat at home with his wife. He then reached
(10:49):
another peak, Tinnemaha, one that overlooks the Owens valley and
screamed again. People ran and some didn't make it. But
when a water baby got tired of the giant screaming,
he waited at Owen's Lake, and when the giant got
near and started screaming again, he saw the water baby
waiting for him, lying on a rock. The giant then
approached the water baby and they started fighting, and with
(11:12):
incredible strength, the water baby grabbed the giant and threw
him into the water. Then the water baby jumped in
and dragged him to the bottom. They say that the
giant's bones are still there to this day. I'll leave
these links to the sources who can check out the
article and see the significance of this story, But to
continue with the eeriness of it all, the article also
(11:35):
mentions that the water is possessed. They say that water
babies are either seen as spirit helpers for healers or
has troublesome spirits. There's a story about a group of
children that were playing at Pasasaa known as Casa Diablo
Hot Springs today when a boy starts throwing rocks into
the water, and that's when a water baby pops up,
(11:58):
takes the boy and drags him under it. These stories,
aside from scaring us today, also warned their children about
the danger of playing too close to a large body
of water. For the was show those near Lake Tahoe,
these spirits were able to harm or kill people. They
(12:19):
say that near the southern part of the Lake Tahoe area,
water babies live in Cave Rock. Not just anyone could
visit the site, though, only healers those who could talk
with the water babies in hope of strengthening their powers.
But out of these tribes that I have found with
tales of the water babies, this one in particular has
some disturbing visuals. It comes from the Ute. The water
(12:42):
babies around Utah Lake and the Provo River are small
creatures with long black hair. They cry like babies and
force others into the water. The beings were feared for
this ability that they had, so once they dragged you
into the water, you would become a part of them,
and it would be your job to lure others into
the water. In a book by Anne M. Smith called
(13:06):
Youth Tails, she describes these creatures as being the size
of a man's hand or as large as a three
or four year old child. Also, in some cases the
size of a full grown woman. There was one story
from the tribe shared the daily Herald where a young
man goes to the river to let his horses drink,
(13:28):
but he was so tired that he fell asleep at
the bank of the stream. When he woke up, someone
was right next to him, a seductive woman in a
green dress. She tricked him into going to the water
with her, but not just on the surface. She wanted
him to meet her people, and he followed, but he
never made it out of the water. Maybe you're like me,
(13:53):
and when you hear about these stories, you try to
keep an open mind. But then you hear about giants
and a fight with a water baby, you think that
it can't possibly be true. And you might be right
or like to question why these stories survive? Why are
they told and re told if they don't make any sense?
I mean, they're legends after all. But that's where the
element of truth comes in, although it takes a bit
(14:16):
of work when you're coming in from the outside to
actually figure it out, like, let me just tell you
a little more about what I mean. Another famous legend
is about a mermaid that haunts Pyramid Lake. The story
goes that she was broken hearted, and due to a
chance encounter, a man from the Piu tribe meets the
mermaid and they get married. The tribe was not in
(14:36):
favor of this. In fact, they ended up banishing her
from the area, so she lurks in the waters, sad
and broken hearted. She also promised to seek revenge from
any of the tribe members that get close to the
shore of Pyramid Lake. She will cry and lure you
into the waters, and then you'll join the long list
(14:57):
of disappearances at the lake. So here's where the truth
comes in. Although many people go swimming and scuba diving
at Pyramid Lake, there are always an unfortunate few that
never make it out. Headlines of boating accidents, drownings, and
disappearances at the lake come up with a simple Google search,
(15:18):
but since it can be so deep in certain areas,
some of the bodies are never found. This in some
ways brings up the stories again and again. The curse
of the mermaids, the water babies, the tails just keep
being passed on. The peculiar mystery with this is that
they say that some of those who have disappeared at
(15:39):
Pyramid Lake are later found in lake Tahoe, and yes,
the two are connected by a river, the Trucky River,
but it's Lake Tahoe that flows into Pyramid Lake and
not the other way around. A body would literally have
to travel upstream. And I couldn't find any actual records
of this happening, but in a way, it's supports a
(16:00):
different idea. They say that ancient underwater tunnels connect the
two lakes, which if they exist, would be terrifying because
there are some stories of a water monster that lives
in Lake Tahoe, which could in turn make it easier
down to Pyramid Lake. I'm talking about Tahoe TESSI and
(16:21):
that was first spotted in eighteen sixty five when a
social lighte from San Francisco named Ic Coggan saw a
giant serpent like creature about fourteen feet wide and over
six hundred feet in length. The story's resurfaced in the
nineteen eighties when multiple reports of a creature in Lake
Tahoe came from multiple witnesses, including law enforcement talks of
(16:43):
a large, dark figure moving beneath a water's surface. This
account comes from Mickey Daniels, who was a Placer County
law enforcement officer and knows the area since he's been
fishing at Lake Tahoe since nineteen fifty nine, and he
believes that something is swimming in those dark waters. It
was around nineteen eighty five when he was out on
(17:05):
a boat when he was half a mile off shore
when he pointed toward the Nevada Casinos on the south
side of the lake. He couldn't believe it. Both a
passenger and him watched the waves split into a huge
v and then nothing. Since then he went out into
the lake searching for what he had witnessed once, but
(17:26):
he still believes that it may have been Tessi. Writer
George M. Eberhardt wrote a huge dictionary called Mysterious Creatures,
a Guide to Cryptozoology. This guide listed major sightings of
the monsters back in the nineteen eighties, including a man
who owned a local TV station who claimed he saw Tessi.
(17:47):
They were shooting a commercial at Zephyr Crove on the
Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Two actors were walking along
the lake. Six kids were out on a boat dock
when suddenly and eighteen foot skiff boats started rocking, and
that's when they saw it. A large, brown humped beast,
The kids screamed, and then they cut the footage there.
(18:10):
When asked about the footage later on, he said that
they destroyed it. Nobody really knows who they are. Perhaps
these monsters and dangers meant just to warn people to
proceed with caution, just like with the early map makers
that would note beyond here lie monsters when they didn't
have information about a certain area. The birth of these
(18:33):
ideas also spread because of a real fear that the
indigenous tribes believed, not just those who made those maps
and discoveries, like, for example, the oung, a prehistoric bird
that nested at the center of the lake, a creature
that children must stay away from because it could swoop
down and kidnap them. Even though these lakes are known
(18:54):
to be made up of clear water, they seem to
hide something, a type of darkness and low that surrounds
it from the start, an enormous landmark that demands respect,
that disappears people in its depths, that even those who
are safely camping by its shores will sometimes hear cries
from the water, being lured by those who ask for
(19:17):
help or by beauty, never be seen again. This episode
was written and produced by me Edwin ko Arubaz. The
huge thank you to a couple of emails at two
(19:39):
listeners of this podcast, Gina and Lisa, sent in about
the topic for the story. I have links to the
resources available if anybody's interested in reading up more about
the tribes and history that I found while researching the topics.
You can support me and this show by trying out
Scarry Plus, which is a subscription where you get these
episodes and her whole collection of podcasts ad free. It's
(20:00):
free for fourteen days and then four and any nine
a month. You can cancel any time. If you're following
this show, I will tell you another story next week.
Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary, every one.
See us soon.
On July twenty three, twenty eleven, a group of divers
was exploring an area of a lake about two hundred
and sixty five feet below the surface, and that's when
they spotted a body when of a diver with a
wet suit buckled into a weight belt and air tank
and everything. Confused at first, thinking that it might be
a member of their own group, they decided to get
(00:24):
some help. Eventually they find out what actually happened. It
was nineteen ninety four summertime on July tenth, when a diver,
Donald Christopher Windecker, was out having a dive in Lake
Tahoe along with a friend, which, by the way, this
lake can go very deep up to sixteen hundred feet
or a little bit more than that, making it the
(00:45):
second deepest lake in the United States, so divers are
not an unusual site around there. So anyway, these two
people were exploring for a bit, keeping an eye on
their equipment and pressure, before finally deciding to ascent. But
as they were ready to head back up to the surface,
there was a problem. Donald's friend noticed that Donald was
(01:06):
sinking quickly with this respirator out of his mouth. His
friend tried to help but he soon started running out
of air, so he was forced to surface. They attempted
to rescue him, but he was never found well until
this group of divers that I mentioned at first had
the encounter About four days later. Many submarine with the
(01:27):
claw was able to retrieve his remains on July twenty
seventh on the west side of the lake by Rubicon Point.
What was most surprising was that the diver was found
nearly intact, although completely motionless, in the lake, and to
this day they say that about four other divers are
unaccounted for. This brought up a lot of speculation about
(01:51):
the place and its many myths and stories that surround
Lake Tahoe, although one of them really stood out to
me stories of people that had been found there but
didn't disappear at Lake Tahoe, but at another location one
hundred miles away, Pyramid Lake. And if that's the case,
how does it happen and why is there so much
(02:13):
haunting history surrounding it, including the tales of spirits that
seem to lure others to their deaths at Pyramid Lake.
In this episode, will be exploring a bit of both
of them, the myths and haunting stories of Pyramid Lake
and some of the legends from Lake Tahoe places. They
say that I've witnessed murders, curses, and a reoccurring cast
(02:37):
of mysterious entities. My name is Edwin and here's a
horror story. Can you please research Pyramid Lake and Reno, Nevada.
I lived here for over twenty years and I've heard
about the water babies since i moved up here. That's
from an email from Lisa, the listener of the podcast.
(03:00):
Here's another one from Gina. So I am a tribal
enrolled member of a tribe located just outside Reno, Nevada.
There's a story of beings that occupy the lake. The
lake is called Pyramid Lake, and armed with these emails,
I started investigating, starting off in TikTok and Instagram to
find out more about these strange creatures, especially the name
(03:22):
water babies. And then when I started researching, I found
a string of terrifying stories of hauntings, missing people, and
mysterious drownings. So let's stay in this lake, Lake Tahoe
at first before we go to Pyramid Lake, because there's
an interesting legend that may quite literally connect both of them.
(03:42):
Here's what they say. Back in the sixties or seventies,
a famous underwater explorer, Jacques Cousto, got on a submersible
craft and made his way down to the depths of
Lake Tahoe. When he came out to the surface, he
was pale and scared, and they asked him why he
was so scared. What had he seen down there? He said,
(04:04):
the world isn't ready for the horrors I have seen.
Supposedly he was referring to the many floating bodies dressed
in period clothing floating along the depths of the lake,
a legend that with a quick search will return many
stories of people dressed up simply floating right there at
the bottom of Lake Tahoe. Some, they say, are Chinese
(04:27):
laborers who, instead of being paid, were thrown into the
lake in the eighteen sixties, while others are mafia victims
that were thrown in there to never be found. The
legends said that those who drown remain in perfect physical
state for decades. And you know, this makes a lot
of sense when you look back at the stories of
the was Sho Indigenous Native Americans who say that Lake
(04:49):
Tahoe's water would cause instantaneous death because it was so cold.
It served as a type of cautionary tale to be
careful of the lake I told you about. Donald Christopher
Windecker from Lake Tahoe was said to remain in an
amazing physical state despite being gone for seventeen years, and
(05:09):
this only brought the stories back to the surface. Although
an explanation to this that the lakes thirty five degree
water and the pressure at that death conditions that can
keep a body looking intact, even avoiding the crayfish because
of the wet suits that provide a barrier, seemed to
make some sense. But how do these stories still survive?
(05:29):
What about the famous underwater explorer and what he had
said that there are many humans in regular clothing completely
motionless at the bottom of Lake Tahoe. Researchers have chimed
in and consider them myths, although from what we saw
with Donald Christopher's wind Decker and his remains, they can
in fact remain intact after many years underwater. But now,
(05:55):
let's look at Pyramid Lake in Nevada, United States that way,
because there's a formation that looks like a pyramid on it,
but still over one hundred miles away from where this
diver was found. Pyramid Lake is in the Paiute Reservation
in Nevada. At its deepest point is about three hundred
and fifty feet and about one hundred and twelve thousand
(06:16):
acres large. It has underwater caves and natural structures that
you can see only from underwater, and it's known for
a rare species of trout, a large one known as
cutthroat trout, that people travel across the world to be
able to find. As I was researching the material for
this episode, I did not expect to find first person
encounters with one of the scariest stories of Pyramid Lake,
(06:38):
but one of the renal subreddits. There were a few,
and these are freaky, so get ready. A man and
his friends went out to camp at Pyramid Lake, taking
with them two tents in a trailer. They were having fun,
drinking and enjoying themselves when one night, after one of
them had too much to drink, told the others that
(06:59):
he had he had just heard a kid crying out
in the lake. Of course, he wanted to go out there,
literally swim out there and save the child from drowning.
The friends who were at the campsite were yelling for
him to come back. From the shore, but he kept
hearing the child screaming for help, so he kept swimming
out there. They could all hear the splashing and barely
(07:20):
be able to see him, until suddenly there was silence
darkness out toward the lake. Nothing could be seen beyond
the blanket of darkness over the water. The man never
came back to shore, and one of the theories is that
they could sense as of The man who went out
into the water kept thinking that he was getting closer
to the child, but really the boys kept luring him
(07:43):
out deeper and deeper into the lake, eventually making him
run out of energy and drown in the dark waters.
The man who lost one of his friends at the
lake eventually revisits in twenty fifteen with his son to
go fishing. They had talked about going for years, but
understandably the men didn't want to go. They were there
(08:04):
early in the morning, between five and seven. They were
waiting in silence for about an hour until they began
to hear strange sounds like moaning from the lake. They
looked around and couldn't find the source of it, and
they looked at each other. The man nods his head.
They simply keep fishing. This was shared by Reddit user
(08:27):
code mister underscore p on Reddit and the son of
the man who lost his friend at Pyramid Lake. Another
user with a now deleted account contributed with the following story.
He was out there at around three or four in
the morning to take his dogs out to do their business,
when out of nowhere he hears screaming and crying like
babies crying in the direction of the beach. He had
(08:51):
grown up there, so he knew what it was. They
got in the truck and left right away. If you notice,
both of these accounts have something in common, the mention
of crying, perhaps a child out in the water. The
explanation might just be exactly one of the eeriest legends
of Pyramid Lake, the water babies. Western Native American tribes
(09:22):
have folklore that can creep a lot of people out,
but this one mentioned spirits known as water babies, entities
that roam around bodies of water, appearing as babies, and
when they cry it means disastrous coming. But was it
water babies that these previous stories mentioned. Let me tell
you some of the folklore as viewed from different tribes
(09:44):
in the Great Basin area and others, the Paiute, those
that have the reservation where Pyramid Lake is on, say
that water babies are dangerous and mysterious spirits. They cry
like babies to lure victims into the body of water,
where they eventually drown. They say that some part of
the legend happens because malformed or premature babies were thrown
(10:07):
into the lake in order to keep the tribe strong,
where they now roam crying in agony, and a legend
from this tribe from the Owens Valley mentions water babies
as spirits that live in Owen's Lake, and in an
article from Boom, California, written by William J. Bower Junior,
for he mentions oral traditions and stories, also mentions a
(10:29):
scary story told by Susie Baker in nineteen thirty five,
saying that a giant approached the Alabama Hills and as
he reached them, he screamed. Everyone got scared and ran,
but some weren't fast enough, being picked up by the
giant and then killed. He wanted to take the victims
to eat at home with his wife. He then reached
(10:49):
another peak, Tinnemaha, one that overlooks the Owens valley and
screamed again. People ran and some didn't make it. But
when a water baby got tired of the giant screaming,
he waited at Owen's Lake, and when the giant got
near and started screaming again, he saw the water baby
waiting for him, lying on a rock. The giant then
approached the water baby and they started fighting, and with
(11:12):
incredible strength, the water baby grabbed the giant and threw
him into the water. Then the water baby jumped in
and dragged him to the bottom. They say that the
giant's bones are still there to this day. I'll leave
these links to the sources who can check out the
article and see the significance of this story, But to
continue with the eeriness of it all, the article also
(11:35):
mentions that the water is possessed. They say that water
babies are either seen as spirit helpers for healers or
has troublesome spirits. There's a story about a group of
children that were playing at Pasasaa known as Casa Diablo
Hot Springs today when a boy starts throwing rocks into
the water, and that's when a water baby pops up,
(11:58):
takes the boy and drags him under it. These stories,
aside from scaring us today, also warned their children about
the danger of playing too close to a large body
of water. For the was show those near Lake Tahoe,
these spirits were able to harm or kill people. They
(12:19):
say that near the southern part of the Lake Tahoe area,
water babies live in Cave Rock. Not just anyone could
visit the site, though, only healers those who could talk
with the water babies in hope of strengthening their powers.
But out of these tribes that I have found with
tales of the water babies, this one in particular has
some disturbing visuals. It comes from the Ute. The water
(12:42):
babies around Utah Lake and the Provo River are small
creatures with long black hair. They cry like babies and
force others into the water. The beings were feared for
this ability that they had, so once they dragged you
into the water, you would become a part of them,
and it would be your job to lure others into
the water. In a book by Anne M. Smith called
(13:06):
Youth Tails, she describes these creatures as being the size
of a man's hand or as large as a three
or four year old child. Also, in some cases the
size of a full grown woman. There was one story
from the tribe shared the daily Herald where a young
man goes to the river to let his horses drink,
(13:28):
but he was so tired that he fell asleep at
the bank of the stream. When he woke up, someone
was right next to him, a seductive woman in a
green dress. She tricked him into going to the water
with her, but not just on the surface. She wanted
him to meet her people, and he followed, but he
never made it out of the water. Maybe you're like me,
(13:53):
and when you hear about these stories, you try to
keep an open mind. But then you hear about giants
and a fight with a water baby, you think that
it can't possibly be true. And you might be right
or like to question why these stories survive? Why are
they told and re told if they don't make any sense?
I mean, they're legends after all. But that's where the
element of truth comes in, although it takes a bit
(14:16):
of work when you're coming in from the outside to
actually figure it out, like, let me just tell you
a little more about what I mean. Another famous legend
is about a mermaid that haunts Pyramid Lake. The story
goes that she was broken hearted, and due to a
chance encounter, a man from the Piu tribe meets the
mermaid and they get married. The tribe was not in
(14:36):
favor of this. In fact, they ended up banishing her
from the area, so she lurks in the waters, sad
and broken hearted. She also promised to seek revenge from
any of the tribe members that get close to the
shore of Pyramid Lake. She will cry and lure you
into the waters, and then you'll join the long list
(14:57):
of disappearances at the lake. So here's where the truth
comes in. Although many people go swimming and scuba diving
at Pyramid Lake, there are always an unfortunate few that
never make it out. Headlines of boating accidents, drownings, and
disappearances at the lake come up with a simple Google search,
(15:18):
but since it can be so deep in certain areas,
some of the bodies are never found. This in some
ways brings up the stories again and again. The curse
of the mermaids, the water babies, the tails just keep
being passed on. The peculiar mystery with this is that
they say that some of those who have disappeared at
(15:39):
Pyramid Lake are later found in lake Tahoe, and yes,
the two are connected by a river, the Trucky River,
but it's Lake Tahoe that flows into Pyramid Lake and
not the other way around. A body would literally have
to travel upstream. And I couldn't find any actual records
of this happening, but in a way, it's supports a
(16:00):
different idea. They say that ancient underwater tunnels connect the
two lakes, which if they exist, would be terrifying because
there are some stories of a water monster that lives
in Lake Tahoe, which could in turn make it easier
down to Pyramid Lake. I'm talking about Tahoe TESSI and
(16:21):
that was first spotted in eighteen sixty five when a
social lighte from San Francisco named Ic Coggan saw a
giant serpent like creature about fourteen feet wide and over
six hundred feet in length. The story's resurfaced in the
nineteen eighties when multiple reports of a creature in Lake
Tahoe came from multiple witnesses, including law enforcement talks of
(16:43):
a large, dark figure moving beneath a water's surface. This
account comes from Mickey Daniels, who was a Placer County
law enforcement officer and knows the area since he's been
fishing at Lake Tahoe since nineteen fifty nine, and he
believes that something is swimming in those dark waters. It
was around nineteen eighty five when he was out on
(17:05):
a boat when he was half a mile off shore
when he pointed toward the Nevada Casinos on the south
side of the lake. He couldn't believe it. Both a
passenger and him watched the waves split into a huge
v and then nothing. Since then he went out into
the lake searching for what he had witnessed once, but
(17:26):
he still believes that it may have been Tessi. Writer
George M. Eberhardt wrote a huge dictionary called Mysterious Creatures,
a Guide to Cryptozoology. This guide listed major sightings of
the monsters back in the nineteen eighties, including a man
who owned a local TV station who claimed he saw Tessi.
(17:47):
They were shooting a commercial at Zephyr Crove on the
Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Two actors were walking along
the lake. Six kids were out on a boat dock
when suddenly and eighteen foot skiff boats started rocking, and
that's when they saw it. A large, brown humped beast,
The kids screamed, and then they cut the footage there.
(18:10):
When asked about the footage later on, he said that
they destroyed it. Nobody really knows who they are. Perhaps
these monsters and dangers meant just to warn people to
proceed with caution, just like with the early map makers
that would note beyond here lie monsters when they didn't
have information about a certain area. The birth of these
(18:33):
ideas also spread because of a real fear that the
indigenous tribes believed, not just those who made those maps
and discoveries, like, for example, the oung, a prehistoric bird
that nested at the center of the lake, a creature
that children must stay away from because it could swoop
down and kidnap them. Even though these lakes are known
(18:54):
to be made up of clear water, they seem to
hide something, a type of darkness and low that surrounds
it from the start, an enormous landmark that demands respect,
that disappears people in its depths, that even those who
are safely camping by its shores will sometimes hear cries
from the water, being lured by those who ask for
(19:17):
help or by beauty, never be seen again. This episode
was written and produced by me Edwin ko Arubaz. The
huge thank you to a couple of emails at two
(19:39):
listeners of this podcast, Gina and Lisa, sent in about
the topic for the story. I have links to the
resources available if anybody's interested in reading up more about
the tribes and history that I found while researching the topics.
You can support me and this show by trying out
Scarry Plus, which is a subscription where you get these
episodes and her whole collection of podcasts ad free. It's
(20:00):
free for fourteen days and then four and any nine
a month. You can cancel any time. If you're following
this show, I will tell you another story next week.
Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary, every one.
See us soon.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!