ANCIENT UNDERWATER PYRAMIDS!?!

Rock Lake, at some 1,300 acres

in western Jefferson County, is only about half the size of Pewaukee

Lake. Its water is murky, a screen of silt and algae stirred

up by the weather. Lake Mills, the town on its eastern shore,

has had several businesses with the word “pyramid” in their

names: Pyramid City Driving School, Pyramid Silo Services

and the Pyramid Motel. But you won’t see any pyramids

above ground. You have to look under the water.

The Lake Mills Chamber of Commerce

has promoted a legend that large stone structures

lie beneath Rock Lake, dating back hundreds of years.

The chamber claims Native Americans built pyramids in a

valley, hoping to end a drought, and the gods responded by filling

the valley with water.

The modern history of that legend

began in the early 20th century, when a variety of divers

and local fishermen reported seeing structures in the lake that

looked man-made. Most famously, Wisconsin diving pioneer

Max Nohl dived into the lake in 1937 and came across a

stone structure that “looked like an upside down ice cream

cone.” That’s according to the Rock Lake Research Society, a

group of divers, pilots and scientists that launched several expeditions

between the late 1990s and early 2000s, resulting in a

series of tantalizing photos but no conclusive evidence.

The society and other investigators

have enjoyed little to no support from mainstream scientists.

Former state archaeologist Bob Birmingham told the

Wisconsin State Journal that the tales in 2015

were “a bunch of baloney.” The just rock structures are

piles left by glaciers, Birmingham

In and others say. recent years, believers have used

sophisticated sonar systems to produce maps of such

large shapes as an 18-foot tall, tent-shaped stone pyramid

with a 60-foot by 100-foot base. Whether any of the objects

are man-made, they still don’t know. - MATT

HRODEY