When we were on the Black River searching for Shalim Shahjehan Augustine, we found several other items of interest. It’s common for us to see items on the side scan sonar imaging that are interesting and clearly out of place with the bottom of the river or lake. The water is a dumping grounds for so many items that people decide to dispose of.

Scanning the river near a boat launch along the Clinton Street bridge we saw a large object. It was unclear exactly what the item was but it was obviously big; possibly a boat. It didn’t give an image a car typically will. As you can see from the photos the top of the vehicle has deteriorated. This is why the sonar image was a questionable.

Bruce’s Legacy located the objects and gave the location information to the LaCrosse Dive Unit. They wanted to do the recovery of the vehicles. We traveled to LaCrosse so we could see what we had found with the sonar.

We were told it was an old Chevy van last registered in 1981. Dated too far back for there to be an active record of the owner. It’s possible this is Scooby Doos’ Mystery Machine.

Click on the images for an expanded view

The second car we located was underneath an old paddle boat parked along the river bank at Copeland Park. It was upside down, laying on its roof with the front of the vehicle facing the shore line.

Pulling the second car out posed some challenges in part of a steep wall and shoreline with large boulders. We waited around for several hours while they attempted to pull the vehicle out of the water. Unfortunately so much time had passed while they struggled to extract the vehicle, we decided to leave as it was getting late into the evening. Hopefully we will have some photos of the second car to post and share.

Here is a link to video while there….http://www.news8000.com/news/van-car-found-at-bottom-of-river/27102452