* Aug. 20, 2022, LAS VEGAS, Nevada: National Park Service officials have said that a fifth set of human remains were found in Lake Mead near Las Vegas

* The remains were discovered as water levels recede at record rates

* The discovery is the second time this month that remains have been found in the largest reservoir in the U.S., which was formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and supplies drinking water to millions of people in California, Arizona, Nevada, and parts of New Mexico.

* Lake Mead is drying up fast and some say that it is being drained from the bottom to keep the lights and party shows going in Las Vegas as long as possible. It could lead to serious water shortages in that region, and nobody can survive in hot climate for long without water.

According to the park service, the remains were discovered at Swim Beach in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area this week.

The Clark County Medical Examiner is working to identify the remains and discover the cause of death, the park service said.

Late last week, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said a gun was also found by a journalist and recovered in "close proximity" to the remains most recently discovered.

The remains have been spotted since May in three parts of the sprawling lake’s western corner, but nearly everything else about them is a mystery.

As the nation’s largest reservoir has dipped to record low levels amid a worsening drought, Lake Mead’s receding waters have revealed a grim series of discoveries — several sets of human remains.

They’ve all been spotted since May, at all times of day in three parts of the sprawling lake’s western corner, along a stretch of lakefront less than an hour from Las Vegas.

But nearly everything else about them is a mystery. One case is being investigated as a homicide; the manner and cause of death in the others are unknown.

"In an ideal world, the climate turns around, all the waters rise and we don't see them again," said Michael Green, a professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said of the remains. "But the chances are not good."

Timeline of Finding the Bodies in Lake Mead

May 1, 2022

The first find was perhaps the most ominous. The National Park Service, which manages the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, said in a news release that around 3 p.m. rangers found a barrel containing human remains in Hemenway Harbor, a section of lake where a local family claims to operate the largest private marina in the United States.

May 3, 2022

The barrel was discovered in the mud along a shoreline that appeared to have been previously submerged, NBC affiliate KSNV of Las Vegas reported.

Inside what a witness described to the station as a 50-gallon drum was person who seemed to have died from a gunshot wound in the '1970s or '80s — an estimate investigator with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department developed based on the person's clothes and shoes.

Although the reservoir wasn't known as a place where organized crime figures disposed of bodies, some local experts have said the killing bears the hallmarks of a mob execution.

"A barrel has a signature of a mob hit," Geoff Schumacher, vice president of The Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas, told the Associated Press. "Stuffing a body in a barrel. Sometimes they would dump it in the water.”

May 7, 2022

Six days later, at 2 p.m., a person at the park reported finding remains on the northwestern side of the lake, at Callville Bay, the park service said.

The agency described the remains as skeletal. Dan Kulin, a Clark County spokesperson, said in an email that they were from a man believed to be between the age of 23 and 38.

Officials were also comparing their findings to information about park visitors who have been reported missing over the years, he said.

It wasn't clear how many of the remains may belong to people who have drowned at the recreation area. According to data obtained through a public records request, 101 people drowned at Lake Mead between 2007 and last year, a number that surpassed any other cause of death at the park.

The National Park Service does not keep a running historical tally on all the people who've gone missing at Lake Mead. However, just in the last five years, there have been 30 confirmed drownings see more here

July 25, 2022

A third discovery came nearly two months later. Park visitors alerted authorities on the afternoon of July 25 to human remains at Boulder Beach, a popular stretch of shoreline known for swimming, boating and picnicking.

Kulin described the remains as "partial."

On the morning of Saturday, Aug. 6, skeletal remains were found in the same area, he said, and the coroner's office is trying to determine if the two discoveries are linked to the same person.

After watching a police dive team from Las Vegas search the lake's waters that Saturday, a local fisherman, Freddy Ramos, told NBC affiliate KSNV of Las Vegas that he was thinking of "giving up on the lake."

"I haven’t got any fish, and everywhere I go, there’s bodies," he told the station.

August 15

Nine days later, on a Monday night, more skeletal remains were found at the same beach, the park service said. The police dive team was again dispatched to assist in recovering the remains, which a visitor found in the water, and park officials contacted the coroner's officer.

October 17, 2022

The latest remains were found in Callville Bay after a diver saw what appeared to be a human bone on Oct. 17, a park spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News. It is believed the skeletal remains belong to a man who drowned 49 years ago.

Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, bordering Nevada and Arizona. It supplies water to more than 40 million people and has long been suspected as a place where the mob has dumped bodies of murder victims.

"Lake Mead is a spot people go to and disappear," says David Kohlmeier, a former Henderson police officer who now hosts a local podcast. "Over the years, a lot of people vanished there. If they were involved in criminal activity or suicide, police might find their car, but not the person." Most of these mystery deaths in the lake are still an unsolved murder mystery in Lake Mead as investigators try to solve the crime puzzle.

Aug. 9, 2022 read more