LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – Chase Petley rummages through the tool laden shelves in his garage and proudly pulls out a cylinder marked by shattered glass.

“This is one of my favorite failures,” he says. It’s one of the 15 or so remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) he’s designed in his quest to explore the bottom of Lake Tahoe.

“If anyone knew what I knew about the bottom of the lake and [has] seen what I’ve seen,” Petley says, “it would be crazy not to be putting your whole life into building the equipment and grabbing the people, like I’ve done, to go and explore and show people.”

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It was a curiosity that quickly grew into a decade-plus long project, now slated as a continuing YouTube series, called Mysteries of the Deep: Lake Tahoe with the first episode set to release Friday, September 5.

Going deep

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While deep water exploration is typically reserved for the ocean, Petley and his team believe freshwater lakes deserve just as much attention. Tahoe, its depths riddled with many questions, lore, and myths, made it a worthy place to explore.

“Nobody’s ever going to know what’s down there unless somebody tries, like Chase is trying,” Michael Cheeseman says, a seven-time Emmy winning cinematographer, who is documenting Petley’s exploration.

In order to show the world Tahoe’s mysteries, extensive engineering, design and tests must go into creating a vessel that can not only house a high quality camera, but also explore those depths for an extended amount of time.

“That’s not something,” Petley says, “we can go buy off the shelf, even if we had $10 million.”

Now on the 16th model in perfecting an ROV capable of such a mission, Petley, and the team, don’t grow weary or disappointed at all the models that have come before. Rather, they find themselves getting excited.

“I think the failures for us and for Chase,” Cheeseman says, “are just as exciting as successes because the failures give us more knowledge.”

But don’t let the broken cylinder or past models fool you, Petley has already reached and successfully filmed the bottom of Lake Tahoe on more than one occasion.

The continued ROV development is to hone his craft in creating what he calls a “camera taxi” that can explore deeper, longer and improve image quality.

As a full-time offshore underwater ROV pilot, Petley is gone up to a month or more at a time. Mysteries of the Deep: Lake Tahoe is something Petley does while off. A lot to manage, it’s his discoveries so far that continue to drive him.

The discoveries

There hasn’t been one camera drop into the water that Petley hasn’t discovered something surprising or beautiful in Tahoe’s depths.

These discoveries have included more than one boat lacking registration numbers, raising the question—just how old are they?

“I know they’re very old,” Petley says, “but I don’t know how old.”

Cameras have captured fish, including what could be two new species, a significant finding, considering finding fish at certain depths at all was unexpected.

“The scientists didn’t think that there was going to be larger fish swimming down there when I first started,” Petley says. “We know it’s completely pitch black down there and we’re seeing a lot of fish moving around quite well.”

Footage has even picked up a mysterious noise that the team has a theory on.

“I think it’s quite plausible that we might be able to prove,” Petley says, “freshwater life using echolocation to hunt and navigate down at the bottom of Lake Tahoe.”

A number of interesting geological features exists, including a 90-degree rock formation that causes viewers to scratch their heads.

“Could it be an old civilization down there? Could it just be natural causes? Who knows?,” Cheeseman says. “It’s something that’s very unique and interesting to just look at in general and speculate what it could be.”

Petley has also come across large cracks at the bottom of Tahoe, which he’d like to explore further to see if they go deeper than the currently known depth of Lake Tahoe, which is 1,645 feet. That depth makes it the second deepest lake in America, next to Crater Lake in Oregon.

Skepticism

Skepticism is something Petley and the team regularly encounter in their aim to uncover Tahoe’s mysteries.

“I think the skeptics feed the need,” Cheeseman explains, “for Chase and us to show the bottom of Lake Tahoe.”

The skepticism has not only come external to the team, but also internally.

“I was the biggest skeptic,” Petley recalls. “I didn’t think that there was any big life down at the bottom of Lake Tahoe.”

As an engineer with a scientific backbone, Petley took the hundreds of emails from people sharing what they believed to be below Tahoe with a grain of salt. But as he pursued the project, that skepticism started to fade.

“Through actually looking at the bottom of Lake Tahoe and exploring, I started to more and more realize,” he says, “there might be something to what these people are saying.”

Yet with all the sensational myths and legends behind what lurks in Tahoe’s depths, the team is dedicated to a science-based approach as they unravel its mysteries.

“We’re not chasing Bigfoot. We’re not chasing Tahoe Tessie, as intriguing as that is,” Cheeseman says. Mysteries of the Deep wants to show what’s truly down there to the community and world.

They’re collaborating with geologists, scientists and other experts to explain and verify the findings. That includes working with an expert in echolocation in Canada.

Petley is dedicated to transparency, and to do so, is working on live view capabilities so the world can see what they’re seeing in real-time.

“I get to show everyone why I think it’s worthwhile to dedicate my life to this,” Petley says. “When everyone sees what’s down there they will be motivated to protect the lake and hopefully,” he says, “I can inspire some kids to build things.”

Short clips are currently available on the Mysteries of the Deep: Lake Tahoe’s YouTube channel, Instagram, and TikTok. The first full episode starts at the beginning of Petley’s quest with the following episodes transitioning into his drop camera and ROV developments.