Angel Mendoza

Arizona Republic

For at least several months, members of a local scuba diving group have been putting a variety of large, unusual items at the bottom of Lake Pleasant that are used during dives.

The items include several prop skeletons, a 'Jason Voorhees' statue, Christmas trees, a poker table and even a Volkswagen, according to members of the group. The Voorhees statue, an eerie replica of the hockey-masked "Friday the 13th'' antagonist, recently raised eyebrows and garnered attention on social media within the Arizona Reddit community.

Zachary Nagy, a diver and member of a public Arizona scuba divers' Facebook group, said the unusual items are typically used as underwater markers by divers and are treated as personal projects.

“Almost everyone who dives at Lake Pleasant knows about it,” he said.

Maricopa County Parks officials who oversee the popular lake northwest of Phoenix apparently didn't.

After recently viewing the Reddit thread and a YouTube video of a couple divers interacting with the Voorhees statue, parks officials are working to retrieve the likeness of the movie murderer and possibly other items placed underwater by members of the diving group.

“We really have to be mindful and respectful of nature," said David Jordan, Lake Pleasant Regional Park supervisor. "That’s one of our biggest things.”

Reddit users express horror, speculate origins

"(Expletive) Terrifying."

That was the top comment left in a Reddit thread titled, "Someone put a Jason Voorhees Statue in an Arizona Lake."

The thread as of Sept. 11 had 32 comments and a YouTube video of the statue taken by scuba diver at the south end of Lake Pleasant. The thought of swimming into sight of the cinematic horror icon drew the interest of dozens across multiple subreddits.

Unlike most Reddit users in the social media thread, the two divers in the video were less-than-terrified of the masked, stiff statue — they swam close to its sides and one diver held up the camera as if they were going to take a selfie.

But where did it come from? And who put it there? Another Reddit user pointed to a public Facebook group, where answers could likely be found.

According to discussions in the Facebook group, titled "Arizona Scuba Divers," some of its 1,000-plus members have used the statue as both a diving location marker and a point of interest for several months.

Some members in the Facebook group have discussed placing other seemingly random objects in the lake.

A scuba community's interesting tradition

Nagy, 24, said he made the Voorhees statue and placed it in Lake Pleasant back on May 19. It's just one of many items that he said are still at the bottom, which include a poker table, chairs, four prop skeletons sitting in the chairs, a waterproof deck of cards, Christmas trees and a Volkswagen.

Why put things down there? Nagy said it's sort of a tradition for divers to add interesting objects underwater as part of a project when they get certified.

"There's not much out there [to see]," he said. “They put it out there to kind of practice skills.”

Johnny Sands, a longtime diver and member of the Facebook group, said he's personally seen an entire Volkswagen car at the bottom of the lake, among many other artifacts which he said have been placed there by people for years.

But he's not sure about how it got there.

"It's an old wives' tale," he said. "Somebody said somebody drove into the water with it and couldn't get it out and left it there."

Nagy himself, with some help, said he placed Voorhees statue in the lake several months ago during his night dive certification. He said the statue took weeks to make, and the inspiration to make it came from the ''Friday the 13th'' movies, in which Voorhees' fictional character inhabits an area around a lake.

There was some level of consideration within the scuba community about getting in trouble over this kind of thing, Nagy said.

“There has been thoughts of it," he said. "That’s why we put Jason down there at night, because we weren’t sure what the reaction was going to be. At first, when we put him down there we didn’t tell anyone we were the ones who put him down.”

Parks officials not amused

Dawna Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department, said on Sept. 6 when contacted by The Arizona Republic that she hadn't heard anything about the statue, even though it's likely been underwater for months.

But by Monday, Jordan of the agency had a response to the footage of the sunken statue. He called it “disheartening.”

“I was a little surprised to see something of that nature,” Jordan said. “There’s always a little bit of humor behind it but at the same time, we’re very much concerned about … trying to maintain clean facilities for people to enjoy.”

Lake Pleasant Regional Parks and Maricopa County Water District, on an unspecified date, will be sending divers to retrieve the varied assortment of items, which parks officials consider to be litter and trash, Jordan said.

What are the penalties?

The specific fees and repercussions for things of this nature vary by situation — mostly, it depends on whether offenders are caught in the act, and how egregious the offense is, Jordan said.

Anyone who is caught violating Maricopa County's park littering rule — which includes the act of "depositing or abandoning garbage, sewage, refuse, trash, waste, or other obnoxious material, except in receptacles or containers provided for such purposes," — could be guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor or evicted from the park, according to the County Park website.

Jordan said that his department tries its best to patrol for littering with the resources they have available, but there's a lot of ground to cover — the size of the lake can fluctuate from 3,500 acres to about 10,000 acres.

He said crews walk around the shoreline trying to pick up trash, but, "It’s a lot more complicated when you start talking about underwater stuff because it’s not as easily seen, so it’s one thing that we’ve got to really try to keep an eye on.”

While it's unclear as to when divers can be sent to find the Voorhees statue specifically, Taylor said there will be a Lake Pleasant clean up held on National Public Lands Day Sept. 22. She said the clean-up will involve an underwater scuba clean-up.

Nagy initially told The Republic that more underwater statues are planned at the lake.

When asked about the county's plan to do an underwater cleanup that involves retrieving the items, he said, "We'll have to see what happens ... it depends on what the park does."

This isn't the first time for Voorhees, skeletons

A Phoenix couple in 2015 claimed responsibility for placing fake skeletons at the bottom of the Colorado River. No charges were filed, and the La Paz County Sheriff's office allowed the props to remain "unless federal agencies have any issues."

A 2014 YouTube video shows another Voorhees statue placed at the bottom of a lake in Minnesota. The author of the video, Curtis Lahr, said in the video's description that the statue was planted in 2013, and built "by my good friend and dive buddy, Doug." Lahr could not be reached for comment.

Nagy said the Minnesota Lake Jason Voorhees statue was completely unrelated to his own project.

Reach reporter Angel Mendoza at amendoza@gannett.com, or follow him on Twitter @angelmendozaAZC or on Facebook.

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