Man finds chilling package in reservoir after water level drops eight feet

Dropping water levels at a New York reservoir have led to a discovery that sounds more like a deleted scene from a crime thriller than a casual afternoon outdoors.

As the water at Silver Lake Park - on Staten Island - receded by nearly eight feet, areas usually hidden beneath the surface were suddenly exposed, drawing curious visitors into the basin to see what decades underwater might reveal.

One of those was a Staten Island native named Chris Sammon, who headed to the reservoir after local reporting highlighted just how dramatically the waterline had fallen. What he expected was the usual mix of old bottles and debris, but what he found instead immediately set off alarm bells.

Sammon noticed a bulky object sitting on a rocky strip of land that is normally submerged. The bundle, roughly the size of a coconut, was tightly wrapped in black electrical tape and attached to a large rock, clearly designed not to float away.

Chris Sammon happened across a bundle tightly wrapped in electrical tape (Chris Sammon)

Speaking to local news outlet Staten Island Advance, Sammon said: "I wasn’t entirely surprised to find something like that. While I did go out there looking for bottles or any bits of old treasure, I was kind of on the lookout for guns, weapons and things of that nature."

He added: "When I saw a big bundle of tape and realized it was a wrapped-up object taped to a large rock, I figured it was something someone wanted to hide."

After photographing it, Sammon carefully unraveled it and made what he believes is a chilling discovery. Inside were items that immediately raised serious questions about how and why they ended up at the bottom of the reservoir.

He later turned the objects over to police, who told him one of them was a starter pistol commonly used to begin races, alongside a pair of brass knuckles.

Cops believe the discovery was simply just a starting gun for racing - although Sammon does not (Chris Sammon)

But Sammon didn't agree.

He continued: "Why go through all of that trouble to wrap it up in a mile of tape and hurl it into a lake along with a large rock?”

"I would imagine it was probably used for robbery or something because in such a situation, no one would know the difference between a regular firearm and a blank gun."

While serving cops believed it was as benign as a gun used to start track races, an retired NYPD gun squad detective told the publication that the firearm appeared to a Ruger .38-caliber handgun.

"We’ll probably never know the real story," Sammon added.