In this week's Long Story Short, a local scuba instructor plans to sink a fake spaceship to join with a 500-pound cement turtle, an 18-foot fake torpedo and an Old Home bread truck so that his student
ZACH PLUHACEK / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2007 7:00 pm
It’s a big UFO.
Soon, it’s going to be at the bottom of a lake, where it will join a 500-pound cement turtle, an 18-foot fake torpedo and an Old Home bread truck.
“It’ll get a lot of looks going down the interstate,” said scuba diving instructor Larry Semler.
His plan is to drive the fake spaceship in a flatbed truck from a workshop in Lincoln and sink it in a lake somewhere near Kearney so his diving students can have something to swim to.
In the murky lake water, the white disk, which used to be an outdated satellite dish, should stick out enough. Just in case, Semler painted “Martian” hieroglyphics on in, installed reflectors and capped it with a plastic cockpit.
“It’ll really show up in the water,” he said.
On the last day of their final certification challenges, his students will have to swim to the UFO, or one of the other sunken objects in the lake, using a compass and a set of coordinates.
For those who chose to look for the UFO, they might wipe plants and mud off the cockpit and find an alien mask inside.
“This kind of thing takes the edge off,” Semler said.
Also, he said, “We’ve done a lot for fish habitat.”
The UFO will be suspended slightly above the bottom of the lake so fish can swim under it. Semler cut holes around the cylinder so small fish have a place to hide.
The main point, though, is fun—both for the divers and their instructor.
“In Nebraska, let’s face it, the scuba diving isn’t as spectacular as in the ocean,” Semler said. “You don’t teach scuba in this town to make money.”
Reach Zach Pluhacek at 473-7395 or zpluhacek@journalstar.com.