A preacher saw the so-called 'End Times' when a Texas lake almost dried up and turned bloody-red in the ongoing American summer but experts insisted that the searing drought merely deprived the water of oxygen, thus leaving thousands of fish dead and floating too.

According to a report by LiveScience on Monday, the phenomenal colour transformation of the lake, identified as OC Fisher Reservoir at San Angelo State Park in West Texas, was determined by state authorities as entirely caused by the works of a bacterium known as Chromatiaceae.

The report quoted Texas Parks and Wildlife technician Charles Cruz as saying that "it was pretty sickening going out there, watching lake levels just drop and drop and drop and seeing these nice trophy-sized bass just floating dead."

Authorities said that at least 75 percent of Texas is experiencing severe drought, resulting to receding water levels of lakes across the state, including that of OC Fisher, which Cruz said only last year was brimming with "with catfish, bass, sunfish and other popular targets for fishermen."

And as most of the water dried up, Chromatiaceae, which flourishes on oxygen-starved water reservoir, does it work was reflected on the new opaque-red colour of the West Texas lake.

Wildlife officials said they conducted a survey of the lake last year as Cruz told LiveScience that "we had a pretty good fish population out there," but as of last week, observers would see thousands of fish floating and virtually no signs of life.

Cruz said that the lake not only turned red but was also transformed into a small pond that reeked the stench of dead fish.

However, Indiana preacher Paul Begley has a different take on the Texas water that turned red, maintaining that the sign pointed to the likelihood of an apocalypse event as provided in prophesies backed by Biblical passages.

Citing the book of Revelation, Begley declared: "The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died ... The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood."