Did you test earlier to see if you had hit groundwater? The usual approach is to tie a weight to a string, lower it down the pipe and listen closely. It sounds like you're in clay now, but the key is whether you hit water earlier. In your case pulling the pipe up a foot or two MIGHT be the right answer.

Yeah, I hadn't hit any water yet....

Where I'm at - and put in shallow wells. Ground is all white sand.. but at water depth I'll hit a hard mineral pan. That's at the top of the water level. Suppose there's another mineral layer at the bottom of that river of water which is full of minerals.

I jetted 2 inch pvc down as casing, with not much effort except at that hard pan, then dropped the 1.25 well point assembly down... pulled back out the casing.

US geological survey shows 20 foot high river down there for this general area and water is 10 foot down, just like their surveys show.