Lake Monster Mysteries (7 page)

Many of the sightings were from considerable distances—often a hundred yards or more, a few at between a quarter and three-quarters of a mile, four at one mile, and at least one at two miles away, although often the distance was unreported. A dozen observations were made by the use of spyglasses or binoculars. Since the apparent size of the creature depends on how far away it is, mistaking either the distance or the size results in misjudging the other accordingly. If we consider other factors—surprise, poor visibility (such as nighttime sightings and viewing the creature while it was entirely underwater), and other problems, including the power of suggestion—the sightings are obviously suspect.

One shouldn't underestimate the power of what Rupert T. Gould (1976, 112–13) called “expectant attention.” This is the tendency of people who are expecting to see one thing to be misled by anything having some resemblance to it. For example, a log may be mistaken for a lake serpent under the right conditions, especially when reports of such a creature are common. Indeed, logs have actually been mistaken for the Loch Ness monster, and Gould (1976, 107) describes two instances in which “a pair of binoculars resolved an apparent ‘monster' into a floating tree-trunk” at the loch.

Perhaps certain Lake Champlain monster sightings can be so explained. One from circa 1886, for instance, said that the monster looked “like a long log or pole,” and a 1954 report described the creature as
“like a telephone pole in appearance.” Photos of “monster-shaped” driftwood at Lake Champlain have been published (Zarzynski 1984a, 99, 163, 171; Champ unmasked n.d.). In this regard, local fisherman Tom Forrest (2002) told an illuminating story: In 1998, he was with a group of people who were frightened by what they thought was Champ. However, it turned out to be a partially waterlogged tree trunk, bobbing and propelled by the current. It was nearly forty feet long with a root that resembled a monster's head.

A particular feature of Lake Champlain—an effect called a seiche—may help produce such sightings. A seiche is a great underwater wave that sloshes back and forth, even though the lake's surface appears smooth. The sloshing may dislodge debris from the bottom—logs or clumps of vegetation, for example—that bob to the surface as “monsters” (Teresi 1998).

Another likely candidate for some Champ sightings is a large fish. Champlain's chaousarou—clearly a gar—is an obvious possibility. Forrest witnessed a friend hook a longnose gar that measured approximately six feet four inches long and weighed some forty to fifty pounds. He calls this “the real Champ” and has dubbed it, appropriately, “Gargantua” (Forrest 2002).

Among other large fish in the lake are sturgeon, which are now endangered. They are generally in the five- to six-foot range but can grow to twice that size (Zarzynski 1984a, 98–100; Meurger and Gagnon 1988, 47–48). In fact, one couple who saw a six-foot creature in 1949 described it as possibly a large sturgeon. Although a sturgeon's length is insufficient to account for some other Champ sightings, the size can easily be overestimated. Multiple fish can also appear to be a single monster. Ronald Binns (1984, 205–7) tells of a young man who spied a fifty-foot sea serpent off England's Brighton beach in 1857; he later became a marine biologist and realized that he had actually seen several dolphins “swimming in line.” In this manner, two or more large gar, sturgeon, or other fish could easily appear to be a single multihumped monster, accounting for numerous such sightings at Lake Champlain.

Otters, which are playful and enjoy “chasing each other” and “following the leader” (Godin 1983), are especially prone to creating this
illusion and are often mistaken for lake monsters, as I discovered while investigating other cases. For example, Jon Kopp, a senior wildlife technician with New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, told me of a personal encounter in a duck blind on a lake in Clinton County. It was dark, and suddenly heading toward him was a huge snakelike creature making a sinuous, undulating movement. However, as it came closer, Kopp realized that the “serpent” was actually six or seven otters, swimming single file and diving and resurfacing to create the serpentine effect. “After seeing this,” Kopp said, “I can understand how people can see a ‘sea serpent'” (Nickell 2001, 102).

Otters, have been mistaken for monsters elsewhere, including Loch Arkaig and Loch Ness in Scotland (Binns 1984, 186–91) and, I believe, Lake Utopia in New Brunswick, Canada, and Silver Lake in Wyoming County, New York (Nickell 2001, 133–35, 92–103), among many others. The northern river otter
(Lutra canadensis)
measures up to fifty-two inches long and is dark brown with a lighter, grayish throat and belly but “looks black when wet” (Whitaker 1996). While treading water with its hind paws, it can extend its head and long neck out of the water, inviting comparisons with the extinct plesiosaur, which is so often mentioned as a possibility for Nessie and Champ (Binns 1984, 186–91).

In light of otters, consider this Champ report: On June 15, 1983, several people saw a thirty- to forty-foot creature with four humps in Lake Champlain off the site of Fort Cassin. However, as one witness admitted to the Lake Champlain Phenomena Investigation (LCPI), “It could have been one large creature or four smaller ones” (Zarzynski 1983). This concession takes on new significance when we learn that the sighting was at the “mouth of the Otter Creek” (although it is actually Vermont's longest river, it is otherwise aptly named as a habitat for the northern river otter).

A few miles away, Button Bay State Park naturalist Laura Hollowell showed me a drawing made by a young girl who had seen a “baby Champ.” Hollowell (2002) said, “People have seen otters and mink swimming in the lake and think they've seen Champ.” She is “surprised at what unreliable reporters people can be in terms of wildlife sightings,”
adding, “I don't believe that there are any large, unidentified animals in Lake Champlain.”

Keeping in mind eyewitness descriptions of Champ with horns, “moose-like antlers,” or a head “like a horse” (Zarzynski 1984a, 161, 165, 177), one cannot help but acknowledge other wildlife possibilities. Allowing for an overestimation of length—which is especially easy to do if there is a wake—swimming deer are an obvious explanation. Even some believers among Loch Ness monster hunters consider this the probable explanation for “horned monster” reports in their bailiwick. Indeed, when one photo of Nessie was enlarged, “she” was revealed to be a deer (Binns 1984, 45, 191–93).

Still other possibilities for Champ (and many purported lake monsters elsewhere) include wind slicks and boat wakes. A deckhand on the
Valcour
ferry told us that Champ reports had declined in the last fifteen years or so with the cessation of barge traffic on the lake. A barge's wake could travel all the way across the lake, he said, mystifying anyone who encountered it without seeing its cause and causing some people to imagine that they had glimpsed the fabled lake creature (“John” 2002).

In other sightings and photographs, additional culprits—including other swimming animals and marine creatures, long-necked birds, even rocks—may pose as a lake monster, along with toy models and manipulated images (Binns 1984; Nickell 1994). Considering all such factors, there is no compelling reason to postulate the existence of a hitherto unknown creature in Lake Champlain.

I analyzed the 224 sightings listed by Zarzynski (1984a, 152—205), minus the nonexistent 1609 sighting and nine completely undated reports. Interestingly, during the entire period before 1860, there was only a single recorded sighting—that by “Capt. Crum,” which was probably a spoof. After that, recorded sightings increased in the 1870s and 1880s (to fifteen and twenty-three, respectively), then declined again before shooting up steadily in the 1960s (fifteen), 1970s (fifty-nine), and 1980s (seventy until mid-1984). The reason for the fluctuations is uncertain, but if there were several large leviathans in the lake prior to 1860, as proponents believe, why was there only one highly doubtful sighting?
Why did the Native Americans not know about the creatures and tell Samuel de Champlain about them rather than the comparatively mundane chaousarou (gar)?

As to the rise in modern sightings (which is obviously much greater than could be explained by population growth), that might be due to the heightened expectancy caused by the number of articles, books, and other media reports on the subject. Loren Coleman (1983, 89) gives some credit to “the arrival on the scene” of Joseph Zarzynski, who gave those who had previously been ridiculed “a sympathetic ear.” That seems fair, but Zarzynski's and others' excessive credulity may have tipped the scales in the opposite direction, resulting in an even higher expectancy and thus helping to create something of a bandwagon effect.

This is supported by the tendency of the reported imagery to subtly conform to the concept of the day. For example, the term “sea serpent” was used in several nineteenth-century accounts but was effectively dropped afterward (except for a single journalist's use). The most prevalent descriptor overall was “huge snake” (or similar wording), but in modern times (after 1978), reports occasionally likened the creature to a “dinosaur” (Zarzynski 1984a, 152–205). This probably reflects the popular notion—after the widely circulated 1934 photo of the Loch Ness monster (Nickell 1994, 171; 1996)—that such mythical beasts resemble plesiosaurs. Michel Meurger, in
Lake Monster Traditions: A Cross-Cultural Analysis
(1988, 39), concludes that “Champ's modern fame is the product of local monster-enthusiasts in their efforts to promote their own legend along Loch-nessian lines.”

Not only is there not a single piece of convincing evidence for Champ's existence, but there are many arguments against it, one of which is that a single monster can neither live for centuries nor reproduce itself. There would need to be several in a breeding herd for the species to continue to reproduce over time (Myth 1972). Zarzynski acknowledges this, theorizing that a colony of thirty or fewer plesiosaurs has inhabited Lake Champlain since its formation some ten thousand years ago
(Teresi 1998, 92). However, with so few individuals, he worries that Champ is near extinction. In contrast, fellow monster hunter Dennis Jay Hall (2000, 15) insists, “There is a healthy population of these animals living in Lake Champlain. They are here for a reason; this is their chosen home.”

If so, then where is a floating or beached carcass or other certain trace of the fabled creature? Although there are possible reasons why a Champ carcass might be rare—for example, most deaths occur in winter, when the lake is largely or completely frozen over (Zug 1981)—there is no question about the existence of sturgeon, gar, otters, and other Champ look-alikes. And where are the bones that, as Gould (1976, 120) asked of Loch Ness, should have eventually covered the entire lake floor?

The burden of proof, of course, is on the claimants. Rather than meeting that burden, the Champ defenders are promoting a mystery and thereby engaging in a logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance: We don't know what these people saw; therefore, it must have been Champ. One cannot draw a conclusion from a lack of knowledge, and so, until an actual specimen presents itself, the possibility that any large, unknown animal inhabits Lake Champlain lies somewhere between extraordinarily slim and none.

Benjamin Radford

No live or dead Champ creatures have been found, nor any teeth, bones, or other hard evidence. Of all the types of evidence for Champ (eyewitness accounts, legends, and so on), the closest to real proof are photographic images. There are only a few photographs and videotapes purported to be of the Lake Champlain creature. The August 1982 issue of
Life
magazine featured two pictures supposedly of Champ, but they could be of just about anything in the water.

On July 7, 1988, boaters Walter and Sandi Tappan caught a possible Champ on videotape. They claimed that they were “able to see the head and neck of the animal. Sandi Tappan was particularly bemused
by the way the creature would turn its head and look her directly in the eye” (Kirk 1998, 135). Yet despite the eyewitness's firm conviction that Champ had stared at her, Champ researcher John Kirk, of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, examined the videotape and believes it to be “of feeding fish near the surface” (Kirk 1998,135). What one person sees as feeding fish, another sees as obvious (and detailed) proof of a close-up encounter with Champ. Having reviewed the footage myself, I agree with Kirk that it is likely feeding fish.

Following search efforts by diver Joe Zarzynski (1982, 1983, 1984b, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988b, 1989, 1992), the quest to find Champ was taken up in 1992 by Vermonter Dennis Jay Hall. He formed a nonprofit group called Champ Quest, whose goals include stopping the spread of zebra mussels and identifying Champ. Hall has collected numerous sighting reports and claims to have filmed Champ on several occasions. Images of Champ can be found in his book
Champ Quest: The Ultimate Search
and on his Web site. Though Hall's quest seems well intentioned, he indulges in dubious conjecture for which he offers no evidence, such as that humans have killed and eaten Champ creatures in the past (Hall 2000, 30).

Hall also claims that his father captured a baby Champ creature in 1976. According to Hall, the animal “looked like a snapping turtle would without a shell. It held its body well off the ground as it walked out of the water. The gait was that of a turtle. The tongue of the animal was forked and darted in and out as it tested the air.… The head was a cross between a snake and a turtle and was attached to a short neck. The body was slender with a medium length tail. The feet had five webbed clawed toes” (Hall 2000, xiii). Hall claims that the animal was preserved and sent to a nearby university that, unfortunately, was unable to identify it. The creature then found its way to a high school science department, where it remained until 1990, when it was accidentally discarded (Hall 2003). According to a writer for
Vermont Today,
another possible baby Champ was captured in 1945, when “a news story from Burlington reported: ‘Baby Sea Serpent Taken in Vermont Waters—May Be Offspring of Lake Monster.' A 14-inch reptile, taken in Shelburne Harbor, Vt.… resembled in miniature descriptions of the lake sea serpent,
giving rise to the pleasant supposition that it might be an offspring of the Monster of the Deep” (Porter 1970). The creature resembled a small alligator and was guessed to be a type of salamander.