Lake Champlain: NY's "Loch Ness"

e-mail | 08.04.03

[Coleus]

Since this hasn't hit commercial mainstream news (yet), let me fill you in on the details (so far); details that YOU can check out for yourselves.

Discovery Channel was doing a special on Champ, Lake Champlain's "Loch Ness Monster." They hired specialists to work on the project.  Articles about the project:

http://www.pressrepublican.com/Archive/2003/06_2003/0606200310.htm
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/Columnists/Sam/0718042653.htm

One of the specialists, Elizabeth von Muggenthaler, studies bioacoustics, and has published many serious scientific articles about the sounds of rhinoceroseses, and tigers, and giraffes!  Articles about some of her work:

http://www.animalvoice.com/sumatran_rhino.htm
http://www.aip.org/isns/reports/2001/003.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/giraffes021010.html

(She's real. She's done lots of stuff. She's done stuff unrelated to cryptozoology. AND she has lots of numbers.

While at Lake Champlain, her team recorded unusual sounds on several hi-tech scientific instruments. The sounds may be compared to beluga whales, but different. (There are no beluga whales, or other cetaceans, reported to be in Lake Champlain.) Link to preliminary results:

http://www.animalvoice.com/LakeChamplain.htm 

 

(This gives all those boring technical details, that can be checked by those who know.)

I'm not encouraging you to speculate about plesiosaurs and giant sturgeons and zeuglodons. I AM pointing out that SOMEthing made odd sounds recently recorded in Lake Champlain. There is multiple evidence from a credible source. People who don't "believe" now have to account for these odd sounds. (Anyone who cries, "Hoax!" will have to demonstrate how it was done, fitting all of the evidence.)  (You're on the internet. Look up zeuglodon on your own!

This link to a message board will probably continue to provide the most up-to-date info. Posters here usually provide links (...and colorful commentary :D#) about the info they provide:
http://www.anomalies.net/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=25;t=005984

[Coleus]

I received this in an e-mail and don't really believe in any of this stuff, i.e., Sasquatch, lock ness monsters, UFO's, etc. Ever notice they can never provide a clear picture. Anyway for those who are interested, enjoy.

[Rodney King]

I used to go to a little resort on Lake Champlain every summer. Of course, they were peddling this stuff 20 years ago.

[Coleus]

Sure, a way to keep the tourists coming year after year to be the first to photograph or see it. Just another tourist trap to keep the flow of $$$$ coming in.

[The Hon. Galahad Threepwood]

People who don't "believe" now have to account for these odd sounds.

Nope. People who do "believe"--and who wish to persuade others to believe--will have to show what made the allegedly odd sounds.

[PaulJ]

One of the most famous sightings of "Champ" involves an entire wedding party that spotted the monster while cruising on one of the paddle-wheel boats.(I have heard Paul Harvey report on this, myself). Well it just so happens that my family boarded the boat as that party came off (I have the home movies to prove it). I went to the captain and asked him if he saw the thing. He told me that it was a hoax concocted by the wedding party. They had wanted the captain to go along with it, but he told me he just couldn't.
Since then, I have always taken these reports with a grain of sand.

[IYAS9YAS]

Was Hitlery scuba diving recently?

[never4get]

People just shouldn't eat beans before they go in the water.

[ElkGroveDan]

SOMEthing made odd sounds recently recorded in Lake Champlain.

A tourist from Yonkers going for a swim after too many helpings of baked beans.

[Phsstpok]

I used to go to a little resort on Lake Champlain every summer.

Might it have been Basin Harbor, in Vergennes, VT?  My family stayed there several times in the late 60s to early 70s while my brother was going to Middlebury College.  It's on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain.  The golf course was fabulous, and I loved all of the odd little cabins (and big ones, too).

Here's a link to an article (I guess from 1985?) about a videotaped sighting of the "monster," known locally as "Champ" from Basin Harbor.

[ElkGroveDan]

LOL...great minds...

[Cyber Liberty]

I hope this isn't the latest in the efforts to have Lake C declared the sixth "Great Lake".

[tcostell]

Yeah, whenever someone tells me I must now disprove "evidence" I'm suspiscious. It really only proves that someone may be more clever than me at creating a believable scam. And since I don't work in that area, I'm probably easily scam-able.

You want me to believe? Tow it up on the beach and let me try a slice.

[Coleus]

and I bet the video is blurry.

[Rodney King]

Yeah, Basin Harbor. I was there every summer from like 1978 - 1990.

[Coroner]

Its true, I saw Champ from the air after I was abducted by the space aliens.

[Question_Assumptions]

They want it to be declared a "Great Lake" so it can dip into federal money spent on the existing "Great Lakes". If there wasn't any money in being a "Great Lake", I doubt they would care.

[Question_Assumptions]

Wouldn't this lake have been completely gouged out by a glacier during the last Ice Age? At the very least, it would have been capped by a heck of a lot of ice and debris.

[Coleus]

Yea, me too, you can get a great view from way up there.

[Cyber Liberty]

Well, yes. Of course they wouldn't care if there wasn't a buck in it somewhere.

[baseballfanjm]

I'm a proud tin-foil hat wearer! Yes, I believe that "Nessie", UFO's, Sasquatch's, chupacabras all exist. I swear, I caught a chupacabra once. Ate it for dinner. It tasted like roast moose with cheddar cheese.

Honestly though, I'm into this supernatural, tin-foil stuff. Part of me says that just some of it HAS to be real.

[Coleus]

Honestly though, I'm into this supernatural, tin-foil stuff. Part of me says that just some of it HAS to be real.>>>

Which part? LOL.

Who knows, when I can see a "clear" and unadulterated picture of anything maybe I'll change my mind. I wonder how a satellite can take a "clear" picture of a license plate and yet it can't find a big snowman or apeman. And why can't a person using a camera take a nice clear picture. Probably, because the one's they take are fakes. What happened to Art Bell? I used to be able to hear his show.

[Phsstpok]

Basin Harbor was a fun place. We stayed in several of the cottages and also stayed in a couple of the larger setups that were generally used for business groups or family reunion type gatherings.

While looking up the particulars I briefly got the impression that they might have closed down (they are no longer available to book online) but as of 2 weeks ago they still had a golf pro and were still booking the annual fly in for September. My wife is in the travel business and she's going to check for me. Wouldn't surprise me in the current economic climate, particular in the travel biz.

[Rodney King]

Hmm, I know that they were open 2 winters ago. I was driving through Vermont and remembered the way there and just sort of drove through. Of course, it's closed in the winter, but it was clearly still in operation.

[Phsstpok]

I think they just abandoned their on-line presence, but I'm waiting on my wife to check. It would be a shame for them to go away. I'd love to take my family up their for the fall foliage and to make a stop at the Dog Sled Inn for dinner (if that still exists).

I actually met one of the Beach family that owned the place (daughter?) when she gave me a lift from one side of the harbor to the other in her brand new Jaguar XKE hardtop !!! Man was I impressed (I was about 15). The biggest thing I remember was her complaining that she was restricted to less than 50 MPH while she "broke it in" and it was really getting to her!

[Phsstpok]

I looked it up. www.basinharbor.com is still up (must have been down earlier) and it's the Dog Team, not Dog Sled, and they also seem to still be in business, though under new owners (who keep the traditions, including ordering off the blackboard as you enter, so that when you sit down at your table they start serving... good food, as I remember).

[Rodney King]

It's too bad that it is under new ownership. Anyway all I remember from the food is the Prime Rib and the Beef Consome soup, both were fantastic.

[Phsstpok]

I remember the soup, the prime rib and the sticky buns, as well as the relish and dips while waiting for your table to be ready. Apparently they're viewed as worthy inheritors of the Joy family tradition (I think that was the name).

[baseballfanjm]

I'm usually suspicious and think most things are fakes. But still, you never know, and some of it could be more scientific then we think. The celocanth (sp?) was thought to be extinct for millions of years, when in fact they are still alive. And I don't think they were even rediscovered until some Indonesian fishermen were complaining of these large fish that tasted bad and were worthless for sale. Megamouth sharks, which are very easy to see as freakish sea-monsters, weren't discovered until 1976, and then it was by accident. If it weren't for the corpses that have washed ashore we wouldn't know of the existence of giant squids, another bizarre, frightening, sea-monster type creature. So really, not all of it is necessarily tin-foil hat stuff when you think about it. I mean, if there were legends of this huge, 40-foot tentacled monster that battled whales, without actual specimens, it'd sure seem like little more than any other monster legend.

[Coleus]

FYI, Just in the NJ news

Megamouth sharks, which are very easy to see as freakish sea-monsters, weren't discovered until 1976, and then it was by accident.>>>

Streams of Monmouth County yield some real sharp souvenirs
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2NDA5OTI0

Here, some of the preserved shark teeth are larger than a human hand.

Stand ankle-deep in these waters and you're traveling back to what scientists call the Cretaceous Period. From the period's dawn 138 million years ago to its end 73 million years later, the planet underwent tremendous change: Two great land masses had split, flowering plants had appeared, and the dinosaurs had died out.