Nessie not only lake creature
The mysterious Lake Champlain can be found along the border between New York and Vermont. Like Loch Ness in Scotland, the lake is long, deep and narrow. And like Loch Ness, Lake Champlain is supposedly the home of a strange creature that defies scientific explanation.
For centuries, the Iroquois nation lived, hunted and fished on the lake’s shores long before the white explorers came. The Iroquois told many tales about a great horned serpent that lived beneath its waters.
French explorer and navigator Samuel de Champlain arrived on the scene in the early 17th century. Champlain, for whom the lake is named, explored much of the Northeastern United States and Canada and started a settlement in Quebec. He is supposed to have mentioned seeing a strange creature in the lake that bears his name when he discovered it in 1609, according to a Web site.
For many years, things were quiet at Lake Champlain when it came to monster sightings.
Then in 1873, The New York Times ran a story about a railroad work crew putting down track near the lake in Dresden, N.Y. The railroad workers supposedly saw the head of an “enormous serpent” emerge from the water. For a few moments, the workmen were shocked by what they were seeing and then they ran away. The creature, in turn, swam away.
The workmen reported that the creature had bright, silver-like scales that glistened in the sun. The New York Times article said, “The appearance of his head was round and flat, with a hood spreading out from the lower part of it like a rubber cap often worn by mariners.”
Later that year, a small steamship loaded with tourists allegedly hit the creature and nearly capsized. The head and neck of the animal were spotted afterwards about 100 feet away from the ship.
In no time, the creature now known as Champ became more famous. The legendary showman P.T. Barnum posted a $50,000 reward for the “hide of the great Champlain serpent to add to my mammoth World’s Fair Show.” Needless to say, no one was able to collect the reward.
But the Champ sightings kept coming in though. In July 1883, the sheriff of Clinton County, N.Y. saw “an enormous snake or water serpent” which he said could be 25 to 35 feet long.
In 1887, a farm boy spotted the creature “making noises like a steamboat.” That same year, a group of picnickers in Charlotte, Vt. reported seeing a creature 75 feet long in the lake, according to the Web site.
The Champ sightings continued into the 20th century. In 1970, two witnesses traveling on a ferry across the deep, cold lake saw the creature. One of the witnesses said the animal was “dark brownish-olive” in color. The other witness said it appeared to be “a large snakelike creature, swimming with its head above water, held as snakes do, with coils behind.”
Other reports make it sound more like a plesiosaur. Plesiosaurs were prehistoric marine reptiles with long necks, a bulky body, four fins and a long tail. They have been extinct for some 65 million years.
But the most famous sighting happened in 1977. It also produced the most convincing piece of evidence about the creature’s existence.
Sandra and Anthony Mansi were visiting relatives in Vermont when they stopped along the Lake Champlain edge near the Canadian border. Their children played in the lake while the adults watched.
While Anthony went back to the car, Sandra noticed that the water was churning. As she watched in amazement, a huge creature with a small head, long neck and a humped back rose out of the lake. The head, which was 8 feet above the surface, moved from right to left.
When Anthony came back, he saw the creature too. Alarmed for his family’s safety, he got them out of the water and up the 6-foot lake bank. At this moment, Sandra took a picture with her Instamatic camera. A few moments later, the creature’s neck and head went back into the lake. The whole sighting lasted six or seven minutes.
The Mansi family put the photo away fearing that they might be ridiculed if it became public. But a friend who saw it contacted Joseph W. Zarzynski, founder of the Lake Champlain Phenomena Investigation and a social studies teacher.
Zarzynski was impressed with the photo and took it to George Zug of the Smithsonian Institution’s Department of Vertebrate Zoology. Zug stated that the creature in the photo does not resemble any known animal living in Lake Champlain. Other experts declared the photo was genuine.
So after all these centuries, people today feel that a strange creature lives in Lake Champlain. Like Ogopogo and Nessie, Champ sightings continue to this day.
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