The Legend of Champ: Exploring America's Loch Ness

Me at Champ Sign in Port Henry, NY 2018

This post was originally published May 20, 2019.

"I want people to know that this is real."

- Sandra Mansi

In the peak of the New England summer, the sun hovers over Lake Champlain’s rolling surface. From the shoreline, you see a figure rising from the water—its body, a dark shimmering mass. Its horse-like head stretches multiple feet over the waves, casting a shadow that is broken by the humps on its long back and the swishing of its serpentine tail. Easily a full length of 15 to 30 feet, the creature turns to look at you. It’s giant eyes watching, seeing you as you see it. Then it’s gone. Like a figment. A mystery in the depths of one of America’s biggest lakes.

Spanning 495 square miles, including the islands that sit in the northern part, Lake Champlain is huge. The water’s depth translates only into darkness on the surface. Waves rise and fall with the wind that chases its way down the Adirondack mountains and towards the Vermont plains. Lake Champlain has 587 miles of shoreline, dotted with harbors and homes. Its maximum depth is 400 feet, and its waters are home to over 100 species, plus or minus one very important creature, depending on who you ask.

Lake Champlain is America’s equivalent to Loch Ness, and the monster that’s said to dwell within it goes by the name Champ. Champ’s legend has been growing since Native Americans settled in the area. According to Iroquois legend, a Great Horned Serpent, looking like a wingless dragon, is said to lurk in lake waters. Though primarily mentioned to exist in the Great Lakes, the Great Horned Serpent has had its likeness projected onto Lake Champlain too. In fact, Abenaki and Mohawk tribes both claimed to see a lake monster in the water and are said to have purposefully tipped over canoes in battle, so the monster would devour their enemies.

Early reports of Champ include the lake monster charging boats and munching on cattle and children. While still an effective scare tactic for parents to keep their kids from swimming too far out, Champ’s current sightings exude less aggressive behavior. As the number of witnesses increased, so did the details of the encounters. Some claimed to see a serpent moving at railroad speed, while others witnessed a slow raising and lowering of a head. Approximately 40% of the sightings reported a neck emerging out of the water. The dimensions changed, so did the number of humps, and the creature’s color, but one thing remained consistent: it was monstrous.

The first documented encounter was credited to Samuel de Champlain in 1609. When the young explorer stumbled upon the lake, he wrote about a monstrous creature he saw in the water. A creature the natives called Chaousarou. His claims would spin a story that would spur hundreds of ongoing claims, but what Champlain really saw that day was unlikely to be Champ. His journals on the matter state:

“[T]here is also a great abundance of many species of fish. Amongst others there is one called by the natives Chaousarou, which is of various lengths; but the largest of them, as these tribes have told me, are from eight to ten feet long. I have seen some five feet long, which were as big as my thigh, and had a head as large as my two fists, with a snout two feet and a half long, and a double row of very sharp, dangerous teeth. Its body has a good deal the shape of the pike; but it is protected by scales of a silvery gray colour and so strong that a dagger could not pierce them." Volume 2, chapter IX, of Champlain's journal." (quoted in Meurger 1988)

In reality, Champlain penned a detailed description of what were likely gar pike, creatures far to small and common to be Champ.

210 years later, Captain Crum was in Bulwagga Bay, when he spotted a black monster 200 yards away being chased by two large sturgeon and a bill-fish. He estimated the creature to be 187 feet long with its seahorse-like head raised 15 feet over the water. It had large eyes, a white star on its forehead, and a belt of red around its neck. Crum’s recounting of Champ might be the... oddest of all the Champ sightings, but since then, claims regarding Champ have become more consistent and more frequent. While the monster reported today is not 187 feet long, it is still a force to be reckoned with at an average length of 26 feet. The horns from Native American legend have been lost in more recent sightings, and the star turned out to be a one time deal. But with more and more people reporting sightings of Champ, the credibility of its existence starts to get more serious. What if there really is a monster living in the lake?

Champ Beach in Port Henry, NY 2018

10,000 years ago, Lake Champlain was connected to the Atlantic ocean by a giant sheet of ice. When that glacier melted, ocean species migrated inland, creating the lake’s ecosystem that exists today. This happened in places all over the globe, leaving fossil evidence of sea creatures hundreds of miles away from the ocean, including a 12,000 year old fossil resembling a beluga whale that was found in Charlotte, Vermont in 1849 and was later dubbed the “Charlotte whale.” Perhaps a creature as big as Champ arrived in the lake the same way and has since adapted to the change in water temperature.

Or maybe the migration didn’t have to occur thousands of years ago for a monster to live in Lake Champlain today. The lake is connected to the St. Lawrence River via the Richelieu River and the Atlantic ocean via the Champlain Canal and Hudson River. Every so many years, Lake Champlain will completely freeze over. If Champ is reptilian or mammalian and requires air to breathe, it might not be able to survive an Adirondack winter. Instead, perhaps, Champ migrates every year, which would also account for the summer months being the peak time for sightings.

With whales and other ocean creatures migrating into the St. Lawrence every summer, it seems like a perfect theory. Except for all the dams and lock gates. Normal-sized fish struggle to migrate into the lake, and the chances of a creature like Champ making it in without a passcode is slim to none. But that doesn’t mean it’s entirely impossible. Harbor seals find their way into Lake Champlain every year. Being amphibious, seals can circumnavigate these obstacles by pulling themselves onto land. Meanwhile, Atlantic Sturgeon that live in the St. Lawrence are known to jump as high as seven feet. Their chances of hopscotching in and out of the lake would be bettered by extreme flooding, which is becoming a more common phenomenon between Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River. Although Atlantic Sturgeon are not found in Lake Champlain because they are not suited for freshwater like their lake counterparts, they leave room for speculation in the Champ migration theory.

​​Okay, maybe the idea of Champ jumping its way into Lake Champlain is tenuous at best, so a more popular hypothesis is that Champ is a creature who adapted to hibernate inside the lake during the winter. If this is the case, Lake Champlain is home to a few underwater caves that could be the perfect cozying spot for a lake monster. Unlike air, water requires a lot of energy to change in temperature. This allows species to hibernate inside a pond or lake without getting too cold. Turtles are one such creature, but when the winter ends, they are desperate for air and sunshine to reboot their systems. If Champ hibernates, how does it compensate for the a long season of low oxygen levels?

Fundamentally, Champ’s behavior is dependent upon its species, which is still yet to be determined. However, there are a few predominating theories. One is that Champ is a large fish, likely a lake sturgeon. Lake sturgeons are known to live in Lake Champlain and are the largest fish in its waters. The problem with this theory is that lake sturgeons prefer to stay near the bottom and typically only reach lengths of six feet—that’s 20 feet shy of the average Champ witness report. Even eels, which would match Champ’s snake-like body, only average three feet long.

Alternatively, Champ could be a pre-existing species scientists currently think is extinct. Over 40 years ago, in 1976, the previously thought extinct megamouth shark was discovered by a U.S. Navy research vessel. Before that, researchers discovered a coelacanth, a bottom-dwelling fish, alive and well off the coast of South Africa, when the last one was believed to have died out 60 to 70 million years ago. “Extinct” creatures are still being discovered alive today, and Champ may be no different. The monster believed to live in Lake Champlain may actually be an endangered piece of history.

One such piece of history is the plesiosaur. With remains found in Kansas, Mexico, England, and the Arctic, the plesiosaur is estimated to be as old as the coelacanth. It also happens to look exactly like the pervading image of Champ. Both have a long neck supporting a horse-like head and a long tail connected to a body with four flippers. Even the length of the creature matches the range of Champ, with fossil specimens ranging from 15 to over 40 feet long. The predominant problem in the plesiosaur theory is that plesiosaurs were reptiles and believed to be cold-blooded. In order to survive Lake Champlain’s fluctuating temperatures, their giant bodies would have to adapt to maintain a core body temperature. However, it should be noted that despite the plesiosaur’s classification as reptilian, it exhibited mammal-like behavior as well. For example, they were believed to give live births.

Plesiosaurs (photo by Dmitry Bogdanov CC by 3.0 text added)

Another prehistoric creature in contention does not face this same problem. The basilosaurus is a primitive whale that swam 35 to 40 million years ago. They’re no stranger to America either, with remains discovered in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Basilosaurs have a shorter neck than most eyewitnesses would claim Champ to have. In fact, it doesn’t have a discernible neck at all, but its snake-like shape screams lake monster. In 2003, Elizabeth von Muggenthaler and her team spent 8 days, listening to audio in Lake Champlain. They discovered an unique biosonar reading similar to a killer or beluga whale. While the biosonar evidence could not be connected to a known creature, it implies that an animal with an advanced brain was present in the lake at the time of the investigation. No more evidence came from this research, but it poses a lot of possibilities for Champ’s existence and survival. Could Champ be a whale or a primitive version of one, such as a basilosaurus?

Both plesiosaurs and basilosaurs required air to breathe, which creates the opportunity for surface sightings. It almost sounds like a done deal; that one of these two species has to be Champ, but nothing can survive without a breeding population, and this might be the biggest mystery in the Champ legend. How many Champs are there?

It’s impossible to know for sure, but likely not very many. Statistically, the more Champs there are, the more sightings. And while 300 plus sightings is a lot, that’s over the course of 400 years. The best way to understand the magnitude of the lake monster population is to understand the birthing behavior. The marshier, northern part of Lake Champlain would make for suitable nesting grounds, but nothing has been found to indicate a sizeable creature has been laying eggs there. Additionally, sightings of Champ on land are uncommon. One instance has been reported, seen by a woman in the middle of the night. She claimed to have witnessed a green Champ running from the woods into the water at her home. A week later, she saw a brown Champ doing the same thing.

The lack of evidence of Champ on land does not disprove the possibility of hatching births, but it could indicate that Champ is more likely to be a creature who gives live births. Both plesiosaurs and basilosaurs are believed to have undergone live childbirth, and a live birth would also suggest a smaller population and, therefore, fewer sightings. Cryptozoologists lean towards this theory.

Basilosaurs (photo by Nobu Tamura CC by 3.0 text added)

Of course, there is the possibility that Champ is a species unto itself. In the 1980s, Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans suggested that Champ was a pinniped with an elongated neck. More commonly known as seals, sea lions, and walruses, pinnipeds exude many of Champ’s suspected characteristics: flippers, air breathing, and a body big enough to represent a hump in the water. Seals are not uncommon in the lake or on its shore, as they enjoy spending time on land—something uncharacteristic of Champ. Unfortunately, the proposed long-necked seal dubbed “Megalotaria longicollis” does not have any physical evidence to support its existence.

Perhaps less exciting than the rediscovery of an extinct species, but equally viable, is the possibility that eyewitnesses saw multiple seals or otters frolicking in the water, mistaking them for a single, larger creature. Similarly, multiple fish or birds could be just as easily mistaken. Inanimate objects like a floating log can be misconstrued as Champ too. Identifying things in the water is to do because there is often no point of reference; a 10 foot tall object, 50 yards out could actually be a 2 foot tall object, 20 yards out. When people don’t have anything to compare a size to, they often grossly misrepresent the size of the object they are seeing.

This may have been the case with the infamous Mansi photo. While evidence of Champ is scant, one of the most famous lake monster photos comes from Sandra Mansi. One day in 1977 while travelling the shoreline somewhere near St. Albans, Vermont, Mansi spotted something in the lake’s water. Taking her camera, she captured an image of a creature she estimated to be 150 feet out, with an entire length of 12 or 15 feet and its head raised 6 feet above the water’s surface. The sighting lasted 4 to 7 minutes before the creature disappeared back into the water, but it lasted long enough to create a photograph that still can’t be debunked to this day.

But that doesn’t mean that people haven’t tried to debunk it. Multiple experiments and tests have been run on the picture, resulting in more speculation and even more questions. Dr. B. Roy Frieden examined the photo for tampering by looking for discrepancies in the wave patterns, which would occur if the image was superimposed onto another one. After finding nothing to suggest tampering, he used an advanced program to convert the picture into a digital form. He examined different parts of the photograph, looking for pulleys, ropes, or other suspicious objects but found nothing. He did, however, note a horizontal streak he suggested was a sandbar, but he did not believe the object Mansi saw was a hoax.

Because there was no point of reference in the Mansi photo to measure the size of the object, the analysis by Paul H. LeBlond attempted to measure the waves instead. Using his best guesstimations on wind speed, fetch, wave height, and wave period, his analysis led to varied results that gave a wide margin of error, suggesting that the object in Mansi’s photo was 16 to 56 feet long. He attempted to recreate this analysis on the famous Loch Ness photo and concluded that image showed Nessie’s head four feet above the water. LeBlond’s credibility on the matter deteriorated when the Loch Ness photo was revealed to be a hoax, created with an object one foot above the waterline.

The Radford analysis took a more thorough approach by attempting to recreate the picture. Radford noted that the position of the head and the hump put the creature in an awkward, even unnatural, position. He surmised that the hump on the creature was actually the head’s shadow, which matched Mansi’s claims that the picture was taken around noon. Using the same camera model Mansi used, Radford went where Mansi claimed she saw the creature and took pictures of a pole marker 150 feet out in the water, raising the height in one foot intervals. Even standing 8 feet above the shoreline where Mansi said she had been, the pole marker only reached just above 3 feet before most accurately resembling Mansi’s photo. This experiment resulted in Radford concluding that Mansi overestimated the size of the object and what she probably took a picture of was merely a floating log.

But Mansi’s photo can only provide so much to work with. Mansi did not keep the negatives of her picture, so there is no way to validate that it is free of tampering. Mansi also could not remember the exact location she took the picture or provide other pictures from the same camera roll. Like Champ itself, the greatest evidence for Lake Champlain’s monster continues to be shrouded in mystery.

Lake Champlain from Burlington, VT 2018

The speculation surrounding Champ is abundant, especially with over 300 reported sightings. For some people, the question isn't whether or not Champ exists but how. With nearly 100 species of fish, there is an abundance of opportunity for food, and if Champ resembles an ancient reptile or mammal, such as the plesiosaur or basilosaurus, this could explain the lack of nesting grounds and the need for surface encounters to breathe. But all this is detriment to the idea that Champ may be a permanent resident of Lake Champlain, which occasionally ices over in the winter. And what is to be said of when Champ dies? There is no knowing if the Champ seen hundreds of years ago is the same one spotted today; in fact, the lifespans of plesiosaurs and basilosaurs are unknown. What scientists do know, is that the oldest living marine animals like lake sturgeon can live 150 years, while the longest living eel tapped out at 155, and the oldest whale reported was a bowhead whale at 211 years old. If Native Americans did see Champ in the lake 400 years ago, it probably wouldn’t be the same Champ people are seeing today. And yet, the lack of a discovered Champ carcass may not hold a lot of weight in the plight to identify the existence of this creature, as large animal carcasses often don’t surface. Even if a Champ has died in Lake Champlain’s water, it would not have anywhere to go. The lake does not have any wide and sandy beaches for the body to land upon, nor regular tidal surges that would carry the body ashore. If Champ was to die in the winter, the icing would keep the body in the water and victim to the hungry organisms below.

Despite—or perhaps because of—Champ’s mysterious nature, Lake Champlain’s resident monster has become a high profile creature. In 1873 and 1887, P.T. Barnum offered $50,000 and $20,000 respectively (the modern equivalent of over $1,000,000 and $500,000) for the capture of Champ: dead or alive. Since then, Champ has been protected as an endangered species under New York and Vermont Law. So put those fishing rods away.

While sightings have occurred for hundreds of years now, research on the lake for Champ is relatively new. That being said, multiple parties have set out to map the entire lake with side-scan sonar, including some Middlebury College students who discovered zero lake monsters. Other researchers have taken use of underwater cameras and recorders to scout the lake and the surrounding area. But research is not without its shortfalls. With the size of Lake Champlain, sonar is the most efficient and convenient way to survey. However, sonar is not an absolute indication of size, but instead indicates variation in density. This could mean that a large object could really be a school of fish swimming closely together, and if Champ echolocates, sonar and general motor boating could cause it to swim the other way. The best way to find Champ may just be waiting and watching.

As sightings increase, the story of Champ has blossomed into a tourist attraction. Everyone around Lake Champlain knows of Champ, whether they believe the creature is real or not. The Vermont Lake Monsters embraced the local cryptid as their mascot, and every summer, Port Henry puts on the Annual Champ Day Celebration. Over the past few decades, Champ’s name can be found on trinkets in general stores and on company signs. Regardless of whether or not a monster lives in Lake Champlain, Champ’s impact on the shores is far from imaginary.