Champ’s Roar
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 15th, 2007
We have received a call from Mr. Davis, of Grand Isle [Vermont], the gentleman who recently saw the supposed sea serpent. He states that he stood upon the bank of the lake [Champlain] at the time and he and his neighbors saw the animal distinctly, as it was not more than forty feet from the shore. It raised its head from the water and made a bellowing noise not unlike the sea lions seen in menageries, and then moved off, making the same noise while under water, its wake being distinctly visible. Mr. Davis states that the report that it was a steam yacht is absurd, as it has been seen in the vicinity several times since.Plattsburgh [New York] Sentinel, August 4, 1882
Thanks to Jerome Clark.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Making the same noise under the water?
How could that be?
Why not? Whales do.
Apparently Champ does seem to make more sound than other USO’s…though I think there are a couple of Loch Ness accounts of it making noise…
Sure, whales make noise underwater, but can you hear the noises from the surface, 40 feet away?
Well, this plus the reported sound “like a cannon” in other sightings certainly points to this being a noisy creature. How many reports are there of people just hearing strange things out on the lake, I wonder?
That is true, I bet many more people have heard cryptids than have seen them. Having no visual accompanyment, they either chalk it up to a WTF moment, or else write it off as whatever sounds plausible to them at the time.
By way of example, when I lived in NJ, I heard several very strange cries out in the woods, but never actually saw anything. The incident that stands out the most was a series of cries that changed location each time, and several times seemed to be either in the air or a tree, in motion, or both. My friend was with me, and after some deliberation, we concluded that it must be an owl. But was it? The screams match accounts of mountain lion howls (“like a woman being murdered” I believe is the most succinct description), and could definitely be described as bloodcurdling, an adjective often used to describe the sounds of the Jersey Devil.
I suppose if you had an area you suspected was inhabited by a vocal cryptid, these accounts might be useful to you in establishing likely stalking grounds and possibly modes of behaviour (If you collected enough of them), but by themselves they must remain simply anonymously anomalous.