New Champ Sighting
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 18th, 2006
Lake Champlain Monster researcher Sean Clogston is reporting the following new sighting of Champ from eyewitness Scott Joy:
I would like to report a sighting I had on the September 7, (9-9:30 am) [2006]. I was riding the ferry between Plattsburgh, New York, and Vermont.
As we were crossing I was sitting in my truck (I’m an OTR* truckdriver ). I was looking toward the north end of the lake when I noticed what I thought was a wave or wake from a boat, approx 2ft high at the peak and maybe 6-8ft long. I thought that it was strange because the water was very calm. As I was watching it quickly evolved into a much longer (30 or more ft) and oddly shaped wave and began to move laterally. It gained speed rapidly and had what I could only describe as the motion of a serpent or more correctly an eel.
I had a passenger with me and I told them to look. She saw it immediately and asked me what it was. I told her it must be the thing they say lives in this lake. She was somewhat fearful at that point. I assured her that we were safe and told her to give me the cell phone (she was talking on it at that moment) because I wanted to take a picture of it. As I was trying to get her to give me the cell phone I remembered that I had a disposable camera in the truck (in case of an accident).
I jumped up from my seat and began to look for it, by the time I found it and got it out of the bag and got back to my seat to take the picture the thing was almost gone. I took one picture from my seat that I believe contained a part of what I had seen, but when I had the film developed the first picture didn’t come out at all. (They didn’t even develop it.) I’m going to take the negative and have it developed just in case there is something there.
After I took the picture from my seat, I climbed out of my truck to see if anyone else had seen it. The only people I even saw sitting in their car were two men. I approached their car pointing in the direction of what I had seen and asking them if they had seen it. When I got to the car the passenger rolled down his window and asked me, “What?”
I told him that Loch Ness Monster thing they say lives in this lake. He said, “No!.”
The driver didn’t comment at all and they proceeded to ignore me.
I went back to my truck and told my passenger that they didn’t believe me. By this time we were reaching the Vermont shore.
As I was leaving the ferry I told the woman attending it that I had seen “Champ” She basically said, “Yeah, sure!”
I stopped at a small convenience store (not the one on the corner), when I got off the ferry. I went in and asked the people behind the counter how many people had ever seen the thing in the lake. They smiled and said very few. I told them my story and I think they may have believed me (at least to some degree).
There was also a woman in there that worked on the ferry and I told her about it as well.
I know without a picture that it is going to be very difficult to convince anyone of what I saw, but I’m convinced in my own mind that the phenomena that i saw couldn’t have been created by anything other than a giant serpent or eel like creature. The creature was on the surface for probably 20-30 seconds. Unfortunately I missed some of it in my search for the camera. (But, I probably wouldn’t do any different if I had it to do over again).
[*OTR = Over The Road. OTR drivers deliver freight in all or part of the 48 United States and Canada, with 2,500 miles per week a reasonable expectation. Drivers are limited to driving/working 70 hours in 8 days, with a maximum 10 hour work session before an 8 hour break. Freight is point-to- point rather than multiple stops, with an attempt to avoid congested areas like New York City. Drivers are away from home an average of 1-4 weeks.]
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.
This is the coolest account. Gosh, I wish he’d been able to take the photo!
Keep in mind that all he says he actually saw was a strange wave. He never describes seeing an actual animal.
Champ is my favorite cryptid. I always love reading accounts of Champ sightings
It sounds like an honest account of someone who saw something they couldn’t explain, and suggests it *could* have been Champ. It’s too bad that whenever something like this happens the camera is never in easy reach. Where are those people with the cameras glued to their face? I mean, we can catch random acts of violence on camera but never anything conclusive in the crypto-world…
Am I the only one here that finds lake monsters tedious?
If the man says he saw champ, who am I to say he didn’t. There is something in that lake that these people are seeing and I personally think that some are waves and submerged logs, but waves and logs do not move like an eel as the man described.
He did see something and what he saw could be some sort of sea dragon or a cadborasaurus, it truly is amazing how these unkno wn lake dwellers move the way they push the waves is truly amzing so much power and grace i have read many books on lake cryptids by the way is my favorite subject. They also could be a carry over from the dinosaurs.
It’s obvious to me that had this guy never heard of champ he would have thought he was looking at a long wave. Nuff said!
Dang! Some people have all the luck. We were camping at Ausable Point on Lake Champlain just the previous week. We used to watch the Plattsburgh ferry for almost its entire run. The whole time we were there my 13 year old daughter kept talking about how much she would like to get a glimpse of Champ. All things considered I’m just as glad the monster didn’t put in an appearance. Not that I’m scared mind you, but you never can tell with lake monsters…
Well he seems sincere. I would have to also call him brave. I mean think about the courage it takes to bring a story like this forward with no proof.
You just never know.
since he said the lake was calm, then it most likely was not waves bouncing off from the opposite shore…and he said it was moving laterally…and if by laterally he meant moving toward one shore or the other rather than down the length of the lake, then we are talking about an object moving in the water.
He also mentioned it “gained speed rapidly” and the “motion like a serpent or more correctly an eel.” This suggests an object moving that can increase speed and is moving more than just following the current. Sounds like a living critter to me…assuming the witness is on the level…
This is my first comment. I found this sight a few months ago and I’ve learned a lot about cryptozoology from this site and from the bloggers here. I never look at blogs, but for some reason I did at this site and I’m glad I did. You Bloggers have given me info and links to things I’ve never even heard about. So Thanks!
I’ve been interested in Bigfoot and Sea/Lake Monsters ever since I was little. I believe that they exist, but I think this is a case of one’s own perspective. Eyewitness accounts are very hard to give credit to since everyone perceives things they see in a different way. I think this was most likely a wave. I do give this man credit for telling people what he saw and he may have seen “Champ”, he could have just said nothing.