Champ on CBS Early Show
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on December 20th, 2011
Legend of Loch-Ness-like monster “Champ” endures
(CBS News) Lake Champlain, on the Vermont-New York border, is where some people say there’s a watery beast they’ve dubbed “Champ.”
He’s supposedly a North American version of the Scotland’s famed Loch Ness monster — and he’s supposedly been spotted for centuries by the people of the area.
According to one resident, “Champ” originated in an entry in Samuel de Champlain’s diary in 1609. He said he’d seen a sea serpent with large coils and scales that reflected in the sunlight.
Local townspeople now keep his legend alive with pictures and video of sightings and memorabilia.
But does “Champ” really exist? We’ll let you decide.
Check out the video below for the full story of “Champ,” told by four long-time residents of the area, including two people who claim to have seen the creature.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
I’m disappointed there was no new footage shown, but it was fun to watch nonetheless.
I’ve always loved Champ and the Loch Ness Monster, but it seems to me that Champ has more substantial evidence. The underwater footage that was shown on ABC always intrigued me most. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the object in said video looks very similar to the object in the Mansi Photo.
Champ’s sightings also remind me a lot of the Cadborosaurus. Witnesses always seem to say the same thing – Serpentine, long, nose like a horse or camel.
Sad to hear the female reporter seriously ask at the end of the tape: “What if it’s the same Champ they saw in 1609?”
It is a fact that I have met some media folks who are not so incredibly unintelligent.
Whatever was the outcome of the Olsen video that was shown in this news clip? Was this proven as a hoax?
Can anyone come up with a scenario of what this purported creature does during the winter when there is three feet of ice covering the lake.
It obviously cannot be an air-breather (reptile/amphibian) unless in burrows in the sediment like a frog.
I agree with you Loren. What a dumb comment by that reporter. She must have the same thought process of those who think there is only one Bigfoot – Patty. Apparently, she dropped out of the sky as that would be the only explanation for her getting here. Unless, like the novel by James Fenimore Cooper, she was the “Last of the Bigfeet.” (LOL).
I wonder if Mr. Olsen was financially compensated for this use of his footage. Let me guess…
My understanding is that all media interactions with Eric Olsen and their attempts to “buy” this footage from him have been negative. I too wonder if CBS merely used this without his permission. Olsen has shown no interest in being interviewed or paid by documentary television programmers for the rights to broadcast his footage.
No hoax claims have been made seriously against Olsen, and no foundation exists for thinking his footage was taken as a hoax.
Well, Loren, there’s much we don’t know.
(And much we do. Like, for example, the age of bristlecone pines.)
Not betting on this now. But is there *no chance* that it couldn’t be the same Champ?
We might not want to presume too much, particularly if “he/she” has been in that little, OK, relatively speaking, lake for all that time, and we still don’t know.
Re the “female reporter” (a somewhat sexist reference?) – do you think perhaps she was merely attempting to be humorous, but with a straight face?
I seriously do not consider it logical biological thinking to consider, DWA, that the same, single Champ animal has existed in this lake for 400 years!
David from Australia, it is not sexist to gender identify someone as “female” when you wish to clearly prepare a reading public for which of two people (a man and a woman who are talking) that you are writing about. There appeared to be very light humor attached to her semi-question.
Loren: I think that when one is proposing something as seemingly absurd as Champ, considering an unusual lifespan – among other aspects of an animal that, given what many think it is, seems a weetad misplaced in, er, Vermont – is not exactly open-minded to the point of voiding skull content.
The arctic wooly bear caterpillar freezes solid every winter. For seven years. Next to that, Champ going half a century per is pretty durn mundane.
Whoops. Check that. It’s FOURTEEN years – the longest-lived caterpillar known. And it spends more than half that time fighting off freezer burn.
So, maybe Champ will still be there 500 years from now.
The smart money always has Ma Nature upping the ante.
Yes, DWA, I see you caught yourself. Half a century is 50 years. The time from 1609 until 2011 is, well, not 50 years.
I consider “one Champ” existing for 402 years being as valid a zoological speculation as thinking there being “one Bigfoot” having been sighted “since the pre-colonial days of the Indians” or “one white Yeti” causing all the reports of “Abominable Snowmen” since the ancient times of the “Sherpas.”
Yeah, but I’ll wear my glasses next time. 🙂
We know that creatures like the Loch Ness Monster and Champ have existed in the past, Plesiosauria which lived from the Jurassic age to the Cretaceous period. I would not be impossible for these animals to go into lakes and other fresh water areas during the ice age, and just stay there even as of today.
Just found the interview with Scott Mardis. The idea is that when lakes like Loch Ness and Lake Champlain were connected to the ocean and marine animals were able to come and go, plesoisaurs went into Loch Ness and Lake Champlain then after the Ice Age they were trapped inside of the lakes, but I wonder how they adapted from a marine animal to a fresh water animal.
i believe that it could be evolution that had made a salt water to fresh water animal.
adaptation has worked for millions of years so maybe that’s how.
i love cryptids and one day soon i believe that a lake monster sea serpent will be found to be real just remember this that kraken was once thought to be myth but we know now that the giant squid could be the kraken.
That Olsen footage or whatever it is. Got me very excited when it was released couple of years ago. If it is not a hoax, its something amazing for sure. Problem is, it all went under the carpet.