Champ [ the US Loch Ness Monster ] caught on tape?

[Ivan Seeking]

Champ ["the US Loch Ness Monster"] caught on tape?

...ABC News obtained exclusive video of something just under the surface of the lake that some say may be Champ. The video was taken by two fishermen with their digital camera last summer. Before their supposed sighting, they were Champ skeptics.

"It was as big around as my thigh," said fisherman Peter Bodette. "I'm 100 percent sure of what we saw. I'm not 100 percent sure of what it was." [continued with video]

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1648547&page=1

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

That's definitely very interesting. Too bad the resolution of the video feed isn't all that great.

 

[Phobos]

interesting footage (from what I saw on TV...didn't try the link)...but it looked more squid-like than plesiosaur-like.

 

[pallidin]

Remarkable. The "creature" seems to like the fishermans boat, or at least not too afraid of it. I wonder if there is going to be any serious investigation, like with using sonar.

 

[Christina-]

I believe this could very well be a real or 'new' species. But with all the sitings of these types of things (sea monsters, forest monsters), why can't we come up with a body? I don't doubt the possibility, but I just wish there could be more evidence. Shame the tape didn't produce the best results of what the fishermen saw.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I would love it if they found a new species that fit the bill of lake monsters. However, I bet this was just one of those huge sturgeon.

 

[matthyaouw]

interesting footage (from what I saw on TV...didn't try the link)...but it looked more squid-like than plesiosaur-like.

I don't buy into the plesiosaur theory- through a lot of recent time the site loch ness was under a km or two of ice, and probably wasn't a lake pre-glaciation. Anything that lives there has to be a recent arrival. I'm not familiar with Champ, but I suspect the same might be true there.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I would love it if they found a new species that fit the bill of lake monsters. However, I bet this was just one of those huge sturgeon.

One would think, but it is odd that two experienced fishermen say that they are 100% certain of what they saw, but not what it is...? That and the video sure make it tempting to hope for more.

I guess it could just be a sturgeon that is so large that they were fooled. When one is expecting a certain scale [no pun intended], something much larger or smaller than expected can fool your vision. It seems that I've had this happen with ordinary objects that looked very odd for a moment.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

interesting footage (from what I saw on TV...didn't try the link)...but it looked more squid-like than plesiosaur-like.

There is an interesting theory that Nessie was/is actually a giant squid that got stuck in the loch somehow.
The question is: Which is more likely? An ancient creature of which there has been no confirmed sighting? or a salt water cephelapod adapting instantaniously enough to live in fresh water?

I guess it could just be a sturgeon that is so large that they were fooled. When one is expecting a certain scale [no pun intended], something much larger or smaller than expected can fool your vision. It seems that I've had this happen with ordinary objects that looked very odd for a moment.

In the interview didn't they say that they were positive it was not a sturgeon? Apparently it didn't have the fins that would have identified it as such?

 

[Phobos]

There is an interesting theory that Nessie was/is actually a giant squid that got stuck in the loch somehow.
The question is: Which is more likely? An ancient creature of which there has been no confirmed sighting? or a salt water cephelapod adapting instantaniously enough to live in fresh water?

Understood. Perhaps cryptozoologists should look for a new species of freshwater squid rather than a plesiosaur. Less exciting, I suppose. I'm not too familiar with the Lake. Any easy access routes to salt water? Canals?

Whatever it is, and if it indeed the same type of creature being sighted over these many years, it would need a large breeding population to still be around. Makes it harder to conclude that huge, ancient creatures are still present.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Any real bias in the explanation probably results more from the descriptions given, and hoaxes, rather than a desire to make it out as more than it is by those with a sincere scientific interest. But plesiosaur shirts probably do sell better than freshwater squid shirts, or greatly-deformed-sturgeon shirts, I would expect.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The video in the original story wasn't working and I happened to notice that it came up through another source. Not a website that I visit or would otherwise allow as a source, but a link came up in a news headline. The linked site uses the original video report from ABC News.
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/abc-champ/

 

[baywax]

This is the Scottish Lake Monster

Please have a look at this vid and let me know if its CGI or the real thing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQv4.../a-lake-monster-filmed/1098620538?icid=acvsv2

 

[hypatia]

That looked like a otter to me. I see them all the time on the lake near my cabin.

 

[rbj]

maybe a beaver. i live on North Cove Road in Burlington VT and i s'pose i miss all sorts of stuff underwater when i go canoeing. but sometimes i see something and usually it's an aggressive fish or beaver or something coming to the surface.

 

[_Mayday_]

Champ is a very American name.

 

[hypatia]

Well except its too long to be a beaver, and it has a Otter tail and head. Notice the way it pulls its head out of the water to have a look around, Otters do this all the time.

 

[baywax]

That looked like a otter to me. I see them all the time on the lake near my cabin.

This could be. Although there's a great example of what can be done with CGI on UTube in an ad for Toyota where the LockNess monster comes out of the water and steals a Tacoma truck. I saw it after this one and it seemed to explain the quick motion of the "creature" and realistic water motion.

edit,

here's that ad.

 

[baywax]

What's more, hypatia, is that the video of what you think might be an otter starts off on a long zoom from shore. This gives the impression of it being larger than an otter since it is probably about 100 yards out in the water yet still appears rather large.

 

[mcknia07]

It just doesn't seem like a "monster", maybe a large beaver or otter. If it is real, why hasn't anyone caught it yet? LOL

 

[phyzmatix]

I'd love to think that these could be real and that said creatures remain undiscovered. After all, the Coelacanth was thought to be extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period (about 65 million years ago) until one was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938.

Which really gives me hope that there may yet be "Champs" and "Nessies" to be discovered.

PS.
http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC062708/Pictures/Coelacanth.jpg is a nice picture of one.

 

[zenmissile]

well, champ has a myspace page so it must be real...

...myspace.com/champmonster

 

[B. Elliott]

Perhaps just frequent sightings of various, large, freshwater eel?

Adults live in fresh to brackish water, migrate long distances to spawning grounds in deep gyres in the open ocean; larvae marine.

http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20o?search=Anguillidae

http://www.krisweb.com/krissheepsco...life/amer_eel_big_native_fish_conservancy.jpg

After all, they do seem to have been pretty common in Champlain in the past. Maybe something to do with some of them not able to get out to sea, so they end up growing to larger sizes than what were previously seen?

BURLINGTON, Vt. - Scientists are trying to determine what caused Lake Champlain's populations of American eels to decline to almost nothing over the last two decades.

American eels start life in the Sargasso Sea, an area in the Atlantic Ocean between the West Indies and the Azores.

But the decline could also be due to the reconstruction in the 1960s of two hydroelectric dams on the Richelieu River in Quebec. The dams could have prevented the eels from reaching Lake Champlain.

A decade ago, Hydro-Quebec installed an eel ladder at one of the dams. "Within 10 days we measured eels going up the ladder," said Quebec fisheries biologist Pierre Dumont. In 2001 a second ladder was placed on the other dam.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22208248/

 

[thomasxc]

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1648547&page=1

wheres the vid? i can't find it on the page w/ the article..?

 

[thomasxc]

long story short, ther would have to be plenty of food and shelter, and most importantly, a large enough population to sustain a sufficient gene pool, or else they would go exctinct. so, if there are that many, they should be spotted all the time, right?