Champ sightings through the
years
There have been hundreds of sightings of a large aquatic creature living
in North American lakes. The Abenaki and the Iroquois Indians, who lived
near what is now Lake Champlain, each had their own legends of a creature
in the lake.
 One
of the first European settlers to report seeing a creature was Samuel
de Champlain, the French explorer who Lake Champlain was named after.
He reported spotting a monstrous creature along the coast of the St. Lawrence
estuary.
During the 1800s, there were scores of reported sightings of an aquatic
creature living in Lake Champlain, including the following:
- 1819 - Bulwagga Bay, Port Henry, NY
- 1871 - Horseshoe Bay. Passengers on the steamship Curlew reportedly
saw a creature's head above the water. They said the monster had a long
neck and produced a 30-40 foot wake.
- 1870 - Everyone aboard a steamship witnessed seeing the monster near
Charlotte, Vermont.
- 1873 - Everyone aboard the steamship W.B. Eddy saw the creature near
Dresden, New York.
- 1887 - The famous P.T. Barnum offered $50,000 to anyone who could
prove the existence of Champ.
- In 1945, people about the S.S. Ticonderoga observed the creature when
it surfaced somewhere near the middle of the lake.
- In 1977 Sandra Mansi and her fiancee saw and photographed Champ in
what has become known, infamously, as the Mansi photograph.
- On July 30, 1984, as many as 86 passengers were aboard the sightseeing
boat, The Spirit of Ethan Allen, near Appletree Point when the creature
appeared. Three to five humps surfaced, each about 12 inches out of
the water. The creature remained for about three minutes. The passengers
estimated the creature to be about 30 feet long. They said it was green-brown
and slimy looking. It swam parallel with the boat for 1,000 yards until
a speedboat approached. Then it submerged.
- In 1985, local Champ expert Dennis Hall said he captured a full grown
Champtany on video tape. He said that he plans to add still shots from
the video to his website.
- Button Bay State Park, located in Ferrisburgh, Vt, has reportedly
been the scene of several baby Champ sightings. Two women were wading
near shore in 1993 when an animal swam between them that may have been
baby champ.
- Thompson's Point in Charlotte,Vermont was the scene of a mass Champ
sighting (nine children) in August of 1993.
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