***UPDATE - ABC HAS REMOVED THE VIDEO, AND THE LINK GOES TO SOME LAME VIDEO THAT DOESN'T REALLY SHOW ANYTHING. IF I EVER FIND THE ACTUAL VIDEO AGAIN, I'LL UPDATE THE LINKS***

Not being in Vermont, where I was born and raised, I would have missed this story had my aunt not told my sister who then told me. ABC's Good Morning America obtained video from a couple fisherman who claim to have seen the elusive lake monster. No smoking gun, but this is pretty interesting video.

Surprisingly few people have heard of the Champlain Monster ('Champ') of Lake Champlain, but it's basically a cousin of Loch Ness Monster that resides in the United States, between the states of New York and Vermont. There have been countless sighting since the early 1600s when the French explorer Samuel De Champlain, the discoverer of the lake, saw the creature himself.

In that past obviously cameras weren't as common for people to have with them at all times, but with digital cameras and camera phones, and so many people owning mini video cameras I suspect we'll have more evidence (though admittedly not proof), where as in the past mostly all we had were the word of people who claimed to see "something". Sure there have been a lot of out of focus and distant photos of "something", and pictures of ripples in the water, but until now there was only one really good picture that has held up under scrutiny:

The most famous photo, by Sandra Mansi

If you grew up on the lake as I did, you've most likely seen some ripples a time or two and joked about it being Champ, but not put a whole lot of thought in to it. I've always sort of been a Champ "fan", and subscribed to the theory that it may be a surviving plesiosaur. Other popular theories are that it may be a large sturgeon, some kind of huge turtle, or nothing at all.

If you aren't from Vermont, New York, or Quebec, Canada, you probably don't know much about Lake Champlain, but here's a little background via Wikipedia:

It is the sixth-largest body of fresh water in the contiguous United States, situated in the Champlain Valley between the Green Mountains of Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains of New York...

...

Lake Champlain is one of a large number of large lakes spread in an arc from Labrador through the Northern United States and into the Northwest Territories of Canada. Although it cannot be compared with Ontario, Erie, Huron, Superior, or Michigan, Lake Champlain is a large body of fresh water. Approximately 1130 km² (435 square miles) in area, the lake is roughly 180 km (110 miles) long, and 19 km (12 miles) across at its widest point. It contains roughly 80 islands including an entire county in Vermont.

A little more from the EPA:

56 percent of which lies in Vermont, 37 percent in New York, and 7 percent in Quebec.

...

Broad Lake is relatively narrow, but contains deep water up to 400 feet.

So we're talking about a huge lake who's size, in the United States, is only eclipsed by the size of the Great Lakes. Despite the EPA saying the Broad Lake is relatively narrow, as you read earlier, it's gets up to 19 miles wide. In short, it's a huge lake with all kinds of bays, coves, and virtually unchartered areas for a creature (or creatures) to call home.

In the lakes of Canada there are many more Champ/Nessy type creatures, probably the most famous of which would be Ogopogo. All these different creatures.. sure makes you wonder about all the old tales of giant sea monsters from centuries past. Even weirder are the reports of brontosaurus sightings in Africa and pterodactyl sightings in South America and elsewhere, but those are entirely different stories. Coupled with finding soft tissue in T-Rex and other fossils, it should make one wonder if all the old tales of dragons, were just "tales" after all... And whether the ridiculous dating methods of evolutionists should at least be questioned (i.e. they too believed that soft tissue was lucky to hang around for a couple thousand years, not 70 million. Instead of questioning the dating, they need to fit it in to the Darwininan dogma so they, as usual, have to change everything but their assumptions about millions of years and the theory of evolution, to make it fit so that they're religion doesn't come crashing down around them.) Again, that's for another day, but not totally unrelated.

Anyway, as I said, I suspect with the increased frequency that people are carrying some sort of camera a lot of "stories" will now have evidence to back them up. Hopefully Champ will be included. If you didn't already watch the video by following the links above, check it out from ABC's Good Morning America now. There is also a story (nothing much that isn't in the video) from ABC too, but you can check it out if you want. I just find it annoying that ABC keeps referring to it as "New York's Lake Champlain" or "Lake Champlain in New York", when in fact, as you read above it's actually 56% in Vermont and 37% in New York. Here's the article anyway.

Below is a little slideshow of some photos I snapped off with my junky old digital camera when I was up visiting last summer, and cruisin' around in my cousin's boat off of Burlington. See this Google satellite image for an idea of the area. Nothing special, just some random photos. By the way, the service that let me create this slideshow doesn't show the high resolution versions of the images, so there's nothing I can do about that.

For more information on Champ, check out these other resources:
Champquest (a lot of broken links)
True Authority story 1
True Authority story 2
Genesis Park
Or search on your own...

more:
Dr. Fong, Rocket Season, StrangeWire, Son of a Pitch, The Mad Science Blog