Champ (Lake Champlain monster)
A serpent-like creature reported in Lake Champlain in newspaper stories of the 1880s.
Meaning
In August 1886 the St. Johnsbury Caledonian reported two sea serpents in one week, one off Massachusetts and one in Lake Champlain, seen by three men who watched "a big something" surface about 20 rods away. Its head, 15 to 18 inches long, was raised two feet above the water. The next summer the writer W. H. H. Murray described watching the serpent from his house on Burlington Bay, and called it the most startling sight he had ever seen on land or sea (Evening Capital, Annapolis, 6 June 1887).
How Adirondack Murray explained it
Murray fetched his field glass, and "the mystery was that instant solved": the monster turned into several hundred small birds of the plover family flying low in a long line. When their white undersides faced him, the serpent appeared, long and white; when they banked and showed their brown backs, it seemed to sink from view. The paper that printed his letter thought his solution "will perhaps apply to many along shore mysteries of the same sort".
See also
Loch Ness Monster, Kraken, Sea serpent, Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot (Sasquatch), Yeti (Abominable Snowman).
Sources
- St. Johnsbury Caledonian (St. Johnsbury, Vt.), 19 August 1886, St. Johnsbury Caledonian, 19 August 1886, page 4, Library of Congress, Chronicling America, page 4
- Evening Capital (Annapolis, Md.), 6 June 1887, Evening Capital, 6 June 1887, page 1, Library of Congress, Chronicling America, page 1; page 1 (continued)
Last reviewed September 28, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research