FERRISBURG, Vt. – Sasquatch and Champ are two legendary Upstate NY creatures that either you believe they exist or you don’t. There’s no definitive proof of either at this point.
Earlier this month, though, Katy Elizabeth, of Ferrisburg, Vt., director of the Champ Search group, claims to have taken a step in confirming the existence of Champ, the legendary Lake Champlain water monster that has been called America’s Loch Ness monster.
Elizabeth has an underwater image -- specifically, two marks on a sonar screen—taken from a speeding boat on the lake. It was taken at about 3 p.m. Aug. 5 while Elizabeth and two members of her group, Frank and Theresa Horton, were out on the group’s 17-foot Bayliner boat doing a 30-mile radius of echo scans of the lake’s bottom on the New York and Vermont sides.
Noticing they were low on gas, the threesome headed back to Port Henry on the New York side, getting up to 45 mph, Elizabeth said. All the time, they keep their sonar on and continued to take pictures of the images that came up on the screen.
The following day, when Elizabeth checked the sonar images, she was amazed as she examined one. She said she started both shaking and crying while looking at it.
Katy Elizabeth
“I knew it was Champ,” she said. “There were two animals.”
She estimated one was about 25 feet long – the other, nearly 30 feet long. She added that there were protuberances on their heads.
The sonar scan was taken of the lake’s bottom, some 165 feet down, on the Vermont side.
The legend of Champ goes back hundreds of years, with sightings being reported when only Native Americans inhabited the lands around the lake. Elizabeth said it just makes sense that there must be a breeding population in the lake for them to exist to this day.
Elizabeth, now 34, said she first became fascinated with Champ while watching the “Unsolved Mysteries” TV show on Champ at the age 7. She said she had her first above-water sighting in 2012 while staying at the Button Bay State Park campground in Ferrisburgh, Vt.
“I was on shore camping. It was about 11:30 in the morning and I was eating breakfast,” she said. “I just saw this hump rise above the water’s surface and thought ‘What in the world was that?’ I grew up in Rhode Island and my father was a fisherman. I fish myself and I’m very familiar with boat waves, whales and dolphins.”
Elizabeth claims to have had about 10 above-water sightings since she started looking for the creature seven years ago, but said she could never get close enough or the light was just too bad to get a definitive picture or video.
Her efforts to prove the existence of Champ has been featured on the History, Discovery and Science channels, along with other media outlets. She has written one book, “Water Horse of Lake Champlain,” outlining her efforts to find Champ. She is currently working on another book.
In 2018, she successfully lobbied the town of Port Henry, N.Y. to pass a resolution to protect Champ.
A statute of Champ near the entrance to the ferry on Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vt.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation refuses to acknowledge the existence of Champ or Sasquatch (also known as Big Foot). Sasquatch sightings have been reported over the years in Whitehall, just south of Lake Champlain, and near Chautauqua Lake in the western part of the state. Both areas have annual festivals dedicated to legendary creature.
“The DEC does not recognize the existence of the mythological creature in Lake Champlain known as Champ, as solid scientific evidence has yet to surface,” DEC said in a written statement.
Elizabeth, in a phone interview with NYup.com, answered the following questions about her Aug. 5 sonar image.
*How do you know the images on the sonar screen were not sturgeon or some other less-legendary fish or animal – or even an underwater log or some other debris?
“I’ve been fishing the lake for years and I’ve used sonar before. I’ve taken images of sturgeon and other fish, along with debris and ship wrecks. None of those fit into the category of what’s on that sonar image from Aug. 5. It resembles other images, pictures and videos, taken by others of Champ over the years.”
*What kind of sonar were you using? You trust an image taken when a boat is traveling possibly as fast as 45 mph?
“It’s a Raymarine Dragonfly 4 Pro Sonar. It’s a chirp sonar and shoots chirps to the bottom as well as the sides. I know how to use it and that the images are reliable even when the boat is traveling at that speed.”
She added: “Going at 45 mph, if that had any effect on the sonar images it would be a big blur on the screen. The sonar from what I understand slows things down to read them accurately.”
((Jim McGowan, the Americas Marketing Manager for Raymarine, said the type of sonar used by Alexander’s group is a fish-finding sonar.
“At 45 mph, typically you’re doing well if you see the bottom and depth,” he said. “As for targets in the water column, it’s hard to know what you’re looking at.”
He said at 45 mph most normal fish would be “blurred over” on the screen, unless it was a big school. “You might not even see it.”
But as for something the size of what Alexander saw, “I have no experience knowing what it would look like going at that speed.
“I can’t dismiss it. I didn’t see it first-hand. We don’t have opportunities to drive over targets that big,” he said. “I’m not certain I can tell you what it is.”
He did add that the sonar would slow its “ping rate” (the travel time the sound from the sonar leaves the transducer, hits the bottom and comes back) if a boat was traveling that fast. Both speed and depth are factors, he said.))
*What’s your education? How do you support yourself while continuing to search for Champ?
“I have some college, but no degree. I have studied to prepare for a degree in marina biology and bioacoustics. I make money off selling my book and I currently have horses and offer horseback riding lessons.”
*Of course, many will be skeptical of your conclusion about what was on your sonar screen. What have you done at this point to try and confirm that what you saw was indeed some huge underwater animal?
“I have sent images to a retired optical physicist who worked for the U.S. Navy for his analysis. The problem is there’s nothing to compare it with, apart from previous still pictures taken by others. He should be able to tell the light refraction, estimate the creatures’ size. That’s the only thing he’ll be able to do.
“I don’t care if people doubt me. Until you have taken videos of this phenomenon and have recorded echo locations in a freshwater lake like I have, nobody is going to be sure what they’re looking at.”
*What’s next?
“I plan to get back to the same coordinates on the lake as soon as possible to take additional sonar readings of the bottom in that area. I hope to show that there’s nothing in that area as far as debris. And I want to get images, hopefully -- more images of these animals to show that they’re there and animate.”