Champ: Vermont’s Mysterious Lake Monster | Champ Sightings, Legends & Strange Sounds (Ep 384)

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of Vermont cryptid, you've almost been touched by it.

Yeah, almost eaten alive.

You survived.

This is my I survived Champ, the lake monster episode.

Woo!

Very spooky.

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, I got him. I'm so sorry. But to Keren, happy birthday.

Thanks.

I Doesn't it feel so inauthentic?

It feels so inauthentic, which is why I'm also giving you

But my birthday's August 3rd.

Remember I told you I have your card?

Yeah.

But I didn't write it yet because I don't want I want to write it and seal

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it and you can open it on

birthday.

We recorded your birthday episode before this one. So, when you say remember I said I had your card, you'll hear that conversation like 3 weeks.

Keren's having a baby.

Yeah, so things are all out of order right now.

so many episodes that you don't feel like we're like Keren's on maternity leave.

No, just two things.

Oh.

And you have it right now?

Yeah, I'm telling you I I want to show you the card. But I'm going to write it.

This is the most you ever cuz you can't you can't keep a secret, you can't like hold a gift. So, even though you're not ready to give it, you still want me to see it.

Well, and I bought it 6 months ago.

This is so funny.

I've also There's so many cards that I This is like the perfect

like description of who I am.

I've also bought you so many cards over the years cuz when I see a card

You need a card box. Just be like cards.

And I'll see a card and be like, "Oh, I want to get for so and so for this event."

Yeah.

And then the event comes up and then I

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never give them the card. So, I literally have like just a stockpile of cards. But, I was so proud of myself for this one because I actually remembered it and I actually have [laughter] it.

It has nothing written inside of it right now.

It's per- [laughter] IT'S PERFECT.

[gasps]

THIS IS SO PERFECT BECAUSE literally 5 seconds ago when we took a bathroom break, I was watching a clip of Heated Rail.

Amazing. [laughter] Show the people.

heat. It's your birthday. Time to celebrate. Oh my god, that's so good. I love

Rail birthday card.

Did you have to order this online or did you just find it?

it. That's why I was like, I have to get it for you.

On the back it says, "I'm coming to the cottage." Who made this? Wow, genius.

It was made by Laura Schman- Schmaulski.

Schmanski?

Oh.

Is it? I don't know. I just made that up.

In collaboration with The Found.

From Trident Booksellers.

Trident has the best

Exactly. the card collection.

Trident has the best card collection.

Okay.

Cuz I will write a message for you that

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you can read on August 3rd.

Trident, if you're in the Boston area, it's on Newbury Street at the very end. They have a cafe, so you can go there for breakfast.

Mhm.

Amazing cards.

You actually can go there all day. Their food is amazing.

Yeah. Good selection of

Yeah.

books and there's kind of like a hidden door speakeasy

Yeah.

area that like once a month they have like guest lectures, like professors from

They have a bunch of different stuff there.

Yeah. And you can go Yeah, it's a cool place.

What's her name? Zendaya.

Did she go there?

were filming the drama in Boston, would go there a lot.

Oh, really? Damn.

Yeah.

Shucks. When I used to work on Newbury Street, that's where I'd go for like half of my meetings.

a great one.

like, "Do you want Do you want to cook a breakfast?"

Yes. It's great. Love it.

Okay.

But, yeah. Happy birthday, Corinne.

say it's Two Girls One Ghost?

No.

This is Two Girls One Ghost.

Two Girls One Ghost. hope you clicked on the right podcast.

[laughter]

We're your ghostesses. I'm That's Karen, the birthday girl.

I'm That's

Well, I was going to That Yeah, anyway.

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That's the birthday girl, Karen. I'm Sabrina. This is Sven.

And we're turning 33.

Yeah.

[sighs]

Yeah.

I feel nothing about it, actually, because everyone cuz everyone I'm hanging out with is 27, so.

[laughter]

I feel like it's just like you hit 30 and then the next one's 40.

Yeah. I feel like 35, maybe.

in between.

And I'm sure if I'm still single at 35, I'll be very concerned about my life, but, you know, cuz I want to have kids. But I don't need a man to have kids. Anyway, this is your birthday. Let's not Let's not talk about me and depressing things.

[laughter] [gasps]

Okay, well, I choose a topic that relates to me in every way to make this even more about myself.

birthday. You should do whatever you want.

I'll share you about a Vermont cryptid

Champ’s first photograph

who's the mascot to our local baseball team who I have physically seen with my own eyes.

You've almost been touched by it.

Yeah, almost eaten alive by the monster.

worse? Being touched by or eaten alive by it?

I don't know.

You survived a cryptid.

This is my I survived Champ, the Lake

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Monster episode.

Woo! Are you going to start off by telling that story again?

I was going to tell it later, but

tell it whenever you want.

Okay, I'll tell it later cuz I I have a a different little narrative to begin with.

Ooh, okay, great.

July 5th, 1977. It's a Tuesday afternoon and Sandra Mansi is on vacation. She'd taken a road trip with her then fiance and her two kids. And they're just driving around the gorgeous Vermont, New York area. And they're on the border, right on the lake, Lake Champlain. The sun is out, the water's calm, the bees are buzzing, the crickets are humming. Enter the first 15 seconds of Noah Kahan's song August. That is the vibe. Perfect summer day, and Sandra's kids are playing at the water's edge. Sandra's watching them. She's relaxing. She's letting her mind wander, when all of the sudden, something catches her eye. It is something about 150 ft out from where she's sitting on the beach.

Mhm.

And it breaks the water and it emerges out of the water. It's long, it's dark,

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it's got this grayish neck, and it looks like it has this rounded back, and it's rising slowly. And it like kind of looks around a bit,

Oh, she sees the head.

Yeah, she's literally seeing like the body and the head this like serpent-like head. And it's 150 ft out in the water, and it's looking around, and it's just chilling there. And it's giving her enough time that she actually like gets off of her chair like whatever she's sitting on. She walks back to her car, grabs her camera, the Kodak Instamatic or Instamatic, sorry. Goes back to the water, it's still there, and she snaps a single photograph of the creature just in time before it starts to sink back down into the water. So, it was there for several minutes.

It was waiting for its close-up.

It was. Sandra got the photo developed, and for 3 years she kept the developed photo in her drawer and never brought it up, never showed anyone. But then eventually the photo was finally published. Scientists at the University of Arizona ran it through

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every digital enhancement tool they had, and there was no evidence of tampering.

also 1980. Like it's not like you have Photoshop and computers to manipulate things like that.

totally. I might be making this up, but isn't the Kodak Instamatic? I feel like that was one of the cameras that came up in like

the Polaroid ghost?

the Polaroid ghost?

I don't remember the specific camera. Well, I do think it was like a Kodak something.

Yeah, cuz I'm like wasn't there one that like people were trying to get that like it was discontinued, but like it was like how

Kodak

spirits could like easily manipulate or something?

on camera. That should be their new slogan. [laughter]

A ghost hunter's dream. Okay, so basically like there was no evidence of tampering. It was very clear that like whatever was in that photo was actually there and it wasn't staged. And so, the object appeared to be real, whatever it was, and it was in that lake. And that is what people could conclude and deduce from this photo. But what it was, no one knew.

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But this would become Champ, the beloved lake monster of Lake Champlain.

I do love how beloved Champ is.

Champ cuz it's terrifying.

But cuz I feel like when people talk about Nessie from Loch Ness, it's like it comes with some fear.

And love.

Lo- love, too, but like

But it's like a massive creature in any way, even if there is like a love and appreciation for it, like the same way you feel about Bigfoot, there's also it comes with fear because it's the unknown, it's massive.

Mhm.

We haven't fully understood it.

No.

Scary.

But Champ for some reason in our own little delusions over in the Lake Champlain area, it's just like the most beloved pet. It's like having a guinea pig in your first grade classroom.

Same same.

We love Champ. Oh, I wrote Champ hot take, I find more fascinating than Nessie.

[snorts]

Krin starting [clears throat] bites.

They're possibly cousins, so whatever.

I do feel like they're very related.

Totally. Well, actually I looked up and what I'm I might have written this down,

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but I looked up at one point I was like, did Lake Champlain and Loch Ness ever share their boundaries because like the Scottish Highlands and the Adirondacks did.

Mhm.

Or sorry, not the Adirondacks, the um Appalachian Mountains.

That would make sense then.

So then I was like, well, the Adirondacks are right there in this lake. And it basically was like, yeah, like geographically at one point

Back in the Pangea days.

But like that's so much earlier for like these two creatures to have been related and separated prehistorically.

Okay.

Certainly not us.

But today I'm going to talk about the one and only most beloved lake monster, Champ. We're going to talk about the ancient geology of the area, the Native American legends, the P.T. Barnum bounty, and some mysterious underwater sounds that scientists cannot explain coming from Lake Champlain.

Lake Champlain

I wrote, "Let's [ __ ] go."

You know Creepy was stoked right in this episode.

I was. I was texting my family the whole

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time all of these

Fun facts.

Fun facts. And we were all flabbergasted that we didn't even know some of this stuff. Also, um Elena did cover Champ when we did our our crossover with Morbid.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Wow. I have no memory. That was like That was so long ago.

I feel like she probably included way more facts than I did because I found myself kind of rushing towards the end cuz I was like, "God, I could keep going on and on and on and on." I was like, "I got to wrap this. I got to wrap this up."

fair, we also we had a truncated amount of time when we did did our collab with Morbid.

Mhm. Mhm.

So.

True. I don't even remember what I covered. All right. Champ, named after the lake that it lives in, Lake Champlain.

I think you said lamed after and I kind of like it.

Lamed We're going to keep it.

Yeah.

This is not just any old lake. Geographically speaking, Lake Champlain is one of the most ancient and unusual lakes in North America. Lake Champlain sits in the Champlain Valley, tucked between the Green Mountains of Vermont to the east and then the Adirondack Mountains of New York to the west.

Mhm.

It stretches 107 miles long. Some

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sources say 125 because it does technically go up into Canada and into Quebec.

Mhm.

you count that portion, yes, it's larger.

It's massive.

it's Yeah. It's like massive, but it's small at the same time because it's like The average is 14 miles wide.

Okay.

But there are like if you think about where I got married, like you could just canoe. Like 2 minutes to boat over to New York side from the Vermont side.

Yeah.

You can canoe over.

But the average is 14 miles. I mean, you can't even see the other side from one side.

But you can.

For you, is it 14 miles across?

Well, yeah, because I guess it's not like an open ocean where the horizon line is 7 miles out. Like you see the mountains.

Sure.

So, like you can see the other side.

That's so far.

And like it from where my family kept our boat in Malletts Bay, it would take an hour to get to the Canadian border.

Okay.

Or like an hour and a half.

Okay.

And then an hour to get to the Naked Turtle.

Yeah, but what if you get dropped off?

the middle and you have to get back safely without a boat.

That's

There are little tiny islands see, but I

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hope that you're close to that.

And then what is the Naked Turtle?

Okay, actually [laughter] this is funny cuz I I like very rarely check my Instagram DMs, but the other day I clicked on one and someone was like, "Oh, like listener, big fan like from Plattsburgh."

And I said, "I frequented your Naked Turtle." And she's like, "Oh [ __ ] I've gotten [ __ ] up at that Naked Turtle so many times." But what is the Naked Turtle?

It's a like burger American restaurant that's in Plattsburgh, New York you can boat up to.

Oh, how fun.

Yeah, so they have like little docking spots for your boat. [laughter] And they have uh

Wait, I love that.

I don't know if they still have the competition, but like there's a massive burger if you can eat it in like under an hour or something, you get your photo on the wall.

How big is this burger? Can I look this up?

Something that I thought when I was a teenager I could never do and now I look at it and I'm like,

Naked Turtle.

me an hour.

I could do it in 10.

Yeah, an hour feels like a long time.

minutes or something like that. I can't really remember, but

32 oz burger.

Mhm.

Okay, it's big. It is eight patties.

Yeah, but you could get your photo on the wall. Naked Turtle's also great because Lake Champlain is I mean, I guess in

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perspective, like people aren't going to really know that.

What I'm talking about, but like Lake Winnipesaukee in New York or in New Hampshire is massive and there are so many businesses that you can boat up to. It's kind of like built like a boating community. Lake Champlain's not built like a boating community. Like there are very few restaurants you can actually boat up to and dock up to. So, Naked Turtle was a treat.

But all to say, better for champ.

It honestly looks amazing. It does look really good. If those were veggie patties,

Ah, man.

I'm so hungry right now. We have 5 minutes until we can order food. 5 minutes until Jersey Mike's is open.

[laughter]

But yeah, so like Lake Champlain definitely is more of a quiet lake and there's not much like there's a huge amount of coastline that just like doesn't have anything. Like there's no businesses, there's no homes. Like it is

There's something.

ripe for a cryptid or just ancient unidentified creature to live in.

Mhm.

At the very bottom tip of Lake Champlain

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is Whitehall, New York where they do the annual Bigfoot calling competition.

Ooh. I kind of feel like I went whale, but you know.

Well, could be. Who's to say?

Yeah.

I mean whales are deer from the past.

What?

That's a fact. I think that actually is a fact.

Whales are deer from the past? Yeah, I think deer like at SOME POINT.

NO! HOW? Are whales deer?

[laughter]

Um AI says no. Guys, what are they? What am I thinking of?

where did you hear this? You said it was with confidence that I was going to say yeah, okay. I'm here for it.

Okay. I was close. This is like something you learned so long ago and you try to like repeat it in your mind, but like your your mind has changed over time. It says the whale's closest living relative is a hippo which shares the same distant deer-like ancestor. So somewhere along the way

Okay. They have a They're cousin They're distant cousins.

Ancient deer-like creatures

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Okay.

became whales. Okay. Believe everything else I say this episode, okay? Cuz I actually researched everything else and I'm not just trying to regurgitate it from my mouth.

And hey, you fact checked yourself.

I did.

Yeah.

Well, you made me. I wasn't going to. You told me no. You said yes.

Sometimes I I sometimes it's good to challenge each other.

[laughter]

Uh Okay, so back to the lake. Wow, it's like I knew we were going to tangent right there. I wrote back to the lake.

Wow.

Spooky. By surface area, Lake Champlain is the 13th largest lake in the US. Its shoreline measures nearly 600 mi. And let me remind you again, that 600 mi is like pretty relatively untouched. It's not super busy. There's a few lake houses, a few restaurants by the water, but mostly like a lot of cliffs and just like open shoreline.

Mhm.

The maximum depth of the lake is 400 ft, but some surveys suggest that the bedrock depth, including sediment, can

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push closer to 700 ft deep in certain spots.

Okay.

So, that's pretty damn deep. Like you're not going to see something that's living at the bottom.

Mhm.

It's also cavernous. It's murky. It's very hard to explore, and there are a [ __ ] ton of hiding spots.

Well, even what's like the depth that's like for just like normal scuba diving equipment? Like isn't it only like 30 to 60 ft or something like that?

Oh.

Cuz wasn't it with the like the cave divers who

Yeah, they were cleared to go 130 ft and then they went 180 or 190.

Oh.

But I don't know what like the basic certification versus professional

a fraction of 400, meaning that like in order to go 400 ft to go to the bottom of Lake Champlain.

Well, you can't see anything anyway. Like even like people do do scuba diving certification and stuff in Lake Champlain. It's like

What are you seeing?

Murky mud.

Murky Yeah, like literally nothing. Okay, and we're going to go more into like some geographical history.

And if you're like, why do I need to know the history of the lake, Corrine?

We're going to set it up for some dinosaur arguments.

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love history. It's important context.

Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, we need the context to understand kind of like if this is not a cryptid and this is an actual animal that has evolved over time, how could it be here?

Okay.

So, the oldest rocks are visible on the lake

related to deer.

There the So, the deer went into the water one day and decided, "I want to be a mermaid." They played mermaids and they stayed there forever.

They made a deal with Triton.

They did a George Washington hair and they're like, "This is way too much fun. We're never going back."

here.

The oldest rocks visible on Lake Champlain's shores are over a billion years old on the New York side and then over 500 million years old on the Vermont side.

Mhm.

It was formed when the region was actually a shallow tropical sea.

Tropical?

Yes. And today there is a fossilized coral reef. This is the fact that I texted my family and we're all like, "What?" There's a fossilized coral reef in Vermont that dates back to this time, which is the oldest known diverse fossil reef in the world and it's just sitting

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in this lake in Vermont.

That is so cool. Are there photos of it?

Yeah. If you're watching on YouTube, there are. I I will say don't run to YouTube if you're not to be dazzled by this cuz it's just basically like you can see there's like some rocks that are jetting out and they're

cool.

evidence of

That is a fun fact to to take home to your friends.

sink in.

Yeah.

So, this is again, this is one of those episodes where I was excited to write it. So, I'm like, "What did I even write here?" cuz I'm just monologizing. I said, "Let that sink in. The oldest evidence of a coral reef on a planet in Vermont in a lake where I tried my very first Mike's Hard Lemonade?" Of course there's an unknown creature here.

Yeah.

And it's getting drunk off the spilled Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Half of Mike's Hard.

The lake basin itself is from 200 million years ago when the stretching of the continental plates caused a massive piece of bedrock to drop between the two parallel faults right there. Then came the ice age and then 3 million years ago

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glaciers began advancing and retreating across North America and at their peak Champlain Valley was actually buried under a sheet of ice more than a mile thick. So, from tropical

ice

coral reef sea to just the freaking ice age mile thick long ice. And then when the planet started warming up again 15,000 years ago, the ice began to melt, water pooled, created a massive lake called Lake Vermont, which was super high in elevation.

Hm.

If anyone is from Vermont, the super high in elevation is like like Mount Philo was underwater for reference, which is not a very tall mountain. [laughter]

And also not a good reference cuz I don't understand.

Yeah, but if you're local to the Charlotte area, if you're bopping around Charlotte,

That's an insider knowledge.

For you, Mount Philo is a mountain that's like a 10-minute drive from Cookie Love.

Okay. Cookie Love. Now I know where I am.

Where Yeah, which you stopped at cuz I told everyone to stop at Cookie Love. Okay, then 13,000 years ago, the glacier retreated far enough north that the

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Earth's crust, which had been depressed by the immense weight of that like mile long thick piece of ice, allowed marine waters from the Atlantic Ocean to flow up through the St. Lawrence Valley, and then the Champlain Valley became an inland sea, a saltwater sea called the Champlain Sea. So basically now we're getting ocean waters.

could have been connection to the Atlantic to Loch Ness to

Totally.

cousins.

Right, the cousins are coming. You read my mind, next sentence. So already I'm like Nessie and Champ could have swam in the same sea. And then they got in a massive fight,

parted ways,

and they each picked Maybe they were married.

They got divorced.

And they're like, you stay over there in the Americas,

Yeah.

and I got Scotland.

[laughter]

And I keep my kids over here, you keep yours there.

Yeah, that's what I was just thinking. I was like, man, were there like other mates just waiting somewhere? And like, how are they reproducing?

Or are they like their don't worms? Can't they like recreate There's like

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certain animals that literally like

Yeah, certain frogs, too.

reproduce by themselves.

that reproduced another frog.

Surprise. Surprise.

I used to put my a on

[laughter]

my a Walkman headphones and tape over the tank

and like let my frogs listen to

What do you let them listen to?

Like Cyndi Lauper, Christina Aguilera.

you.

Yeah, things like that.

Good good mix tape.

keep them up to date with what NSYNC is doing. Okay, so yeah, basically there's ocean water, salt water here now. And if you're curious about what actual like sea animals lived in the Champlain Sea, the Vermont Sea, there were Atlantic cod, seals, blue mussels, and beluga whales. And actually in 1849, a beluga whale skeleton was found in Charlotte, which is where Mount Philo is, and I know that's 5 minutes down the road where Cookie Love is.

Wow.

Yeah, so there's like actual sea creatures that are have flooded and are

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making their way in here.

Yeah.

So now 10,000 years ago, the sea water drains back out via the St. Lawrence. Fresh water from the rivers and from the rain start coming in, filling the basin, and now the Champlain Sea gradually becomes Lake Champlain. So how is this relating to Champ? Well, some cryptozoologists believe that there was some sort of marine creature that got trapped here and basically evolved as the water was changing to be able to live in fresh water, which makes total sense.

Yeah.

Plus, when you think about how Lake Champlain's researchers have documented a system of underwater caves, and it's like it is totally plausible that for like

Anytime there's caves.

10,000 plus years, there has been something relatively undetected. And I say relatively because there are plenty of reports of people seeing this thing.

Yeah.

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23:00

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historic sightings

Okay, so before the Europeans showed up, the Abenaki and the Mohawk indigenous nations shared Lake Champlain. They had stories of enormous horned serpents in the water. And for hundreds of years, these stories were told. Then, Samuel

Horned serpents.

Interesting.

Horned. Yeah, sometimes he has horns.

It's like deer.

Because they're all deer. Everyone is deer. We're all deer. No deer. Okay. Very brief history here. So, they have these oral stories that are told of these of a lake monster that lives here. And then, Samuel de Champlain, the French cartographer and explorer, which is how Lake Champlain got the name Champlain, he entered Lake Champlain in 1609. And the popular legend says that Champlain was the very first European to see Champlake monster. And for a long time, he was credited with writing about this 20-ft long serpent thick as a barrel with a head of

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a horse. But historians believe that he actually didn't see it. He was just reporting what the local indigenous nations had told him. Yes. The first of fully modern style sighting that was documented came on July 22nd, 1819 near Port Henry, New York at a bay called Bulwagga Bay. A man named Captain Crumb

Love it. [laughter]

reported seeing a creature that he described as a black serpent. He said it was 187 ft long with a head of a seahorse, three teeth.

Three Oh.

Three. And

Why does that make him so cute?

And it described his eyes as like the color of a peeled onion, which is so weird. He said he had a white star on his forehead and a belt of red around his neck.

Aw, the little collar.

A little collar. I'm going to say I don't really believe Crumb. I'm not sure a lake that is 400 ft deep / 700 ft deep is going to support a 200-ft long

26:00

creature.

Why not? It just doesn't move?

Is it a little beta fish that you just keep in a tiny tank?

Well, 200 ft long, so but the it's not going up and down in the river or in the lake. It's floating along. This thing is like 100 miles.

Yeah, that lake is like Yeah, I don't know.

It Even feels like it would you would see it more. Maybe it's a a bottom dweller.

Just like a little worm.

Yeah.

Going by?

Yeah. Not a little worm, but a big worm.

A big a big worm.

And also maybe he wasn't Maybe Crumb is not great at measurements. Maybe math wasn't his expertise.

Yeah. Or evolution like deer and whales [laughter] relating to each other. You know, I can't judge Crumb.

But I love the three teeth

Other people did.

[laughter]

Of course.

People weren't really sure if this was an exaggeration or not, but Crumb had scurvy.

[laughter]

Crumb really needed an orange so bad. Regardless of whether Crum's description was accurate or not, he was a very respected figure and this account gave

27:00

more credence to the existence of there being some sort of unidentified creature existing in the lake.

Okay.

Then some 50 years later in 1873, there was some more Champ action and kind of a lot. There was a lot going on in this July.

Okay.

First, a crew laying railroad track

I literally said that later. I was like, July and August, like most of the sightings are July and August. He But also

Maybe he hibernates. He likes the summer as well.

True, but but like that's also when we're on the lake in Vermont.

Maybe he likes the people.

lake. Maybe, yeah.

Yeah.

Cuz otherwise there's like not as many people

Yeah.

nearly as many people on the on the coastline. So I I don't know why, but July and August there's a at the surface for

Mhm. More toes to taste. So there's a crew laying railroad tracks for the New York and Canada Railroad near Dresden, New York. And they look out at the lake and they see this enormous serpent with a massive head approaching from across the water. The head was described as having sort of

28:00

like a bright, silvery, glistening scale situation happening.

Okay. Rainbow Fish, go on.

Right.

[laughter]

Share your scales, Rainbow Fish. Multiple witnesses corroborated the account and some local farmers even reported missing livestock at the same time. Though the reports of the missing livestock were not connected with Champ or blamed on Champ at the time, but now historians are looking back being like, could it have been some sort of But there's no other reports of like today there's no like oh Champ feeds on the cows at the water's edge. So

there a lot of cows at the water's edge of Lake Champlain?

Not really.

Okay. Because the farmers know.

They moved them inland.

[laughter]

So I don't know, maybe, maybe not.

Hm.

Also in July of 1873, Clinton County Sheriff Nathan H. Mooney reported seeing a water serpent from the shoreline that he estimated to be 25 to 30 ft in length. So, again with Captain Crum's account of saying it's like 180-some feet long.

29:00

Maybe he added an extra zero or something.

saw a whole family and they were like next to each other like following dolphins.

and it looked like it was all one.

a little

All the babies were behind.

Yeah.

And he thought it was one massive one, but it was just mama and her like

of them.

10 kids.

He said he was close enough to see the round white spots that were inside of its mouth. It's three teeth.

And then in August of that same year, the steamship W. B. Eddy actually made contact with something in the water. According to the passengers aboard the ship, the ship struck something and nearly capsized and they were like, "Holy crap, what did we hit?" Like something super sizable.

Mhm.

And people looking overboard reported that a creature surfaced alongside the

vessel

and then went back down and disappeared. So, it's like they

Which I imagine if you're like on a boat, you're that's like terrifying and ominous and

Totally.

It's like Jaws. Is it going to try to like knock over the boat?

going to get you?

Yeah.

And so all this is in the same summer, so July and August.

30:00

Mhm.

And word of these three sightings spread really fast and that is when P. T. Barnum, founder of

Barnum and Bailey or whatever.

or yeah, whatever that circus is. He offered

Yeah, there was a lot of issues.

of circuses have problematic histories.

huge circus history lovers.

[laughter]

Uh but he offered a bounty of $50,000 for the hide of what he called the Great Champlain Serpent to add to his world's fair show.

Problematic.

Yeah. And in today's money, that would be like over a million dollars.

Damn.

For someone to kill this thing and bring it to

Why not keep him alive?

So, nobody caught Champ and brought him to Barnum and he was he was like pissed. He was like, "God

Okay, Barnum, you go do it yourself.

He suggested that people just go out in their boats with guns and just start shooting blindly in the water. He's like, "Yeah, something will surface. It'll come up then." I don't know if anyone did that, but still there was no champ to present. So, fast forward to 1945 when passengers aboard the steamship SS Ticonderoga

31:00

reported a group

Love those pencils. They have the best number twos.

[gasps]

But they all reported seeing a giant creature traveling alongside this vessel. Everyone.

So, it's like multiple people are seeing it.

Yeah. It's not just like a small amount of crew that's aboard like a small ship or whatever. Like these are these are like passenger ships where

Interesting.

a large group of people are seeing things.

Witnesses.

Sightings continued to roll up all the way to today where Champ has over 300 documented sightings. That's documented. And by 1992, documented sightings had

modern evidence

reached 180, which means that in the past like 30 years, there have been a [ __ ] ton more documented sightings.

So, does that mean there's like video evidence or like visual evidence of some kind or someone has gone to a newspaper and that's been put into the press?

Most of the newspaper. There's very little like actual

So, your account counts as a documented

Well, no, I did, but I didn't officially document it anywhere.

in our podcast.

I think in relation to these documented

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sightings, it's like an official documented record like at

Our podcast is pretty official.

Well, so really it should be over 300 because

Yeah.

you take into consideration all the people who just talk about it in their own lives and public forums, but it's not officially documented somewhere.

Fair.

I guess I'll tell my experience. It's so quick.

No, it's the best.

I was in high school, so I can't really remember what year it was, but sometime in high school my So, my family had a boat. We kept it in Malletts Bay, and we would often go to Thayer Beach, if anyone knows. So, it's like the main Lake Champlain. We weren't in the deep part. There's like a little a little bay you like

Mhm.

cross through. There's like a big bike path that you can bike across or whatever. And it's just like

would think safer. Rock wall.

That yeah, that you're we're in the shallows, basically. So, Thayer Beach was like great. We would go tubing over there. We'd just like float. It was an awesome spot. This one particular summer, we're tubing. My brother is the

33:00

spotter on the boat. My mom is driving. My mom almost never ever ever drives a boat. She's driving and my dad and I are on the tube. And it's one of those boomerang style tubes, so it's like we're both kind of facing forward, but like facing away. And then there's one extra spot in the middle for someone a third person that wasn't with us.

For Champ.

For for Champ. And we're going and my mom is like driving us along parallel to Thayer. And next to us, so we were maybe in like 30 or 40 ft of depth.

Yeah.

Next to us, maybe the size of like a dinner plate or like a salad plate. Like I'd say like 8 to 10 in. There's like a blackish colored body that comes up and we don't see the front of it and we don't see the back of it, but we can see like two or three of its humps. And it's riding the wake on my side of the tube. So, it's riding along with us. And my dad is so he takes a lot to scare him. He kind of like laughs off everything.

laissez faire.

Yeah, things can be very dangerous and

34:00

him not consider it to be a dangerous situation. And he looked at me with total fear in his eyes and said, "Do not let go." And this thing is riding alongside of us for like probably a good 30 to 60 seconds.

It's hard to know how long cuz we were terrified. And at first we were screaming bloody murder for my mom to stop the boat and reel us in, but she can't hear us or she like keeps looking back and thinks that we're having fun. Christian's being the world's worst spotter. Not listening to any hand signals that we're throwing up. He's just them know

with Champ.

Christian is sabotaging us. He hired Champ to eat his family that day. Anyway, but like they're not listening and that was when my dad was like, "Whatever you do, don't let go." And we just rode in like sheer silence and terror basically until they reeled us back in because it disappeared, but like my mom didn't stop the boat and Christian didn't know what to do.

that's still there somewhere.

Yeah, we can't just like be like, "Oh my god." and then drop off so that they stop and get us. Like we're trying to keep our legs out of the water. We're

35:00

trying to like hover and like crouch ourselves up on this tube. So that's my That's my Champ sighting cuz I don't know what else to say.

baby Champ because I feel like that that's pretty skinny.

It is pretty skinny. And also it was like Malletts Bay which is a lot calmer so maybe that's where they That's where they reproduce.

Maybe yeah, cuz it's like more gentle and delicate.

Mhm.

Maybe that's why it's small.

the Esplanade in in Boston when the swans when the baby swans hatch in spring they go on the edge like in the kayaking path and then they practice going on like their mom or dad's back

and going in the water.

in the big Charles River.

I'm curious. Like you know how turtles like they go and lay their eggs and then like at a certain point of the year they all hatch and they go back towards the water. Is baby season for Champ in the summer and that's why they're more prevalent?

Oh, that is interesting. And so when people are seeing the 20 or 30-ft Yeah. ones they're actually juvenile Champs. We don't even know.

And I feel like the Malletts Bay would be a great breeding ground too because it's like calmer. There's a bunch of

36:00

little spots for like caves and like cliff jumping and stuff. So it's like there's a lot of little protected areas.

Wow.

And there's a couple entrances back to the main lake. Like there's the one part where you were like we would go out to the main lake, but then there's another on the other side you can go through another like bridge in shallow water and you're in a more protected space again, but still connected to the big You know what? This we might be onto something here.

We've hacked the code.

We need to do more investigations on MySpace.

Yeah. Let's do it.

So that's my sighting. I don't know what it was,

but it's terrifying. Even though you loved Champ.

It was scary in the moment. It's one thing to see Champ from like the safety of a boat. It's another thing to have a foot and a half away from you some serpent-like creature where you're seeing two or three humps riding the wake next to you and you have no clue what it is. Like is it Champ? Is it a giant Anaconda that someone just like let their pet loose? Like

released.

37:00

I don't know. And also we're tubing, so we're going like 15

So it's going fast.

20 miles per hour.

You survived.

It's going fast. I survived Champ. Okay. So now we've established that some people have seen Champ. There's quite a few people. So while their accounts were like there's 300 documented accounts, there's individually over 600 witnesses documented. So probably way more than that cuz I also know of more stories that aren't documented just from like people living in the area. Okay, so we've established a lot of people have seen something on Lake Champlain for a very long time, but the most compelling evidence comes from modern day. So I'm going to walk through three pieces of evidence that people are using now today to advocate to

back up the claims.

Yes. Yeah.

Champ is real.

Okay, so that there's the Mansi photography that we talked about from 1977 where on July 5th Sandra Mansi she sees something emerge from the water when she's there with her boyfriend and her two kids, takes a photograph on her Kodak Instamatic, gets the photo developed, doesn't talk about it for 3

38:00

years until she finally mentions it to friends and word then reaches Lake Champlain researcher Joseph Zarzynski who wrote a book on Champ.

Okay, yeah.

He sent that photo to University of Arizona. That's how it

To get

went from her drawer to being analyzed at the University of Arizona.

of it?

Yeah.

Okay, that's like the famous one.

Yes.

For some reason I've always thought that was a fake photo, but like to know that this is a real photo is wild.

Yeah, this is like the real photo. There's a lot of others that are fake or like I feel like sometimes when you look up Champ, you get a lot of the Nessie

photos, too.

Um

Or like a recreation or like a cartoony version of this.

Totally. Yeah, so it gets sent over to the University of Arizona for analysis. They digitize it. They run computer enhancement techniques on it. Look for any evidence of like ropes or pulleys or some sort of trickery cuz they know the photo itself hasn't been doctored, so now they're trying to look at like

How was the image manipulated?

Yeah.

Uh being created, but there was nothing

39:00

to indicate that this was a hoax. So, a legitimate photo, a legitimate object, whatever it was, it was there at that distance away captured on photograph that day. The photo was published and it caused a media sensation. It was printed in publications like the New York Times and Life Magazine. Sandra actually passed away in 2018, but before she passed, she and her family gifted the original photograph, developed photograph to the Echo Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington.

So, it's on display?

I think so. I mean, last time I was in a few times ago I was that I was in Echo, there was I don't know if it's like a exhibit that they always have or if it's just sometimes, but they have an exhibit on Champ.

As they should.

Yeah. And Echo's also it's a like an aquarium / science center that's right on the water in downtown Burlington.

Love it.

Can't recommend it for the aquarium piece if you're looking for pretty fish [laughter] because it's like local Lake Champlain stuff. Everything is brown.

The one aquarium that truly blew my socks off was in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

40:00

Meredith and I went and we left being like, "Why was that the best aquarium we've ever been to?"

I really want to go to the Atlanta one.

Oh, yeah. I heard it's unreal.

I've heard heard good things.

Yeah, heard good things. Well, I had prom at Echo. so

So fun.

Again, close to Champ. And they have a little statue of Champ that like a sculpture of Champ outside that you can grab your little maple black raspberry twist creamy

and have ice cream next to Champ.

ice cream next to Champ. Okay. So, the original photograph is in possession or like is possessed by Echo.

It's possessed.

But, um the problem is that the original developed a photograph was given, but they had lost or she had lost the negative. So, there's only so much manipulation that they can do to try to study the photograph because they don't have the original uh negative from the film. Evidence number two, the Alforter and Bodette video. It's the summer of 2005. "Pon de Replay" by Rihanna is all

41:00

over the airwaves.

Of course.

The air is thick with humidity. The creamy stands are selling and slinging their thickest cones. And this is when two fishermen, Dick Alforter, I'm butchering pronunciations, I'm sorry, and his stepson Pete Bodette, they're out on Lake Champlain when they see something appear near their boat and by the surface. So, they grab their digital camera and they're filming it. But, remember this is 2005, so cameras are not great. It's grainy.

Sure.

But, they submit the footage and now, like if you go on YouTube or something, like you can watch the news reports, like local news reports on this. And you can literally hear Dick saying in the background, "Boy, that looks like a serpent." So, I have a clip of it or I guess like I have like the three moments

Okay.

that video where you can see something that like looks to be a further out in the distance that's kind of like making the water do some weird wavy things. And then you see very quickly some sort of thing like underneath their boat like

42:00

come out. It's almost like it's head.

Oh.

Okay, ready? So, you can see

Oh.

It's almost like humps coming out.

look really long.

Mhm.

What?

And then this one's hard to see, but you see that?

It looks like a massive snake. Which honestly kind of makes me hate Champ.

Like

I know.

snakes are scary, and a massive sea snake?

That's what's free Yeah, look at that. If it is a snake, it's absolutely terrifying. I would rather it be a cryptid a cryptid.

Yeah.

a 200-ft long dinosaur

Yeah.

than a snake in the water.

fair.

Because it is very creepy, but I also kind of don't think it's a snake because the way that it holds its head up out of the water.

I don't know much about snakes, and I don't plan to.

Yeah. Anyway, so that's another piece of video evidence, and Dick literally says, "That looks like a serpent." And now, two retired FBI forensic image analysts independently reviewed that tape that footage.

43:00

that's like their hobby.

Yeah.

They're like, "Let's figure out Champ."

Like catch the bad guys, or identify the cryptids.

Find cryptids.

They both separately said that what appeared to be captured by these two men on that day appeared to be authentic and unmanipulated. So, some people are like, "Is it an eel? Is it a fish? Is it a log?" It's not a log. Definitely doesn't look like a log.

I know, I feel like that's like the biggest skeptic. "It's just a log."

It's a log.

I'm like, "Okay."

Log this. And also like, if it's a log, then you can just boat like it doesn't disappear under water for longer.

you just

Yeah.

go back up to it.

Yeah.

The last piece of modern evidence is very weird. It reminds me of the blip from the deep sea that people

Yeah.

reference that like people don't know what it is. This is echolocation recordings from like Champlain. Most of them are from 2003, but there are some modern-day recordings as well. I'm not going to play the audio because it is a nightmare to your ears. If you are listening with headphones on or in the car, like it's just going to be uh super

44:00

annoying.

like in Harry Potter when they open the egg and it screams?

It was like kind of. It's just like very static-y, and then you can hear like that

[laughter]

Oh, yeah. Whatever. Like, yeah. But it's audio data, scientific data, that was published in a peer-reviewed journal. Like, this is officially like

This is science, folks.

science. Like, we don't know what this is, but this has been captured. Yeah. So, in 2003, the Fauna Communications Research Institute was conducting research for Discovery Channel. Discovery Channel had a program on Lake Champlain, and they deployed hydrophones, which are underwater microphones, in three different locations around the lake. And that is when they found high-pitched ticking and chirping that sounded almost like a dolphin or beluga whale, which once lived in Lake Champlain 10,000 years ago.

Mhm.

But it was not the wave pattern found of just regular like a log or floating debris or something that would just have more of like a rhythmic

It felt like communication.

is that it was biological echolocation. It was animal communication found in a

45:00

small group of mammals. So, basically, it was like it has to be somehow related to

Yeah.

mammals. So, now I'm like, is it a beluga whale that's evolved over time?

Right.

I don't know. No beluga whales that we've seen so far. So, something that stays deep in the water most of the time.

Wow. But also, communication indicates many. Like, that's not just one.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, you don't just scream into the ether.

Oh, sometimes you do.

[laughter]

I did that in the car on the way here. Silently, but I did it.

But again, like, it brings me back to like the cave systems. I'm like, there could be so many things living down here.

Also, do any of those caves connect to the ocean?

I don't know. But Lake Champlain technically does, cuz you can

Yeah.

You can go up through Montreal, Quebec, and go all the way around through Canada, and then pop out the Atlantic that way. Like, you can actually boat there.

Yeah.

Obviously, it'd take a really long time, and there's a lot of narrow channels, but

You could do it.

Technically, you can do that. And I know that that's been an issue because there's been some problems with the

46:00

barnacles coming into Lake Champlain.

Barnacles, get out of here.

Barnacles. Canadians, take your barnacles off your boat before [laughter] you enter the lake. Okay. So,

scientific explanations

now I'm going to talk about dinosaurs.

Good. As we natural segue.

So,

[laughter]

natural segue. That's why in the beginning I was talking us through all the history of how like the lake formed and stuff.

So, the popular theory is that Champ is a plesiosaur or a descendant of one. So, a plesiosaur, they're very large marine reptiles that lived in the Triassic period through the end of the Cretaceous period. They went extinct approximately 66 million years ago

Or so we thought.

T-extinction. Yeah, or so we thought. That's the thing. It's like there's so many or so we thought. People are still discovering species today. People are discovering

Especially in bodies of water.

animals that are Yeah, like that they thought were extinct 500 years ago that are still here. Like Yeah. We just don't know. Okay, but basically the asteroid that came down killed all the like

47:00

non-avian creatures or whatever. It was thought to be there. So, plesiosaurs, they have long necks, small heads, wide bodies. They have four paddle-like limbs. And the description basically matches somewhat descriptions of Champ. Although I would say the problem is the body.

I would say I feel like the four limbs is not commonly reported.

No. Like a giant body with four limbs. Like it is more of a serpentine. But that's like who's to say that you know, 66 million years ago 66 million years of time couldn't change someone's body shape. Yeah, so this is the dinosaur that

Okay.

people most commonly refer to. Tanystropheus Also a possible explanation. This one is I feel like what you kind of think of more when you think of like Jurassic Park where it has a giant long neck coming out of the water.

Yeah.

So, a bit more reptile-like. And then some people wonder if it's the Basilosaurus, which is a primitive whale species from about 40 million years ago.

48:00

Like it doesn't the whale species that like it does kind of look like a long tube.

Yeah. I mean could it not be like evolution plus like breeding of some kind like it's just

And the echolocation could make sense for

Yeah. These types of dinosaurs.

Yeah. And for like the whale. I will also say in like my experience in seeing what I saw that was Champ and other people's reports, oh like one important thing to note is the way that it moves. It's not moving side to side like a shark or like a

some reptile. It's more mammal-like where it's up and down.

Very snaky.

Oh no, it's not. It's not like a snake. Snakes go side to side.

It's more like

dolphin.

dolphin or whale. Like a mammal which echolocation that part makes sense. So I think it it's definitely a real creature and it's some sort of mammal.

Sure.

I'd just say cryptid's not a real creature but it like it's it's evolved from a creature that we probably know about.

call it a cryptid just because we don't know enough about it?

I guess. But also I think cuz there's magical properties but I don't think

49:00

there's magical properties.

To a lot of cryptids, yeah.

Oh with this with Champ?

No, that's why I'm saying I don't think Champ is like it shouldn't really be a cryptid because like what's the magic other than sometimes people don't see it.

Yeah.

And don't actually know exactly what it is.

Hm.

I don't know.

It's mysterious.

Yeah. So some people think that it's a case of misidentification. Which we're going to go through some of the animals that people blame Champ sightings on. And

Isn't it one of the biggest ones like the sturgeon?

Yeah.

Fish.

And I have included actual photos of fishermen holding record-sized animals or like a fish

from a Lake Champlain to prove to you that this is not it.

it.

Okay.

Okay, lake sturgeons can weigh up to 310 lb, measure over 6 ft. Some live 150 years. And if you're watching on YouTube, I'm about to show you a picture of a fisherman with one of the largest ones. Some people blame garfish. Here's a record garfish caught in Lake

50:00

Champlain. Nope. Nope. Again, impossible. The size does not nearly fit. Like that is bait.

Y'all, size matters when it comes to Champ.

It does. It does. So, plenty of theories. Some people say a log. Some people say it's a wake from a boat.

[laughter]

And for many who just don't have a name for what they saw, we default to Champ, the lake monster from Lake Champlain. For months, minor league baseball team is the Lake Monsters

Love it.

with Champ as the mascot.

The waters were officially declared a safe haven for Champ.

Wait, isn't there like a plaque?

I don't know, but it's protected by law.

I love that so much.

Yeah. So, like if Champ exists, like you're not allowed to kill him.

hurt him. He's protected by law.

That's amazing.

And ECHO, the science and nature museum's aquarium, has exhibits on Champ. I don't know if they're always there on and off for years. But, all to say, the locals have fully accepted Champ as one of our residents and believe that he does or it does live in

51:00

our waters. So, now it's time for you to believe, too.

I believe it's something scary and snake-like

Mhm.

but maybe evolved over time.

It just feels like it has to be some sort of evolved animal.

Yeah. Enough people have seen it and had experiences with things like it that can't be explained that I believe.

And most of the sightings are in like the deeper, big part of the lake.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of little islands throughout there and

And now, as we've discovered and hypothesized this episode, it's mating season, birthing season in July and August.

Look for the baby Champs.

Look for all the little babies.

try to ride your wake.

Wow.

I remember my dad telling me a story that he heard from I can't remember if it was like a coworker or client or someone who was like some a type of person who would never want to admit that they saw something weird, but said that they were on a walk one morning and it was kind of like misty out on the lake and they walked down to the dock and as they're like on the dock, they see it rises out of the

52:00

water with its head and then goes back down. Just like a split second.

Damn.

You know.

I feel like when I think of you, I think of I think of Vermont first and then I think of Champ. Like I feel like that's a part of

who I am. It's part of my lore.

Yeah. Like if there was a book about you, it would start with like you're about the author would have

strong believer in Champ

from Vermont has seen Champ believer, yeah.

creamy lover, Champ survivor

I know that [clears throat] the name is what it's called, but when you were describing thick creamy, I really hated it.

Oh, sorry.

so icky.

[laughter]

Creamy, if anyone doesn't know, is Vermont's version of soft serve has a higher fat content.

I did have creamies at my wedding.

Yeah, it's so good.

It's spelled c r e m e e. They You can get vanilla or chocolate, but usually maple's the way to go or my order maple black raspberry twist with chocolate sprinkles.

Yeah, I'm so happy.

And if you were at my wedding, then you put the maple creamy into the maple old

53:00

fashioned and that was perfect.

I didn't I didn't order that, but I tried someone else's cuz I was like I don't think I could have that whole thing.

It was good.

But it was delicious. Um okay, this is

listener story

wild. So you told me a crazy fact that we debunked a bit about whales being connected to deer.

Yeah.

And I had no idea about that, but I picked a story around Lake Champlain

Okay.

about a naught deer.

Oh, look at this. The ancestor of the beluga whales who have evolved into Champ on Lake Champlain.

All comes full circle. Okay.

Hi girlies, my name is TJ and I've been listening to you for about a year now. Mostly been doing while I'm doing charting at work. As I'm writing this, I just started episode 264 and I'm freaking out because I am from Upstate New York. I live right between Whitehall and Saratoga Springs. It is a deeply haunted area. I believe because of all the battles fought up here on the way through to Saratoga. In general, we have a lot of high strangeness here and throughout the

54:00

Adirondacks.

Yeah, and Bigfoot.

Mhm. I also love the tours of Fort Ticonderoga. Allegedly, you can sometimes see Champ while touring that fort.

Oh, really? Interesting.

So, Champ's just kind of like hanging out at the bottom

Yeah.

bottom tip of the lake?

Champ's also going on history tours.

Yeah.

Okay, so I grew up in New York and spent a lot of time outdoors hunting, fishing, mountain biking, hiking. All to say, I've seen a lot of weird stuff and handled a lot of animals in the 30 years I've been alive. But, whatever I saw this night, nothing I'd ever seen before. Right after college, I started working at a local treatment center on second shift. So, meaning 4:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. I drove home every night in the dark. And it didn't bother me much. I drove through town, so only the last 10 minutes of my 20-minute drive were in the rural area that had no street light.

Mhm.

During this time, it was peak COVID, August 2020, when this story took place. So, really, there was no one else on the road. I'm driving home one night. It was a regular shift for me, nothing exciting. I just turned onto the last

55:00

3-mile stretch before I reached my house when I noticed a deer on the side of the road. It's back was to me, so I was looking at its butt. It's head was down, presumably eating. And I've seen deer my entire life. I've hunted with my grandpa as a teenager and it's not uncommon for them to be this close to town. I kept an eye out for other deer as usually if there's one, there's others.

Mhm.

But, as I got closer to this deer, it turned to look at me. And what I saw made me sick. It's jaw was completely crooked. It looked like someone had smashed into it and broken its jaw and it healed sideways.

Ew.

It hung open, seemingly unable to close due to the angle.

Oh my god, if this is an actual deer injury, I feel so horrible for this thing.

Well, my first thought was actually chronic wasting disease and not anything supernatural. We didn't have any cases of it though at the time and neither did Vermont. But just because they hadn't seen any of the deer with CWD doesn't mean that they didn't exist. And at this point I didn't even know what a knot deer was. So I slowed down to try to get a better look at it and also to give it time to move

56:00

away from the side of road. I came to a complete stop about 4 yd from it and I turned my hazards on. I have a habit of collecting critters, mostly possums and a few birds and once a big snapping turtle. So I grabbed my phone to call our local wildlife control office and report the injured animal. When I noticed out of the corner of my eye that this deer is rearing up. I assumed that it was about to try to jump only it stopped moving. And I looked up fully from my phone and the deer was now standing up like a person. The front legs were straight by its side and its back legs were perfectly straight.

Which like that is impossible.

And its head

thing if it like goes up for a second.

No, it

It can't just deers deer can't just stand like that.

stand like humans. Its head was now turned looking directly at me and I had this feeling that it was human, intelligent, like it was waiting for me. I sat frozen staring at its face at its crooked broken looking jaw not knowing what was going on. And I'm not kidding when I say it stepped towards my car purposeful, like a person, never breaking eye contact with me. I started

57:00

screaming immediately. I threw my shitty 2008 Hyundai Sonata into drive and floored it. I crossed into the other lane to be as far as that thing as possible. I practically blew through the stop sign at the end of the road doing 50 in a 30 until I got to my driveway. I ran inside still screaming. My mom was still awake sitting at the kitchen table and I basically screamed at her what I had seen and she stayed awake with me for a while. Eventually I did calm down, but I could not sleep at all that night. I had to make sure my blinds and curtains were closed and after that I started avoiding the road entirely, going the long way around, truly until I moved in 2023.

Wow.

I have not seen anything like it since, but every now and again, it pops in my head and I get that bone-deep sick feeling all over again. Thanks for reading my story. Love you ladies. TJ.

It does kind of make me wonder, like, are these chance encounters that everyone has with not deer and creatures like this, or is this like like the fact that it's like standing up and looking at TJ? Like it's waiting for TJ. I'm like

58:00

But at first, it was just eating grass. Like it seemed like a normal deer.

Right.

Like it does feel a little bit like protectory, like how the way the swans and geese will hiss at you if you go by their babies. But there are other encounters where it feels like it's lurking at the edge of the woods waiting

Wait, yeah.

for someone or something to come.

I don't understand what they are. And I know that's the point of so many cryptids. It's like there's theories.

I think they're cryptids because we don't know. Yeah.

Right. But like certain lore, you get like, okay, like this like how they choose as which it turns into an owl. Like you get more explanation, but I feel like not deer is still so unclear.

So scary. They're so unsettling.

Is it a forest spirit? Is it like what?

And what does it want?

What does it want? And why does it eat roadkill? Sometimes.

I know. And also, why haven't any of our listeners who have seen Champ emailed us?

That's a great question cuz we know you're out there.

We know you're out there. Or you know someone who knows something. Yeah. I feel like the Vermonters have come a flocking because of you.

59:00

So give me what I want.

It's her birthday.

believe you didn't bring her a gift. My gosh, you didn't bring her a gift. Oh guys, you don't know me.

rude. Showing up to her birthday party without a gift.

I can't believe it. How un-Vermonter-like of you.

Krin wants gifts and she wants stories of of Champ.

are stories from Vermont.

Yeah. And from you.

From From everyone, but specifically a call to the Vermonters to

Yeah.

Hey.

This is your call to action. Send them, and when Krin is back from maternity leave, we will do a Vermont-themed

Oh, I would love that.

encounter story.

That'd be great.

Fantastic.

All right. Well, I am sufficiently sweating, and I need to

And I need my sandwich. It is out the door, and I cannot wait to devour it like the not deer wanted to devour TJ.

[laughter]

Anyway, everyone email us your stories twogirlsoneghostpodcast@gmail.com. If you want episodes 1 week early and ad-free, plus bonus episodes, plus campfire stories, plus witch class and book club, and so much more, join us on Patreon. You can watch us on YouTube. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcast, and tell all of your friends, all of your family, and every strange

1:00:00

not deer you see about our podcast.

Thank you to Jamie Ryan who edits and produces our podcast, and we love you.

And happy birthday.

Thank you. And be well.

See you on the other side.

Very spooky.