Champ video June 2009

This is from video.

I shot this video of SOMETHING in the lake at Oakledge Park on Sunday (05/31/09) early am (0530 or so). I don’t know what the eff it is but it’s definitely not normal…Was anyone else out and about around Oakledge on Sunday just after sunrise?

It is a strange video I will give it that. Could this be a female moose swimming through the water? It does appear to be moving through the water at its own free will, so I don't think it is a submerge log that floated up.

Now that's what a Lake monster is supposed to look like!

Crisp, clear, stable.

BUT...

My guess is the video photographer knows exactly what the animal is. He is supposedly panning over the lake and then suddenly "spots" the animal. At no stage does he attempt to zoom in, not even when the animal goes further away. He does some great camera work, so I have no doubt that he knows where the zoom button is...
And then - as per usual - the end of the clip is missing. Did the animal "dive" under the water? Did it get out on the other side? We'll never know.

I think you're spot on with your "female moose" suggestion. It's most probably a surface dwelling quadruped out for a swim. It seems to get "up" when it reaches a shallow point (about 0:28). Throughout the video the creature does its best to keep its head above the water. An aquatic animal’s “swimming style” is a lot different than this.

Attention-grabbing find nonetheless!

reply to post by Gemwolf


I was also thinking it wasn't treading water very well when it stopped moving either.

kind of what you'd expect from a creature not meant for water.

A very interesting clip, thats for sure, but I also did wonder why the person filming wasn't a) the least bit excited about this strange thing he was filming and b) zooming in like a madman trying to get a better picture of it.

*scratches chin thoughtfully*

[edit on 6/2/2009 by Genus_Unknown]

I've heard of Oakledge Park before. I live in New York about an hour or so below the tip of Lake Champlain and am very familiar with the Crown Point/Bulwagga Bay/Port Henry section where many sightings of Champ have taken place. I've been in that area often enough and have interviewed people in the area who are familiar with Champ sightings. I've also been on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain as well.
Anyway, the video posted was good as far as it went. Like others have pointed out, it would have been better if the person who posted it had at least tried zooming in to get a better image of the animals head and neck for a more positive id of the animal as to whether it was a moose or other type of animal. Other than that, I had no problem with the video evidence he provided.

This is from Cryptomundo...

...
As it turns out, the reporter, by chance, learned that he knows the 37-year-old man, who happened to have been a former tenant of his in Burlington.
...
The video individual isn’t really interested in publicity, and doesn’t make any claims that he filmed Champ. All he really says is that what he recorded was too large for a dog, didn’t look like anything he’d seem in Lake Champlain before, and doesn’t know what it was/is.

How the taping occurred was that the person was down at the lake, using his cellphone to capture the early morning scenery.
...
The man saw something, remained quiet, pushed the zoom button that is on his cellphone, and continued recording what he was seeing.

To answer a question mentioned by Cryptomundo comment makers, this eyewitness turned off his cellphone because he got worried that he was running out of memory in the cellphone. He felt that if that happened, he might loss all that he’d recorded, and he didn’t want that to occur.
...

This provides some sensible answers to our questions. It would seem that the footage that we're watching is already zoomed.

Even so, that doesn't change the fact that it looks like a quadruped swimming, i.e. a deer or a moose...

Loren gives some excellent examples of other swimming animals.

I hope we're all wrong and someone can pull more out of the footage. I won't mind being wrong if it turns out to be Champ...

reply to post by Gemwolf

I looked at a fair share of swimming quadruped today. One thing that I notice about deer and moose is that when they swim their head is almost always completely upright. In this video the neck is seen bent, almost at a 45 degree angle. Another thing I noticed is the lack of ears. Moose and deer and very visible ears, especially while swimming. Think stick straight up, while in the video its tough to even make out ears. But that could also be due to the time of the day. The sun was setting, making it harder to see.

So I have started to think that maybe it is something else?

well it looks to me like whoever did take the video took it with a mobile phone he did zoom in. he was limited by how long the phone would record.either way that thing is no more than fifty feet from shore IMHO so its probably 4 feet long could be anything.

reply to post by Gemwolf


I was even thinking something like a greyhound or black lab. I don't see moose ears. Doesn't mean they're not there, though.

But as usual, no one's that prepared and stable with a camera if they think it's a lake cryptid. It just never looks that good.

reply to post by testrat


Very good find

I would agree with the original video poster that is "Strange" I'm not sure it's ready to be called Champ just yet though. It is another step closer to classifying something that I believe does live there.

I just found this article on Phantoms and Monsters, it give a little more info on this footage, just thought i'd add it to the thread:

Phantoms and Monsters - New Champ Footage?

Here are a couple more updated videos that were on Crytomundo.

Stabilized video

And a enhanced video.

reply to post by testrat


Looks like a over sized cow sucker snake.

www.somerset-kentucky.com...

ive seen em 8 foot long and big around as my arm in size.

and i see a trail behind it to assume snake.

then again i got no idea what snakes are that size in lake Champlain