Read Online Lake Monster Mysteries by Benjamin Radford - Free Book Online
Authors: Benjamin Radford
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her fiancé, Anthony Mansi, along with Sandraâs two children from a previous marriage, were taking a leisurely drive along Lake Champlain. They drove by some farmland and, around noon, made their way to a small bluff overlooking the lake. The two children went down to the water while Anthony returned to the car to get a camera. As Sandra watched her children and the lake, she noticed a disturbance in the water about 150 feet away. She thought at first that it was a school of fish, then possibly a scuba diver. âThen thehead and neck broke the surface of the water. Then I saw the head come up, then the neck, then the back.â
Figure.2.6 Sandra Mansiâs 1977 photograph of a mysterious object in Lake Champlain. This image has been touted as the best evidence of the existence of lake monsters. (Copyright 1980 by Sandra Mansi, all rights reserved)
Mansi didnât panic: âI wasnât even scared, Iâm just trying to figure out what Iâm seeing. Then when Tony came over the field he saw it and started screaming, âGet the kids out of the water!ââ The kids scrambled up the bank and headed toward the car. As Anthony helped Sandra up the bank, he handed her the camera. She knelt down, snapped one photo ( figure 2.6 ), and then put the camera down to watch the creature. The Mansis estimated that the creatureâs neck stuck about six feet out of the water and was about twelve to fifteen feet long. The sighting lasted a remarkably long timeâbetween five and seven minutesâduring which the creature never turned to face the shore. Sandra Mansi described the neck and head as dark in color and said that what we see in the photograph is as much of the creature as she saw.
After several minutes, the head and neck slowly sank into the water and were gone. The Mansis then headed home. They didnât report thesighting to anyone but took the unfinished roll of film to a local Photomat. The photo was tucked away in an album for four years. It then came to the attention of cryptozoologists (see appendix 1 for details about how this came about) and was published in the New York Times on June 30, 1981, to great fanfare. Soon after, a well-publicized Champ seminar was held to discuss the creature and the photograph. In Port Henry, New York (the self-proclaimed home of Champ), the aforementioned signboard listing Champ sightings in the Bulwagga Bay area (see figure 2.3 ) provides a timeline of sightings, as well as insight into how Mansiâs photo (rather than her actual sighting four years earlier) likely spawned other sighting reports. Almost exactly half of the 132 sightings listed on the board (as of August 2002) are dated 1981 or 1982, immediately after the photoâs release and the resultant publicity. This fact strongly argues for the âbandwagon effect,â whereby widely publicized sightings lead to other reports, independent of an actual creatureâs presence or absence. Instead of an actual creature triggering other sightings, publicity about a ânewâ four-year-old photo triggered new sightings (this same effect occurred at Lake Okanagan; see chapter 7 ). It isnât much of a stretch to state that Mansiâs photo launched the modern Champ phenomenon.
Despite assertions to the contrary, the Mansi photograph by itself is intriguing but holds almost no value as evidence. It contains little usable information; whether by accident or design, virtually everything needed to determine the photographâs authenticity (and subject matter) is missing, lost, or unavailable. For example, Mansi canât provide the negative, which might show evidence of tampering. She said she habitually threw away her negatives; they werenât lost, as others have reported. She also canât provide other photographs taken on the roll, which might show other angles of the same object or perhaps âtestâ photos of a known object from an odd position. Mansi is
Figure.2.6 Sandra Mansiâs 1977 photograph of a mysterious object in Lake Champlain. This image has been touted as the best evidence of the existence of lake monsters. (Copyright 1980 by Sandra Mansi, all rights reserved)
Mansi didnât panic: âI wasnât even scared, Iâm just trying to figure out what Iâm seeing. Then when Tony came over the field he saw it and started screaming, âGet the kids out of the water!ââ The kids scrambled up the bank and headed toward the car. As Anthony helped Sandra up the bank, he handed her the camera. She knelt down, snapped one photo ( figure 2.6 ), and then put the camera down to watch the creature. The Mansis estimated that the creatureâs neck stuck about six feet out of the water and was about twelve to fifteen feet long. The sighting lasted a remarkably long timeâbetween five and seven minutesâduring which the creature never turned to face the shore. Sandra Mansi described the neck and head as dark in color and said that what we see in the photograph is as much of the creature as she saw.
After several minutes, the head and neck slowly sank into the water and were gone. The Mansis then headed home. They didnât report thesighting to anyone but took the unfinished roll of film to a local Photomat. The photo was tucked away in an album for four years. It then came to the attention of cryptozoologists (see appendix 1 for details about how this came about) and was published in the New York Times on June 30, 1981, to great fanfare. Soon after, a well-publicized Champ seminar was held to discuss the creature and the photograph. In Port Henry, New York (the self-proclaimed home of Champ), the aforementioned signboard listing Champ sightings in the Bulwagga Bay area (see figure 2.3 ) provides a timeline of sightings, as well as insight into how Mansiâs photo (rather than her actual sighting four years earlier) likely spawned other sighting reports. Almost exactly half of the 132 sightings listed on the board (as of August 2002) are dated 1981 or 1982, immediately after the photoâs release and the resultant publicity. This fact strongly argues for the âbandwagon effect,â whereby widely publicized sightings lead to other reports, independent of an actual creatureâs presence or absence. Instead of an actual creature triggering other sightings, publicity about a ânewâ four-year-old photo triggered new sightings (this same effect occurred at Lake Okanagan; see chapter 7 ). It isnât much of a stretch to state that Mansiâs photo launched the modern Champ phenomenon.
Despite assertions to the contrary, the Mansi photograph by itself is intriguing but holds almost no value as evidence. It contains little usable information; whether by accident or design, virtually everything needed to determine the photographâs authenticity (and subject matter) is missing, lost, or unavailable. For example, Mansi canât provide the negative, which might show evidence of tampering. She said she habitually threw away her negatives; they werenât lost, as others have reported. She also canât provide other photographs taken on the roll, which might show other angles of the same object or perhaps âtestâ photos of a known object from an odd position. Mansi is
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