Episode 384 - Champ | The Lake Monster That Almost Ate Corinne

It’s Corinne’s birthday, so we’re celebrating the only way that feels right, by diving into one of her favorite cryptids. Meet Champ, the legendary Lake Champlain monster. We dig into eyewitness accounts, famous photographs, underwater sounds, Indigenous legends, and the incredible geology that transformed Lake Champlain into the perfect hiding place for something ancient. Could Champ be an undiscovered species, a relic from the Jurassic period, or something stranger? Grab your binoculars and keep your hands out of the water. Watch the video version here. Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at [email protected] New Episodes are released every Thursday and Sunday at 12am PST/3am EST (the witching hour, of course). Corinne and Sabrina hand select a couple of paranormal encounters from our inbox to read in each episode, from demons, to cryptids, to aliens, to creepy kids... the list goes on and on. If you have a story of your own that you'd like us to share on an upcoming episode, we invite you to email them to us! If you enjoy our show, please consider joining our Patreon, rating and reviewing on iTunes & Spotify and following us on social media! Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Discord. Edited and produced by Jaimi Ryan. Original music by Arms Akimbo! Disclaimer: the use of white sage and smudging is a closed practice. If you’re looking to cleanse your space, here are some great alternatives! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hey, everyone. This is Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal, and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not. And it surely isn't about having one forced government sanctioned religion. It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe, while your neighbor says,

• 0:44Speaker 00

  I believe something completely different. And honestly, that's the whole point. If that sounds like the kind of America you want, learn more at au.org/gettingbetter. Because your beliefs are yours, and theirs are theirs.

• 1:01Speaker 01

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• 1:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Happy birthday to you.

• 1:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Happy birthday.

• 2:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, God, I'm so sorry. But to Corinne, happy birthday.

• 2:05Corinne Vien?

  Thanks.

• 2:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I-

• 2:06Corinne Vien?

  Doesn't it feel so inauthentic?

• 2:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It feels so inauthentic, which is why-

• 2:09Corinne Vien?

  It's June 1st.

• 2:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm also giving you-

• 2:12Corinne Vien?

  But my birthday's August 3rd.

• 2:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Remember I told you I have your card?

• 2:14Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 2:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I didn't write it yet because I don't want, I want to write it and seal it and you can open it on your actual birthday.

• 2:21Corinne Vien?

  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 three weeks.

• 2:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Corinne's having a baby.

• 2:29Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, so things are all out of order.

• 2:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 2:36Corinne Vien?

  No, just two things. Oh, did you have her right now?

• 2:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, I'm telling you, I want to show you the card, but I'm gonna write it.

• 2:44Corinne Vien?

  This is the most you ever, because 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.

• 2:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, and I bought it six months ago. I've also, there's so many cards that I've-

• 3:01Corinne Vien?

  Is this like the perfect, like-

• 3:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Representation of who I am.

• 3:05Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 3:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I've also bought you so many cards over the years, because when I see a card, like I'll be at a-

• 3:10Corinne Vien?

  I need a card box.

• 3:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'll be at a store and I'll see a card and be like, oh, I want to get that for so and so for this event.

• 3:17Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 3:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then the event comes up and then I 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 it. It has nothing written inside of it right now.

• 3:29Corinne Vien?

  It's perfect.

• 3:35Corinne Vien?

  This is so perfect because literally five seconds ago when we took a bathroom break, I was watching a clip of Heated Rivalry.

• 3:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Amazing. Show the people.

• 3:45Corinne Vien?

  Turn up the heat. It's your birthday. Time to celebrate. Oh, my God, that's so good. I love it.

• 3:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Heated Rivalry birthday card.

• 3:51Corinne Vien?

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

• 3:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, I found it. That's why I was like, I have to get it for you.

• 3:56Corinne Vien?

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

• 4:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I got it at-

• 4:02Corinne Vien?

  Artwork by Laura Shm- Shmowsky?

• 4:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Shmensky?

• 4:05Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 4:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 4:07Corinne Vien?

  In collaboration with The Found.

• 4:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  From Trident Bookstores.

• 4:11Corinne Vien?

  Trident has the best.

• 4:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Exactly. The card collection.

• 4:14Corinne Vien?

  Trident has the best-

• 4:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, now I need it back.

• 4:17Corinne Vien?

  Okay.

• 4:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because I will write a message for you that you can read on August 3rd.

• 4:21Corinne Vien?

  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. Amazing cards.

• 4:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 4:31Corinne Vien?

  Good selection of-

• 4:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Corinne Vien?

  Books. And there's kind of like a hidden door speakeasy-

• 4:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 4:37Corinne Vien?

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

• 4:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They have a bunch of different stuff there.

• 4:44Corinne Vien?

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

• 4:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What's her name? Zendaya, when they were filming the drama in Boston, would go there a lot.

• 4:54Corinne Vien?

  Oh, really?

• 4:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:55Corinne Vien?

  Damn.

• 4:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 4:57Corinne Vien?

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

• 5:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's a great one.

• 5:01Corinne Vien?

  I was like, do you want to cook your breakfast?

• 5:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yes. Great. Love it. But yeah, happy birthday, Corinne.

• 5:07Corinne Vien?

  Did we say it's two girls, one ghost?

• 5:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No.

• 5:09Corinne Vien?

  This is two girls, one ghost.

• 5:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Two girls, one ghost. We hope you clicked on the right podcast. Where your ghost is is, I'm, that's Corinne the Birthday Girl. Well, I was gonna, but anyway, that's a birthday girl.

• 5:21Corinne Vien?

  Hi.

• 5:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Corinne, I'm Sabrina. This is Sven.

• 5:24Corinne Vien?

  And we're turning 33?

• 5:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. I feel nothing about it, actually, because everyone-

• 5:30Corinne Vien?

  Me neither.

• 5:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because everyone I'm hanging out with is 27, so.

• 5:34Corinne Vien?

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

• 5:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. I feel like 35, maybe.

• 5:39Corinne Vien?

  A wash in between.

• 5:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I'm sure if I'm still single at 35, I'm very concerned about my life, but you know, because 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.

• 5:53Corinne Vien?

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

• 5:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's your birthday. You should do whatever you want.

• 5:59Corinne Vien?

  A story about Vermont Cryptid, who's the mascot to our local baseball team, who I have physically seen with my own eyes.

• 6:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You've almost been touched by it.

• 6:08Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, almost eaten alive by this monster.

• 6:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Which one's worse, being touched by or eaten alive by it?

• 6:14Corinne Vien?

  I don't know.

• 6:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You survived.

• 6:16Corinne Vien?

  I survived. This is my I Survived Champ, the Lake Monster episode.

• 6:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 6:24Corinne Vien?

  I was gonna tell it later, but-

• 6:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, then tell it whenever you want.

• 6:28Corinne Vien?

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

• 6:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, great.

• 6:33Corinne Vien?

  July 5th, 1977. It's a Tuesday afternoon and Sandra Mancy 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 Khan'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 a sudden, something catches her eye. It is something about 150 feet out from where she's sitting on the beach.

• 7:15Corinne Vien?

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

• 7:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, she sees the head?

• 7:32Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, she's literally seeing like the body and this like serpent-like head. And it's 150 feet 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 gets off of her chair, like whatever she's sitting on. She walks back to her car, grabs her camera, the Kodak 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.

• 8:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It was waiting for its close up.

• 8:06Corinne Vien?

  It was. Sandra got the photo developed, and for three 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 every digital enhancement tool they had, and there was no evidence of tampering.

• 8:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, it's also 1980. Like-

• 8:25Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 8:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's not like you have Photoshop and computers to manipulate things like that. Yeah.

• 8:30Corinne Vien?

  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-

• 8:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The Polaroid Ghost?

• 8:39Corinne Vien?

  The Polaroid Ghost?

• 8:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 8:44Corinne Vien?

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

• 8:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Kodak.

• 8:51Corinne Vien?

  Spirits could like easily manipulate or something.

• 8:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Catch ghosts on camera. That should be their new slogan.

• 8:56Corinne Vien?

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

• 9:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do love how beloved Champ is.

• 9:26Corinne Vien?

  Champ.

• 9:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because it's terrifying.

• 9:28Corinne Vien?

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

• 9:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And love.

• 9:33Corinne Vien?

  Love, love too, but like-

• 9:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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.

• 9:43Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 9:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There's also, it comes with fear because it's the unknown, it's massive. We haven't fully understood it.

• 9:50Corinne Vien?

  No.

• 9:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Scary.

• 9:51Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 10:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Same, same.

• 10:03Corinne Vien?

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

• 10:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Crin starting bites.

• 10:11Corinne Vien?

  They're possibly cousins, so whatever.

• 10:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I do feel like they're very related.

• 10:16Corinne Vien?

  Totally. Well, actually, I looked up and I might have written this down, 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. Or sorry, not the Adirondacks, the Appalachian.

• 10:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That would make sense then.

• 10:34Corinne Vien?

  So then I was like, well, the Adirondacks are right there.

• 10:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 10:37Corinne Vien?

  In this lake. And it basically was like, yeah, like geographically at one point when.

• 10:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Back in Pangaea days.

• 10:43Corinne Vien?

  But like, that's so.

• 10:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Back in the good days.

• 10:45Corinne Vien?

  For like, these two creatures to have been related and separated.

• 10:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They're prehistoric.

• 10:50Corinne Vien?

  Okay.

• 10:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Certainly not us.

• 10:52Corinne Vien?

  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. I wrote, let's fucking go.

• 11:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You know, Crin was stoked right in this episode.

• 11:17Corinne Vien?

  I was. I was texting my family the whole time, all of these.

• 11:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Fun fact.

• 11:20Corinne Vien?

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

• 11:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, really?

• 11:30Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 11:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 11:34Corinne Vien?

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

• 11:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 11:48Corinne Vien?

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

• 11:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 11:57Corinne Vien?

  We're gonna keep it.

• 11:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Corinne Vien?

  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. It stretches 107 miles long. Some sources say 125 because it does technically go up into Canada and into Quebec. So if you count that portion, yes, it's larger. And on average, 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.

• 12:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 12:35Corinne Vien?

  But they're like, if you think about where I got married, like you could just canoe, take two minutes to boat over to the New York side from the Vermont side.

• 12:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 12:42Corinne Vien?

  And canoe over.

• 12:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But the average is 14 miles. That means you can't even see the other side from one side.

• 12:48Corinne Vien?

  But you can.

• 12:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You see 14 miles across?

• 12:51Corinne Vien?

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

• 12:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sure.

• 12:58Corinne Vien?

  So like, you can see the other side.

• 12:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But so far.

• 13:00Corinne Vien?

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

• 13:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 13:08Corinne Vien?

  Or like an hour and a half.

• 13:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 13:09Corinne Vien?

  And then an hour to get to the Naked Turtle.

• 13:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, but what if you got dropped off in the middle and you have to get back safely without a boat? That's.

• 13:17Corinne Vien?

  There are little tiny islands, so you better hope that you're close to that.

• 13:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then what is the Naked Turtle?

• 13:21Corinne Vien?

  Okay, actually, this is funny because 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 shit, I've gotten fucked up at that Naked Turtle so many times.

• 13:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But what is the Naked Turtle?

• 13:37Corinne Vien?

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

• 13:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, how fun.

• 13:43Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, so they have like.

• 13:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Swim up bar.

• 13:45Corinne Vien?

  Spots for your boat. And they have.

• 13:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wait, I love that.

• 13:49Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 13:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 13:57Corinne Vien?

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

• 14:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Naked turtle.

• 14:03Corinne Vien?

  You're giving me an hour. I could do it in 10.

• 14:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  An hour feels like a long time.

• 14:07Corinne Vien?

  Or something like that. I can't really remember.

• 14:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Thirty-two ounce burger. Okay, it's big. It's eight patties.

• 14:14Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. But you could get your photo on the wall. Naked Turtle is also great because Lake Champlain is, I mean, I guess in perspective, like people aren't gonna really know. 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 is not built like a boating community. Like, there are very few restaurants you can actually boat up to.

• 14:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 14:40Corinne Vien?

  And dock up to. So Naked Turtle was a treat. But all to say, better for Champ.

• 14:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It honestly looks amazing.

• 14:46Corinne Vien?

  It does.

• 14:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like, if those were veggie patties.

• 14:48Corinne Vien?

  Ah, man.

• 14:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 14:57Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 15:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  There's something.

• 15:10Corinne Vien?

  Ripe for a cryptid or just ancient unidentified creature to live in. At the very bottom tip of Lake Champlain is Whitehall, New York, where they do the annual Bigfoot calling competition.

• 15:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 15:26Corinne Vien?

  Well.

• 15:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Could be.

• 15:27Corinne Vien?

  Who's to say?

• 15:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 15:29Corinne Vien?

  I mean, whales are deer from the past.

• 15:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What?

• 15:35Corinne Vien?

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

• 15:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Whales are deer from the past?

• 15:41Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I think deer evolve, like, at some point.

• 15:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No.

• 15:45Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 15:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  How?

• 15:46Corinne Vien?

  Are whales deer?

• 15:49Corinne Vien?

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

• 15:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Where did you hear this? You said it was such confidence that I was gonna say, yeah, okay, I'm here for it.

• 15:58Corinne Vien?

  Okay. I was close. This is like something you learned so long ago and you try to like, repeat it in your mind. But you're 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.

• 16:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay. They have their cousin, their distant cousins.

• 16:17Corinne Vien?

  Ancient deer-like creatures.

• 16:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 16:20Corinne Vien?

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

• 16:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And hey, you fact checked yourself.

• 16:30Corinne Vien?

  I did.

• 16:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Corinne Vien?

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

• 16:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 16:41Corinne Vien?

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

• 16:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wow.

• 16:48Corinne Vien?

  Spooky. By surface area, Lake Champlain is the 13th largest lake in the US. Its shoreline measures nearly 600 miles. And let me remind you again, that 600 miles 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. The maximum depth of the lake is 400 feet. But some surveys suggest that the bedrock depth, including sediment, can push closer to 700 feet deep in certain spots.

• 17:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 17:23Corinne Vien?

  So that's pretty damn deep. Like, you're not gonna see something that's living at the bottom. It's also cavernous. It's murky. It's very hard to explore. And there are a shit ton of hiding spots.

• 17:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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 feet or something like that?

• 17:42Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 17:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cause wasn't it with the, like, the cave divers who?

• 17:45Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, they were cleared to go 130 feet and then they went 180 or 190. But I don't know what, like, the basic certification versus professional.

• 17:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's a fraction of 400, meaning like, in order to go 400 feet, to go to the bottom of Lake Champlain.

• 17:58Corinne Vien?

  Well, you can't see anything anyway.

• 18:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 18:01Corinne Vien?

  Even, like, people do do scuba diving certification and stuff in Lake Champlain. It's like, what are you seeing?

• 18:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Murky mud.

• 18:07Corinne Vien?

  Murky, yeah, like literally nothing. Okay. And we're gonna go more into like, some geographical history. And if you're like, why do I need to know the history of the Lake Crin? We're gonna set it up for some dinosaur arguments.

• 18:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We also love history. It's important context.

• 18:21Corinne Vien?

  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?

• 18:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 18:32Corinne Vien?

  So the oldest rocks are visible on.

• 18:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's also related to deer.

• 18:36Corinne Vien?

  There, so the deer went into the water one day and decided, I want to be a mermaid. They played mermaids.

• 18:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And they stayed there forever. They made a deal with Triton.

• 18:44Corinne Vien?

  They did the George Washington here and they're like, this is way too much fun. We're never getting out.

• 18:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Staying here.

• 18:48Corinne Vien?

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

• 19:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Tropical?

• 19:03Corinne Vien?

  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 in this lake in Vermont.

• 19:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That is so cool.

• 19:21Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Are there photos of it?

• 19:22Corinne Vien?

  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 because it's just basically like, you can see, there's like some rocks that are jutting out.

• 19:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's so cool.

• 19:34Corinne Vien?

  Like fossil evidence.

• 19:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wow.

• 19:36Corinne Vien?

  Of.

• 19:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 19:42Corinne Vien?

  Sink in.

• 19:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 19:44Corinne Vien?

  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? Cause I'm just monologuing. 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?

• 19:59Corinne Vien?

  Of course, there's an unknown creature here.

• 20:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, and it's getting drunk off the spilled Mike's Hard Lemonade.

• 20:04Corinne Vien?

  Oh, yeah, half of Mike's Hard. The lake basin itself was formed 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 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 coral reef sea to just the friggin' 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.

• 20:45Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 20:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 20:56Corinne Vien?

  If you're local to the Champlain area, if you're bopping around Charlotte.

• 21:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's an insider knowledge.

• 21:02Corinne Vien?

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

• 21:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 21:10Corinne Vien?

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

• 21:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, could have been connection to the Atlantic, to Loch Ness, to cousins.

• 21:45Corinne Vien?

  Right, the cousins are coming.

• 21:48Corinne Vien?

  You read my mind, next sentence. So already, I'm like Nessie and Champ could have swam in the same sea.

• 21:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then they got in a massive fight.

• 21:55Corinne Vien?

  Parted ways.

• 21:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And they each picked, maybe they were married. They got divorced.

• 21:59Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my God.

• 22:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 22:03Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 22:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I got Scotland.

• 22:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 22:09Corinne Vien?

  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?

• 22:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or are they like, they're vampires? Can't they like recreate? There's like certain animals that literally like.

• 22:21Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, certain frogs, too.

• 22:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Reproduce by themselves.

• 22:24Corinne Vien?

  I had a pet frog that reproduced another frog.

• 22:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Surprise.

• 22:26Corinne Vien?

  Surprise. I used to put my, um, my Walkman headphones and tape over the tank and like let my frogs listen to.

• 22:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What'd you let them listen to?

• 22:38Corinne Vien?

  Like Cyndi Lauper, Christina Aguilera. Yeah, things like that.

• 22:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Good, good mixtape.

• 22:44Corinne Vien?

  Keep them up to date with what N'Sync 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 another five minutes down the road where Cookie Love is.

• 23:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wow.

• 23:16Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, so there's like actual sea creatures that are, have flooded and are making their way in here.

• 23:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 23:21Corinne Vien?

  So now 10,000 years ago, the seawater 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.

• 23:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 23:51Corinne Vien?

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

• 24:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Anytime there's caves.

• 24:01Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 24:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hey, everyone, this is Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal, and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not, and it surely isn't about having one forced government sanctioned religion. It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe, while your neighbor

• 24:55Speaker 00

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• 25:42Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 25:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Horned serpents.

• 25:56Corinne Vien?

  Horned, yeah, sometimes he has horns.

• 25:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like deer.

• 25:59Corinne Vien?

  Because they're all deer. Everyone is deer, we're all deer.

• 26:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No deer.

• 26:05Corinne Vien?

  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 Champ the lake monster. And for a long time, he was credited with writing about this 20-foot-long serpent, thick as a barrel with the head of a horse. But historians believe that he actually didn't see it, he was just reporting what the local indigenous nations had told him.

• 26:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Told him.

• 26:44Corinne Vien?

  Yes. The first fully modern-style sighting that was documented came on July 22, 1819, near Port Henry, New York, at a bay called Bulwaga Bay. A man named Captain Crumb.

• 26:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Love.

• 27:00Corinne Vien?

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

• 27:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Three, oh.

• 27:11Corinne Vien?

  Just three. And.

• 27:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Why does that make him so cute?

• 27:15Corinne Vien?

  I know. 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.

• 27:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, a little collar.

• 27:26Corinne Vien?

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

• 27:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Why not?

• 27:38Corinne Vien?

  It just doesn't move? It's like a little bait officially, you just keep it in a tiny tank?

• 27:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, 200 feet 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.

• 27:50Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, the lake is like, yeah, I don't know. It feels like you would, you would see it more.

• 27:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe it's a bottom dweller.

• 27:58Corinne Vien?

  Just like a little worm.

• 27:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 28:00Corinne Vien?

  Come on, Pat?

• 28:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 28:03Corinne Vien?

  A big, a big worm.

• 28:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 28:11Corinne Vien?

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

• 28:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I love the three teeth so much.

• 28:19Corinne Vien?

  Other people did, so.

• 28:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Of course.

• 28:20Corinne Vien?

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

• 28:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Crumb had scurvy.

• 28:25Corinne Vien?

  Crumb really needed an orange so bad. Regardless of whether Crumb's description was accurate or not, he was a very respected figure, and this account gave more credence to the existence of there being some sort of unidentified creature existing in the lake.

• 28:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 28:42Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 28:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 28:50Corinne Vien?

  First, a crew laying railroad tracks. I literally said that later, I was like, July and August, like, most of the sightings are July and August. But also.

• 28:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe he hibernates, he likes the summer as well.

• 29:01Corinne Vien?

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

• 29:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe he likes the people.

• 29:08Corinne Vien?

  Maybe, yeah.

• 29:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 29:09Corinne Vien?

  Because otherwise, there's like not as many people.

• 29:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 29:12Corinne Vien?

  Nearly as many people on the, on the coastline. So I, I don't know why, but July and August.

• 29:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  More snacks at the surface for Champ.

• 29:19Corinne Vien?

  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 like a bright silvery glistening scale situation happening.

• 29:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, rainbow fish, go off.

• 29:42Corinne Vien?

  Right, 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.

• 30:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 30:11Corinne Vien?

  Not really.

• 30:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, because the farmers know.

• 30:15Corinne Vien?

  They moved them inland.

• 30:18Corinne Vien?

  So I don't know, maybe, maybe not. Also, in July of eighteen seventy-three, Clinton County Sheriff Nathan H. Mooney reported seeing a water serpent from the shoreline that he estimated to be twenty-five to thirty feet in length. So again, with Captain Crumb's account of saying it's like a hundred and eighty-some feet long.

• 30:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe he added an extra zero or something.

• 30:37Corinne Vien?

  Maybe he saw a whole family and they were like next to each other, like following.

• 30:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Dolphins and it looked like it was all one.

• 30:42Corinne Vien?

  Like a little, all the babies were behind.

• 30:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Corinne Vien?

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

• 30:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A bunch of them.

• 30:49Corinne Vien?

  Ten 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 WB Eddie actually made contact with something in the water. According to the passengers aboard the ship, the ship struck something, nearly capsized, and they were like, holy crap, what did we hit? Like something super sizable. And people looking overboard reported that a creature surfaced alongside the vessel and then went back down and disappeared. So it's like they.

• 31:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 31:28Corinne Vien?

  Totally.

• 31:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's like jaws. Is it gonna try to like knock?

• 31:30Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, is it gonna get you?

• 31:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 31:32Corinne Vien?

  And so all this is in the same summer, so July and August. And word of these three sightings spread really fast, and that is when P T Barnum, founder of the Barnum and Bailey Circus, or whatever that circus is, he offered.

• 31:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Very problematic.

• 31:47Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, there's a lot of.

• 31:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A lot of circuses have problematic histories.

• 31:51Corinne Vien?

  We're not huge circus history lovers. Uh, but he offered a bounty of fifty thousand dollars for the hide of what he called the Great Champlain Serpent to add to his World's Fair show.

• 32:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Problematic.

• 32:04Corinne Vien?

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

• 32:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Damn.

• 32:08Corinne Vien?

  For someone to kill this thing and bring it.

• 32:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Why not keep him alive?

• 32:11Corinne Vien?

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

• 32:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, Barnum, you go do it yourself.

• 32:16Corinne Vien?

  Monster. He suggested that people just go out in their boats with guns and just start shooting blindly in the water. He's like, 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 nineteen forty-five, when passengers aboard the steamship SS Ticonderoga reported a group sighting.

• 32:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Pencils.

• 32:38Corinne Vien?

  They had the best number toes. But they all reported seeing a giant creature traveling alongside this vessel.

• 32:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 32:49Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, it's not just like a small amount of crew that's on aboard like a small ship or whatever. Like, these are, these are like passenger ships where a large group of people are seeing things. And sightings continued to roll up all the way to today, where Champ has over three hundred documented sightings. That's documented. And by nineteen ninety-two, documented sightings had reached a hundred and eighty, which means that in the past like thirty years, there have been a shit ton more documented sightings.

• 33:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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 press?

• 33:25Corinne Vien?

  Newspaper. There's very little like actual.

• 33:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So your account counts as like documented?

• 33:29Corinne Vien?

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

• 33:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But it's in our podcast.

• 33:33Corinne Vien?

  I think in relation to these documented sightings, it's like an official documented record like at.

• 33:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Our podcast is pretty official.

• 33:42Corinne Vien?

  Well, so really it should be over three hundred because if 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. I guess I'll tell my experience. It's so quick.

• 33:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It was the best.

• 33:57Corinne Vien?

  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 Mallett's 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 cross through. There's like a big bike path that you can bike across or whatever and it's like a big rock wall. But yeah, 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 spotter on the boat. My mom is driving. My mom almost never, ever, ever drives the boat.

• 34:41Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 34:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  For Champ.

• 34:55Corinne Vien?

  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 thirty or forty foot of depth.

• 35:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 35:07Corinne Vien?

  Next to us, maybe the size of like a dinner plate or like a salad plate, like I'd say like eight to ten inches. 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, it takes a lot to scare him. He kind of like laughs off everything.

• 35:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  He's very laissez faire.

• 35:34Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, things can be very dangerous and 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 thirty to sixty seconds. It's hard to know how long because we were terrified.

• 35:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Corinne Vien?

  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, just letting us.

• 36:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Working with Champ.

• 36:08Corinne Vien?

  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 reel us in for a bit.

• 36:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's still there somewhere.

• 36:28Corinne Vien?

  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 trying to like hover and like crouch ourselves up on this tube. So that's my, that's my Champ sighting because I don't know.

• 36:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Do you think it was like a baby Champ? Because I feel like that's pretty skinny.

• 36:46Corinne Vien?

  It is pretty skinny. And also it was like in the bay, which is a lot calmer. So maybe that's where they.

• 36:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's where they reproduce?

• 36:52Corinne Vien?

  Maybe, yeah, because it's like more gentle and delicate. Maybe that's why it's more. Esplanade in, in Boston, when the swans, when the baby swans hatch each spring, they go on the edge, like in the kayaking path and then they practice going on like their mom or dad's back in the like big Charles River.

• 37:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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?

• 37:22Corinne Vien?

  Oh, that is interesting. And so when people are seeing the twenty or thirty foot

• 37:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 37:27Corinne Vien?

  ones, they're actually juvenile champs. We don't even know. And I feel like the Mallett's Bay would be a great breeding ground too, because it's like calmer. There's a bunch of little spots for like caves and like cliff jumping and stuff. So it's like, there's a lot of little protected areas.

• 37:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wow.

• 37:45Corinne Vien?

  And there's a couple entrances back to the main lake. Like there's the one part where you're 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 on to something here.

• 38:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We've hacked the code.

• 38:07Corinne Vien?

  We need to do more investigations on Mallett's Bay.

• 38:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Let's do it.

• 38:10Corinne Vien?

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

• 38:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But it terrifying. Even though you loved Champ, it was scary in the moment.

• 38:16Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 38:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Released.

• 38:35Corinne Vien?

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

• 38:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So it's going fast.

• 38:39Corinne Vien?

  Twenty miles per hour.

• 38:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You survived.

• 38:41Corinne Vien?

  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 the accounts were like, there's three hundred documented accounts, there's individually over six hundred witnesses documented. So probably way more than that because 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.

• 39:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  To back up the claims.

• 39:19Corinne Vien?

  Yes.

• 39:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  To be like Champ is real.

• 39:21Corinne Vien?

  Okay, so the, there's the Mancy photography that we talked about from nineteen seventy-seven where on July fifth, Sandra Mancy, 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 three years, until she finally mentions it to friends. And word then reaches Lake Champlain researcher Joseph Krasinski, who wrote a book on Champ.

• 39:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 39:46Corinne Vien?

  He sent that photo to University of Arizona. That's how it, it went from her drawer to being analyzed at the University of Arizona.

• 39:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Photo of it?

• 39:54Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, that's like the famous one.

• 39:56Corinne Vien?

  Yes.

• 39:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 40:01Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 40:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 40:15Corinne Vien?

  Totally. Yeah. So it gets sent over to 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 because they know the photo itself hasn't been doctored. Now they're trying to look at like, how was the image of it?

• 40:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 40:33Corinne Vien?

  Uh, being created, but there was nothing to indicate that this was a hoax. To 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 like Champlain in Burlington.

• 41:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So it's on display?

• 41:02Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 41:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  As they should.

• 41:14Corinne Vien?

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

• 41:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Love it.

• 41:21Corinne Vien?

  Can't recommend it for the aquarium piece. If you're looking for pretty fish, because it's like local Lake Champlain stuff, everything is brown.

• 41:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The one aquarium that truly blew my socks off was in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Meredith and I went and we left being like, why was that the best aquarium we've ever been to?

• 41:42Corinne Vien?

  I really want to go to the Atlanta one.

• 41:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cause isn't that one supposed to be like unreal? I've heard, heard good things.

• 41:48Corinne Vien?

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

• 41:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So fun.

• 41:53Corinne Vien?

  Again, close to Champ.

• 41:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Fancy.

• 41:55Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 42:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And have ice cream next to Champ.

• 42:03Corinne Vien?

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

• 42:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's possessed.

• 42:11Corinne Vien?

  But um, the problem is that the original developed 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.

• 42:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Now they don't preserve it.

• 42:26Corinne Vien?

  Original uh, negative from the film. Evidence number two, the Alford and Bodett video is a summer of 2005. Ponder replay by Rihanna is all over the airwaves.

• 42:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Of course.

• 42:38Corinne Vien?

  The air is thick with humidity, the creamy stands are selling and slinging their thickest cones. And this is when two fishermen, Dick Alfordur, I'm butchering pronunciations, I'm sorry. And his stepson Pete Bodett, 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.

• 43:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sure.

• 43:04Corinne Vien?

  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 like, it's like, I have like the three moments from that video where you can see something that like looks to be 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 come out. It's almost like it's head.

• 43:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 43:39Corinne Vien?

  Okay, ready? So you can see.

• 43:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh.

• 43:42Corinne Vien?

  It's almost like humps coming out.

• 43:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It does look really long.

• 43:45Corinne Vien?

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

• 43:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It looks like a massive snake, which honestly kind of makes me hate Champ. I hate, like, snakes are scary. And a massive sea snake.

• 43:57Corinne Vien?

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

• 44:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A cryptid.

• 44:03Corinne Vien?

  A cryptid. I would rather it be a 200 foot long dinosaur than a snake in the water.

• 44:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 44:09Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 44:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 44:17Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 44:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I love that that's sort of like their hobby.

• 44:30Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 44:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They're like, let's figure out Champ.

• 44:33Corinne Vien?

  Like catch the bad guys, identify the cryptids.

• 44:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Find cryptids.

• 44:37Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 44:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I know. I feel like that's like the biggest skeptic.

• 44:53Corinne Vien?

  It's just a log.

• 44:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's a log.

• 44:55Corinne Vien?

  Like, okay.

• 44:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's a tree.

• 44:56Corinne Vien?

  Log this. And also like, if it's a log, then you can just boat, like it doesn't disappear underwater for a long time. Like you just go back up to it.

• 45:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 45:06Corinne Vien?

  The last piece of modern evidence is very weird. It reminds me of the blip from the deep sea that people reference that like people don't know what it is. This is echolocation recordings from Lake 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 super annoying.

• 45:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 45:33Corinne Vien?

  It was like, kind of. It's just like very staticky and then you can hear like the

• 45:39Corinne Vien?

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

• 45:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This is science, folks.

• 45:48Corinne Vien?

  This is science. Like we don't know what this is, but this has been captured.

• 45:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 45:51Corinne Vien?

  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. 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.

• 46:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It felt like communication.

• 46:26Corinne Vien?

  Is that it was biological echolocation. It was animal communication found in a small group of mammals. So basically it was like, then it has to be somehow related to mammals. So now I'm like, is it a beluga whale that's evolved over time?

• 46:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 46:40Corinne Vien?

  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.

• 46:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 46:50Corinne Vien?

  Exactly.

• 46:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 46:51Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. You don't just scream into the ether.

• 46:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, sometimes you do. I did that in the car on the way here. Silently, but I did it.

• 47:00Corinne Vien?

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

• 47:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 47:07Corinne Vien?

  I don't know, but Lake Champlain technically does because you can.

• 47:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 47:11Corinne Vien?

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

• 47:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You could do it.

• 47:24Corinne Vien?

  Technically, you can do that. And I know that that's been an issue because there's been some problems with barnacles coming into Lake Champlain.

• 47:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Barnacles, get out of here.

• 47:34Corinne Vien?

  Barnacles, Canadians, take your barnacles off your boat before you enter the lake.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hey everyone, this is Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not. And it surely isn't about having one forced government sanctioned religion.

• 48:21Speaker 00

  It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe, while your neighbor says, I believe something completely different. And honestly, that's the whole point. If that sounds like the kind of America you want, learn more at au.org slash getting better. Because your beliefs are yours and theirs are theirs.

• 48:43Speaker 04

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• 49:13Corinne Vien?

  Now I'm gonna talk about dinosaurs.

• 49:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Good, as we, natural segue.

• 49:18Corinne Vien?

  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 Crustaceous period. They went extinct approximately 66 million years ago in the

• 49:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or so we thought.

• 49:42Corinne Vien?

  extinction. Yeah, or so. That's the thing. It's like, there's so many or so we thoughts. People are still discovering species today. People are discovering

• 49:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Especially in bodies of water.

• 49:52Corinne Vien?

  Animals that are, yeah, like, that they thought were extinct 500 years ago that are still here.

• 49:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like, yeah.

• 49:57Corinne Vien?

  We just don't know. Okay, but basically, the asteroid that came down killed all the like 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.

• 50:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was gonna say, I feel like the four limbs is not commonly reported.

• 50:21Corinne Vien?

  No, like a giant body with four limbs, like, yeah, it is more of a serpency. But that's, like, who's to say that?

• 50:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That was how much, 66 million years ago?

• 50:29Corinne Vien?

  60 million years of time couldn't change someone's body shape. Yeah, so this is the dinosaur that

• 50:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 50:36Corinne Vien?

  people most commonly refer to. Tansus stuff is 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.

• 50:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 50:52Corinne Vien?

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

• 51:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. I mean, could it not be like, evolution plus like breeding of some kind? Like, yeah, it just

• 51:11Corinne Vien?

  On the echolocation could make sense for

• 51:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, these types of dinosaurs.

• 51:16Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, and for like the whale. I would also say in like my experience in seeing what I saw that was Champ and other people's reports, 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.

• 51:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Very snakey.

• 51:37Corinne Vien?

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

• 51:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Dolphin.

• 51:41Corinne Vien?

  Dolphin.

• 51:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or whale.

• 51:42Corinne Vien?

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

• 51:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sure.

• 51:49Corinne Vien?

  Not to say a cryptid's not a real creature, but like, it's, it's evolved from a creature that we

• 51:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 51:58Corinne Vien?

  I guess, but also I think because there's magical properties, but I don't think there's

• 52:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Are there magical properties?

• 52:03Corinne Vien?

  To a lot of cryptids, yeah.

• 52:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, with this, with Champ?

• 52:05Corinne Vien?

  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? Others, then sometimes people don't see it.

• 52:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 52:14Corinne Vien?

  And don't actually know exactly what it is. I don't know.

• 52:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's mysterious.

• 52:19Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. So some people think that it's a case of misidentification, which where I'm gonna go through some of the animals that people blame Champ sightings on.

• 52:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 52:30Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 52:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Fish?

• 52:31Corinne Vien?

  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 it is

• 52:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Is not the same.

• 52:43Corinne Vien?

  It.

• 52:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 52:44Corinne Vien?

  Okay, lake sturgeons can weigh up to 310 pounds, measure over six feet, 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 Champlain.

• 53:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Nope.

• 53:02Corinne Vien?

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

• 53:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 53:09Corinne Vien?

  It does. It does. So plenty of theories. Some people say a log. Some people say it's a wake from a boat. And for many who just don't have a name for what they saw, we default to Champ, the lake monster from Lake Champlain. Vermont's minor league baseball team is the Lake Monsters

• 53:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Love it.

• 53:29Corinne Vien?

  with Champ as the mascot.

• 53:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The best.

• 53:32Corinne Vien?

  The waters were officially declared a safe haven for Champ.

• 53:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wait, isn't there like a plaque?

• 53:37Corinne Vien?

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

• 53:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I love that so much.

• 53:40Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. So like, if Champ exists, like

• 53:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You're not allowed to kill him.

• 53:43Corinne Vien?

  You're not allowed to hurt him. He's protected by law.

• 53:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's amazing.

• 53:46Corinne Vien?

  And ECHO, the Science and Nature Museum slash 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 our waters. So now it's time for you to believe too.

• 54:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I believe it's something scary and snake-like, but maybe evolved over time.

• 54:11Corinne Vien?

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

• 54:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 54:21Corinne Vien?

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

• 54:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 54:25Corinne Vien?

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

• 54:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 54:36Corinne Vien?

  Look for the baby Champs.

• 54:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Look for all the little babies.

• 54:38Corinne Vien?

  They might try to ride your wake.

• 54:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wow.

• 54:40Corinne Vien?

  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 if 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.

• 54:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They see it?

• 55:00Corinne Vien?

  Rises out of the water with its head and then goes back down, just like a split second.

• 55:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Damn.

• 55:05Corinne Vien?

  You know?

• 55:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I feel like, when I think of you, I think of

• 55:09Corinne Vien?

  You think of Champ?

• 55:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 55:14Corinne Vien?

  Who I am, it's part of my lore.

• 55:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 55:21Corinne Vien?

  Strong believer in Champ.

• 55:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  From Vermont.

• 55:23Corinne Vien?

  Has seen Champ.

• 55:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Believer, yeah.

• 55:25Corinne Vien?

  Creamy lover, Champ survivor.

• 55:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 55:34Corinne Vien?

  Oh, sorry.

• 55:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It sounded so icky.

• 55:36Corinne Vien?

  Creamy, if anyone doesn't know, is Vermont's version of soft-serve, is a higher fat content. I did have creamies at my wedding. It's spelled, it's spelled C-R-E-E-M-E-E. They, you can get vanilla or chocolate, but usually maple is the way to go.

• 55:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So good.

• 55:51Corinne Vien?

  Or might order maple black raspberry twist with chocolate sprinkles.

• 55:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm so happy.

• 55:56Corinne Vien?

  And if you were at my wedding, then you put the maple creamy into the maple old-fashioned and that was

• 56:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 56:08Corinne Vien?

  It was good.

• 56:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But it was delicious. Um, okay, this is wild. So you told me a crazy fact that we debunked a bit about whales being connected to deer.

• 56:19Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 56:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 56:26Corinne Vien?

  Okay.

• 56:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  About a not deer.

• 56:27Corinne Vien?

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

• 56:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, comes full circle. Okay. Hi, girlies. My name is TJ and I've been listening to you for about a year now, mostly binging 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 Adirondacks.

• 57:03Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, and Bigfoot.

• 57:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Mm-hmm. I also loved the tours of Fort Ticonderoga. Allegedly, you can sometimes see Champ while touring that fort.

• 57:12Corinne Vien?

  Oh, really?

• 57:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Interesting.

• 57:13Corinne Vien?

  Interesting. So Champ's just kind of like hanging out at the bottom?

• 57:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 57:17Corinne Vien?

  Bottom tip of the lake?

• 57:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Champ's also going on history tours.

• 57:20Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 57:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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 PM to 12:00 AM. 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 streetlight. 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 was driving home one night. It was a regular shift for me, nothing exciting. I just turned onto the last three-mile stretch before I reached my house when I noticed a deer on the

• 58:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  side of the road. Its back was to me, so I was looking at its butt. Its 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. But as I got closer to this deer, it turned to look at me. And what I saw made me sick. Its jaw was completely crooked. It looked like someone had smashed into it and broken its jaw and it healed sideways.

• 58:34Corinne Vien?

  Ooh.

• 58:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 58:38Corinne Vien?

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

• 58:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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 not deer was. So I slowed down to try to get a better look at it and also to give it time to move away from the side of the road. I came to a complete stop about four yards 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.

• 59:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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.

• 59:32Corinne Vien?

  Which like, that is impossible.

• 59:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And its head-

• 59:34Corinne Vien?

  It's one thing if it like goes up for a second.

• 59:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, it-

• 59:37Corinne Vien?

  It can't just, deer's, deer can't just stand like that.

• 59:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They don't 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 screaming immediately. I threw my shitty 2008 Hyundai Sonata into drive and floored it. I crossed into the other lane to be as far away from 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.

• 1:00:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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.

• 1:00:36Corinne Vien?

  Wow.

• 1:00:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  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.

• 1:00:47Corinne Vien?

  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 and like-

• 1:01:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 1:01:04Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 1:01:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like it does feel a little bit like protector-y, 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-

• 1:01:17Corinne Vien?

  Wait, yeah.

• 1:01:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  For someone or something to come.

• 1:01:19Corinne Vien?

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

• 1:01:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 1:01:27Corinne Vien?

  Right. But like certain lore, you get like, okay, like this La Le Chuzas, which turns into an owl. Like you get more explanation, but I feel like not deer is still so unclear.

• 1:01:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So scary. They're so unsettling.

• 1:01:39Corinne Vien?

  Is it a forest spirit? Is it like what?

• 1:01:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And what does it want?

• 1:01:42Corinne Vien?

  What does it want? And why does it eat roadkill sometimes?

• 1:01:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 1:01:52Corinne Vien?

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

• 1:01:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 1:02:01Corinne Vien?

  So give me what I want.

• 1:02:02Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's her birthday.

• 1:02:03Corinne Vien?

  A naked turtle burger.

• 1:02:04Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My gosh, you didn't bring her a gift?

• 1:02:06Corinne Vien?

  Oh guys, email me.

• 1:02:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's really rude, showing up to her birthday party without a gift.

• 1:02:10Corinne Vien?

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

• 1:02:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Corinne wants gifts and she wants stories of Champ.

• 1:02:15Corinne Vien?

  The gifts are stories from Vermont.

• 1:02:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:19Corinne Vien?

  And from you, from, from everyone, but specifically a call to the Vermonters too.

• 1:02:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hey, this is your call to action. Send them. And when Corinne is back from maternity leave, we will do a Vermont themed-

• 1:02:30Corinne Vien?

  Oh, I would love that.

• 1:02:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Encounter story.

• 1:02:32Corinne Vien?

  That'd be great.

• 1:02:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Fantastic.

• 1:02:34Corinne Vien?

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

• 1:02:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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

• 1:02:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Anyway, uh, everyone email us your stories, [email protected]. If you want episodes one 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. Uh, you can watch us on YouTube. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all of your friends, all of your family and every strange not deer you see about our podcast.

• 1:03:05Corinne Vien?

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

• 1:03:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And happy birthday.

• 1:03:09Corinne Vien?

  Thank you. And we will-

• 1:03:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  See you on the other side.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

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