Chasing Champ - Lake Champlain monster - Letter to the Editor

In Benjamin Radford's article on the Lake Champlain monster (July/August 2003), filmmaker Richard D. Smith is quoted as saying that a hoax monster would be "highly expensive in terms of expertise and materials." He also suggests that a monster couldn't be smuggled to a lake, assembled, and maneuvered out onto the water without a security leak. As Ann Richards, former Governor of Texas, once said on Bill Mahr's talk show, "As someone who actually knows something about the subject, may I say a few words." You see, I may not have put the monster in Loch Ness but I certainly helped put a monster in Loch Ness.

In the interest of maintaining my credibility as a skeptic I hasten to point out that this was a long time ago, I was an undergraduate at the time, and our monster was not a hoax but a publicity stunt. There is a difference.

For a few hours on the morning of March 31, 1961, a very convincing forty-seven foot monster graced the waters of Loch Ness. About a dozen witnesses saw it and it was photographed by myself and a pressman. Putting it there required little expertise and virtually no expense. Security was no problem, as the east shore of Loch Ness is a lonely place. If we hadn't called in the press no one would have known how the monster got there.

We didn't expect to fool anyone, although a distant and unprepared viewer might have had quite a shock. Since the object was to publicize Aberdeen University's Charities Week we had painted our slogan on the monster's humps. Our reward was a story and photograph on the front page of the Aberdeen Evening Express. (A sight gag in a past Simpsons episode may allude to this monster.)

This project was conceived and executed in two or three days by five Aberdeen University students. We prefabricated our monster from chicken wire covered with black cloth. It comprised a neck, a very alarming looking head, two humps, and a stubby tail. The sections were linked by six-foot lengths of thin steel rod. Each hump was based on a four-foot by six-foot frame of two-by-fours with empty oil cans for floatation. The only material not scrap or donated was the adhesive that glued the black cloth in place.

We travelled the 100 miles to Loch Ness in a borrowed panel truck and re-assembled our monster overnight by the light of a full moon. As soon as it was light enough, two of my co-conspirators towed the monster out on the loch. As Sir Peter Scott, the late great British naturalist and authority on the Loch Ness Monster, wrote, tongue firmly in cheek, "Seldom can a more dramatic photograph have been taken showing the creature in pursuit of its potential prey."

Too often the "hoax" explanation is ruled out on the grounds that a hoax would have been too complex, would involve too many people, or couldn't have been done by the supposed hoaxers. This is a mistake; creating monsters is much easier than you might think.

Tom Napier

North Wales, Pennsylvania

Benjamin Radford appears to have missed the obvious in his investigation of the Champ photo. The height of the "monster" can be estimated quite accurately by considering perspective. Assuming, as Radford did, that the camera lens was 8 ft. above water level, the creature would reach the horizon line if it extended 8 ft. above the water no matter how far out it was. The dimensions on the Mansi photo were measured with a millimeter (mm) ruler with the following results: the head reaches about 5 mm above the water and the height to the horizon is about 18 mm at the same location. Thus the animal protrudes 5/18 x 8 = 2.2 ft. Even if the camera lens were 12 ft. above the water, the animal would be only about 3.3 ft tall. AS a check of this method, measurements were made on figure 4. The "creature" is measured to be about 11.3 mm high and the vertical distance to the horizon is about 15 mm at the same location. Therefore, the artificial creature of figure 4 is calculated to be 11.3/15 x 8 = 6 ft. high, which is the actual height given by Radford.

Another problem with Radford's work is his selection of a site. Clearly the site he selected does not match the one shown in the Mansi photo based on the configuration and apparent proximity of the opposite shore. Note also that the Mansi photo shows some evidence of the near shore (plant stalks, etc.) and a white line (sandy beach?) on the far shore, neither of which appear in the Radford photo.

Arthur L. Kohl

Woodland Hills, California

In reading your articles on "Champ," the supposed monster in Lake Champlain, I was surprised to find a rather basic error by the normally astute Ben Radford and Joe Nickell as well (assuming they checked each other's material). In discussing the photo taken during July "around noon," Radford states that at noon the Sun would be directly overhead, thus casting shadows straight down.

The Sun is never directly overhead, or even close, on Lake Champlain. The lake is approximately 44 degrees north longitude and the furthest the Sun ever gets is to the Tropic of Cancer, 23.5 degrees (some 20 plus degrees to the south), and that only on June 21. Therefore the Sun could only be 69 degrees or less from the horizontal. This means there would be a shadow cast to the north and the directional orientation of the picture would come into play.