Affolter/Bodette Champ video?

stareater · Joined: 26 Feb 2008 Posts: 26

Has anybody seen or does anybody have a good copy of or link to the Dick Affolter/Peter Bodette video/pics allegedly showing Lake Champlain's Champ? I've seen many references to this sighting, but on the ABC Good Morning America webpage for the story the video is gone, and while I've seen some stills from the video, there are supposed to be photos showing a reptilian head & tail surfacing and then submerging again, which I've never seen. The video stills are interesting but inconclusive, and I've never seen the said head/tail photos. It seems a bit telling that the video seems to have vanished for no good reason, and the stills from the video seem way too good to be true. Evidence always has a way of disappearing before it can be debunked, but this one was actually aired on ABC. Anyway, here's a link to three stills from the video:

Champ Vid Stills

stareater · Joined: 26 Feb 2008 Posts: 26

Funny how things work out. I searched YouTube a few minutes ago and somebody posted the ABC story back on February 5th. Here's a link: ABC Champ Report. Finally seeing the actual video, I have to say it's completely unconvincing. It appears that, in the footage of "Champ" swimming next to the boat, it's some kind of dummy creature that was pulled up on a rope or cable and just floats there. It doesn't appear top be natural swimming motion to me, and seems more like somebody on the other side of the boat was operating a pulley and keeping it just below the surface. It looks like an inanimate object floating in the water. I'd be interested to hear what everyone else thinks.

**dr wu23** · Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 2158 Location: Indiana

As always we don't get n much from the pics and videos....it could be many things i suppose.

I have read from many different sources that it wouild be dificult for a lake to provide enough food for a family of creatures like the pleiosaur or any other large extinct creature. And for one to be there a family is needed to keep the line going all these years.

Who knows..?
_________________
"Some say the valley has always been haunted ever since River ran.
The rippling waters fast as the colors conceal the Green Man."
Roy Harpur from The Green Man

stareater · Joined: 26 Feb 2008 Posts: 26

Another thing about Champlain is, unless I'm mistaken, the lake was formed about 10,000 years ago after a glacier receded towards Canada. Going by that, it never existed in the time of dinosaurs and shoots down the trapped plesiosaur theory, as well as the ghost dino theory. There certainly could be unknown creatures in the lake, but this video looks like another hoax to me. One thing that bugs me about so many sightings are the qualifiers that always seem to be tossed out there; the witness or witnesses were staunch skeptics, it was a clear day and the water was calm and the surface like glass . . . it's like they're saying there could be no reason for anyone to lie or mistake what they're seeing for something fantastic.

I've seen many programs that say these lakes couldn't provide enough food for a family of these type of creatures as well, and are also so cold that a plesiosaur adapted to colder climes would be constantly on the move and would need to surface for air every 10-15 minutes because of the constant movement. It makes it even more difficult to believe an almost impossible theory to begin with. It just seems like the more time marches on, the more improbable the plesiosaur theory becomes, despite being a far stretch in the first place.

**Skeptical** · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:42 pm Post subject:

I thought I read somewhere that geologists think Lake Champlain was actually connected to the Atlantic Ocean until relatively recently. That certainly allows for something to have gotten trapped up there when the land rose or the waters receded. The problem with all of these lake monsters, however, is that it can't be just one of them - there has to be a sustainable, breeding population of them. If you had that many large creatures in a relatively confined area, there wouldn't be just occasional sightings - they would happen all the time.

This brings us back to the idea that the creatures are something that periodically slips through a dimensional rift of some type. That's OK except for the fact that they always seem to find their way back again. If not, you'd think a carcass would have washed up somewhere by now.

I don't know where that leaves us. I'd like to think that some of these deep freshwater lakes still hold a surprise or two - but I'm not holding my breath.

S
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"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." -- Thomas Jefferson

stareater · Joined: 26 Feb 2008 Posts: 26

I can't be certain on the formation of the lake, as I have heard different theories but have heard the unconnected glacier theory a few times and in several recent documentaries. I think there might be unknown creatures in some lakes, but I agree about not holding our breath. I simply believe that there would be better evidence and far more frequent sightings, since there certainly would have to be, at the very least, a family of such creatures roaming these waters. Whatever the case, it will take a lot more than an extremely questionable video such as this one to convince me. I know many Champ believers say this footage, along with the Mansi photo, are the Holy Grail of evidence pointing to Champ's existence, but I don't think either one holds up under scrutiny.