Champ, America’s Loch Ness Monster ‘spotted’ in drone footage by filmmakers

New drone footage captures elusive creature in Lake Champlain, rekindling hopes for Champ’s existence

Champion, is that you?

Since the 1600s, tales of a mysterious sea serpent named Champ, named after the explorer Samuel de Champlain, have been part of the folklore of the Lake Champlain region. The lake borders New York and Vermont. Champlain and the Abenaki tribe were the first sightings of Champ in the historical record.

Champ remained elusive. The only visible visual evidence was a photograph taken in 1977 by Sandra Munsey.

Until now.

For the first time ever, a video purporting to show the legendary lake monster is being called Champ’s “most prominent visual evidence.” Some have compared its impact to that of the Patterson-Gimlin film on the Bigfoot cryptozoological community.

Independent filmmakers Kelly Tabor and Richard Rossi shot the feature film “Lucy and the Lake MonsterAbout a 9-year-old girl and her grandfather who search for Champ, a legendary lake monster rumored to live and lurk in the murky waters of Lake Champlain. The film is based on their bestseller of the same name.

A poignant scene in the fictional film shows a grandfather, “Papa Jerry” (played by actor-director Richard Rossi), reading to his granddaughter Lucy a passage about the mighty sea serpent Leviathan from the forty-first chapter of the Book of Job. (played by actress Emma Pearson).

There were high hopes that they would see Kemp on the surface during filming. “We’ve never seen Chump come out of the water,” Tabor said. “But God was in for a surprise. He didn’t do it the way we expected. Through our drone we could see it floating under water without floating above the water.”

As part of filming, their cameraman sent a drone over a lake in Bulwagga Bay, and what they saw in post-production stunned them.

They posted ten seconds of what is now known as the Tabor-Rossi footage to YouTube, and it later amassed 36,000 views and sparked discussion and debate about what appears to some to be a plesiosaur swimming under the surface of the lake behind a boat with two leads. the actors of their film Emma Pearson and Richard Rossi. Plesiosaur footage (plesiosaurs are dinosaur-dominated marine creatures of the Mesozoic era) can be viewed here:

A recent interview between Tabor and Rossi on the Cryptid Creature podcast was published on Spotify. The duo submitted their footage and story to two hosts, Todd Stevens and Brian Brock, for evaluation. Stevens eloquently summed up his conclusion by confirming the authenticity of the footage.

“The creature is bigger than the boat, fifty yards behind the boat,” Stevens said. “He has the body of a plesiosaur. This is not sevryuga, or sevryuga. It’s one big moving body.” You can listen to the full Cryptid Creatures interview with Tabor and Rossi here.

Tabor first noticed the creature on footage while editing on her big screen TV. “It’s poetic that Kelly saw it first,” Rossi said. “She’s been looking for Champ for over fifty years.” Tabor grew up in a cabin on Lake Champlain in Crown Point, New York.

“We inadvertently caught it on camera,” Tabor said. “We didn’t try.”

If Kelly Tabor really believes in the writing team, her writing partner Richard Rossi is a Doubting Thomas who insists that the footage be evaluated by scientists with Ph.D. degrees and a report prepared for peer review in 2025.

“I’m more skeptical than Kelly,” Rossi said. “But there’s definitely something there.”

The film crew was so busy shooting the film that they noticed the anomaly in the frame only later, during the post-production stage.

Several versions of their entry are now on Pinterest and YouTube, as cryptozoologists use their technical expertise to zoom in on Champ’s images and use color for morphological enhancements and evaluations.

Footage of the Tabor-Rossi Champ is included in their fictional film Lucy and the Lake Monster about four minutes into the film. The film was shown in theaters in New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Pennsylvania, California and South Carolina. This month, the film won 12 awards at film festivals. It will be released on DVD and broadcast next year.

“As filmmakers, we are primarily focused on the art form itself. We don’t overreact to the personnel debate,” Rossi said. “We’re trying to focus on doing the best we can on the writing, acting, cinematography and music. It’s nice that Champ has blessed us with the benefit of headlines that let people know about our book and movie, but at the end of the day, we’re focused on getting the movie out and writing the next sequel. Champ was a great publicist.”

“Champion is also one of the biggest stars of our new film,” Tabor added.

their “Lucy and the Lake Monster” the film ends with actress Emma Pearson reciting her poem in praise of Champ:

“A champion is not just an animal or a monster to be feared

He is a divine creature and his home is right here.“

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Contacts:
Reporter Christy Collins
Eternal grace
(424) 421-0060
[email protected]

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