New Recording of Echolocation in Lake Champlain?

When I first saw the title of the article at Mysterious Universe on my feed, I thought it might have actually been a reference to an audio recording made with a hydrophone a couple years ago by Elizabeth von Muggenthuler while working on a Nat Geo production.

However, this is a brand new recording made by Dennis Hall and Katy Elizabeth of Champ Search. As with the previous recording, the series of clicks does indeed bear a strong resemblance (at least to my untrained ear) to those made by a Beluga whale and other toothed whales which are among a very short list of known species to use echolocation (aka biosonar).

A snippet of the recording can be heard a minute or so into the video of an interview with the two Champ researchers by local station WCAX.

Dennis Hall and Katy Elizabeth. Image credit: WCAX

This would seem to lend credibility to the hypothesis of von Muggenthuler who claims to have seen what she described as "humpy" animals "exhibiting herding behavior" in the lake and believes them to perhaps be descendants of a pod of Beluga that presumably became trapped in the lake thousands of years ago when the area was briefly the Champlain Sea at the end of the last ice age. Lake Champlain contains what is purported to be the world's oldest fossil coral reef and more relevant to von Muggenthuler's hypothesis, in 1849 railroad workers found the bones of "Charlotte" a Beluga that died 10,000 - 12,500 ya near the lake.

Could there be an extremely elusive breeding population of tooth whales living in Lake Champlain? Biologists seem highly skeptical but if the recordings are genuine, it sure seems that something is pinging away in the depths of the lake.

Now wouldn't that be something! I can't wait for more investigation and information to come forth!
Thanks, antediluvian, for sharing this!

I saw the creature one time when I was crossing from Plattsburg NY to Newport VT. It looked like a giant snake swimming. The woman that was with me saw it as well. It swam with the same type of motion as a snake ..although it appeared to be much bigger around ( maybe 2-3 ft diameter) than a snake. And it swam very powerfully. The wake from it is what got my attention it created a white capped wave as it swam.

a reply to: HarryJoy

Very interesting! What year was this?

I'm a Vermonter so this is pretty exited stuff for us up here.

There are bull sharks in Lago Nicaragua and they didn't think they could live in freshwater until 1961 when they found them there, so why not whales in Lake Champlain? I'm no biologist though :p

originally posted by: nugget1
Now wouldn't that be something! I can't wait for more investigation and information to come forth!
Thanks, antediluvian, for sharing this!

It would indeed be remarkable but it seems just short of impossible that a breeding population of nearly 20' aquatic mammals would be capable of persisting in a lake the size of Lake Champlain without being quite conspicuous. The earliest recorded sighting of a monster in the lake from a member of Samuel de Champlain's expedition (1606) doesn't sound at all like a whale and much more like a sturgeon (which do live in Champlain) — 5' long, silver or gray scales that could not be penetrated with a dagger.

Later sightings are often of a serpentine creatures with descriptions similar to HarryJoy's. Something else that I think is interesting is that the Champlain Canal which was officially opened in 1823 and connects to lake to the Hudson River has been the source of introduction for 20+ invasive species, including sea lamprey. Dolphins are occasionally seen in the Hudson river (last year, 2012) and it makes me wonder if a Dolphin would have made the 60 mile trip up the canal? Were not accustomed to seeing dolphins in our rivers in North America but there are something like 5 species of river dolphins around the world adapted to life in freshwater rivers and estuaries.

Then there are the occasional bull sharks who find their way far upstream and sometimes even into lakes. Just this summer, a child was bitten by what was believed to be a bull shark in Lake Pontchartrain though to be fair, Pontchartrain is a brackish estuary.

a reply to: theantediluvian

I believe it was 2006. I was riding the ferry it was in the morning maybe 8-9am. As we were going along I was looking out at the lake toward the north when I saw what appeared to be an ordinary wave about 200-300yds to the north of us. As I was looking at it and wondering why a wave would be in the middle of the lake...it suddenly grew longer and more pronounced as it began moving across the lake parallel to the direction of the ferry ( west to east). It was moving with what I could only describe as a serpent like motion.
The woman that was with me was talking on my cellphone and i told her to look at it...and to give me my phone so I could take a picture of it. When she saw it she was somewhat terrified and asked me what it was. I told her that it must be the creature they say lives in the lake. At this point I remembered that I had a disposable camera in the truck and got up to find it ( I wish I had just used the cellphone instead). By the time I got the camera opened and wound it up the creature was submerging and I wasn't able to get a picture of it.
It was very obvious that whatever it was . It was not a normal creature. It was easy to see the darkness of it's body under the surface of the water. And it was probably 30 or more ft in length. But as I said earlier the body of it was substantially thicker than what a 30 ft snake would be.
The woman got to see it for a longer period of time ( because of me wasting time looking for camera) She said the head of it was up out of the water and said it had a human like face. i thought that was weird and felt like that couldn't be right. But, later when i was researching about other sightings I saw an artists picture that showed it with a human type face and said to myself that maybe she was right.
After it had submerged I got out of my truck and walked back to a car that was on the ferry and asked if they had seen it. ( they wouldn't even roll there window down). I also asked the captain if she saw it and she said no. I felt that if I saw it and it was only my second time to cross the lake...that others must see it all the time. But i guess that's not the case. Anyway I myself ( and the woman with me that day) am convinced that some truly extraordinary creature lives in Lake Champlain.

a reply to: HarryJoy

Your description of the body sounds like a reptile or a monstrous eel (about 3x larger than the largest known eel) but a human-like face tends to rule either of those out. I could see where certain cetaceans might have a somewhat human-like appearance from a great distance, particularly the snubbed faced ones like the Beluga, Irrawadaddy dolphin or the Australian snubfin dolphin but they obviously don't have serpentine bodies.

I live in Vermont, and grew up here. I swim in the lake all the time. Growing up I always looked for "it" whenever boating or on the ferry. No such luck. But I do know sturgeons which are nasty fish do get to be pretty big in the lake, and can emit similar sounds. I will be keeping up with this story though - it is cool to see something local getting attention like this a reply to: theantediluvian

Wasn't there some guy or girl who claimed to see it on dry land

a reply to: theantediluvian

Why some sort of whale? From all I have read on the recordings, the sounds are similar to whales and dolphins, as in the same sort of echolocation, but are NOT from any known species. I think this is something science either hasn't identified yet, or thinks isn't around any longer. Cool, that they have a new recording, but I can't get it to play for some reason. Assume it's similar to the previous one?

a reply to: theantediluvian

I think that hypothesis is very plausible. A secluded stranded pod of whales may have adapted to those lake conditions in fact over that period of time we could see things like dwarfism which would account for the elusive evidence. It really does make me wonder what type of traits have emerged.

Thanks for the thread I find it pretty interesting.