Lake Memphremagog: The Legend Of Memphre, A Monster Which Sits In The Quebec/Vermont Lake (PHOTOS)
on August 12 at 11:22 a.m. Patricia deBroin Fournier and her husband were boating on Lake Memphremagog, in the Quebec end of the international lake. They were still on their annual summer holidays.
Suddenly, some distance away the surface of the water became agitated. Ms. Fournier thought this strange because the rest of the lake was relatively calm and placid. She had the presence of mind to focus her video camera on the disturbed area.
In a recent e-mail she wrote:
It was not a natural-looking boat wake (multiple waves) but a single moving wave; it was also [in] a deep part of the lake. I have it all on tape and it was strange to see. I have been out on the lake since I was 10 and know all about the stories.
I have watched her very short video clip of the event a number of times and can report that, yes, something was out there that day.
Whatever it was -- and I certainly am not prepared to say it was the legendary monster of Lake Memphremagog -- appeared fairly long and narrow, disturbed a substantial amount of water, and part of whatever it was appeared briefly above the surface before disappearing.
On the video tape you can hear Ms. Fournier repeating as she continues to shoot: "This is weird, this is weird."
QUESTION: Is this video clip a hoax?
I don't think so.
QUESTION: Is Memphre for real?
I don't know. But Ms. Fournier videotaped something large that looked real on August 15.
And, on the following day:
I was surprised the next day in the bay below the monastery (St Benoit) -- the one to the left with the horses in the pasture and the lovely house -- to see waves coming at us in a V-pattern but not from anywhere! The waves were very strong and there seemed to be a force pushing the water forward.
It came quickly and just vanished within a couple of minutes. (No tape of this one) This too was a very calm day but the water in this area, although not close to shore, was not deep. I thought: Maybe some underwater seismic activity.
As soon as I can get additional still images pulled from the tape I will publish them for your inspection. Please keep in mind the video frame is quite small and the total percentage of the frame covered by the "monster" is tiny. That's why the still image is unsharp and grainy. I did a minimal amount of brightness and contrast enhancement in Adobe Photoshop, and applied a 100% unsharp mask to tighten the image. No retouching was done.
Take me to the monster pictures...
Many thanks to: Patricia de Broin Fournier for her report
Jacques Boisvert, founding president of the Societé internationale de dracontologie du lac Memphremagog for vetting the video tape before passing it on for publication.
Charlie & Linda Tetreault for acquiring the still images from the video clip.
Yvon Leclerc, directeur Institut international du paléozoïque Magazine "dialogue sientifique", for his measured presentation of the video stills.
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| Champ Swimming http://josephacitro.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html |
"Champ"-a pretty good translation of what witnesses are describing in Lake Champlain into graphic form.
Fossils from the oldest known Antarctic “sea monster” have been found, a new study says.
The discovery of an 85-million-year-old plesiosaur has pushed back the marine reptile’s presence in Antarctica by 15 million years.
“The fragments we found don’t belong to any group registered on the continent before, which indicates a greater diversity of the plesiosaurs in Antarctica than previously suspected,” said team leader Alexander Kellner, of the National Museum of Brazil at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. [Antarctica would have been pretty cold, even then-DD]
Fragments of the vertebrae, head, and flippers suggest the newfound plesiosaur was 20 to 23 feet (6 to 7 meters) long. The bones weren’t, however, enough to identify the species of the plesiosaur.
Plesiosaurs roamed the seas worldwide between about 205 million to 65 million years ago, reaching the Southern Hemisphere by the mid-Jurassic. The animals had a range of different sizes and features, but mostly shared small heads, long necks, and big bodies.
“If the Loch Ness monster ever existed, this would be its best representation,” Kellner said.
Zdenek Burian
Original Source
The border separating Quebec from Vermont runs through dairy fields, traverses a small wood and crosses an abbreviated beach before diving a little over 300 feet under the cold waters of Lake Memphremagog, a 39-square-mile amoeba of glacial water that either does or doesn't contain a 30-foot-long monster. If the lake doesn't contain a monster, its most notable feature is probably its hilly shore, which bursts into riotous color come fall and presents an inviting destination for American leaf peepers exploring the Northeast Kingdom and Montreal homme d'affaires on weekend getaways.
The lake is bookended by two charming towns, Newport, Vermont and Magog, Canada, which display very different sensibilities. Newport has the look of a mill town with a brick main drag and neighborhoods full of small homes for the tradesmen who hang out downtown in greasy spoon diners. The best view in town is from the church and everybody nods or waves to everybody else. Magog is a larger place and many of the Victorian homes just outside the lengthy town center, which contains multiple practical footwear stores and a sex shop, are bed and breakfasts. There is a town park by the water where neighbors walk together and fail to smile at strangers and where a sign reminds visitors to look for Memphre, which is the name of the monster. (*SEE PHOTOS BELOW*)
Memphre got his name from Jacques Boisvert, who called himself a "dracontologist" and lived in a clapboard house three minutes out of Magog. Boisvert, who died in 2006, was the Canadian ambassador to Memphre. Along with Barbara Malloy, the head of the Memphremagog Historical Society of Newport, he publicized the serpent and, in so doing, the region.
The region on both sides of the border -- crossing requires little more than a few minutes of small talk with a custom's officer -- is quiet and pretty. The delights of this landscape, the maple trees and postcard-ready barns, are no more ostentatious than the people who inhabit it. Syrup is sold out of mud rooms and, aggressive Quebecois driving aside, courtesy seems to be the great cultural achievement. In Magog, neighbors spend a lot of time raking each other's lawns.
In this context, Boisvert's monstrous story has a distinct appeal. It helps, of course, that the story also has compelling details: A viking petroglyph found at the top of a mountain near the lake showed a serpent and, when Europeans first arrived in the area, they'd been warned off swimming in the lake by natives with similar concerns. Of course Boisvert had also seen the beast. As had Mrs. Malloy.
"At first, when you see it is pitch dark," Malloy told Huffington Post Travel by phone. "When I first saw it, it was coming in from the Canadian border. I thought it was jetskiers because it was moving fast, but when it turned to go south more it was parallel to the road and I could see from the side view that it had a head like a horse, a long neck and a big body. As it got closer I could see that it was pretty tall and as long as a house. Then it turned again and went towards the west shore and, as it swam out it disappeared into the mist because it had been raining."
It is probably worth saying the Malloy doesn't come across as crazy or attention-seeking. To the contrary actually. She says she's trying to talk about the creature less these days because "the whole thing has brought a lot of frustration." Still, she is an evangelist for the creature's existence and the holder of the copyright to his name.
"These all sound a lot like Champ," Malloy says, namechecking Lake Champlain's famous beast, the mascot for -- among other things -- the Short Season Single-A Vermont Lake Monsters.
If it did live at the bottom of the lake, a beast like Memphre would probably be classified as a Sauropterygian. Sauropterygians -- think Plesiosaurs or the Loch Ness Monster -- are aquatic reptiles and though they were once extremely common, they went extinct along with the dinosaurs at the end of Cretaceous period.
This means that Lake Memphremagog -- if Malloy is correct -- should be of tremendous interest to scientists instead of being, as it is now, of some interest to open-water swimming enthusiasts and Canadian mountain bikers, who favor the trail system on nearby Mount Orford. The people who rent the paddle boats from the public docks would probably be a bit more nervous as well, though they'd still rent the boats because the lake is beautiful. It just happens to be beautiful in a very specific way: It's eerie.
Early in the morning, vapor rises off the lake and visibility can be fairly low. The hills and mountains beyond the Lake are perfectly reflected on the flat surface of the bracing water. The shallows are clear and filled with clouds of small fish and piles of pebbles. From the lookout dedicated to Jacques Boisvert in Magog, visitors can see many miles, but may find themselves without much to focus on other than the few small islands that interrupt the liquid metal of the water.
Boisvert, it turns out, was something approaching beloved in the town of Magog, a fact Malloy credits to the politeness of Canadians, who seem more willing to engage with the idea of the monster. Memphre lends his name to nicest bistro in town.
The owner of my bed and breakfast suggested that the myth was really a way to attract tourists, but added that it might not be necessary anymore given how much the community has to offer by way of performances and festivals and trails and foliage.
But Memphre is an interesting monster because he isn't a commercial monster. You can't buy a t-shirt with his name on it in America because Malloy would be able to sue the seller for $100,000. In all likelihood, you hadn't heard of him before you started reading this article.
If he turns out to be real, Malloy will likely serve a banquet of crow for all the haters in town. But if he is simply a stubborn notion, Memphre still says something about this place at the edge of two countries: The people here want hard evidence of their landscape's singularity.
Look close enough and you can see that it is there already. The dairy farms the border runs across and the woods it runs through and the lake it dives under are all pristine. There is either a monster in the lake or there isn't. It's a nice lake regardless.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated that the lake is 39 acres large. It is 39 square miles large. We regret the error.
http://www.vermonter.com/northlandjournal/lake-memphremagog.asp
Lurking in the Depths of Lake Memphremagog
Lake Memphremagog is home to a gigantic monster—at least that is what some people say. For many years, people have reported seeing what some consider a lake monster, or lake serpent, swimming in Lake Memphremagog and other Northeast Kingdom waters. My family has long been connected to Lake Memphremagog, so I’ve always been interested in the creature that we call ~Gog. I’ve often worried about the impact of this fish eating serpent has on our famed fishery. Such a creature must surely eat enough fish to diminish the supply of fish in the lake. I’ve been skeptical of claims about the existence of these aquatic monsters, any kind of monsters, whether it be Gog or ~ Willie," the mythical creature that is said to roam the waters of Lake Willoughby in Westmore. Instead, I always wrote off sightings as the result of overactive imaginations. Logs, beavers, snapping turtles, schools of fish, and swimming moose are suddenly trans¬formed into something more sinister—a salmon and walleye—eating beast.
Yes, the water can play tricks on one’s eyes. During another hunting trip I was again convinced of Gog’s existence. Through the morning haze, it was clear to me what I was see¬ing—four black humps bobbing in the lake. Certainly they were the humps on the back of a horrible lake creature. Those humps kept undulating in and out of the water one after another like some kind of prehistoric water-dwelling creature from the Stone Age. One hump appeared at the same time that another one disappeared.
"Wow!", I said to myself. "It’s Gog." My excitement was dashed when the haze lifted. No, it wasn’t a lake serpent I was seeing, but a family of loons diving for fish in the morning light. Those loons sure did look like humps rising and falling though, as they took turns diving for fish, leaving at least one loon on the surface all the time to keep an eye out for approaching danger.
"Get a grip, Scottie," I laughed at myself. "You’ve been watching Jurassic Park too much."
Then there was the time several years ago, while fishing in Scott’s cove, when I thought I was on the verge of having my first encounter with Gog, an aquatic monster that my ancestors, who have spent hundreds of years living and working on Lake Memphremagog, had never even seen. Catching one fish after another, I was startled by a tremendous crashing sound coming from the direc¬tion of the nearby cattails. This wasn’t any sound that I’d ever heard before. Surely it wasn’t one of those beavers or a school of spawning fish that had tricked me many times into making me think I was going to see a certified lake monster.
"Darn!" I cursed as I remembered that I’d forgotten my camera. Why does that happen every time I think Gog is going to reveal himself to me? Bummed out, but being the adventurer that I am, I pressed on into the cattails in my boat, hoping to at least get a description of this monster to share with my friends, some who themselves claim to have seen unexplained creatures, both aquatic and land bound, but typically only after a bit of celebrating, when, of course, they didn’t happen to have a camera to support their claims. One friend, however, did something the rest of them couldn’t: Paul took a photograph of the beast he witnessed swimming in the lake. A computer enhanced version of the photo later revealed that the beast wasn’t Gog, but rather a moose out for a swim. So, the beast was still waiting to be discovered.
Pushing through the cattails, I peered into the weeds, hoping to see a lake serpent, or family of lake serpents, frolicking. Instead, all I found were two oversized snapping turtles, the size of washtubs, enjoying a romantic afternoon in the midday sun.
Another day, while fishing off the railroad bridge in New¬port, I excitedly told a fellow fisherman standing near me, "Hey, where did those waves come from? Is it Gog?"
"No, stupid! Didn’t you see that boat go by a few minutes ago," the fisherman laughed at me, explaining how oftentimes people don’t see the wake of a boat until after the boat is long out of sight. Needless to say, I felt like a fool.
The spring of 2003 spelled good fishing for my boys and me. We caught some really fine fish and created some great memories. But the one thing we didn’t see was a lake monster. That would have made our day. Frustrated by my inability to see a monster, any kind of monster, land dwelling or aquatic, I decided to go in search of Gog.
"What does one need to go monster hunting?" I wondered. I’ve hunted many things in my life—rabbits, partridges, and deer—but never monsters. Looking at my leaky rowboat, I shook my head. It surely wasn’t made for such an adventure. I needed a nice boat, respectable enough to carry a certified monster hunter and all his gear. I called up Stan, a good friend of mine who owns such a boat. Stan and I met several years ago, and it’s safe to say that his life hasn’t been the same ever since. "Sometimes I think I met the Mad Hatter" he is fond of saying. Why would he say such a thing? Doesn’t everybody go in search of monsters? Heck, I’ve been looking for monsters every since I was a child when I insisted to my parents that the boogie man lived under my bed.
Stan shook his head in disbelief as I told him of my plans to capture Gog on film. I assured him that we and his boat would be safe since I’d been told that this mythical creature wasn’t vicious, but seemed to actually like humans.
Loading up the boat with monster-hunting tools, in¬cluding among other things, a pair of binoculars, and not one, but two cameras, just in case one camera should fail. I wasn’t taking any chances this time.
"Okay, what is that for?" said Stan, as he watched me load a hay fork into the boat. I explained that although rumor has it that Gog is friendly; I wasn’t taking any chances with a beast the size of Gog. Besides that, I reasoned that he, or she, must be one tough monster to live thousands of years in Lake Memphremagog.
Boarding the boat, I told Stan to steer toward Owl’s head, the picturesque mountain just across the border in Canada on the lake’s shores. Knowing there was a deep hole in the lake in front of the mountain, I surmised it would make for a perfect location to spot Gog.
As we sped along, Stan and I scanned the lake’s surface looking for anything out of the ordinary. We’d picked a good night for our expedition. The waves were little more than ripples.
"Stan, look! Over there!" I hollered over the roar of the mo¬tor, pointing toward what appeared to be humps bobbing on the horizon. The humps were headed easterly in the vicinity of the lighthouse, just off of the Lake Road.
Breaking out in a cold sweat of excitement, I told Stan to ease up on the throttle as I wiped the sweat from my eyes and grabbed my binoculars. I peered hard through my field glasses. There was no explanation for what I was see¬ing. Throwing down my binoculars, I grabbed both of my cameras and began to click madly away, making sure I had plenty of pictures to show my friends.
Still not certain exactly what we were seeing, we moved even closer to the beast. Suddenly, the creature made it known that he either wasn’t impressed to see us on his turf, or he viewed us humans as a hearty meal, because, that beast lunged out of the water, heading directly toward the boat. Grabbing up the pitchfork that Stan had laughed at me about, I stood on the stern, ready to fend off the attack, while Stan spun the boat so that we could escape.
No, it wasn’t a monster, or even some unknown lake crea¬ture, instead, it was a monster walleye. So, my best piece of advice to you is, if you’re coming to the Northeast Kingdom to see a monster, you’ll probably go home disappointed, but if you’re coming to look for really big fish, you’ve found the right place. Come fish the Northeast Kingdom where the fish are big and legends never die.
As for Gog and his other monster friends up here in the Kingdom, they, too, will always be part of the local lore—merry myths passed down from one generation to the next.
http://www.tomifobia.com/memjack.html
PHANTOMS AND MONSTERS: Tuesday, October 16, 2012
The Lake Memphremagog Monster
Memphre, a water creature that is said to live in Lake Memphrémagog, has taunted skeptics for more than 180 years. The lake monster supposedly resembles a sea serpent. The following is a recent article about this cryptid:
Lake Memphremagog: The Legend Of Memphre
The border separating Quebec from Vermont runs through dairy fields, traverses a small wood and crosses an abbreviated beach before diving a little over 300 feet under the cold waters of Lake Memphremagog, a 39-square-mile amoeba of glacial water that either does or doesn't contain a 30-foot-long monster. If the lake doesn't contain a monster, its most notable feature is probably its hilly shore, which bursts into riotous color come fall and presents an inviting destination for American leaf peepers exploring the Northeast Kingdom and Montreal homme d'affaires on weekend getaways.
The lake is bookended by two charming towns, Newport, Vermont and Magog, Canada, which display very different sensibilities. Newport has the look of a mill town with a brick main drag and neighborhoods full of small homes for the tradesmen who hang out downtown in greasy spoon diners. The best view in town is from the church and everybody nods or waves to everybody else. Magog is a larger place and many of the Victorian homes just outside the lengthy town center, which contains multiple practical footwear stores and a sex shop, are bed and breakfasts. There is a town park by the water where neighbors walk together and fail to smile at strangers and where a sign reminds visitors to look for Memphre, which is the name of the monster.
Memphre got his name from Jacques Boisvert, who called himself a "dracontologist" and lived in a clapboard house three minutes out of Magog. Boisvert, who died in 2006, was the Canadian ambassador to Memphre. Along with Barbara Malloy, the head of the Memphremagog Historical Society of Newport, he publicized the serpent and, in so doing, the region...
Continue reading at Lake Memphremagog: The Legend Of Memphre [Reprinted above]
The Birth of the Memphremagog Monster
Until the beginning of the 19th century, the only inhabitants of the area around Memphrémagog were the Abenaki...because of the abundance of game and fish. When the first white settlers arrived, they were warned by the Abenaki not to swim in the lake because of the presence of the sea serpent. Among the varied descriptions, it is said to be more or less aggressive and on several occasions, is said to reside in a cave at the base of Owl's Head Mountain, on the shore of the lake.
The first document describing the creature dates back to 1816 and is signed by Ralph Merry IV. He describes four experiences by the citizens of Georgeville and which he finds to be totally credible. He, however, was not a witness to any of these phenomena but only reported the facts as he knew them. He reports what individuals and groups of individuals saw in different areas and at different times. The descriptions usually coincide as to the length and appearance of the serpent like creature. In his accounts Mr. Merry does not refer to the sea serpent but rather to one of the sea serpents of Memphrémagog.
Also, on several occasions since 1847, The Stanstead Journal has published several articles on this phenomenon, some relating numerous sightings which the lakeshore residents have witnessed. These sightings continued throughout the years.
To date, more than 215 sightings have been reported and documented with great care. Each account is signed and recorded; hearsay accounts are simply refused. There are on the average, eight sightings annually which have been confirmed by about twenty witnesses.
In 1961, two fishermen, heading for Newport observed for about forty seconds a black creature, about 20 feet long, swimming partially submerged. According to these men the creature that was about 200 feet from their boat, had a round back and an indescribable head. This scene was accompanied by a strange sound.
In July 1996, four persons witnessed it's presence after observing it for more than a minute. According to them, the creature had several humps, was about 20 feet long and swam about 50 yards between their boat and the shore. This sighting which took place about 7 p.m. is similar to one that took place about 4 p.m. some 10 miles away as observed by three other persons.
The description of a three humped creature coincides with that of September 1994 given by four persons in two different boats. The weather was overcast but the lake was calm not a wave, no wind, they observed for at least three minutes from each of their two boats and object 40 to 50 feet long type of wave shaped like three humps and black in color.
This adventure ended for them when the creature swam under one of the boats and disappeared into the depths of the lake.
Rare are those who can boast having seen the phenomenon on more than one occasion. This is however the case of two Montrealers who after a first sighting in May of 1995, saw the sea serpent again in August of the same year. Better yet, they were able to obtain a film clip which was used in a documentary on the Canada D channel the following October. - vermonter.com
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Woman Recounts Sighting Of Memphremagog Monster
Saturday May 10, 2003
Newport Daily Express
Lake Memphremagog's signature mystery has returned.
Barbara Malloy, a Newport City resident and local historian, said this week she saw Memphre the Lake Memphremagog monster on May 1.
Like Nessie in the Loch Ness of Scotland or Champ in Lake Champlain, Memphre is the stuff of local legend and history.
It's not the first sighting of the creature that many claim to have seen on this long international lake.
Area newspapers like The Stanstead (Quebec) Journal have recorded sightings of something big and elusive in the lake as far back as the 1840s. On Jan. 21, 1847, an eyewitness reported this: "I am not aware whether it is generally known that a strange animal something of a sea serpent ... exists in Lake Memphremagog."
But it was known long before that. According to historical accounts, American Indians told the first Europeans that there was something in the lake.
Malloy first saw it in the waters off Horseneck Island and again north of the island in 1983.
Memphre is believed to look somewhat like a plesiosaur, a water-living dinosaur of the Jurassic period, brown or black in color, with four fins or paddle-like feet, an elongated roundish body and a long neck. It ranges from 6 to 50 feet long[most commonly 20 to 30]. Popular drawings or artwork show his skin color as green, but that obviously depends on the eyewitness.[Emphasis added. The size, shape and colour specified in a consensus of reports is nearly identical to "Champ", the beast of Lake Champlain; see art at bottom-DD]
This time, Malloy said she saw a jet black hump in the water, which bobbed up and down and then disappeared. Malloy said Thursday another Newport resident confirmed the sighting, only she saw a larger and a smaller hump, but the woman did not wish to go public.
Others have come forward over the years to record their sightings with Malloy and other "dracontologists" like Magog, Quebec resident Jacques Boisvert who keep track of such mysteries in this 30-mile-long lake.
Boisvert named Lake Memphremagog's own sea serpent Memphre, which is pronounced with a long "e" at the end, suitable for use in French or English.
A monk at the monastery at St. Benoit-du-lac near Magog coined the term dracontologie for Boisvert. Dracontology, the English version, is a branch of cryptozoology, for all kinds of mysterious creatures of legend, like Big Foot.
The name even meets the requirements of the Quebec French Language Office, responsible preserving and protecting the French language in Quebec, Boisvert said Thursday.
Boisvert, a renowned diver and local historian, had never seen Memphre himself, but said he keeps an open mind. He and Malloy collaborated for a while in the 1980s on publicizing the Memphre legend and history.
Both collect sightings, and have Web sites to keep the information alive.
Malloy has a display of Memphre memorabilia and sighting information in the Emory Hebard state office building on Main Street in Newport City. Boisvert is heavily into promoting the use of Memphre as a tourist attraction in Magog, and speaks and writes regularly about the history of the lake.
Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz is into a little promotion of her own. She has a children's page off the state Web site, featuring drawings and information of both Memphre and Champ.
There have been attempts to photograph Memphre, but there is no definite evidence. Malloy took pictures in 1989, but they show a dark object sticking out of the water and making a wake. Discounters say these pictures could be of other things. One recent photograph turned out to be a moose swimming across the lake.
Yet the stories of Memphre capture and captivate the imagination. And it brings an air of mystery to this already lovely international lake.
Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures