Growing Up With Sasquatch
Posted: 16 Oct 2012 12:00 AM PDT
From Global Warming and Terraforming Terra
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| Ohio Grassman-DD substituted photo |
What is now happening, is that the increased publicity and the internet has made it possible for shy witnesses to come forward to well established data collectors such as Lon on the Natural plane Blog. Substantial and important reports are now coming out and all have the internal veracity of producing completely new information that is also highly consistent.
This one confirms an expected datum and an unexpected datum. The expected datum is that the creature is able to take advantage of garbage in the same way as bears do but is also able to be generally surreptious about it. Successful penetration of security is no surprise though. I have met groundhogs that cute and this creature has our hands.
That they toss stones and make noise to scare off unwelcome kids is also no surprise. They are not lethal to us fortunately. Do not think for a second that they can not use that stone to take your head of in an eye blink. They are quite able to live next door and not disturb us at all and appear also careful not to. That is an additional reason to think that they are way more plentiful than we imagine.
The unexpected datum is that they practice field craft in terms of dealing with excrement. We had a single hint of that in the past but this report makes it totally clear that that is just what they do. They dig pits and bury it. This also means that they have a preferred base somewhere and that they are in the habit of keeping it tidy.
This report shows us a temporary base camp with a nest built in the grass. Again seen before, but not in conjunction with a close by human settlement.
The lack of scat had bothered me for a long time and that is now well answered.
As an aside, I have been monitoring reports for new data for over fifteen years and have come to know this creature very well. Most reports pick up on roaming males likely out foraging. I suspect that a lifeway similar to the gorilla troop is to be expected but we have not had direct confirmation at all. What we have though is a male with a female and cub out together on the prowl.
The evidence so far supports a nuclear family of sorts living as hunter gatherers and the possibility of several hunters working together for certain hunts. What I am seeing though is profound flexibility and a surprisingly low level of aggression.
Cryptid Encounters: Growing Up With Sasquatch - Marysville , Ohio
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2012
“Hello - I saw the e-mail link at the bottom of your page and wanted to sent these accounts to you. Though I’ve lived in Florida for just over 12 years now, I grew up in Ohio . I’m convinced that we had a Sasquatch that would pass through the area on a regular basis. This conviction is due to both sightings of it (them?) and other evidence. I had actually e-mailed Autumn Williams with these accounts several years ago after watching a few episodes of Mysterious Encounters when it was in production. She never bothered to write back in response, so I don’t even know if she received the message. Since then, I contacted a researcher in Ohio with these events. Sorry to say, I don’t recall the man’s name. He was excited about it when he replied back to me with questions, but I’ve heard nothing since.
My parents and I moved into a house that was only a couple hundred yards from an abandoned railroad bed in Marysville, Ohio when I was 5-years-old. It wasn’t long after that we, my friends and I, started our forays to the railroad bed. During the Summer months, the weeds there would grow far taller than we were. For us, it was akin to being in a forest. Each Summer, we’d carve a path through, using sticks to hack and slash at the weeds, cutting out a narrow, curving path and a larger open area where we’d gather to talk and whatnot.
When the Sasquatch first turned up, or, I should say, when we first noticed it, we were still young. We had no idea what was there. We felt that something was there on occasion ,watching us. But for a long time we saw nothing. Then one of my friends reported having seen something large and hairy there one night. He saw it from a distance and only briefly. The rest of us didn’t take him too seriously at first. He kept hounding us with it, though. Then another friend, a girl whose grandparents lived in the lot adjoining the railroad bed, saw something one night. She mostly lived with her grandparents due to family issues and her bedroom window looked right out at the old railroad bed. Having a second report of something large and hairy up there at night made us all take it more seriously. Still, we were young and stupid. And the railroad bed was our place to go to get away from our parents. It was our place. We weren’t going to give it up easily. Being so young still, we had no idea what we had. We started calling it a Troll. As we never had the impression that it was there full-time. So, we learned to live with it.
It’s been suggested to me before, upon sharing these events, that the Sasquatch may have been young itself. I don’t know.
Several years went by. We were easing into our early teens. That’s when things started to pick up. Maybe there was a juvenile. Maybe it was just watching us grow and decided that, while it was willing to allow young children to play there, it wasn’t going to be so tolerant of older children. But the girl who lived right next to the railroad bed had several more night-time sightings. She was actually so afraid of what she saw that she convinced herself that she dreamed these, rather than truly admit that there was something there. I had three sightings of it/them over the years. She was with me for the first. We were in her grandparents’ yard, walking up the short, gentle hill to the railroad bed. She froze and put her arm across my chest, stopping me. I looked at her. She was staring, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, pointing straight ahead. Through a narrow gap in the weeds, I saw what looked like the head and shoulders of a large humanoid figure with dark black hair. It was either sitting or crouched, holding perfectly still. We were seeing its profile. We backed slowly down the hill until it was out of sight, then turned and ran.
After that, she refused to ever go back up there. Not even as part of a group. The following day, we told another friend. He wanted to see the spot where the creature had been seen. It was broad daylight, so I took him up there, albeit reluctantly. The only sign we saw of it was a large patch of flattened grasses where it had been.
Somewhere in there, he and I also found what we referred to as the “vine cave”, which I now believe to have been a nest. From our point of view, it simply popped into existence literally overnight in the large, open area we’d carved. He and I actually crawled into it a few times, but always felt very uncomfortable in it and always left quickly. Not long after the discovery of the “vine cave”, a couple of rival kids destroyed it, thinking we’d built it. I think that may have well caused the increase in encounters with the Sasquatch and it’s attempts to chase us away.
My second and third sightings were spaced out over the next few years. Each time I saw it was in broad daylight. I was in our driveway, pulling weeds that were growing up through the gravel. Movement from up at the railroad bed caught my attention. I looked up there to see a tall, humanoid being with long arms walking along the hill, moving to my right. It was covered in dark black hair. I’ve always suspected it was the same creature I saw on my first sighting, but don’t know for sure. I watched it walk for a few seconds until it was blocked from view by a neighbor’s storage shed. Then I turned and ran into the house. I didn’t go back up to the railroad bed for weeks.
My third sighting was from a far greater distance. On the other side of the railroad bed was a fenced-in area of cow pasture and the local water tower. Beyond that was a trailer court. I was in our upstairs back bedroom one afternoon, again, during broad daylight. I saw what I first took to be a rolled-up rug by a trash can back in the trailer court. I could just barely see it, due to the distance. I looked away, and then looked back. What I was seeing seemed shorter, as if it had sagged, or crouched. I kept looking away, and then looked back, wanting to see if it moved. I couldn’t tell if it was moving or not. Finally, I looked away for about ten minutes. When I looked back, whatever it had been was gone.
Another friend of mine lived in a house just beyond the far side of the trailer court. A wooden privacy fence divided his back yard from the trailer court. He once told me that he and his family would sometimes smell a heavy, musky scent at night. They would sometimes hear what sounded like heavy footfalls outside their house at night. He said his mother even claimed to have heard a loud heartbeat on occasion.
All in all, we were lucky. We gave it plenty of incentive to lash out at us. Luckily, it never did anything to hurt us. Just scare us, employing fear tactics. We were just too dumb and stubborn to pay close enough attention. Even after we’d all seen it.
Aside from the direct sightings of the creature(s), we had other evidence that it was there as well. Once, when I was in my teens and at the railroad bed alone, something that sounded very large was in the weeds and brush ahead of me, thrashing at the weeds, causing them to move and make a lot of noise. I thought at first it was the same friend who’s wanted to go check out the site of my first direct sighting of the Sasquatch. About the same moment I realized that whatever was ahead of me was too large to be him a rock about the size of my fist was thrown at me, just narrowly missing hitting me in the head. I ran and refused to go back to the railroad bed for weeks after. Next time I was there alone I was in the same place and the same weed-thrashing occurred again. Luckily, no rock was thrown that time. Another time that same friend who wanted to see the spot of my first sighting and I were at the railroad bed by ourselves. There had to have been at the very least two of the creatures with us, one on either side of us. Nothing was thrown at us, but the same weed-thrashing noises started up to each side of us.Oddly, this time, nothing was moving that we could see. Both of us clearly heard the sounds, but couldn’t see a thing moving. Still, after holding our ground for only a few moments, we both ran.
This same friend also decided to step up our own claims on the railroad bed after he had found a rock cairn built on our path one day. The cairn was small.My friend spouted his usual line of, “No f^*&ing monkey is going to chase me away!” and promptly kicked the cairn, scattered the stones. We gathered up new stones and built a new, larger cairn in place of the one we’d found. We left and went back the next day to find our own cairn scattered and a new, larger one in its place. My friend immediately kicked it apart and we built a new one, larger still, in place of the one we’d found. This went on for days; each day we’d find that the cairn we’d built the day before had been wrecked and new, larger, one would be in its place. Each day my friend would scatter the new one and we’d build our own, larger yet, in place of the most recent one we’d found. Secretly, I thought he was going back up to the railroad bed later and building the new cairn we would “find” the next day and he thought the same of me. Finally, after this had gone on long enough that the cairns were getting to be a bit larger than shoebox size, my friend decided to go one better and scent mark the cairn we’d just built. He told me what he was going to do and promptly unzipped his pants and urinated on the rock cairn we had just built. Afterward, we left and went to his house. We hung out on his front porch for two or three hours, talking, then decided to go check on the new, scent marked cairn. The smell hit us when we were still a good hundred yards, maybe more, from the cairn. We knew what we’d find and it scared both of us. As we’d been together for the entire intervening time, each knew that the other had not gone back to the railroad bed to do anything. The scent was an overpowering musk that was so strong it made us sick. Think skunk concentrate. We held our breath, ran in, saw what we knew we’d find - a new cairn that was noticeably larger than the one we’d built a few hours prior -and ran back out into clear air to breath. That stench lingered for days, but that ended the rock cairn war.
There were other times, before and after that, when my friends and I would be at the railroad bed and smell what smelled like a skunk. We also once found what looked to be shallow, crude pit toilets. We saw what looked to be finger marks in the mud and suspected they’d been dug out with very large bare hands. Several of the toilets contained what looked to be human fecal matter, only far larger.
The next door neighbors we had while I was growing up were very wasteful people. They didn’t believe in leftovers from meals. If something wasn’t eaten, it went into the trash, not the refrigerator. Their trash was torn open many, many times. They went to the expense of having a 5-foot-tall brick wall built around the area they kept their trash cans in. There was a green picket gate on the front for the garbage collectors to open to get access to the trash. They also bought trash cans with locking lids. None of it did any good. Whatever kept tearing into the trash would sometimes open the gate, leaving it open, and knew how to unlock the locked trashcan lids. I have often wondered if their trash wasn’t why the Sasquatch liked that area and if it wasn’t using the railroad bed as a convenient staging place to raid both their trash and trash from the aforementioned trailer court.
I have no evidence to support these claims. We were young and never thought to gather any evidence - something I kick myself for to this day. Having a Sasquatch passing though so closely so often didn’t seem special to us because we were growing up with it.
The address for the house my parents and I lived in while all this went on is (redacted). We moved in when I was 5-years-old and moved out in 1998 when I was 22, only days before my 23rd birthday. Later I was told the railroad bed area has become even more abandoned and overgrown. But I have no idea if the Sasquatch is still there, or not.” - S.H.
NOTE: Since receiving this narrative, I have kept in contact with the witness and believe him to be very credible. Lon
Zdenek Burian
"The Indians have a tradition concerning a strange, serpent-like creature inhabiting the waters of Bear Lake, which they say carried off some of their braves many moons ago. Since then, they will not sleep close to the lake. Neither will they swim in it, nor let their squaws and papooses bathe in it.
VIDEO: Myth or reality? Get a closer look at the 
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