By Tim Binnall
An intriguing hydrophone recording from Lake Champlain features a series of sounds that some believe to be the site's famed monster exhibiting a form of biological sonar known as echolocation. The remarkable piece of possible evidence for the elusive cryptid was reportedly captured last month by longtime Champ researcher Katy Elizabeth. While out on Lake Champlain with her equipment-laden research vessel, Kelpie II, she deployed a hydrophone that caught curious clicks unfolding rapidly and a puzzling buzzing noise between them. The series of sounds bear an uncanny resemblance, although wholly unique in comparison, to echolocation exhibited by cetaceans like dolphins and whales.
Since it is rather unlikely that such creatures are swimming around Lake Champlain, Elizabeth posits that the 'monster' may have evolved to possess echolocation over centuries of living in the sizable body of water that serves as a border for New York and Vermont. In the instructive video above, she makes the case for the sounds being biological sonar by providing eerily similar 'calls' from various whales and dolphins. Additionally, Elizabeth argues that the peculiar clicks and buzzing could not have come from fish known to live in Lake Champlain nor human activity such as a boat as recordings from those prosaic explanations bear little to no resemblance to what was captured last month.
The hydrophone capture from September is the third instance wherein weird suspected echolocation sounds have been detected at Lake Champlain. In a testament to how rare such events are the previous recordings were made by Elizabeth in 2018 and over two decades ago by bioacoustician Elizabeth von Muggenthaler in 2002. Those captures were analyzed by Japanese scientists who found that they were "unlike any species known to be in a freshwater lake." Presumably, this new piece of potential Champ evidence will be subjected to a similar study in the hopes of learning more about the very odd sounds. What do you make of the mystifying recording captured at Lake Champlain? Weigh in with your thoughts at the C2C Facebook page.