Cryptozoology is for Lovers

3/26/31-???

“Is Leonard Nimoy still alive?” I ask this in passing- I think he is still around.

“Who the fuck knows,” says Billy.

We’re sitting in the living room at 2 am watching DVR’d episodes of some Learning Channel show about the unexplained, which had reminded me of “In Search Of…” a favorite television program of mine as a child. The introductory music was for some reason terrifying to me, and I always watched it with my father. Once I gathered the courage to watch a videotaped episode alone and was so startled at the image of a boy raised by wolves, and the unsettling violin/flute score behind that I did not sleep alone for half a week.

Beer cans litter our feet on the floor like machine gun casings in a foxhole and we’re staring at the gigantic screen in front of us, learning in half-buzzed interest about the lake monster of Lake Champlain, known as Champ. The documentary follows a group of nerdy, awkward and polite scientists on their quest to try and get to the bottom of the Champ mystery by using sonar to detect unidentified life signals. What this means is they have an entire library full of noises that normal animals make, and they are now trying to compare noises they hear to ones they’ve already memorized. Imagine that being your career? Eventually they tell us that they hear something that sounds like echolocation; what a dolphin or whale uses to “see” their way around underwater.

“So why don’t these idiots drop a goddamn camera down there?!” Billy is shouting now. He stomps a Miller Light can to a crushed disc.

“Or a depth charge,” I add quietly.

I don’t necessarily enjoy the killing of animals or destroying the environment. In fact I’d consider myself a supporter of most animals. I do not particularly care for horses. For some reason every obnoxious girl I‘ve ever met (they are plentiful) has had an obsession with horsies. I consider them idiotic by association. Despite not being a sadist, I am becoming increasingly irritated with the inability of hokey, campy, fleece-wearing ‘scientists’ to prove or disprove the existence of creatures of cryptozoological status. Instead of shaky amateur video of Bigfoot wandering through the woods with his ridiculous gait, I want someone from Wisconsin to plug the bastard with a 30-06 and just be done with it.

Like I said, it’s nothing personal. We all love a mystery, we love to be put under the spell of knowing something is possible- but I’m sick of that. I’m really tired of all the garbage methods these people are using to try and find the reality of the situation. I suppose instead of a high powered rifled someone could catch the Sasquatch with a net, but have you ever watched a movie where nets became involved? It does not work out correctly. Either the prey simply tugs on the net and takes its would-be captor with it (usually ending in the death of a human) or the beast is brought back to civilization only to wreak havoc upon escape. I can only imagine what introducing a wild Bigfoot to an American city would do. If we just kill one of these goddamn things, show everyone the carcass to prove that its real, and then forget about it- it will be such a relief.

I want to be personally responsible for the death of one of these mysteries. Not all of them, mind you, I don’t want to exterminate anything, and I admit that slaying even one of the beasts is more than likely “not good.” I’ve never been hunting. Billy has already expressed concern by saying that he wouldn’t “want to see Champ hurt!” Imagine that in the girliest voice you can. So I have decided that my sidekick is going to be Jeremy, who has volunteered enthusiastically. Unlike me, I believe his motivation comes from being a megalomaniac.

The most satisfying of circumstances, as far as legendary excursions are concerned, would be to travel to the Himalayas, get a Sherpa to take me up the mountain, and shoot a yeti right between the furry eyeballs. Imagine that? At one point in the journey I suppose my Native Guide would become skittish. He would tell me, through a translator, that he “can go no further!” My companions and I would be forced to go it alone into the blizzarding mountain ranges, icicles freezing to our trigger fingers, rationing surplus military food, perhaps eating one another.

However, Champ is the easiest target as far as resources are concerned. It’s a short drive from my home to the lake, and my grandfather actually owns a camp right on the Vermont shores near Burlington. I believe this is where most of my annoyance with the lake monster comes from. The cabin itself is a barn red structure that sits about 6 feet off the ground on stilts made from rock pyramids and steel posts. This protects it from the winter tides. It’s a nice enough place to stay, with a short walk down a gravel road to reach the not very sandy or warm shore.

It’s mostly a bunch of broken shale and smooth rocks which lead into the cold freshwater lake, and at the point the cabin sits on it’s fairly narrow. At its widest Lake Champlain is about twelve miles across, and overall it’s over a hundred miles long. The average depth is actually 64 feet, but I really wouldn’t know any of this if I hadn’t checked the encyclopedia. The reason for this is that I haven’t even been in the water past my ankles in quite a while. And by that I mean fourteen years or so.

I’m absolutely terrified of the idea of seeing this thing up close. Supposedly he is at least 20 feet long, with a spotted grayish-black skin and a horse like head. As a child I thought the idea of Champ was very interesting and neat, and I believe I actually considered the monster my friend. I used to pour Sprite into the water when no one was looking because I figured since it was my favorite, it would also be his. I made my mother tell me stories about Champ and I going on adventures with one another. Something changed, and I’m not sure what, but the idea of animals in the water began to really bother me. For a while I couldn’t even go in my own swimming pool if it wasn’t lit well enough, forgoing all logic that a shark or serpent could not possibly be dwelling within 7 feet of chlorinated water; for the idea that you don’t fucking know that.

I hate irrational fear. I don’t like not knowing the reality of whether Champ is in there swimming around, being ancient and unsettling. I don’t like being disappointed and so far I’ve just been sitting around waiting for the experts of the world to answer my questions. I don’t know if as a kid I really believed Champ was in there enjoying my soft drink but there was that hope, right? Childish hope.

What’s with all the fucking hiding? The first real “sighting” of Champ was made by Samuel De Champlain himself in the early seventeenth century, but Native American legends surrounding a revered beast in the water are far older. The Abenaki called him “tataskok” which is much more difficult to pronounce. P.T Barnum offered $50,000 to anyone who could provide him with a Champ carcass, but obviously no one was ever awarded the money. I suppose no one tried enough, or people did not have the spirit in them.

The problem most people have with this idea of killing Champ is that they somehow believe there is only one. This simply isn’t plausible. Now, I’m willing to stretch my beliefs to convince myself that there is a large serpent-like creature which has managed to elude scientific discovery for hundreds of years. However, to believe that it is the same one being sighted sin ce 1609 is just a bit much. They obviously have to bereproducing as sightings are made almost every year, and no animal can live that long. Still, it is considered an endangered species and is scientifically named Champtanystropheus, and it is illegal to harass, harm, or kill the animal. In America, that is- I could travel to Quebec and harpoon it all day long if I wanted. Though perhaps a license is required.

At the end of the documentary about Lake Champlain, the narrator informs us that We May Never Know. This is a bullshit attitude. We don’t know because people keep behaving like complete pussies about the entire thing. If I succeed, from then on you would know. You would know because the documentary would end with whispering footage of the killshot, exactly like on those hunting shows that play nonstop on The Outdoor Channel. “That was a good one- good buck. Goodbuck, Roy! You got him.”

I’m tired of explaining myself. You either think I’m being destructive or you think I’m being satiric, ironic, or any of those other words. The point is most people think I’m fucking around. So let’s discuss weaponry and tactics.

My first instinct was the depth charge. Originally this weapon was intended as an anti-submarine weapons system, and is the oldest weapon designed for this purpose. Deployed by either ships or aircraft, its design is basic. A cylinder is filled with explosives and a fuse is created which will detonate the bomb at a pre-determined depth. The explosion causes extreme pressure against the submarine’s hull, hopefully rupturing the structure enough to allow the ocean’s pressure to do the rest of the work. However I’ve noticed a few problems with using this weapon against Champ.

First, depth charges in their most rudimentary form (the kind I would be able to build myself) are fairly inaccurate. A streamlined version of the cylinder is necessary to allow for the weapon to drop through the water properly. Even when loaded with Torpex (an explosive more powerful than TNT) the depth charge needed to come within 5 meters of a submarine hull to cause significant damage. The bottom of Lake Champlain is littered with shipwrecks, some from before the Revolutionary War. This provides ample cover for the seadragon, and the hull of a sunken vessel would likely absorb the larger portion of a depth charges concussive blast. Also, since the depth charge requires some degree of accuracy, we would need to develop a system of locating the beast from the surface which has proved unusually hard to teams in the past.

Secondly there is the fact that I would most likely have to drop more than one of these devices to effectively maim or destroy a champtanystropheus. While I am not worried about the cost of having to do so (movie and book deals will certainly compensate) there is collateral damage to consider. The blasts would most likely kill every other form of life in the surrounding area, which makes Jeremy and I appear far more brutish than we are. Or that I am, anyway, like I said he’s a nutcase.

Jeremy has suggested a simple whaling technique. Whales were originally killed from the deck of a small boat, being harpooned and then dragged in closer for a more intimate end. Now, the prey is shot with a harpoon launched from a deck-gun. It’s a very cool looking item, and the shafts of the harpoons themselves are rigged with explosives. Once the weapon pierces the whale’s body the charge is ignited, causing what is hopefully a massive trauma that ends the animal’s life quickly and as painlessly as possible. This method suffers the same drawback as the Depth charge model, in that it requires first a reliable visual contact of the elusive monster. One must assume a certain level of intelligence in an animal capable of eluding capture or solid detection for this long. No, he’s down among the ghost ships.

This means that we have to go to him. By going under the water ourselves, there is much less room for needless damage to Lake Champlain’s ecosystem, and a much better chance of contact. It also solves the issue of sitting unprotected in a rowboat with a spear, exposed to the elements- or worse, Champ’s wrath. Thus, some form of submersible is the preferred tactic for killing an underwater enemy.

As a male I’m fascinated by gadgets and vehicles, and the personal submarine is perhaps the neatest. Small manned submarines became popular in the 60s and 70s as a means for scientific research, and were made commercially available by companies such as General Dynamics and General Electric. This is convenient, as my father is the Manager of General Dynamic/Electric Boat’s Radiation Control and Protection department. Despite the fact that I have no idea what he does due to information being classified, I’m pretty sure it means he knows how to build or steal a submarine. The rough cost of a 2-person submersible, known as the Explorer 1000, is about $400,000. However, with borrowed schematics, this cost is reduced drastically and becomes an issue of supplies, training, and labor.

The Explorer 1000 is desirable for many reasons. The front window offers 120° of viewing, and makes for distortion free viewing of the hunter’s environment. When mounted with high-power lights, this will greatly aid in making contact with Champ. Rated for a depth of over 300 meters, the hull is more than sufficient for diving to the greatest depths Lake Champlain has to offer. Couple with a high maneuverability on a three-plane axis, this means our team of destroyers will be able to navigate the host of ghost-wrecks lining the battle grounds. Also, it comes with instructions.

The transformation from Explorer 1000 to Sigurd will be complete with the addition of weaponry. Equipped with external manipulator arms, the submarine would be almost limitless in its potential to carry a payload of any array of weapons. The harpoon’s deck-gun could easily be mounted and fired from within, and the other manipulator could be outfitted with some form of fixed weaponry. This would perhaps be a lance or battle axe, for up close fighting, or some form of stun baton. The Sigurd’s hull would provide armor against the force a 20 (or more) foot serpent could generate, a factor that the whaling method did not provide for. Once slain, the animal could be fixed to the harpoon line, and the Sigurd would surface. The line would then be attached to a vehicle of a stronger towing capacity, and Champ would be brought to shore.

I know I didn’t start out this way. Sitting on the couch in the middle of winter, buried underneath blanket, my father on the other couch, I know I loved these things. I believe I still do. I haven’t been able to figure anything out in years and when I think I have, it slips back beneath the surface. There are so many confusing, elusive things that consume. Curiosity, hope, love, it’s overwhelming.

“Bill, go grab some more beer. Forensic Files is on next.”

I like to open beer cans with my teeth. You catch your upper front teeth right behind the edge of the pull tab, place your bottom set on the lip of the can, and close your jaw. Style points if you lean close to a friend and get him in the face with the spray. I’m just a boy after all.