Were you there? Did you attend the August 1981 conference in Vermont, the first scientific seminar devoted to a study of the cryptids that have been reported lurking in the waters of Lake Champlain for the past 300 years?

It sort of was the Woodstock of Champ.

I was there.

I wrote about the conference in Mysterious America. Here’s a sample what I saw and heard:

In the morning session, Joseph Zarzynski ran down the historical background of the Champ sightings and introduced the audience of 200 people to the Sandra Mansi photograph. Projected on a wall-size screen in an old barn on the shore of Lake Champlain, the vivid blues and browns of the photograph presented an image few conference members will soon forget. The showing was coupled with Zarzynski’s impassioned plea for state governments and environmental groups to help protect the monster.

Next, Sandra Mansi, despite being visibly nervous about speaking before a large group, told the story of her experience. Conference goers knew the details, but it was the first time Mansi, who now lives in her native Vermont, had spoken publicly. She stirred the audience when she forcefully answered the question raised by the title of the conference: “You don’t want to ask me if I think Champ exists. I’ve seen him, almost on a first name basis. I’ve photographed Champ.”

The afternoon’s session presented analyses by cryptozoologists Roy Mackal and Richard Greenwell, as well as their theories about what the creature might be. Two major camps have developed to explain Champ. The leader of one, Greenwell, is convinced that Champ is a plesiosaur, an extinct marine reptile, not unlike the Loch Ness monster. He feels that both creatures, and others in Northern Hemisphere lakes, were trapped in the inland lakes formed at the end of the last ice age. In frank disagreement with Greenwell’s theory is Mackal, who is certain that these temperate-zone lake monsters are relics of an early era, related to zeuglodons, primitive whales thought to have died out 20 million years ago; he also believes they have access to the oceans via waterways.

Did you attend? If so, some researchers are looking for you. I recently received the above photograph of myself at that conference from Gary Mangiacopra via Chad Arment. Gary is undertaking a massive project. He is editing old tapes of the sessions at that conference, compiling them for the first proceedings of the event, and also gathering all the photographs that can be found from the conference.

If you attended, perhaps you can share some images you took from the first Champ conference?