Sound far-fetched? This scenario actually is more common than most people realize. In a previous article, (”Can We Really Tap Away Our Problems? A Critical Analysis of Thought Field Therapy,” by B.A. Gaudiano and J.D. Herbert, July/August 2000) I discussed the treatment described above, called Thought Field Therapy (TFT). Of course, it possesses no more scientific validation now than it did when I originally reviewed it, but the so-called "energy” psychology movement sparked by TFT continues to grow. Unfortunately, TFT is only one of a long and growing list of therapies currently being marketed to a public in search of quick relief from mental health problems and possessing little empirical support of safety or efficacy. The list of questionable treatments is becoming quite long indeed: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, Rebirthing Therapy, Emotion Freedom Techniques, Be Set Free Fast, Touch and Breathe, Neurolinguistic Programming, Auditory Integration Training, Dolphin-Assisted Therapy, Facilitated Communication, Past Life Therapy, Recovered Memory Therapy, and Alien Abduction Therapy, just to name a few.

It is within this context that psychologists Scott Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, and Jeffrey Lohr present Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology. Social psychologist Carol Tavris contributes the foreword, and sets a somewhat pessimistic (but necessary) tone as she briefs readers as to why both professionals and laypersons need to pay attention to the public health threats caused by unscientific treatment approaches. She proposes a possible impetus for the growth of pseudoscience within clinical psychology--the long-lamented scientist-practitioner gap. Tavris asserts that fundamental deficiencies exist in the training of clinicians, where the practice of psychology is often divorced from the science of psychology. This science-practice gulf produces therapists easily duped by sham treatments in the quest to earn a respectable living in an age of managed care.

In Chapter 1, the editors present a more optimistic analysis of the situation and state that the book aims to assist readers of various backgrounds with the “important task of distinguishing techniques in clinical psychology that are scientifically supported or promising from those that are scientifically unsupported or untested.” Even though they concur that the state of affairs within the field at times can look rather grim, they assert that this is not an intractable problem and suggest education as a possible remedy.

The editors point out that nonvalidated therapeutic techniques can actually be dangerous and even lethal. The 2000 death of a girl in Colorado at the hands of her therapists using “rebirthing” therapy is but one example. The editors note that unscientific practices are harmful in other ways as well. For example, individuals may get discouraged after trying several treatments without success, and this can keep them from trying an empirically supported therapy that might actually be beneficial.

Each of the book’s five sections represent major areas of controversy. Part I discusses questionable assessment practices and diagnostic entities. This includes critiques of common “projective” tests such as the Rorschach Inkblot Test, and of controversial diagnoses such as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Part I also provides some understanding of why clinicians may fall prey to errors in judgment, leading to erroneous beliefs like the diagnostic power of the Rorschach or the validity of MPD. Howard Garb and Patricia Boyle review the evidence from a wealth of experimental studies showing just how poor our judgment can be when based solely on experience. Many cognitive biases cloud our interpretations, requiring the use of objective methods and controls. Clinicians are no more immune from these biases than laypersons. Psychologist Paul Meehl put it this way: “It is absurd, as well as arrogant, to pretend that acquiring a Ph.D. somehow immunizes me from the errors of sampling, perception, recording, retention, retrieval, and inference to which the human mind is subject.”

The next three parts of the book cover controversies in psychotherapy and treatment. A host of respected scholars, including memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus, present discussions on recovered memories. The authors conclude that the inappropriate use of techniques such as hypnosis and guided imagery can foster false memories in vulnerable patients. Much harm has been done by practitioners who have unwittingly promoted false claims of abuse based on supposedly recovered memories. Another chapter includes a review of the countless sham treatments for autism and other developmental disorders. Facilitated Communication is but one example of a discredited technique for autism.

Perhaps the worst victims of pseudoscience are those who were actual victims of a life-threatening traumatic event and who continue to suffer from the residual effects of that experience. Chapter 9 reviews some of the most popular but controversial treatments of the “trauma industry,” including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Thought Field Therapy, and Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD). CISD was originally developed as a brief group intervention with the laudable goal of preventing the development of posttraumatic stress disorder after a traumatic event. However, several controlled trials of CISD suggest that the treatment is inert at best and harmful at worst when conducted as originally proposed (Lancet 360 [9335]: 766-771, 2002). Issues involving the efficacy of trauma treatments have become increasingly urgent in the wake of terrorism acts and threats in recent years.

The final part of the book focuses on pseudoscience in the media, including the self-help movement. Nona Wilson provides a cogent argument for better representation of the mental health field to the public. Little wonder that the public is ill-informed about empirically supported treatments when most of their knowledge of mental health issues comes directly from the likes of “Dr. Phil” McGraw, radio show host “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger (whose doctorate is in physiology and not psychology or psychiatry), relationship “expert” John Gray (who holds no professional license), and motivational guru Tony Robbins (a practitioner of the pseudoscientific Neurolinguistic Programming).

The editors have presented the evidence in as fair and balanced a way as possible. They urged contributors to remain objective and dispassionate in their presentations, attempted to provide constructive criticism, and chose not to only debunk these techniques when necessary, but also to discuss techniques that are scientifically supported. Furthermore, each chapter contains a glossary of terms to aid the reader in the sometimes dense terminology. Although the book is accessible to the nonprofessional, the volume is most appropriate for the mental health professional or student.

The editors conclude with recommendations for combating the current state of pseudoscience in the field through increased educational and professional efforts. This book is the first major volume devoted to a discussion of science and pseudoscience within the field of clinical psychology, and hopefully can help guide both professionals and patients toward valid treatments. If the patient is clinical psychology and the disease is pseudoscience, this book is part of the treatment.

Lake Champlain forms the border between Vermont and New York, stretching down from Canada at its northernmost point south to Whitehall, New York. It is also, many people believe, home to America’s version of the Loch Ness monster. “Champ,” as the creature is called, has allegedly been seen by hundreds of witnesses. The lake (and therefore the monster) is named for explorer Samuel de Champlain, who is often—but erroneously—said to have been the first to report the creature. Sought after by P.T. Barnum, featured on Unsolved Mysteries, and “officially” protected by both the New York State Assembly and the Vermont Legislature, Champ remains a modern mystery. A big part of that mystery lies not only in the cold waters of the lake but also in a small photograph taken by a woman named Sandra Mansi.

Mansi’s account of her family’s 1977 encounter with Champ is the most complete and fully documented of any lake monster sighting in history. With the most famous photo of the Loch Ness monster (the “surgeon’s photo”) revealed in 1993 to be a hoax, the Mansi photo stands alone as the most credible and important photographic evidence for a lake monster in Champlain—or anywhere else. John Kirk, in his book In the Domain of the Lake Monsters, writes that "The monster of Lake Champlain . . . has the distinction of being the only lake monster of whom there is a reasonably clear photograph. It . . . is extremely good evidence of an unidentified lake-dwelling animal” (Kirk 1998, 133). Joe Zarzynski, author of Champ: Beyond the Legend (1984), calls the photo “the best single piece of evidence on Champ.” Another writer says that “By any standard the Mansi photograph remains a genuine mystery and a serious obstacle to any effort to reduce the Champ phenomenon to mundane causes” (Clark 1993, 67).

Despite its notoriety, and inclusion in most books of cryptozoology (“hidden animals”), there has been little skeptical investigation of the monster since the early 1980s. In July 2002, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Mansi photograph, Senior Research Fellow Joe Nickell and I undertook an extensive investigation of this mysterious monster. His overview of Champ and our search begins on page 18.

Eyewitness Accounts

Like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, most of the evidence for Champ’s existence rests on eyewitness testimony. As I have noted elsewhere (Radford 2002), such accounts are notoriously unreliable and a poor substitute for hard evidence. One writer (Rabbit 2000) listed over a dozen factors that can reduce the accuracy of such accounts, including observer’s fear and stress; poor observation conditions; slippage of memory; seeing what the observer wants or expects to see; changing details to conform to other witnesses’ accounts; reluctance to admit ignorance; filling in nonexistent details, and so on.

Lake creature sightings are complicated by the fact that it is very difficult to judge distances and sizes on bodies of water. As Paul LeBlond of the University of British Columbia’s Department of Oceanography points out, “A problem which commonly arises in the interpretation of unfamiliar objects on water is that of determining their size. In the absence of nearby reference features, the eye cannot estimate absolute dimensions reliably” (LeBlond 1982). On land, the human eye and brain can judge spatial dimensions fairly well, comparing an object to a nearby tree, home, or other structure. An unfamiliar object against a visual field such as sky or water, however, can produce wildly inaccurate estimates of size and distance.

People often see what they want—or expect—to see. In the case of Champ, the monster’s likeness and legend are well-known in the area, and the knowledge that a monster is said to reside in the lake could easily transform an unusual sighting of “something in the water” into a Champ sighting.

The Mansi Encounter

Eyewitness sightings of Champ are relatively rare, and sightings accompanied by good photographs are even rarer. The Mansi family had the remarkable fortune to not only get a good long look at the creature but also photograph it (see figure 1).

According to Sandra Mansi, her family’s encounter with Champ took place on Tuesday, July 5, 1977. Sandra and her fiancé Anthony Mansi, along with Sandra’s two children from her previous marriage, were taking a leisurely drive along Lake Champlain. They drove by some farmland and, around noon, made their way to a small bluff overlooking the lake. The two children went down to the water while Anthony returned to their car to get a camera. As Sandra watched her children and the lake, she noticed a disturbance in the water about 150 feet away. She thought at first it was a school of fish, then possibly a scuba diver. “Then the head and neck broke the surface of the water. Then I saw the head come up, then the neck, then the back” (Mansi 2002).

Mansi did not panic: “I wasn't even scared, I'm just trying to figure out what I'm seeing. Then when Tony came over the field he saw it and started screaming, `Get the kids out of the water!'” The kids scrambled up the bank and headed toward the car. As Anthony helped Sandra up the bank, he handed her the camera. She knelt down, snapped one photo, and then put the camera down to watch the creature. The head and neck turned slightly, then slowly sank into the water and disappeared.

The Mansis estimated that the creature’s neck stuck about six feet out of the water and the whole object was about twelve to fifteen feet long. The sighting lasted a remarkably long time—between four and seven minutes—during which time the creature never turned to face the shore. Sandra Mansi described the neck and head as dark in color and said that what we see in the photograph is as much of the creature as she saw.

Despite the substantial weight and credibility given to it by Champ researchers, the Mansi photograph by itself is intriguing but holds almost no value as evidence. There is little usable information revealed in the photograph; whether by accident or design, virtually all of the information needed to determine the photograph’s authenticity (and subject matter) is missing, lost, or unavailable. For example, Mansi cannot provide the negative, which might show evidence of tampering (she said she habitually threw away her negatives). She also can't provide other photographs taken on the roll (which might show other angles of the same object, or perhaps “test” photos of a known object from an odd position). Mansi claims to be unable to locate the site of the photo, which would help to determine a number of things, including the size of the object. Furthermore, the photo has virtually no objects of known scale (boat, human, etc.) by which to judge the creature’s size or the distance. The fact that the Mansis, allegedly afraid of ridicule, waited four years to release the photo was also seen as suspicious. All we are left with is a fantastic story whose only supporting proof is a compelling but ambiguous photograph of something in the water.

The Hoaxing Question

Because of the litany of missing information (and the relatively high quality of the image), suspicions of a hoax surfaced almost as quickly as Champ. Such accusations were summarily dismissed by Mansi family lawyer Alan Neigher, who said that they “could no more have constructed such a hoax than put a satellite in orbit.”

Richard D. Smith, a filmmaker who was producing a documentary on Champ, offered his expert commentary on the matter of a hoax: “As a photographer and filmmaker, I can speak with some authority as to what it would take to fake a picture of this sort. Assuming the remote possibility that the Mansi photo is a fraud, it would require fabrication of an excellent, full-sized model (highly expensive in terms of expertise and materials) which would have to be smuggled out to Champlain or another lake, there assembled or inflated, and successfully maneuvered around out in the water (most difficult, especially with a slight wind blowing), the whole thing accomplished without being seen or the slightest leak in security (unlikely)” (Smith 1984).

This account is nearly comical in its strained assumptions. Smith envisions an “excellent, full-sized model” of the Champ monster, which certainly is unlikely. But the Mansi photograph doesn't show an “excellent, full-sized model” of Champ; it simply shows a dark, featureless, ambiguous curved form of unknown size in water. Surely such an object would not be as difficult to fake as Smith presumes.

However far-fetched some of the hoax dismissals are, I believe they are fundamentally correct. After an exhaustive and detailed review of both her account and photograph, I am willing to grant that she is probably a sincere eyewitness reporting essentially what she saw. Assuming that both the account and photo are truthful (though error-prone) records of something in the water, what can we conclude about it? Several examinations have been done.

The Frieden Analysis

In 1981, B. Roy Frieden, of the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona, examined the photograph at the behest of Champ researcher Joe Zarzynski. Frieden’s findings were published in Zarzynski’s book as Appendix 2.

Frieden believes the picture to be a valid print, and finds no evidence of photographic tampering. He does find a “suspicious detail” in the picture: "When I showed it to a woman who formerly lived at Lake Champlain, she immediately noticed a brownish streak going horizontally from left to right across the picture right up to the object in question. She right out said that it looked to her like a sand bar” (Frieden 1981). Frieden believes that the streak is “a real detail in the picture,” and suggests that if it is a sand bar, “then there is a distinct possibility that the object was put there by someone . . . the sand bar problem really has to be investigated.”

The LeBlond Analysis

Another analysis was conducted by Paul H. LeBlond of the Department of Oceanography at the University of British Columbia. LeBlond (1982) attempted to use the general appearance of the water’s surface to estimate the length of the waves, and in turn use that as a scale by which to measure the object in the photograph. After a list of the many possible sources of error, LeBlond summed up: “The inescapable conclusion [despite all the unknowns] is that the object seen in the Mansi photograph is of considerable size” (he estimated between sixteen and fifty-six feet long).

LeBlond used a complex formula involving wind speed, fetch, wave period, and wave height—all of which were estimated. LeBlond did his best with what scant information

he had to work with, but no matter how good the math or model is, with so many estimated variables it is apparent that any result will be little better than a wild guess. LeBlond’s analysis, by his own admission, was fraught with many unknowns: “Sources of error may appear at many stages of the estimation method, and this must be kept in mind when interpreting the results.”

Most writers who mention the LeBlond analysis fail to include this important caveat, instead portraying his results as conclusive and scientifically sound. One writer, John Kirk, goes so far as to say that LeBlond’s heavily qualified conclusions “destroyed the learned academic’s [i.e., Frieden’s] hypothesis that the animal could have been a fake” (Kirk 1998, 135).

Other cryptozoologists, it should be noted, were more cautious about the results. J. Richard Greenwell, of the International Society of Cryptozoology, discussed the various analyses and their conclusions that “there are `definitely no cuts, no superimposition,' but, he warn[ed], that `does not mean it is a monster or a living object. It does mean an object was there and was photographed'” (Greenwell 1981).

There is one area where LeBlond’s discussion is clearly wrong. He mentions the efforts to locate the Mansi site, and provides a map with a shaded area showing “stretches of shoreline from which the Mansi photograph may have been taken.” The areas highlighted are on the western shores of Hog Island and below Maquam Bay across from Hero Island. Yet only someone who had never been to the area could suggest these sites as possible candidates; in that area, the far (eastern) shores are much too far away to possibly be depicted in the Mansi photograph.

The Radford Analysis

In my own analysis of the Mansi photograph, an odd thing about the subject emerged. It is not apparent at first glance, but the “head” and “hump” are not clearly connected. If the photograph truly does depict the hump and neck of a lake monster, the actual body contortion is very unusual and unlikely for nearly any type of living animal. To see why, notice that the neck portion does not align with the hump. The neck in fact emerges out of the water from the left side of the photograph, away from the hump (and supposed body; see figure 2).

Figure 2: The object Sandra Mansi photographed at Lake Champlain in 1977, traced from an enlargement. Illustration by Benjamin Radford.

The reason that the head and hump seem connected is that there is a dark patch in the water between the two. I suggest this is in fact a shadow from the head. In the photograph, that area is not nearly as dark as the head and hump, and has all the characteristics of a shadow. Furthermore, Mansi’s own account corroborates the shadow hypothesis: She claims that the photo was taken around noon. If this is true, then the sun should be directly above, hitting the top of the head and casting a shadow downward—right where the neck and hump meet.¹

Even if the neck and hump are part of the same object, the positioning of the segments makes it very unlikely it is a living creature’s “head” and “neck” connected just under the water. Since the head is dark and foreshortened, there is no way to tell if the head is in fact a stubby end as pictured, or perhaps a gnarled tree root branching away at an angle.

Several attempts were made at estimating the object’s size (Mansi said twelve to fifteen feet; LeBlond suggested sixteen to fifty-six feet). If valid, these large estimates would suggest a lake monster, but these measurements were very indirect and fraught with error. There is, however, a more accurate and direct way of determining whether or not Sandra Mansi’s account of her sighting matches with the photographic evidence she provides.

Replicating the Mansi Photograph

Many armchair analyses had been conducted to determine the size of the object, with little solid results. The lack of reference objects and known distances make the task formidable. However, the analysis can be approached from a different angle: Though we don't know the absolute size of—and distance to—the object, we do know what Sandra Mansi reported as the size and distance. With those variables fixed, it is then a fairly straightforward process to determine if the object is the size she (and others) say it is.

In order to help judge the validity of the Mansi photo, we visited Lake Champlain to do field work and original experiments. Following an unfruitful attempt to locate the exact original site, we chose a spot on Lake Champlain in the general area. Joe Nickell stood approximately eight feet above the waterline; this height is similar to that reported by Sandra Mansi (kneeling down atop a six-foot ledge).

I entered the lake holding a three-foot, black-and-white scale marker, measured off in one-foot lengths. Photographs (using the same type of camera Mansi used in 1977—a Kodak Instamatic, fixed-focus 110) were taken at fifty foot intervals ending up at 150 feet from shore (see figure 3). The distances were measured directly, calibrated using a synthetic string to avoid any stretching in the water.²

Figure 3: Photograph of the author in a field experiment at Lake Champlain. A one-foot scale marker is photographed at 150 feet. Using that scale, the lake creature Sandra Mansi photographed in 1977 can be measured.

With the camera at the height Mansi claimed (about eight to nine feet), and the marker in the water at the distance she claimed (150 feet), this should allow us to measure the size of an object in that scale. Any object of a claimed size at a certain distance (at a given focal length) will take up a given measurable space in the print. I measured the size of the one-foot scale at 150 feet on our photograph, marked that, and transferred the measurement to the Mansi image scaled to the same size.

For comparison, rather than use the most commonly seen version of the photograph, I traveled to Connecticut to study the rarely seen original print. I carefully measured the Champ object in comparison to the whole photo, not the magnified and cropped commercial version that appears in books and magazines (and is necessarily reproduced here).

Unfortunately for those claiming that the Mansi object is huge, the numbers don't add up. All of the previous estimates of the object’s size were dramatically overstated. The “neck” is nowhere near the previous estimates of six to eight feet or more; instead, the object is just over three feet out of the water, and both segments together are about seven feet across.³

In order to double-check the results I also worked backward, using a photograph of a mock Champ neck and head held six feet above the water at 150 feet (see figure 4). If Mansi’s estimates are correct, the neck height in her photo and ours should look very similar. Using that scale for measurement, I verified that my estimate was indeed accurate.

Figure 4: A six-foot-tall creature “neck” at 150 feet from the camera. If the estimates given by Mansi are correct, her photograph and this one should look very similar in terms of height above the waterline. (Since the neck was the only dimension being measured, the hump and head portions were excluded.)

Note that my analysis is based upon Sandra Mansi’s own estimates and testimony. Because the object in the photo is inconsistent with the claimed height, those who wish to maintain that the object is six feet or taller (and fifteen feet or longer) will have to decide which parts of Mansi’s story they think are false (or inaccurate). There is no way to be sure exactly how large the object is, but estimates of the distance and the size cannot both be correct; either—or both—are wrong.

At least one researcher, J. Richard Greenwell, has examined the photo and believes that Mansi’s 150-foot distance estimate is correct: “we concluded that that object, whatever it is, was there in the lake at that estimated distance” (Greenwell 1992). The most likely explanation is that Mansi simply thought the object was bigger than it was. This effect is well known to be a factor in eyewitness reports; Joe Zarzynski himself warns about it: “many estimates of length tend to be overstated” (Zarzynski 1987, 109). Yasushi Kojo, another Champ researcher, also states that “the sizes of the animals are frequently overestimated in sighting reports” (Kojo 1991).

This revelation sheds a whole new light on the object in the Mansi photograph; with the size approximately half that of all previous estimates, the range of possible candidates becomes far larger—including perhaps a large bird, known animal, or a floating tree stump. The revised size is also inconsistent with many Champ descriptions. If the main eyewitness is to be believed, this “extremely good evidence” for Champ (and, by extension, other lake monsters) is even weaker than previously suspected.

Acknowledgements

Many people helped in researching and preparing for this Champ phenomena investigation. I wish to thank Robert and Paul Bartholomew, Tim Binga, David Daegling, Michael Dennett, Tom Flynn, Barry Karr, Sandra Mansi, Rob McElroy, and Alan Neigher, as well as my investigative partner, Joe Nickell. The investigation was conducted with support from the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

Notes

1. In his book Zarzynski admits that the head and hump are not obviously connected. He does, however, show an “electronic heavy enhancement of the Mansi photograph demonstrating `that the monster’s back and head are connected.'” I remain unconvinced; the “heavy enhancement” seems to have done little but emphasize the dark patches—which would of course include the head’s shadow.
2. Nickell also took duplicate photos with his own 35 mm camera (published here at full size). For comparison, we verified that both cameras were of the same focal length.
3. An examination of the original print of the Mansi photo is helpful but not essential for this analysis. A less accurate comparison using the least-cropped publicly available version of the photo (in the April 1998 issue of Discover magazine) yields a neck height of about four feet.

References

• Clark, Jerome, and Nancy Pear. 1995. Strange and Unexplained Happenings: When Nature Breaks the Rules of Science. Detroit: Gale Research Inc.
• Clark, Jerome. 1993. Lake monsters in Unexplained! 347 Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences, and Puzzling Physical Phenomena. Detroit: Gale Research Inc.
• Coleman, Loren. 1983. Mysterious America. Winchester, Mass: Faber & Faber, Inc.
• Frieden, B. Roy. 1981. Interim report: Lake Champlain `monster' photograph. Appendix 2 in Zarzynski, Joseph. 1984. Champ: Beyond the Legend. Port Henry, New York: Bannister Publications.
• Greenwell, J. Richard. 1981. Quoted in Zarzynski 1984, p. 132.
• —. 1992. Quoted on Unsolved Mysteries, National Broadcasting Company, airdate September 23, 1992.
• Kirk, John. 1998. In the Domain of the Lake Monsters. Toronto, Canada: Key Porter Books Ltd.
• Kojo, Yasushi. 1991. Some ecological notes on reported large, unknown animals in Lake Champlain. Cryptozoology 10: 4245.
• Kurtz, Paul. 1981. The Lake Champlain monster surfaces. Skeptical Inquirer 6(1), Fall: 7-8.
• LeBlond, Paul H. 1982. An estimate of the dimensions of the Lake Champlain Monster from the length of adjacent wind waves in the Mansi photograph. Cryptozoology 1: 5-61.
• Mansi, Sandra. 2002. Author interview, August 24.
• Rabbit, Jack. 2000. Native and Western eyewitness testimony in cryptozoology. The Cryptozoology Review 4(1), Summer:11-18.
• Radford, Benjamin. 2002. Bigfoot at 50: Evaluating a half-century of Bigfoot evidence. Skeptical Inquirer 26(2), March/April: 29-34.
• Smith, Richard. 1984. Quoted in Zarzynski 1984.
• Teresi, Dick. 1998. Monster of the Tub. Discover magazine, April.
• Wilson, Fred. 1981. `Champ' and the Mansi photograph. (Editorial) Pursuit. Vol. 14, No. 2, Whole 54, second quarter.
• Zarzynski, Joseph. 1984. Champ: Beyond the Legend. Port Henry, New York: Bannister Publications.

Psychologists have been quarreling over the Rorschach Inkblot Test for half a century. From 1950 to the present, most psychologists in clinical practice have treasured the test as one of their most precious tools. And for nearly that long, their scientific colleagues have been trying to persuade them that the test is well-nigh worthless, a pseudoscientific modern variant on tea leaf reading and Tarot cards.

Introduced in 1921 by the Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach, the test bears a charming resemblance to a party game. A person is shown ten inkblots and asked to tell what each resembles. Like swirling images in a crystal ball, the ambiguous blots tell a different story to every person who gazes upon them. There are butterflies and bats, diaphanous dresses and bow ties, monkeys, monsters, and mountain-climbing bears. When scored and interpreted by an expert, people’s responses to the blots are said to provide a full and penetrating portrait of their personalities.

The scientific evidence for the Rorschach has always been feeble. By 1965, research psychologists had concluded that the test was useless for most purposes for which it was used. The most popular modern version of the Rorschach, developed by psychologist John Exner, has been promoted as scientifically superior to earlier forms of the test. In 1997 the Board of Professional Affairs of the American Psychological Association bestowed an award on Exner for his “scientific contributions” and applauded his version of the Rorschach as “perhaps the single most powerful psychometric instrument ever envisioned.”

Such bloated claims to the contrary, however, research has shown that Exner’s approach is beset by the same problems that have always plagued the test. The Rorschach—including Exner’s version—tends to mislabel most normal people as “sick.” In addition, the test cannot detect most psychological disorders (with the exception of schizophrenia and related conditions marked by thinking disturbances), nor does it do an adequate job of detecting most personality traits (Lilienfeld 1999; Lilienfeld, Wood, and Garb 2000).

Despite such shortcomings, the Rorschach is still administered hundreds of thousands of times each year in clinics, courts, and schools. Psychologists often use the test to help courts determine which parent should be granted custody of a child. It’s used in schools to identify children’s emotional problems, and in prisons to evaluate felons for parole. Convicted murderers facing the death penalty, suspected victims of sexual abuse, airline pilots suspended from their jobs for alcohol abuse—all may be given the Rorschach by a psychologist who will use the test to make critical decisions about their lives.

In the 1940s and 1950s the Rorschach was unblushingly promoted as a "psychological x-ray” that could penetrate the inner secrets of the psyche. Although it failed to live up to such promises, the test still possesses a powerful mystique.

Blind Analyses and the Rorschach Mystique

Why is such a scientifically dubious technique so revered among psychologists? The lasting popularity of the Rorschach has little to do with empirical validity. Certainly one secret of the Rorschach’s success is clinicians’ tendency to rely on striking anecdotes about its extraordinary powers—rather than on careful scientific studies—when assessing its value. Psychologists who treasure the Rorschach can recount colorful stories of how the test miraculously uncovered hidden facts about a patient that other tests failed to detect. Indeed, the test’s rise to popularity was due mainly to the near-magical performances—known as “blind analyses"—that Rorschach experts exhibited to their amazed colleagues during the 1940s and 1950s.

In a blind analysis, the Rorschach expert was told a patient’s age and gender and given the patient’s responses to the blots. From this modest sample of information, the expert would then proceed to generate an amazing, in-depth description of the patient’s personality. During the 1950s, the ability to make such astounding “blind diagnoses” came to be regarded among American psychologists as the mark of a true Rorschach genius.

Stunning performances by Rorschach “wizards” converted many psychologists of the era into true believers. For example, one highly respected psychologist has reported how, while still a student, he attended case conferences at which the famed Marguerite Hertz interpreted Rorschachs. Hertz’s astute observations based on the test were “so detailed and exact” that at first he regarded them with great skepticism.

However, the young man’s doubts dissolved the day that he and a fellow student presented the Rorschach results of a patient they both knew very well: "We fully expected Hertz to make errors in her interpretation. We were determined to point these out to the group. . . . We were shocked, however, when Hertz was able to describe this patient after reading only the first four or five responses. . . . Within 25 minutes Hertz not only told us what we already knew but began to tell us things we hadn't seen but which were obviously true once pointed out” (Kaplan and Saccuzzo 1982, 379).

Such astounding performances had a profound effect on many budding psychologists. As a leading clinical researcher observed, “Blind analysis is one of the spectacular aspects of the Rorschach technique and has probably been the most important factor in the acceptance of the Rorschach” (Zubin 1954, 305).

Rorschach Wizards: A Puzzle in Need of an Explanation

The performances of Rorschach wizards bore more than a superficial resemblance to palm reading and crystal ball gazing, although few psychologists of the 1950s were prepared to recognize this connection. By the early 1960s, however, the wizards’ astonishing successes were beginning to turn into a puzzle in need of an explanation. Research revealed that Rorschach virtuosos didn't possess any miraculous powers. To the contrary, in several well-known studies, leading Rorschach experts failed miserably when they attempted to make predictions about patients (e.g., Little and Shneidman 1959; see discussion by Dawes 1994).

Such findings presented a striking paradox. If Rorschach wizards stumbled so badly in controlled studies, how could they produce such amazing performances in blind analyses? The answer to this question was understandable to anyone familiar with the wiles of palm readers.

A Few Simple Tricks

Two shrewd commentators of the late 1940s had already divined that at least some Rorschach wizards achieved their success by resorting to tricks. In a clever and sometimes humorous article, J.R. Wittenborn and Seymour Sarason of Yale identified three simple stratagems of Rorschach interpreters that tended to create a false impression of infallibility (Wittenborn and Sarason 1949).

The first stratagem was as old as the Delphic Oracle of ancient Greece, whose notoriously ambiguous prophecies were crafted to turn out correct, no matter which direction events took. The Oracle once told a king that if he went to war he'd destroy a great nation. Encouraged, he launched an attack and was disastrously defeated. The prophecy wasn't wrong, however. After all, the Oracle hadn't said which nation the king would destroy.

Wittenborn and Sarason noted that Rorschach interpreters resorted to a similar tactic, delivering “ambiguous phrases or esoteric Rorschach clichés which can be given almost any specific interpretation which subsequent developments may require.”

Second, Wittenborn and Sarason observed, Rorschach adepts sometimes ensured their success by including several inconsistent or even contradictory statements in the same interpretation: “One or the other of these statements may be employed according to the requirements of the circumstances. Such resourcefulness on the part of the examiner is often ascribed to the test itself.”

Third, Wittenborn and Sarason observed, Rorschach experts sometimes enhanced their reputations by giving impressive interpretations after they learned the facts of a case: “Some clinical psychologists, when told about some clinically important features of a patient, say, `Ah, yes. We see indications of it here, and here, and here.'”

Despite the tricks described by Wittenborn and Sarason, however, it’s difficult to believe that all Rorschach wizards of the 1940s and 1950s were conscious fakes. The explanation is almost certainly more complicated than that. But before proceeding further, we'll pause to discuss the psychology of astrology and palm reading.

The Barnum Effect

In the late 1940s, psychologist Bertram Forer published an eye-opening study that he called a “demonstration of gullibility” (Forer 1949). After administering a questionnaire to his introductory psychology class, he prepared personality sketches. For example: “Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.”

Forer asked the students to rate their own sketches for accuracy. The students gave an average rating of “very good.” More than 40 percent said that their sketch provided a perfect fit to their personality.

The results seemed to show that Forer’s personality questionnaire possessed a high degree of validity. However, there was a diabolical catch: Forer had given all the students the same personality sketch, which he manufactured using horoscopes from an astrology book. The students had gullibly accepted this boiler-plate personality description as if it applied to them uniquely as individuals.

Although the statements borrowed from the astrology book were seemingly precise, they applied to almost all people. Following the eminent researcher Paul Meehl, psychologists now call such personality statements “Barnum statements,” after the great showman P.T. Barnum who said, “A circus should have a little something for everybody” (he’s also credited with, “There’s a sucker born every minute”).

As Forer had discovered, people tend to seriously overestimate the degree to which Barnum statements fit them uniquely. For example, students in one study who were given Barnum statements disguised as test results responded with glowing praise: “On the nose! Very good"; “Applies to me individually, as there are too many facets which fit me too well to be a generalization.”

Astrologers and Palm Readers

Astrologers and palm readers have long used Barnum statements (along with a few other stratagems) to create a false impression that they know the personality, the past, and even the future of people they've never met. The name for such bogus psychic practices is “cold reading” (Hyman 1981; Rowland 2002). Skillful cold readers apply the Barnum principle in many ways, for example by spicing their readings with statements like these: “You're working hard, but you have the feeling that your salary doesn't fully reflect your efforts"; and “You think that somewhere in the world you have a twin, someone who looks just like you.” Such statements appear personal and individualized, but in fact are true of many American adults.

After being warmed up with Barnum statements, most clients relax and begin to respond with nonverbal feedback, such as nods and smiles. In most psychic readings, there arrives a moment when the client begins to “work” for the reader, actively supplying information and providing clarifications. It’s at this critical juncture that a skillful cold reader puts new stratagems into action, such as the technique called the “push” (Rowland 2002). A psychic using the push begins by making a specific prediction (even though it may miss the mark), then allows feedback from the client to transform the prediction into something that appears astoundingly accurate:

Psychic: I see a grandchild, a very sick grandchild, perhaps a premature baby. Has one of your grandchildren recently been very sick?

Client: No. I. . . .

Psychic: This may have happened in the past. Perhaps to someone very close to you.

Client: My sister’s daughter had a premature girl several years ago.

Psychic: That’s it. Many days in the hospital? Intensive Care? Oxygen?

Client: Yes.

By using the push, a cold reader can make a guess that’s wildly off target appear uncannily accurate. The push and other techniques are effective because, by the time the cold reader begins using them, the client has abandoned any lingering skepticism and is in a cooperative frame of mind, thereby helping the psychic to “make things fit.”

Intriguingly, scholars who have studied the psychology of palm reading and astrology agree that although some psychics are conscious frauds, many sincerely believe in their paranormal powers. For example, psychologist Ray Hyman, professor emeritus at the University of Oregon, published a classic article on cold reading in the Skeptical Inquirer in which he described his own saga as a palm reader (Hyman 1981). While in high school, Hyman was originally doubtful about the validity of palm reading. But after trying it himself, he became persuaded that it could work magic, particularly when he received a great deal of positive feedback from clients. He became a fervent believer in palm reading and made a “side” living from it for some time.

Then one day a friend suggested that Hyman provide his interpretations backwards, giving clients interpretations that were exactly the opposite of what the palm reading textbooks suggested. To Hyman’s amazement, the “backwards” interpretations were received equally well (if not better) by clients. This sobering experience persuaded him that the “success” of palm reading had nothing to do with the correctness of the interpretations. As such cautionary tales illustrate, Barnum statements can fool both the client who believes them and the naïve psychic who believes the client.

Rorschach Wizards: Three Explanations

Having taken a detour into the realm of astrology and palm reading, we're ready to return to the land of Rorschach wizards. Let’s begin by considering three plausible explanations for the spectacular performances of the Rorschach virtuosos of the 1950s.

First, it’s possible that these Rorschach wizards possessed a special clinical insight, a heightened intuition, that allowed them to surpass ordinary human limitations. Drawing on their unique clinical talents and their experience with thousands of patients, they developed an uncanny skill that allowed them to extract unexpected insights from inkblots.

Of course, this is the view that Rorschach devotees have generally preferred. Even today, many psychologists exhibit an extraordinary faith in the powers of clinical intuition. However, belief in the intuitive powers of Rorschach wizards is difficult to reconcile with the revelations of research. As we mentioned earlier, when the supposedly extraordinary insight of Rorschach experts has been tested in rigorously controlled studies, results have been disappointing. Given such findings, it’s implausible that the Rorschach wizards of the 1950s were possessed of extraordinary clinical insight. Thus, we have to consider a second explanation for their extraordinary performances: Maybe they were frauds.

Thanks to the shrewd article by J.R. Wittenborn and Seymour Sarason of Yale that we discussed earlier, there’s little question that some Rorschachers of the 1940s and 1950s used tricks that lent the test a false impression of infallibility. However, it’s extremely unlikely that all Rorschach wizards of the era were conscious frauds. Several prominent Rorschach experts, such as Marguerite Hertz (whose interpretive skills we described earlier), were known to be people of high integrity. Thus we're led to a third explanation: The uncanny Rorschach wizards of the 1950s were probably cold readers who, like the young palm reader Ray Hyman, were deceived by their own performances.

The Rorschach Wizard as Cold Reader

If blind diagnosis with the Rorschach was really just cold reading, how could it have worked? A Rorschach wizard about to give a blind analysis usually has access to much more information than do most fortune tellers. First, Rorschach responses usually contain valuable clues regarding a patient’s intellectual capacity and educational level. Furthermore, many responses provide hints regarding the patient’s interests or occupation.

As an interesting example, the Rorschach analysis of Nobel-prize-winning molecular biologist Linus Pauling has recently been published (Gacono et al. 1997). Here are a few of his responses to the blots: “The two little central humps at the top suggest a sine curve. . . .” “This reminds me of blood and the black of ink, carbon and the structure of graphite. . . .” “I'm reminded of Dalí's watches. . . .”

Even non-wizards can guess that the person who produced these Rorschach responses was well educated in mathematics ("sine curve”) and chemistry ("the structure of graphite”), and probably had broad cultural interests (the reference to artist Salvador Dalí).

Besides such clues contained in the Rorschach responses, other sources of information are often available to a wizard. The fact that the test results come from a particular clinic or hospital can be informative. For example, if the test comes from an inpatient psychiatric unit, the chances are high that the patient is suicidal or out of touch with reality.

Thus, the Rorschach wizard who undertakes a “blind diagnosis” is often in possession of a wealth of information that would make a palm reader envious. In the early part of the diagnostic performance, this information can be fed back to the listeners in classic “cold reading style.” For example, with Linus Pauling’s Rorschach, the reading might begin: “Hmmm. This is obviously a very bright individual. Well educated, a `cerebral' type. Focuses on thoughts, probably avoids reacting to events in a purely emotional way. I have the impression of a scientist rather than a business person or artist, though I do see some artistic tendencies.”

If the Rorschach comes from a particular source—for example, a therapist who works with moderately troubled clients—the wizard can use appropriate Barnum statements. For instance, here’s a safe statement that fits virtually all clients one way or another: “This patient’s emotions tend to be inconsistent in terms of their impact on thinking, problem solving, and decision-making behaviors. In one instance thinking may be strongly influenced by feelings. In a second instance, even though similar to the first, emotions may be pushed aside and play only a peripheral role. . . .” This statement, based on a recent Rorschach text (Exner 2000, 87), might well have come from Bertram Forer’s famous astrology book. Notice that the statement merely says that the client’s thoughts sometimes control his feelings, but that his feelings sometimes control his thoughts. Although the statement appears to be saying something important and specific, in fact it applies to virtually all therapy clients (and probably virtually all readers of this article!).

Such Barnum statements are apparently still taken seriously by many psychologists today, judging from the large number of Rorschach books that are purchased each year. Thus we can be fairly sure that when Rorschach wizards of the 1950s spouted similar phrases during blind analyses, their colleagues thought something important was being said.

Once the listeners were “warmed up” by such apparently profound insights, the Rorschach wizard’s job became much easier. Abandoning any initial skepticism, listeners probably began giving subtle or not-so-subtle feedback by nodding or smiling. The wizard could use this feedback as a guide for making increasingly precise statements. In all likelihood, wizards probably used something like the push, described earlier. For instance, here’s a hypothetical example of how the push could be used Rorschach-style:

Wizard: There are signs of a very severe trauma, it could be recent. Perhaps a rape? Or a violent assault?

Listener: No. She . . .

Wizard: This trauma may have happened in her teen years or even earlier. She may be repressing it so she doesn't remember.

Listener: She was in a severe car accident when she was only eight.

Wizard: I think that may be it. She and people she loved were badly injured?

Listener: Yes.

As this example shows, the push can place the Rorschach wizard in a "win-win” situation. If the long-shot guess is correct—for example, the patient has actually been raped or assaulted—then the wizard’s prediction may seem miraculously accurate. In contrast, if the guess is incorrect, the wizard can re-interpret it so that it seems “close"—or claim that the trauma occurred but that the patient has repressed the experience!

As Ray Hyman pointed out, a cold reader can be entirely sincere. Professional cold readers even have a term, “shut eyes,” to describe individuals who engage in psychic cold reading while sincerely believing in their own paranormal powers. Similarly, most Rorschach wizards of the 1950s who used cold reading techniques probably genuinely believed in the test. When the wizards made certain statements about patients (for example, Barnum statements), they often met with the agreement and even astonishment of their listeners. When they made certain highly intuitive guesses about patients (actually, the push), they found that they were often “close” to the truth, and that their listeners were highly impressed. Reinforced by positive feedback from their colleagues, the wizards gradually became skilled cold readers, believing that their remarkable insights had arisen from the Rorschach.

The era of the Rorschach wizards belongs mainly to the past. Although skilled clinicians still occasionally dazzle graduate students with their stunning Rorschach performances, only a few psychologists today engage in public blind diagnoses. But the legacy of the great wizards lives on. The aura of magic created in the 1940s and 1950s still lingers as the Rorschach mystique, the almost religious awe that many clinicians continue to display toward the test despite its tattered scientific status. Perhaps more important, the Rorschach wizards contributed to the belief—still strong among many clinical psychologists—that intuitions and clinical experience provide deeper insights than mere scientific knowledge can. Thus it is that clinicians still use the Rorschach for purposes for which it has no demonstrated usefulness, mistakenly believing that their supposed insights arise from the extraordinary powers of the test, rather than from their own unrecognized notions and preconceptions.

References

• Dawes, Robyn M. 1994. House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth. New York: Free Press.
• Exner, John E. 2000. A Primer for Rorschach Interpretation. Asheville, North Carolina: Rorschach Workshops.
• Forer, Bertram R. 1949. The fallacy of personal validation: A classroom demonstration of gullibility. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 44: 118-123.
• Gacono, Carl. B., Clifford M. DeCato, Virginia Brabender, and Ted G. Goertzel. 1997. Vitamin C or Pure C: The Rorschach of Linus Pauling. In Contemporary Rorschach Interpretation edited by J. Reid Meloy, Marvin W. Acklin, Carl B. Gacono, James F. Murray, and Charles A. Peterson. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Hyman, Ray. 1981. Cold reading: How to convince strangers that you know all about them. In Paranormal Borderlands of Science edited by Kendrick Frazier. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus.
• Kaplan, Robert. M., and Dennis P. Saccuzzo. 1982. Psychological Testing: Principles, Applications, and Issues. Monterey, California: Brooks/Cole.
• Lilienfeld, Scott O. 1999. Projective measures of personality and psychopathology. How well do they work? Skeptical Inquirer 23 (May): 32-39.
• Lilienfeld, Scott O., James M. Wood, and Howard N. Garb. 2000. The scientific status of projective techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 1: 27-66.
• Little, Kenneth B., and Earl S. Shneidman. 1959. Congruencies among interpretations of psychological test and anamnestic data. Psychological Monographs 73 (6, Whole No. 476).
• Rowland, Ian. 2002. The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading third ed. London, England: Ian Rowland Limited.
• Wittenborn, J. R., and Seymour B. Sarason. 1949. Exceptions to certain Rorschach criteria of pathology. Journal of Consulting Psychology 13: 21-27.
• Zubin, Joseph. 1954. Failures of the Rorschach technique. Journal of Projective Techniques 18: 303-315.

Proliferating sightings, “theories” of self-styled monster hunters, and even a Holy-Grail photo of the supposed beast have spawned innumerable newspaper and magazine articles, books, entries in paranormal compendia, and radio and television segments, not to mention keychains, mugs, T-shirts, and other offspring, including “Champburgers” (seafood patties on sesame-seed buns). Such endeavors have made Champ the best-known lake monster in the United States and, except for British Columbia’s “Ogopogo,” in all of North America. “Few cryptozoologists deny the possibility of Champ’s existence,” states W. Haden Blackman in his The Field Guide to North American Monsters (1998), “and many openly accept the creature,” believing it to be a plesiosaur, zeuglodon, or other unknown or erstwhile extinct creature. Champ seeker Joseph Zarzynski has even given it a name: Beluaaquatica champlainiensis ("huge water creature of Lake Champlain”) (Owen 1982).

To assess the reputed phenomenon, Skeptical Inquirer managing editor Ben Radford and I launched “The `Champ' Expedition” in the summer of 2002. We examined all aspects of the Champ legend, from its alleged inception, through the impact of a famous 1977 photograph of the creature, and beyond. Unlike some so-called investigations—which, while long-running, were largely attempts to collect sighting reports—we believe ours was the most wide-ranging, hands-on investigation of Champ ever conducted with an intent to solve, rather than promote, the mystery.

Champ Expedition

Our investigation was multi-faceted. I made an advance trip (August 2-4, 2002) to take in the annual Champ Day celebration (August 3) in Port Henry, New York, interview various people, buy books, and, in general, scout resources and make plans for our subsequent two-man expedition, August 22-26.

In the interim we began to study the myriad articles and books on Champ and other alleged lake monsters. Ben did extensive work to ready experiments regarding the famous 1977 Champ photo by Sandra Mansi, while I located her by phone, arranged for an interview, and (from photo expert Rob McElroy) borrowed a vintage camera like the one Mansi had used. We discussed options, drafted itineraries, obtained and readied gear, and made other preparations.

With my car fully loaded, we set out for Whitehall, New York. There we met friend and fellow skeptic Robert Bartholomew and his brother Paul (who is a cryptozoologist), and discussed many relevant issues with them. Then we began to explore Lake Champlain from its southernmost tip near Whitehall to its northern end in Québec (see map, figure 1). Our “base camp” for the next two days was Collins Cabins at Port Henry. Late the first afternoon we set up "Champ Camp I” at a boating ramp area just outside Bulwagga Bay (figure 2), the locale of a majority of Champ reports, and maintained a watch from 7 to 8:30 p.m.—a supposedly prime time for Champ sightings (Kojo 1991). Unfortunately Champ was a no-show.

Figure 2: Bengamin Radford maintaining a Champ vigil.

We later conducted research at the Collins Cabins’ bar—seriously! With Ben taking notes, I inquired of a group of men about a local signboard that lists Bulwagga Bay “Champ Sightings,” six columns of names and dates (see figure 3). One man, William “Pete” Tromblee, quipped that it was “a list of the local drinkers.” In fact Tromblee’s own 1981 sighting is listed, although he assured us he was entirely sober at the time.

Figure 3: Champ monster sighting board at Port Henry, New York, the "Home of Champ"

He did admit that he did not know what he saw and volunteered that it might have been a large sturgeon—a refrain one hears quite often. The proprietor, Mrs. Rita Collins, rummaged through a drawer behind the bar and came up with some related newspaper clippings, including one with a photo of a "six-foot piece of driftwood that bears a striking resemblance to artists’ conceptions of Lake Champlain’s legendary monster, Champ.”

The following day (August 24) we crossed the Champlain Bridge to Vermont. We explored the lake shore around Otter Creek, dropped in on the naturalist at Button Bay State Park, and then proceeded to Bristol to keep our appointment with Sandra Mansi regarding her famous snapshot of—well, that is the question Ben addresses in his article elsewhere in this issue.

We subsequently rendezvoused with Norm St. Pierre, a veteran fisherman and lake guide who operates Norm’s Bait and Tackle at Crown Point, New York (a few miles south of Port Henry). Outside this “One Stop Hunting and Fishing Supply Store” rests a giant hook, baited with a large rubber fish and waggishly labeled "Norm’s Champ Rig.” Norm was to be our guide, aboard his sonar-equipped Starcraft cruiser, to a major area of Champ’s reputed lair.

The sonar (figure 4), which Norm uses to locate schools of fish, soon picked up a 12- to 20-pound catfish or sheephead. However, on our entire tour of Bulwagga Bay and many miles beyond, we saw nothing, either visually or on sonar, that could be construed as Champ (with the exception of the “monster” in figure 5). That is not surprising, given that during more than four decades on the water he has never seen a giant unknown lake creature. He says he has occasionally encountered a wave on calm water that puzzled him, and, like others, will say there’s “something” out there. But he is more likely to suggest a sturgeon than a plesiosaur. (More on all these matters presently.)

Figure 4: Norm St. Pierre, veteren fishing guide, aboard his sonar-equipped boat.

Early in the morning we closed out our base at Port Henry and, again crossing into Vermont, made our way to St. Albans and beyond. We searched the areas of Maquam and Missiquoi Bays (again see map) in hopes of finding a landscape that could match the location of the Mansi sighting. Unfortunately her description of the location was so vague as to be almost useless, and the intervening years had perhaps changed the scene completely. This precluded one set of photographic experiments but we located a suitable area for others, near a boat launch. By wading into the water Ben discovered that it was surprisingly shallow for more than 150 feet offshore. This was fortuitous since we could avoid having to use our raft, but it raised an interesting point. A local man who had resided there for thirty years said that the general shallowness of the lake in the surrounding area made him doubt the presence of any leviathan there. Indeed, while the lake reaches depths of up to 400 feet, the maximum for all of Missiquoi Bay is fourteen feet. And for the eastern edge of Maquam Bay and the connecting area of lake, the offshore depth at Mansi’s estimated sighting distance of 150 feet is twelve feet or less, as shown by a Lake Champlain hydrographic contour map (Lake n.d.).

The experimental work was time-consuming, but we were through by mid afternoon and continued north to the upper end of Lake Champlain at Venise Bay, Québec. We stopped along the way to explore and to photograph some driftwood that had piled up along the shore. We returned as far south as Burlington, Vermont, that night. Ben was glad to finally be able to wash up from his swim in Lake Champlain and to treat a cut foot—injured on sharp rocks during the earlier experiments.

Our final day, the 26th, was another long one. We took the ferry Valcour from Burlington to Port Kent, New York, traversing Lake Champlain at one of its widest places. We maintained a Champ watch, noting that some reported sightings had been made from ferries as well as other boats. A veteran deckhand told us he teased children to look overboard for Champ and instructed adults to “go below” to the on-board snack bar that serves beer and wine so they might also be able to see the creature.

Disembarking from the Valcour, we headed south along the west coast of Lake Champlain until we veered away on the interstate and headed for home. We had traveled over twelve hundred miles, and had obtained quantities of notes, photographs, videotapes, books, charts, and other research materials—all of which would now need careful study. Here are our findings.

Sightings

Champlain’s actual description is in volume 2, chapter IX, of his journal (quoted in Meurger 1988):

. . . [T]here is also a great abundance of many species of fish. Amongst others there is one called by the natives Chaousarou, which is of various lengths; but the largest of them, as these tribes have told me, are from eight to ten feet long. I have seen some five feet long, which were as big as my thigh, and had a head as large as my two fists, with a snout two feet and a half long, and a double row of very sharp, dangerous teeth. Its body has a good deal the shape of the pike; but it is protected by scales of a silvery gray colour and so strong that a dagger could not pierce them.

As Champlain’s actual account demonstrates, far from heralding a serpentine, horse-headed monster, he simply mentions a native species of large fish. It was almost certainly a gar (or garfish), one of the Ganoidei subclass (from the Greek ganos, “shiny”), which includes sturgeons and other varieties.

Supposed other evidence of an early Champ sighting comes from an old powderhorn bearing a Crown Point soldier’s name, the year 1760 and various pictorial elements, including “a rather large dragon-like creature.” Zarzynski (1984, 52-53) suspects this is a “possible link” to Champ. However, the figure is merely a stereotypical dragon—complete with large wings. It is by no means evidence for the existence of a Lake Champlain leviathan.

In his Champ: Beyond the Legend, Zarzynski (1984, 152-205) catalogued 224 “Champ” reports. Putting aside Samuel de Champlain’s, which never occurred, the rest are from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The earliest is from 1819 and is still the most sensational description of Champ ever recorded. I tracked down the original account in the Plattsburgh Republican of Saturday, July 24.

The sighting was attributed to a “Capt. Crum” who was in a scow on Bulwagga Bay the previous Thursday morning. The black monster was said to be about 187 feet long with its flat head—resembling that of a “sea-horse"—rearing more than fifteen feet out of the water. The creature was some two hundred yards away (twice the length of a football field) and was traveling “with the utmost velocity” while being chased by “two large Sturgeon and a Bill-fish.” Nevertheless, the captain was able to notice that it had three teeth, large eyes the color of “a pealed [sic] onion,” a white star on its forehead, and “a belt of red around the neck.” The incident has an outlandishness about it that suggests someone was pulling the reader’s leg.

Hoax or not, that monster has not been seen since, or has apparently shrunk to a fraction of its former self and lost its distinctive markings, although not without gaining others. Anyway, according to the various reports Champ is between ten and 187 feet long, has one to four or more humps or up to five arching coils, and is black, or has a dark head and white body, or is gray, or black and gray, or brown, moss green, reddish bronze, or other colors, possibly being drab or shiny, scaly or smooth—even “slimy.”

Moreover, it possesses fins, or a pair of horns, or “moose-like antlers,” or “elephant ears,” or a tan or red mane, or glowing eyes, or “jaws like an alligator"—or again had none of these. Overall it looked like a great snake, "a large Newfoundland dog,” “a steam yacht” (although traveling too fast to be one), a horse, a Florida manatee, a submarine periscope, a whale, etc., etc. (Zarzynski 1984, 152-205).

Astonishingly, some writers have concluded that there is a “surprising degree of correlation between all the various descriptions” (Grant 1992, 115), that they are indeed “disturbingly similar” (Vachon 1977). However, to the rest of us it appears that either Champ is a metamorphosing, contortionistic, chameleonesque creature, completely unknown to the natural world, or else eyewitnesses are viewing—and no doubt misperceiving—a number of different things.

Many of the sightings were from considerable distances—often a hundred yards or more, a few at between a quarter and three-quarters of a mile, four at one mile, and at least one at two miles away, although often the distance was unreported. (A dozen observations were made by the use of spyglasses or binoculars.) Since the apparent size of the creature depends on how far away it is, then mistaking either the distance or size will result in misjudging the other accordingly. If we consider other factors—such as surprise, poor visibility on several occasions (such as nighttime sightings and viewing the creature while it was entirely underwater), and other problems, including the power of suggestion—the sightings could obviously be fraught with error.

“Expectant Attention”

One should not underestimate the power of what Rupert T. Gould, in his The Loch Ness Monster and Others (1976, 112-113), called “expectant attention.” This is the tendency of people who, expecting to see something, are misled by anything having some resemblance to it. For example, a log may be mistaken for a lake serpent under the right conditions, especially in an area where reports of such a creature are common. Indeed, logs have actually been mistaken for the Loch Ness Monster. Gould (1976, 107) describes two instances of his own knowledge in which “a pair of binoculars resolved an apparent `monster' into a floating tree-trunk” at the Loch.

Perhaps certain Lake Champlain monster sightings can be so explained. One from circa 1886, for instance, said the monster looked “like a long log or pole,” while a 1954 report described the creature as “like a telephone pole in appearance.” Photos of “monster"-shaped driftwood at Lake Champlain have been published (Zarzynski 1984, 99, 163, 171; “Champ unmasked” n.d.).

In this regard, local fisherman Tom Forrest told an illuminating story. In 1998 he was with a group of people who saw “Champ,” and some were frightened. In time, however, it turned out to be a partially waterlogged tree trunk, bobbing and propelled by the current. It was nearly forty feet long with a root that resembled a monster’s head (Forrest 2002).

A particular feature of Lake Champlain—an effect called a seiche—may help to produce just such sightings. A seiche is a great underwater wave that sloshes back and forth, even though the lake’s surface appears smooth. The sloshing may dislodge debris from the bottom—logs or clumps of vegetation, for example—that bob to the surface as “monsters” (Teresi 1998).

Another likely candidate for some Champ sightings is a large fish. Samuel de Champlain’s Chaousarou—clearly a gar—is an obvious possibility. Tom Forrest has caught very large gar. When I spoke with him he had only days before witnessed a friend hook a Longnose Gar that—Forrest insists—was "monster” sized; it measured approximately 6 feet 4 inches long and weighed some 40-50 pounds. He calls this “the real Champ” and has dubbed it, appropriately, “Gar-gantua” (Forrest 2002).

Among other large fish in the lake are sturgeon which are now endangered. They are generally in the five-to-six-foot range but can grow to twice that size (Zarzynski 1984, 98-100; Meurger 1988, 47-48). In fact, one couple who saw a 6-foot creature in 1949 described it as possibly a large sturgeon. While a sturgeon’s length is insufficient to account for some other Champ sightings, the size may easily be overestimated.

Multiple fish can appear as a single monster. On July 7, 1988, Walter and Sandi Tappan saw several creatures and videotaped one “series of small humps” they believe was a large creature. The video was included on a September 23, 1992, episode of NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries. Even monster enthusiast John Kirk (1998, 135-136), who acknowledges that the Tappans claimed to see the monster’s head and neck, believes the video shows “fish feeding near the surface.”

Ronald Binns (1988, 205-207) tells of a young man who spied a 50-foot sea serpent off England’s Brighton beach in 1857; in later years, after he became a marine biologist, he realized he had actually seen several dolphins “swimming in line.” In this manner, two or more large gar, sturgeon, or other fish could easily appear as a single multi-humped monster, accounting for numerous such sightings at Lake Champlain.

Otters, which are playful and enjoy “chasing each other” and “following the leader” (Godin 1983) are especially prone to creating this illusion and in general being mistaken for lake monsters, as I discovered in investigating other cases. For example, Jon Kopp, a Senior Wildlife Technician with New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, told me of a personal encounter when he was in a duck blind on a lake in Clinton County. It was dark, when suddenly, heading toward him was a huge snakelike creature making a sinuous, undulating movement. However, as it came closer, Kopp realized that the “serpent” was actually six or seven otters, swimming single file and diving and resurfacing to create the serpentine effect. “After seeing this,” Kopp told me, “I can understand how people can see a `sea serpent'” (Nickell 2001, 102).

Otters have been mistaken for monsters elsewhere, including Loch Arkaig and Loch Ness in Scotland (Binns 1984, 186-191) and, I believe, Lake Utopia in New Brunswick, Canada, and Silver Lake in Wyoming County, New York (Nickell 2001, 133-135, 92-103), as well as many other lakes. The Northern River Otter (Lutra canadensis) measures up to 52 inches long, and is dark brown with a lighter, grayish throat and belly but “looks black when wet” (Whitaker 1996). While treading water with its hind paws, it can extend its head and long neck out of the water, inviting comparisons with the extinct plesiosaur, which is so often mentioned as a possibility for “Nessie” and “Champ” (Binns 1984, 186-191).

In light of otters, consider this Champ report. On June 15, 1983, several witnesses saw a 30- to 40-foot creature with four humps in Lake Champlain off the site of Fort Cassin. However, as one admitted to the Lake Champlain Phenomena Investigation (Zarzynski 1983), “It could have been one large creature or four smaller ones"—a concession that takes on new significance when we learn that this site was at the “mouth of the Otter Creek.” (Although it is actually Vermont’s longest river, it is otherwise aptly named as a habitat for the Northern River Otter.)

A few miles away, Button Bay State Park Naturalist Laura Hollowell showed me a drawing made by a young girl who had seen a “baby Champ.” Hollowell (2002) believes this and other such infant-monster sightings may well be otters. She told me she believes “People have seen otters and mink swimming in the lake and think they've seen Champ.” She said she is “surprised at what unreliable reporters people can be in terms of wildlife sightings,” adding, “I don't believe that there are any large, unidentified animals in Lake Champlain.”

Keeping in mind eyewitness descriptions of Champ with horns, “moose-like antlers,” or a head “like a horse” (Zarzynski 1984, 161, 165, 177), one cannot help but acknowledge other wildlife possibilities. Allowing for overestimation of length—which is especially easy to do if there is a wake—swimming deer come readily to mind. Even some believers among Loch Ness monster hunters considered this the probable explanation for “horned

monster” reports in their bailiwick. Indeed, when one photo of Nessie was enlarged, “she” was revealed to be a deer (Binns 45, 191-193).

Still other possibilities for Champ (and many purported lake monsters elsewhere) include wind slicks and boat wakes. A deckhand on the Valcour ferry (out of Burlington, Vermont) told us that Champ reports had declined in the last fifteen years or so with the cessation of large traffic on the lake. A barge’s wake often traveled across the lake, he said, mystifying anyone who might encounter it without seeing its cause. Thus some people could infer, or imagine having glimpsed, the fabled lake creature (Valcour 2002).

In other sightings and photographs, additional culprits—including other swimming animals and marine creatures, long-necked birds, even rocks (see figure 5)—may also pose as a lake monster, along with toy models and manipulated images (Binns 1984; Nickell 1994). Considering all such factors, there seems no compelling reason to postulate the existence of a hitherto unknown creature in Lake Champlain.

Figure 5: Monster or a rock? You decide!

Bandwagon Effect

I did an analysis of the 224 sightings listed by Zarzynski (1984, 152-205) (less the nonexistent 1609 sighting and nine completely undated reports). Interestingly, during the entire period before 1860 there was only a single recorded sighting which, as I have indicated, was probably a spoof. After that, recorded sightings increased in the 1870s and 1880s (to fifteen and twenty-three respectively), then declined again before shooting up steadily in the 1960s (fifteen), 1970s (fifty-nine), and 1980s (seventy until mid-1984). The reason for the fluctuations is uncertain, but if there were several large leviathans in the lake prior to 1860 as proponents believe, why was there only one highly doubtful sighting? Why did not the Native Americans know about the creatures, and tell Samuel de Champlain about them rather than the comparatively mundane chaousarou (garfish)?

As to the modern rise in sightings (which is obviously much greater than a mere growth in population), that may well be due to heightened expectancy caused by an increase in articles, books, and other media reports on the subject. Loren Coleman (1983, 89) gives some credit to “the arrival on the scene” of Joseph Zarzynski, who gave those who had previously been ridiculed “a sympathetic ear.” That seems only fair, but Zarzynski’s and others’ excessive credulity may have tipped the scales in the opposite direction, resulting in a still greater expectancy and thus helping to create something of a bandwagon effect.

This seems supported by the tendency of the reported imagery to subtly conform to the concept of the day. For example, the term “sea serpent” was used in several nineteenth-century accounts but was effectively dropped afterwards (except for a single journalist’s use). The most prevalent descriptor overall was “huge snake” (or similar wording), but in modern times (after 1978) reports occasionally likened the creature to a “dinosaur” (Zarzynsky 1984, 152-205). This probably reflects the popular notion—after the widely circulated 1934 hoaxed photo of the Loch Ness Monster (Nickell 1994, 171; 1996)—that such mythical beasts resemble plesiosaurs. Michel Meurger, in his Lake Monster Traditions: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (1988, 39), concludes that ". . . Champ’s modern fame is the product of local monster-enthusiasts in their efforts to promote their own legend along Loch-nessian lines.”

Evaluation

Not only is there not a single piece of convincing evidence for Champ’s existence, but there are many reasons against it, one of which is that a single monster can neither live for centuries nor reproduce itself. There would need to be several in a breeding herd for the species to have continued to reproduce over time ("Myth” 1972).

Zarzynsky (1998) acknowledges this, theorizing that a colony of thirty or fewer plesiosaurs have inhabited Lake Champlain since its formation some 10,000 years ago. However, with so few individuals he worries that Champ is near extinction. Fellow monster hunter Dennis Jay Hall (2000, 15), on the other hand, insists: “There is a healthy population of these animals living in Lake Champlain. They are here for a reason; this is their chosen home.”

But then where is a floating or beached carcass or other certain trace of the fabled creature? Although there are possible reasons why a Champ carcass might be rare (for example, most deaths could occur in winter, when the lake largely or completely freezes over [Zug 1981]), there is no question about the existence of sturgeon, gar, otters, and other Champ look-alikes. The absence of a Champ carcass “does not support the existence of such creatures either,” according to the Smithsonian’s Dr. George Zug (1981). And where are the bones that, as Gould (1976, 120) asked of Loch Ness, should have eventually covered the entire lake floor?

The burden of proof, of course, is on the claimants. Far from meeting that burden, however, the Champ defenders are instead promoting a mystery and—like so many paranormalists—are thereby engaging in a logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance: `We don't know what these people saw; therefore, it must have been Champ.' One cannot draw a conclusion from a lack of knowledge, and so, until an actual specimen presents itself, the possibility that any large, unknown animal inhabits Lake Champlain remains somewhere between extraordinarily slim and none.

Acknowledgments

In addition to those mentioned in the text, I am grateful to Tim Binga for research assistance, Barry Karr and Pat Beauchamp for help with financial matters, and Ranjit Sandhu for manuscript preparation.

References

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