YOU CAN’T POLISH A TANY TURD by Scott Mardis Over the years, in addition to the hundreds of eyewitness accounts claimed as evidence for the existence of the so-called Lake Champlain “monsters”, there has on occasion surfaced photographic evidence that can possibly be interpreted as reinforcing the consensual portion of the eyewitness accounts. These rare instances really do look like animals, whatever they may actually be, and even the most hardened skeptics will concede this. The most famous example is

undoubtably Sandra Mansi’s 1977 photograph.

There is Peter Bodette’s 2005 video.

And Eric Olsen’s 2009 video.

In contrast to those images, which clearly show some kind of large object which at least superficially resembles an animal, there are the blobby images that Dennis Hall has been foisting upon the public for the last 30 years. This is, of course, in conjunction with his grandiose claims to have “found” the Lake Champlain animals and even allegedly tell you when and where to wait on them! A good summary of how Hall’s claims have done more to discredit what little credibility there is left

for the idea of a real unknown in Lake Champlain rather than advance the case is best summed up by Robert Bartholomew in his 2012 book, THE UNTOLD STORY OF CHAMP http://books.google.com/books?id=DnT63H2_zhkC&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=dennis+hall+robert+bartholomew&source=bl&ots=OTRluIj1iV&sig=i3DJQusYTp32ia7dKWf3qgkqNYk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iaY-VJykEI26ggSu1YDwCg&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=dennis%20hall%20robert%20bartholomew&f=false . Read his book. While I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, he’s right on the money with that one. Hall has pushed his theory that the animals in Lake Champlain are relict Tanystropheids, a theory based on no evidence other than his own verbal claims.

He also claims to have seen these animals at least 18 times, often in large groups doing novel behaviors. Funny how none of this stuff is ever captured unambiguously on video. Hall’s theories and evidence have not gained wide support over the many years. Instead of good video images, we get stuff like this 1985 video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO8JxbzZxxo . What the hell is that? Guys in a boat? That could be anything. I’ve been hunting Champ for 22 years and could have taken photos or videos of some

horseshit like that but I did not bother because I did not think it was an animal. Neither do most people who are familiar with odd waves, floating logs, flocks of birds, boats, schools of fish and a host of other phenomena that can deceive viewers. Granted, large animals swimming just underneath the water surface can sometimes look like waves or floating debris. But, if your photo or video evidence is so ambiguous to the point of not being able to discern which one is the correct answer, it is useless as evidence! A good example of what I am taking about is illustrated on the next page. The top image is a floating stick and the bottom image is a leatherback sea turtle.

Reproduced here are a series of classic Hall “wakes and blobs”.

Those look for the most part like the dark crests of waves.

Again, there might be something there. But then again, maybe not. And whatever it is, it bears no resemblance to Tanystropheus longobardicus. In fact, the only GOOD picture Dennis has produced is this one.

That does look like what you would expect a “Champ” to look like. It very closely resembles an eyewitness sketch from 1983.

And it does somewhat resemble the object in the Mansi photo.

But, before you get too excited, you need

to know the whole story behind it. It is a still captured from a video he shot under conditions of extreme heat haze caused by a temperature inversion. Here is the video, shot in September of 2002. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMqsdrdMAFE . Look at the boat in the video and how even it is distorting from the haze conditions. Whatever the other objects are, they are further out and even more distorted. They very well could be boats, too. In 1979, optical scientist Waldemar Lehn of the University of Manitoba wrote a detailed scientific paper demonstrating how atmospheric haze distortion could be responsible for some so-called “lake monster” phenomena. Here is a link to his paper. http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~lehn/_Papers_for_Download/Science_79.pdf . This video would appear to be a textbook case of what Dr. Lehn is talking about. So, getting back to the video, you see a definite boat and two other “blobs”.

How did this amorphous blob turn into something that looks like a plesiosaur? Through computer optical enhancement. Is there an optical program that can actually clean up images distorted by atmospheric haze, to the point that it looks like the final plesiosaurian image? Looking into this matter, the only process that seems to have any effect is what is called a Gaussian blur http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/aviation_photography/read.main/35

8286/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_blur . I attempted to process the above image using a Gaussian blur program and the result was even more distorted than the original image.

To wit, the blurry blob was turned into a “plesiosaur”(or “tanystropheus”, if that cranks your tractor)deliberately, by some photoshop program. Here’s even an intermediate version from Dennis’s old website.

Garbage in, garbage out. But it get’s worse.

This “arch” over Lake Champlain, dated 1994, looks like it was drawn on with a pencil! Does this look like a real photograph of something, seriously?

And this?

Rather than drag this out any further needlessly, I think I have made my point. Critics will likely say that I am doing this out of jealousy but no, I have had this opinion of this evidence for many years and have just kept my mouth shut out of respect for Dennis. After all, he did catalog many sightings made by others that seem to be legit and that may be the one good thing he did. Recently, relations between he and myself have gone

sour and he has seen reason to disrespect me so I felt I could no longer remain silent. That is all.

THE END