Woman Reports Seeing Memphremagog Monster
Spunky the Wonder Toad
Woman Reports Seeing Memphremagog Monster
NEWPORT CITY, Vt. (AP) -- A local historian says she saw the Lake Memphremagog
monster this month.
Newport resident Barbara Malloy said she saw the creature, known to some as
Memphre, May 1 in the 30-mile-long lake shared by Vermont and Quebec.
Malloy said she has seen the monster before - first in the waters off Horseneck
Island and again north of the island in 1983.
This time, Malloy said she saw a jet black hump bob up and down and disappear in
the water. She said another Newport resident who wants to remain anonymous saw a
larger and a smaller hump.
Memphre is believed to look somewhat like a plesiosaur, a water-living dinosaur
of the Jurassic period, brown or black in color, with four fins or paddle-like
feet, an elongated roundish body and a long neck. It ranges from 6 to 50 feet
long. Popular artwork shows the skin color as green.
Newspapers like The Stanstead (Quebec) Journal have recorded sightings of the
mysterious creature as far back as the 1840s. On Jan. 21, 1847, an eyewitness
reported this: "I am not aware whether it is generally known that a strange
animal something of a sea serpent ... exists in Lake Memphremagog."
According to historical accounts, American Indians told the first Europeans that
there was something in the lake.
Quebec diver and local historian Jacques Boisvert named the monster Memphre. He
said he's never seen Memphre himself, but promotes the creature as a tourist
attraction in Magog, and maintains a Web site about it.
There have been attempts to photograph Memphre. Malloy took pictures in 1989,
but they show only a dark object sticking out of the water and making a wake.
One recent photograph turned out to be a moose swimming across the lake.
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