Could It Be...a Python?
Two Lake Champlain fishermen spent an hour with a sea monster the other day,
the Times reports.
(If the link doesn't work, blame the Times, which has hidden it behind the TimesSelect firewall...which I thought was supposed to be only for the op-ed page, but apparently they're getting greedy. Well...greedier.)
So let me just quote a few grafs:
"As the two tell it, they were fishing for salmon near the mouth of the Ausable River, about a third of the way down the lake, when they noticed something that looked like a log floating about 100 feet from their boat. Intrigued, they trolled toward it until, to their amazement, it submerged like a submarine only to resurface about a half-hour later, and they were able to watch it for another 45 minutes.
"Neither can tell you for sure what they saw other than that it was enormous, very clearly alive and unlike anything they had ever seen, at least 15 feet long, elongated like a snake or serpent. They say it had a head shaped like a sledgehammer, produced a high bifurcated wake, lacked the familiar dorsal fins of a fish and apparently did not need to come up for air like a dolphin or whale. They reject suggestions it was something familiar - mating snakes, a giant sturgeon, large otters.
"'I'm not some guy who came fishing for a weekend and thought he saw something funny,' said Mr. Bodette. 'I've fished all over the world. I've been on this lake since I was a little kid. And I believe we saw something there that not many people have seen.'
"'I have no idea what it is. But I'm pretty certain what I saw isn't anything you'll find in any fish and wildlife books.'"
Could it be...a python?
No. It couldn't. Unless...unless...someone released a python into the wild, it somehow managed to survive the frigid temperatures of upstate New York, developed gills and learned to swim.
Hmmmm....
In any case, these two gentlemen aren't the only people who think they've seen a sea monster in Lake Champlain. The most famous evidence is a photograph taken by a woman named Sandra Mansi in 1977. As countless skeptics have pointed out, it's not really very good evidence. In fact, it's not really evidence at all. But it's fun to think about, and until someone proves me wrong, I'm going to believe that there's a wild, mutated, 15-foot-long Burmese python swimming in Lake Champlain even now...and it's hungry.
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Meanwhile, consider this description of the real, non-mutated Burmese python I found on the web:
"Do you really want a snake that may grow more than 20 feet long or weigh 200 pounds, urinate and defecate like a horse, will live more than 25 years and for whom you will have to kill mice, rats and, eventually, rabbits (no chickens any more due to the ever increasing rate of Salmonella in the food industry)? ...At 10 feet and 40+ pounds, a 3-year old Burmese is already eating rabbits a couple of times a month and is very difficult to handle alone. You have to interact with them constantly to keep them tame - do you want a hungry, cranky 100 pound, 12 foot snake mistaking your face for prey?"
No, I do not. After all, I remember the story of a fifteen-year-old Colorado boy who, while asleep in bed, awoke to find out that his family's eleven-foot-long pet python wanted to snuggle. Not a good way to go.
