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 saw a larger and a smaller hump, but wants to remain anonymous.
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.
On the Web:
http://www.memphre.com/
AP-ES-05-10-03 1201EDT
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