Champ. Estados Unidos

In 1977, Sandra Mansi took a photograph while on vacation with her family that appears to show the dinosaur with his head out of the lake.[10] The entire bay of the lake where the photograph reportedly was taken is no deeper than 14 feet (4.3 m). According to Joe Nickell, it is unlikely that a giant creature could swim, let alone hide, in such shallow water.[11] It has been suggested that the object in the photograph could possibly be a rising tree trunk or log.[12]

In the book The Untold Story of Champ by Robert E. Bartholomew, it is further revealed that the original photo was sent to Philip Reines, a nautical expert at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, so that he could examine and hopefully authenticate it. Reines quickly realized that the two most vital elements in verifying the photo were missing. Sandra Mansi said that she had thrown away the negative, and that she could not locate where she snapped the photo. Without the negative or location it was impossible to determine with any degree of certainty what was in the photo. Possessing the negative would allow the image to be magnified to see greater detail, while knowing the location could reveal important clues such as the object's size and distance, and whether the photo was even taken on Lake Champlain. Reines could not authenticate the photo and the story behind it led to big questions and potential red flags detailed in his book.