The Bulwagga Bay Drone Footage (Tabor-Rossi Footage)

Lake Champlain has its own monster. Locals call it Champ. On the shore of Bulwagga Bay, south-east of Port Henry, stands a historic marker called "Origin of Champ." Kelly Tabor grew up on that lake. A Crown Point native and long-time Champ seeker, she wrote the children's book behind Lucy and the Lake Monster, a film she co-wrote with director Richard Rossi. It was shot around Port Henry and Bulwagga Bay in summer 2022.

The shot was ordinary. A rickety rowboat on the bay. Rossi aboard, with young lead actress Emma Pearson. A drone overhead. Nobody in the boat saw anything.

The discovery came later. Tabor was alone at her parents' house in South Carolina, reviewing raw drone footage on a big-screen TV. On a second look, near the bottom of the frame, she saw it. A long, narrow form moving behind the rowboat, rising and dipping, apparently using flipper-like appendages.

"It looked like the skinny neck was oscillating back and forth," she said. Tabor called Rossi that same day, certain she had "finally found Champ." Rossi, "the more skeptical one compared to Kelly," saw a "large, dark mass" swimming "just yards away." The clip, he said, "gave me chills."

Even the date is contested. The filmmakers' website speaks of "a July afternoon in 2024," and Wikipedia gives August 2, 2024 as the day the footage was reviewed. But principal photography ran in summer 2022, and the shot already appears four minutes into the film, which premiered in September 2024. The likeliest reading is a July 2022 shoot, discovered in August 2024.

No government body has examined the clip. The filmmakers' own "scientific evaluation," by unnamed authors, describes "a flattened plesiosaur head," "reptilian-like fins for locomotion" and "a slender, serpentine neck." It argues the shape is larger than the 142-inch boat and too big for a sturgeon. Podcaster Todd Stevens agreed. "It is one large body moving."

On October 3, 2025, History's The UnXplained aired the footage. William Shatner called it "perhaps the most compelling recent evidence." In August 2026 the filmmakers announced a five-member expert panel to review the 12 minute 57 second master reel frame by frame. Rossi said they would accept the findings either way. Public release is set for November 9, 2026. No findings have appeared yet.

Sceptics have proposed a large lake sturgeon, a rock or log, an optical illusion, or seiches. No accusation of manipulation has been found, and Tabor insists "it is real footage, not manipulated in any way." Still, the praise comes largely from the filmmakers' website, paid press releases and an entertainment series. None of those experts are named. And the clip circulated alongside promotion of the film and its sequel.

In June 2026 the Daily Mail and the New York Post picked it up, and it went viral. It now stands beside the 1977 Sandra Mansi photograph, the 2005 Dick Affolter and Pete Bodette video and the 2009 Eric Olsen video from Burlington. Not proven. Not debunked. The full reel is still to come.