Now, I’m not saying that I favor plesiosaurs as an explanation for Champ - or, in particular, this video - merely that we cannot immediately rule them out. (However, plesiosaurs do have one ironic advantage over what seems to be a popular theory for this video - the otter. The advantage is that we have no real behavioral data for plesiosaurs, whereas otters are known far and wide as spazztastic furballs. Thus, we know that otters don’t behave like what we see in the video, while we don’t really know whether plesiosaurs did(do?).)

“If you say “that clip looks like no known animal,”
then I can reasonable conclude “it doesn’t look like any known animal to you.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

What kind of known animal does that look like to you? (Don’t say “deer.” Please.) But note – and how open-minded can you get? No more, I don’t think – how I steadfastly maintain that I can’t conclude that it’s not a known animal. On what basis could I? The evidence for an unknown animal? Without proof of an unknown animal – and a compelling look, which this ain’t, could be tantamount to proof – I can’t conclude anything. It could be a very weird occurrence involving something mundane. Even driftwood.

“If all you want to do is look at a video and ponder the image and nothing else, be my guest. If you want to exclude a wider look at the issue, such as considering “likely” scenarios based on knowledge of local wildlife or perspectives gleaned from knowledge of the area, feel free.”

Now come on, amigo, you know me better than that. Of course you take the wider look; you take every animal or other object you know of that could conceivably be found there, and run it against – wait for it – the image in the video. Too many people seem like they’re ignoring the video to postulate a Pet Favorite Known Animal. Again, I invite anyone to show me one piece of evidence for a known animal that makes sense based on what those look like in the water, and compare with this one. I haven’t seen one yet; and I’ve seen posts that assert certainty. I’d be willing to bet that seal or otter – almost the only choices I can conceive of among known animals – ain’t what this is, because this doesn’t look or behave nearly like what I’ve seen from those animals in the water.

Here’s what I do with this video. I say, I do not know what that is. And then I decide what I want to do with that information. There is nothing here on which a conclusion can rest.

Video, like still photography, does not have to be conclusive. Add this to the long roster of backup for that.

If you say “that clip looks like no known animal,”
then I can reasonable conclude “it doesn’t look like any known animal to you.” You write, “I didn’t say there is no mundane solution” [to the Olsen video]. Previously, you wrote: “What I was getting at is that I can’t say, looking at that video, that any known animal looks like a possibility to me.”

I have two short points to make. First, I think you are certainly entitled to your minimalist take on crypto evidence. If all you want to do is look at a video and ponder the image and nothing else, be my guest. If you want to exclude a wider look at the issue, such as considering “likely” scenarios based on knowledge of local wildlife or perspectives gleaned from knowledge of the area, feel free. If you want to postulate the possibility that the Olsen video represents an animal unknown to science (and even if the animal type in question could reasonably be thought to have been identified ages ago, given the slow, not-so-elusive, high visability, and unshy behavior of the video subject), please do.

Second, since I disagree with your approach, there is no reason for me to accept it. This state of affairs does not make you “extreme,” nor does it make me closed minded.

“…this discipline [cryptozoology] has had several startling victories in recent years, showing clearly that we would be unwise to dismiss claims of previously-unknown species. Indeed, literally thousands of species are both discovered and become extinct every year.”

“While the skeptical attitude is all well and good, but there’s always the baby-in-the-bathwater problem hanging over us. Mind you, I don’t expect any baby ape [referencing the Florida "skunk ape"] about to be found in the Florida swamps, but I’m willing to be shown. Always. And I would not be at all surprised to see another major animal, heretofore only legendary, walk out of the wilds and into the record books. In Viet Nam, not long ago, just such a thing happened when a completely ‘new’ species of antelope- with very distinctive features- was discovered. So, they’re out there…!”

This comment was made by blue meanie “scoftic,”
James Randi! (at randi.org)

“You state the Olsen video is not really so ambiguous after all, and can’t hold a mundane solution. You state it doesn’t look like any known animal to you (and thus, an ordinary solution is not even possible.)”

This is the kind of leap I’m talking about, the kind that can’t be justified.

That clip looks like no known animal.

What does that mean?

Read the sentence again. That is what it means.

I didn’t say there is no mundane solution. I’m saying that, without an attitude that says, what is that? rather than one that says that can’t be unknown so it’s a….

We will never find out what it is. Because those who want to know will be shouted - or maybe it’s murmured or whispered - down.

I never said put them first, or only consider them. I said don’t rule them out. You may think you’re not doing that. But a good way, I think, to read your post is: cryptids are way out there, and should be put behind all other possibilities. You may not think it sounds that way. But that’s the subtle cancer gnawing away at scientific inquiry. Anyone who bucks the “reasonable” explanations is stymied by the general lack of will to inquire. Trust me on this: many, many people who might otherwise go “hmmmmm” like mystery_man and I and others did are instead cowed by everyone saying: let’s be reasonable here. When that isn’t reasonable, because no evidence backs it. And they just clam up for fear of being thought kooks if they keep open minds.

It’s that mindset that – if allowed to continue - ensures that crypto will never become a science. (Ably abetted by its opposite: the Olsen video is Champ!) These are the extremes I want ruled out of the conversation. We have no idea what that is in that video. The “suggestions” are to me way out there, because I have never seen any of the known animals postulated here look like that in the water. If that’s a deer, you pick my hat, and I will eat it. Same with bear, moose, and the elk that have the same chance as Champ of being seen in Vermont. Otter and seal are way doubtful. And we are talking animals all of which I’ve seen in the water; and this video is nowhere near as bad as many of the known-animal advocates are making out it is.

Yet my view is labeled extreme, despite the fact that no evidence backs any other viewpoint. Scientifically known is not evidence! If Champ is a real unrecognized species, then it’s as real as a rat. I want to know what is in the video. “Suggestions” that have nothing to do with the reality of what is in the video are, totally, useless here. This is, as I said, what skeptics can’t get their arms around. It’s not kosher to willy-nilly postulate way-out-there “mundane” explanations. I have seen not one suggestion of a mundane explanation that didn’t appear to me to be pulled from what the commenter wanted to see, ‘cause they sure ain’t in this clip.

You have to have free inquiry in crypto. It’s about the unknown. Which is why, when folks come on with paranormal explanations, instead of saying, woo-woo, I say: well, science can’t confirm that, yet, and I’d like to stick to what science can confirm now. I think, actually, that it’s ignorance cubed to laugh at paranormal explanations, because I will pop your bubble with the following cannon: any evidence for that wild scoftic guess, or did you pull it out of Champ’s rear end? I don’t traffic in the paranormal because science doesn’t, yet, and I think cryptids are critters that operate by generally known rules.

I think it has become so embedded in this field to toss out woo-woo “mundane” explanations that it’s like blinking, or toenails growing; people don’t even see what it is they are doing when they are doing it.

Which is killing zoological inquiry, softly. Through a subtle form of, yes, scofticism.

When you don’t have compelling evidence for what it is (show me anything deerlike about that clip), you don’t know, and aren’t even close, and anything you toss up is a wild, wild, woo-woo guess. (I really want to expand the use of “woo-woo” to “mundane” explanations that are, well, woo-woo.) This has become a crypto-debunking parlor game. But it is not in the proud traditions of scientific inquiry, and does nothing to get us away from square one.

Don’t believe me? My prediction: this weird and compelling video – like the Peguis sasquatch, remember him? Of course not – will sink from sight like a stone.

And we won’t be a jot closer to knowing what’s on it.

Ever.

And everyone, what, wants that?

Groupthink stinks. History is more emphatic on few points than on that one.

Thanks for your interesting post, amigo. I think the fault line between our different approaches is much clearer now.

“I’m not sure I can entertain as ‘most likely’ any explanation for which there is no evidence, mundane or otherwise,’ you write. Also, you say, “skepticism, to me, means not leaning toward ANY explanation unless a preponderance of evidence favors that explanation.”

I’ll grant the Olsen video subject in unidentified. However, are we to thus unable to suggest “likely” solutions? Are we dismissed from differentiating between good solutions and bad, between offering ordinary solutions over extraordinary solutions? Or are all proposed solutions then within the realm of real possibilities because the video does not conclusively support one single solution over another?

With ambiguous evidence such as the Olsen video, it would not be improper to look beyond the video itself, to gain context and perspective. Here, not all solutions are created equal. Some are more likely than others are (and conversely, some solutions are less likely than others are.) Why? And how are we to tell given the ambiguity of the Olsen film? Well, you look at other aspects of the video, not just the subject itself.

For instance, an otter solution would trump a plesiosaur solution. Why? Otters exist, for one reason. Otters are known to exist in Champlain for another. So there IS evidence for an otter solution, indirectly to be sure: because this candidate can be placed at the scene of the crime, so to speak.

Contrarily, the plesiosaur solution has no such advantages. There is NO evidence plesiosaurs exist, in Champlain or anywhere else. Also, you have to consider the context of Champlain and plesiosaurs: cold climate, frozen-over lake, absence of definitive sightings (where is a breeding colony of plesiosaurs to hide in the well visited lake?) and the like.

So, in this fashion we can contrast the likelihood of known animal solutions (otters, seals, errant terrestrial animals, turtles, etc.) with the obvious implausibility of at least the more sensational “possible” solutions, such as plesiosaur, “waterhorse,” “super otter,” zeuglodon, and so forth. It boils down to a simple formula: someone sees, films some ambiguous animate object in the water: what animals do we know inhabit that body of water or surrounding regions? (this formula pertains to ambiguous phenomena; obviously, if we have a stunning video of Godzilla exiting Champlain, we would have to reformulate the formula!)

You may decry this formula as it relates to Champlain, so let’s apply it elsewhere. Here, in Texas, for all its size, we have only one true lake.
Everything else is reservoir. Near Dallas, they built a new reservoir just a few years ago. Now, let us suppose the Olsen video was taken there.
Are we still suppose to give as much credence to exotic solutions as mundane? Can we not rule out plesiosaur? Are mundane solutions not to be entertained because we really don’t “know” for sure what the animal in question is?

Now, your rejoinder to the type of analysis I’ve offered above is “if Champ… is real, then [it is] as likely as any other explanation.” You then chastise “scoftics” and “many honest skeptics” with “automatically” considering the “cryptid alternative” as less probable than a mundane solution. (Or, in other words, exactly what I do above [Smile].) I suggest you are begging the question here, as your premise assumes your conclusion. You assert “automatically” the equal balance of known/unknown solutions, when in fact that is the very issue that is being contested.

Since there is no clear reason to believe a very large unknown animal exists in Champlain (your words: “…I don’t have any evidence that tells me that there’s a big (or even pretty big) unknown animal in Lake Champlain…”), why chastise skeptics who simply sustain the obvious?

Of course, I have not exactly represented your viewpoint. All of the above was for the sake of argument. It was predicated on the ambiguity of the Olsen video. You state the Olsen video is not really so ambiguous after all, and can’t hold a mundane solution. You state it doesn’t look like any known animal to you (and thus, an ordinary solution is not even possible.)

“Faced with ambiguous evidence, I know some cryptos believe this gives them license to
consider any solution, extravagant or not. I disagree with that point of view,
and go farther to suggest that it is this possibilian attitude that brings more
disrepute to cryptozoology than a whole host of “scoftics.”

This could be a chicken/egg thing. But then again maybe not. That attitude definitely draws scoftics, no doubt about it. Scoftics don’t show up for nothing; they’re like sharks that way. I mean, does anyone see the scoftical mindset in areas where the discussion stays rational, as in classifying new species of known animal types? Generally seems not. I’ve long said that both attitudes need to be recognized as not seriously entertained by cryptozoology, as they represent irrational extremes. Problem is, of course, that both attitudes seem, to many, to sum up crypto (“believers vs. nonbelievers”). That’s the issue, because it ain’t about belief but about analysis of evidence. And believers and nonbelievers don’t even care about the evidence. They think what they want to think, not what evidence advises them to think.

“On the other hand, if people looking at the video see a deer, moose calf, otter, seal, dog, and “nothing science has documented,” etc., then in fact the video is ambiguous and
we should entertain the mundane explanation as most likely.
(Because the evidence itself is not compelling enough to eliminate the known in
favor of the unknown.)”

I’m not sure I can entertain as “most likely” any explanation for which there is no evidence, mundane or otherwise. This is the problem I run into with folks who want to consider the P/G film a man in a suit until otherwise proven. There having been no piece of evidence that that film was faked, I can’t entertain any explanation as “most likely,” particularly when there is a lot of evidence that it isn’t a man in a suit. Based only on evidence available, science MUST say about that film: indeterminate. It violates science to say otherwise in the absence of evidence supporting the call.

What I was getting at is that I can’t say, looking at that video, that any known animal looks like a possibility to me. Because it doesn’t look like any (unless you say a really big reptile, of a kind not now known to live in that lake). Since I don’t have any evidence that tells me that there’s a big (or even pretty big) unknown animal in Lake Champlain, then I simply have to say: there it is, world. Have a look, and decide whether more investigation of that lake is warranted. I don’t think there’s any reason to bias the discussion toward any explanation, when the available evidence favors none of them. I consider that, in fact, harmful to crypto, as it is the opposite of the “possibilian” (i.e., woo-woo) attitude, in that it puts blinkers on the investigation for no good reason.

Remember, if Champ (or the sasquatch) is real, then they are as likely as any other explanation. This may be the thing that scoftics (and many honest skeptics) can’t get their arms around; they automatically consider the cryptid alternative “way out, and therefore behind everything else in probability,” when obviously, if the cryptid is real, it’s as real as the cottontail rabbit. Crypto, in my opinion, can’t operate as a science unless the subject of study is considered a very real - and equally likely - possibility to everything else. Before, of course, reviewing the evidence. That’s not “possibilian;” that’s open-minded. And skepticism, to me, means not leaning toward ANY explanation unless a preponderance of evidence favors that explanation.

I’m glad we agree we should consider mundane explanations initially, concerning ambiguous evidence. However, I disagree with you that this could lead to “hammering” the ambiguous into the mundane because of “sheer inability to conceive of its not being mundane.” Actually, I’m concerned with likelihoods and probabilities and not so much with conceptualized possibilities. Faced with ambiguous evidence, I know some cryptos believe this gives them license to consider any solution, extravagant or not. I disagree with that point of view, and go farther to suggest that it is this possibilian attitude that brings more disrepute to cryptozoology than a whole host of “scoftics.”

You seem to be suggesting that the Olsen video is not all that ambiguous and that it may possibly be identified as an unknown animal: “it looks to me like nothing science has documented.” Of course, if you are merely saying the video subject is unidentified or unidentifiable, I agree with you. On the other hand, if people looking at the video see a deer, moose calf, otter, seal, dog, and “nothing science has documented,” etc., then in fact the video is ambiguous and we should entertain the mundane explanation as most likely.
(Because the evidence itself is not compelling enough to eliminate the known in favor of the unknown.)

Points taken on your response to me. And at the moment, nobody can take it any farther, barring either (a) scientific interest or (b) something none of us can foresee at the moment.

But this passage from your response to CryptoInformant deserves comment.

“I suggested it is reasonable to look to mundane solutions preliminarily as a normal, fortuitous course of action. This is not closed mindedness on my part. If we have ambiguous evidence, as in the Olsen video, we have no reason to explore more extravagant explanations, such as super-otter or plesiosaur. Why? Because we have no real evidence such animals exist.”

Well, yes and no.

I definitely agree that one looks at the mundane first, but not necessarily if one must do so by hammering something ambiguous into something mundane by sheer inability to conceive of its not being mundane. (And of course the same pertains to doing so with the crypto angle, e.g., seeing a hill of brown hair and immediately jumping to sasquatch with nothing else to go by. Or saying the Olsen vid is a plesiosaur, period.)

When you say that we have no reason to go beyond the mundane, well, I’m not sure at all what that is in the Olsen video. And it looks to me like nothing science has documented. Which could mean a number of things, only one of them being “something science hasn’t documented.”

What I think needs to happen is this: folks look at it, and ask: what are we willing to do to clarify what that is? And then do it. Keeping an open mind.

Because “mundane” is by no means the obvious conclusion here. And it’s not that we have no evidence. It’s that we have no PROOF. Critical distinction there.