Wednesday 1 June 2011

The Elk debate continues ...

Sadly, not a lot happens on the cutting edge of cryptid research as far as the Loch Ness Monster is concerned. You may read what is called research as people offer new explanations on how a famous case was actually a hoax or some known animal will be brought in as a new suspect for what was actually seen by witnesses. Useful in terms of cleaning up at the edges, but it does not get us further in identifying what actually lurks beneath the waves of Loch Ness.

That this should not surprise us is evident for most researchers I will bet do not believe anything monster like exists there today. It is all misidentification and lies. I have addressed this overblown theory before and will continue to highlight its deficiencies. But that does not mean debate should be stifled on either side as some kind of sense is made of the raw data.

In that light, I go back to Dale Drinnon who has replied to my earlier posts on elks at Loch Ness (see link). Elks follow on in the line of deer, otters and homo hoaxus as possible explanations for lumbering nessies.

My latest reply is this:

I think you are making the data fit the theory. Firstly, there are no elk in Scotland. I asked you for specifics on where and when but you did not choose to reply. Unlike the more exotic interpretations of Nessie, surely an Elk carcass or live animal would have been found or caught around Loch Ness a long time ago. They can't hide under 700 foot of peaty water after all. Or the idea that an elk turned up in 1933 and died a few years later is just too convenient. There are too many improbables that have to come together for the elk theory:

1. One or two turned up when they are not indigenous to Scotland.
2. Witnesses exaggerated their statements through misperception, lying and partial amnesia.
3. No one stayed around long enough to see one submerge and if they did it was probably drowning.
4. Why no such sightings along the other Great Glen lochs?

If you say that the stories become more plesiosaur like with the telling then you have to go the whole hog. Fordyce would have added flippers and made his animal less hairy to keep up with the plesiosaurs! And to be frank, an elk head is HUGE, it is a bit of a push to have us believe it was not noticeable to witnesses.

Some of the accounts may have elk like features such as hooves which need some explaining on my part. But others don't and that invalidates the elk theory - it has to explain everything.

So please do not go down the "rest are hoaxes" approach to shoehorn in partial theories! I know it bolsters your case but try and make your elk theory stand on its own four feet.



As some kind of advance publicity, I will be talking on land sightings of Nessie in January 2012 at the Edinburgh Fortean Society. I will be taking the stance that the thirty land sightings do in fact describe an unknown or unidentified large creature. That does not mean I gullibly swallow all accounts but neither should the extreme of rejecting the lot be countenanced either!

4 comments:

  1. Land sightings are definately my favorite to hear about. I think all those years that people were scanning the loch with cameras and sonar they shouldve been paying a little more attention to the areas surrounding it. This thing as been seen on land too many times not to have atleast one search expedition in the woods and brush around the huge lake.

    I have a request for you, Im sure you are a busy man but I seen where you have your "monster hunting basics" videos on youtube that you post here. Do you think maybe oneday you can go to a few of the areas where land sightings happened? Film the area and maybe talk about the sighting. Im really interseted in the area where the Spicer sighting happened, the road they were on and I think it was almost directly across from the castle on the other side of the loch. The spicer sighting and 1 or two others would be awesome!!!

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  2. You're reading my mind, landon. I hope to be up at the loch once or twice this year and I will be on the south side checking some things out for my talk in January. Pinpointing the Spicer sighting location is an art rather than a science but I can get close.

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  3. Great! Im excited to see that. They should make for fun videos to watch.

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  4. I see that you have only included a very short select section of the material in the discussion and that of course is in your favour. You also did not choose to show my reply. A pity.
    The truth is that ANY KNOWN animal can turn up AT ANY TIME in ANY location to which modern civilisation can transport said animal to: if done illicitely there is no accounting for it. It cannot be predicted and the possibility cannot be gainsaid.
    Of the Land sightings at Loch Ness pror to 1934, NEARLY ALL featured Elklike characteristics especially including the specific size estimated: and they were almost all long-legged artiodactyl ungulates of horselike overall body conformation. Thaty spells out Elk to me. And as a matter of fact nothing you have said has altered that part in the least

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