Today, eyewitnesses to the Loch Ness Monster are the untouchables, the flotsam and jetsom of evidence and scepticism. Why is that? Because by a process of logical deduction, it has been proven there cannot possibly be large creatures in Loch Ness. Ergo, not one - not one single person out of the thousands who have claimed to have seen the Loch Ness Monster can possibly be right. The logic is flawless (even if the data and assumptions it is applied to in order to generate that conclusion may not be).
However, scepticism is required to give such people a second glance because they continue to see things and films and photographs continue to turn up in the media. Reality continues to intrude upon the logical arguments which are supposed to redefine reality in a conformist kind of way.
Having read the reactions to various eyewitness accounts over the years, certain trends have become apparent which critics of such people may focus on to discredit what they claimed to have seen.
1. Be able to develop their own photographs. An obvious no-no as it will then be "suggested" that the picture was faked in the darkness of their developing room. The modern equivalent is finding out the witness had PhotoShop installed on their PC.
2. Own a commerical outlet near the loch. An old and cynical chesnut that gets trotted out when Summer approaches. Need some extra trade? Then just make up a Nessie story.
3. Tell jokes about the monster. If you are not deadly serious about the subject then it is clear you are a practical joker who faked it all up for laughs.
4. Be associated with another Loch Ness Monster witness. Two witnesses know each other? Obviously this means a conspiracy, what could be clearer?
5. Diverge from your account in the slightest detail. A mainstay of debunkers. If you can't retell the tale precisely, you must have made it up!
6. Sell your photograph or film to a newspaper or other pecuniary gain. The ultimate sin and final proof that you fabricated it all for the sake of filthy lucre!
7. You have other "crazy" views. Also claimed to have seen a UFO or perhaps believe Nessie is something paranormal, etc, etc? You are already plunging down the credibility ratings and are probably delusional.
However, scepticism is required to give such people a second glance because they continue to see things and films and photographs continue to turn up in the media. Reality continues to intrude upon the logical arguments which are supposed to redefine reality in a conformist kind of way.
Having read the reactions to various eyewitness accounts over the years, certain trends have become apparent which critics of such people may focus on to discredit what they claimed to have seen.
1. Be able to develop their own photographs. An obvious no-no as it will then be "suggested" that the picture was faked in the darkness of their developing room. The modern equivalent is finding out the witness had PhotoShop installed on their PC.
2. Own a commerical outlet near the loch. An old and cynical chesnut that gets trotted out when Summer approaches. Need some extra trade? Then just make up a Nessie story.
3. Tell jokes about the monster. If you are not deadly serious about the subject then it is clear you are a practical joker who faked it all up for laughs.
4. Be associated with another Loch Ness Monster witness. Two witnesses know each other? Obviously this means a conspiracy, what could be clearer?
5. Diverge from your account in the slightest detail. A mainstay of debunkers. If you can't retell the tale precisely, you must have made it up!
6. Sell your photograph or film to a newspaper or other pecuniary gain. The ultimate sin and final proof that you fabricated it all for the sake of filthy lucre!
7. You have other "crazy" views. Also claimed to have seen a UFO or perhaps believe Nessie is something paranormal, etc, etc? You are already plunging down the credibility ratings and are probably delusional.
Perhaps you can suggest others. In some respects, a Nessie witness must be as squeaky clean as a politician. Good luck to them!
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All of the above are irrelevant to the general public. The reason why the vast majority of people now disregard the Loch Ness Monster as fantasy - a myth from a bygone era - is simply the total lack of solid, measurable (i.e. non-anectdotal) evidence. Tourists armed with cameras are always at the lochside throughout the summer. I've been there and seen the large numbers. Yet the more cameras we have around the loch, the fewer photos of "the beast" we see. Could it be that the clarity obtained by modern still and video cameras no longer enables boats to look ambiguous, or hay bales to be made to look like monster humps? I think so.
ReplyDeleteTo find ourselves still in 2014 seriously considering the possibility of monsters in the loch is exasperating. No clear images, no carcass, nothing.
I despair that intelligent people defend the Dinsdale boat video, insisting it's a monster, yet think it's conceivable that a creature behaving that way would not have been filmed clearly several times in the 53 years since.
I believe the writer of this blog is intelligent, and will therefore one day accept there is no Nessie. To be fair to him, I can detect serious doubts in his writing already. I think he's close to the realisation that the majority of us ultimately arrive at: Nessie is a wonderful, alluring and exciting concept, but sadly that's where it ends.
From an ex-avid LNM researcher who collected the newspaper reports back in the 70s, marvelled at Op Deepscan in the 80s, owns several LNM books, has visited the loch, spoken with Steve Feltham, scoured the web for articles etc.
If you don't want those 70s newspaper clippings now, I'll have them. :)
DeleteHey if I still had them I'd send you them. I remember a schoolfriend and I collected them. Once we bumped into each other at a guy fawkes night with our parents and by coincidence we'd both cut out the Nessie stories which had made the front pages that day. If I remember correctly it was the body and neck plus gargoyle head photos, but it may instead have been the flipper photo. I will check to see if any of those photos went public at that time of year. A great time to be a child - at a time when people seriously thought a family of dinosaurs might inhabit the loch! I wonder how many adult Nessie hunters are really just trying at some level to recapture that childhood magic...
ReplyDeleteWell, I wouldn't go with a family of dinosaurs but I still think something is still there. Not at all convinced by alternate sceptical theories.
DeleteOk but it's clear from this blog that you seem to be trying to back up very flimsy evidence a lot of the time. It doesn't feel objective when people still assert that Dinsdale's film wasn't a boat. It moves like a boat, it sits perched on top of the water like a boat, recent analysis indicates a bump just where a helmsman would be, theres no film segment of it submerging, it's so brazenly above water for so long, that such an animal would have been filmed many times in the 53 years since, yet despite all of this, you and others think the most likely object in the film is a large aquatic mystery animal, purely on the basis of the film quality being dreadful, and I assume TD's claim of seeing an animal through binoculars before filming.
DeleteI can only conclude that anyone who still thinks the film doesn't show a boat is absolutely, resolutely never going to give up on the dream, whatever the scientific analysis indicates.
I don't consider myself a sceptic at all by the way. I am certain that many views science holds dear in 2014 will be laughed at in 2114 - of that there is no question. However, after all these decades to only have a few blurred old black and white images really, and I mean REALLY should tell you what you need to know. It's crystal clear - the better cameras become, the fewer images we have. All we have since 1933, if we're honest, is a large number of people saying they saw something, just like we have with ghosts, grey aliens, Bigfoot etc.Once a myth has been started it gathers weight, keeps going, people see unusual sights and their mind converts the vision to match the myth. Yet no one ever gets even one thoroughly convincing image on film. The human mind is very susceptible to this stuff, and that is what I find intriguing about Nessie and other myths. I continue to look at these subjects because I find the human ability to believe in the big animal in the lake or the giant hairy man in the woods fascinating. It's a psychological and sociological subject rather than a zoological one as far as I am concerned.
Please keep the entertainment coming!
Well, one could give way on one piece of evidence to prove it is not all dream chasing (Wilson, Shiels, etc) but then we are asked to give up on another piece of evidence to "prove" our objectivity. So I just stop ...
DeleteYou overestimate the simplicity of the task of obtaining clear evidence of the creature.
It's only a large a lake. People live around it, boats are always on it. People constantly visit it with cameras. We'd have loads of good videos and photos by now if there was an animal there that behaved like the boat in Dinsdale's film in broad daylight.
DeleteDon't you agree with that?
Such sightings are rare indeed. In fact, sightings are rare consistent with a water breating animal.
DeleteThe Dinsdale film last about a minute which is above average. It's a pity he wasn't closer or the object was still there after he raced across that field to get a closer shot. That would have resolved the issue.
For me it's totally resolved.
ReplyDelete