Monday 20 August 2012

Follow Up on the George Edwards Photo

As stated in my last post, things have moved forward on this story as resident monster hunter, Steve Feltham, has unearthed evidence that may well prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the picture is a staged hoax. According to the Daily Mail (link still not up), Steve was told by a friend that the picture looked a lot like a fake hump he had owned.


The friend in question was from the crew which included Marcus Atkinson who captured that well known sonar hit of Nessie last year and won the William Hill 2012 award for the best Nessie picture.

Steve got a hold of the hump and took some pictures to show to the Daily Mail that there was indeed a case to answer here. The picture is shown here with permission from Steve's own Facebook page which I recommend you visit to get his whole story on the case (as well as his general views on Loch Ness and its famous creature).





The Mail quotes Edward's response to this accusation:

"I stand by my picture. It is genuine. I took it in November as as far as I am concerned it constitutes the latest sighting of the Loch Ness Monster."

Once again, the statement that a "number of shots" were taken is mentioned in the article but again no attempt is made to show this sequence which would help Mr. Edwards in his case.

The hump is about ten years old and was used two years ago for the "Truth Behind the Loch Ness Monster" documentary made by National Geographic. Steve says that at 5m47s into this documentary you can see the hump on George Edwards' boat (frame below) and again at 6m54s in the water.




Here are two stills from that documentary of the hump with the Edwards hump last as a comparison. Make your own mind up on whether these three images are of the same object.




One therefore presumes that the picture was actually taken at the time it was used by the documentary crew. It is not clear whether at that time it was intended to be used as a hoax or was just a playful snap. 

On this subject, another seasoned Loch Ness researcher, Dick Raynor, was in touch with me and he estimates that the object in the picture is about 20 inches long at a distance of about 9 metres (assuming a camera height of two metres). It seems these numbers are in the same ballpark as the model. You can check his analysis of this and other aspects of George Edwards and Loch Ness at this link. It is a very detailed page and worth the read.

Again I invite Mr. Edwards to offer a full response and perhaps let us see these other shots of the object. I believe in the right of reply - my email address is shimei123@yahoo.co.uk !

POSTSCRIPT

Steve Feltham was interviewed by Scottish Television with the prop viewable at this link.




21 comments:

  1. I went to see George before I went public with all this, he told me that he took " ten or eleven " photos and had put them all in the hands of freelance photographer (Northpix) Peter jolly.
    So I asked Peter what they were like ....
    "yes steve he promised to send them to me, but never did"
    .... So George?

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  2. "As The Hoax Turns"
    Why do people bother hoaxing this stuff, there's no money to be made, all they do is make themselves into jerks.
    especially today, with all the tech available to debunk pics,
    your going to get caught, it's just a matter of time

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  3. What is it they say about extraordinary claims?

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  4. There is one thing I have never read or seen in the history of the Loch Ness Monster - a newspaper suing a hoax photographer on the grounds of deception. Well, the newspapers would have have a good run with this story ....

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  5. Well what the heck is National Geographic doing making a prop like that for a documentary in the first place, especially considering the myriad Ness hoaxes?

    Cripes, the NatGeo channel is stooping to lows previously reserved for Discovery Channel and History Channel.

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  6. GB the latest hump's almost certainly modelled on the former hump.

    Similar scale similar outline.

    But Feltham hump's symmetrical whereas Edward's has a much longer 'neck' which terminates in a right angle above the water and seems to have something like a head at its end underwater.

    Feltham's hump also looks 3 dimensional even as a silhouette whereas Edward's hump looks two dimensional which may explain why they don't just sit in the water differently but cause totally different kinds of turbulence.

    Finally in fairness to George Edwards it's clear there's some sort of history between him and Feltham which should be borne in mind whenever Feltham makes statements placing Edwards in a bad light or provides pictures of a hump he once had long enough in his hands to take those pictures but somewhere between then and now it's supposed to've somehow mysteriously ended up in Edwards hands.

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    Replies
    1. The fibreglass hump was available to Edwards during the filming of a documentary. There are differences in the photos which can be put down to various factors. But I do think this theory needs to stand on its simplicity else "over egging the pudding" with second humps or digital manipulation lessens the force of the argument.

      I don't know about the relationship between George and Steve. It certainly has worsened now!

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    2. Dick Raynor's updated page now supports the simplest solution of all, that George Edwards just took a snap from the fly bridge during the Kulls filming when no-one was looking and thought it would sell well as a postcard! What a chancer!

      http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/georgeedwardsclaims.html

      Delete
  7. I'm a little confused - there is a photo of the fake hump on George Edwards boat which was used in the documentary. Now, according to the interview I just watched (on the link you posted GB) George Edwards 'denied knowing anything about a fake hump'. So which is it George? How can he deny knowledge of something that has been photographed on his boat? The man is only digging himself deeper every time he opens his mouth IMO.
    -dru

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  8. Anonymous 21 August 2012 16:07 wrote
    "... there's no money to be made,"

    So how comes he has a new 300k house, BMW, Land Rover Discovery, a Harley Davidson and last year blew 30 grand on his daughters wedding.

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    Replies
    1. Perhaps someone could break down the economics of Loch Ness Cruise trips for us ....

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  9. The best thing for this is to stop digging and for him to throw away his shovel into the depths of Loch Ness and that way the whole thing might just go away!!
    I was recently down the Loch at Urquhart Bay and saw one of the Borlum Cattle wading across the bay.Nothing in that you might say but the Bull stopped midpoint and Crapped into the water.In short what he saw was a load of Bullshit floating across the water.Enough said.

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  10. Steve, This is Nora Jones... how have you been?

    While the picture of the movie hump does share some similarities,there are differences as well.

    I am not looking for anything but truth on the matter. I have since 1999 when I saw something I couldn't explain.

    We all as individuals see what we want to when looking at something. I believe in what I saw as being a real living creature. Skeptics could have Nessie swim right in front of them and argue over it being a giant otter or seal when it could be a species of fish, eel or something we have never known.

    Edwards said somewhere that he thinks it is some kind of manatee type animal.

    You and I know if this creature was primarily a air breather it wouldn't be the mystery it is.

    When I saw Edwards pics I saw validation to my sighting as did my husband.

    To me the movie hump is thicker, taller & knobby as where the hump in the Edwards pic is thinner (flattened like the make up of an oar fish)

    I am very interested in seeing the other shots taken for further analysis. If you get them please let me know my email is still nessie_hunter@yahoo.com

    I am also interested in your opinion of the similarities
    of Edwards pic and my pics http://www.facebook.com/gina.jones.184/timeline/story?ut=32&wstart=1343804400&wend=1346482799&hash=490960237598810&pagefilter=3

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, if you want to contact Steve direct, you can visit his facebook page:

      http://www.facebook.com/groups/141086595460/

      Perhaps you could email me at shimei123@yahoo.co.uk so I can log your sighting under this blog's record?

      Delete
  11. I had read about these rumors. They were just kind of casual blips on the internet so thank you very much for the details. Your work in general is so very detailed which is why I enjoy it. I thought the picture was ridiculous at first, but then I went back to Robert Rhines' now famous eye witness testimony. The object he describes is the object in the Edwards photo. Which all makes sense now because NatGeo had only to listen to his description when they designed the prop.

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  12. NatGeo did not design the prop, apparently it had been used on a previous program.

    I remember George snapping pictures of it the prop hump when it was on the water.

    I concur it is the same prop in the Edwards picture. I met George when I was the team leader on the Loch Ness special. It is with a heavy heart that I call this a hoax by a person I have met and liked, but it is what it is.

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    Replies
    1. Steve, thanks for the extra information.

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    2. I’ve seen the National Geographic documentary and I’ll be darned if it doesn’t look like the prop they used. Mr. Edwards is also featured in one segment. Steve Feltham has displayed a fiber glass cast of an object which looks eerily like the object in the pic. I hope the allegations against Mr. Edwards are not true for his sake and my sake, I don’t want to eat crow for my opinion here. But the seed has been sown and it looks like we have a hoax in the making. It does not look good for Mr. Edwards so I would suggest to him to thread lightly, cease and desist and come clean, lest he go the way of a certain Frank Searle. By the way since when does the U.S. Military have “monster experts”? One would think they have their plate full with the war on terrorism. I wonder if they also have monster hunters. And if so, what’s taking them so long to get to Loch Ness? UFO Crash Recovery Teams and ET experts maybe, but Monster Experts! Anyway, anyone wanting to see the video can do so at:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uewx966HUA

      Or just enter: “National Geographic – The Truth Behind The Loch Ness Monster” in the search box provided on YouTube. In addition there’s also a peace on Mr. Feltham’s claim in an interview he did on Scotland Tonight on YouTube. Search under “Scotland Tonight – Nessie hunter claims monster picture is a fake”. Enjoy.

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    3. Steve Feltham has a piece on his facebook in which Edwards allegedly confesses in an interview for an American newspaper. No link to original source yet given.

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  13. My initial reaction to this photo, without reading the text, is that it seems to have been taken from a position well above the loch surface possibly from a aircraft as there is no part of the shoreline showing to the right of the object. Who would have the resources to do that except a film company?

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  14. Charlie, I hope you're a reguler visiter to this Blog site, to check for updates and comments on your comments and see this, as your comment is a little dated and my comment is a little late. The majority of pics published by the mainstream media, I believe are cropped versions. If you go to Part 1 of this Post you'll see a wide angle shot showing the southeast shore and Urquhurt castle in the distance. You can also Google "Loch Ness Monster Pics" and come up with more Edwards pics in various sizes and resolutions. If it were an aerial photo it would have to have been taken from a low hovering helicopter to get that sense of perspective shown in the cropped and even uncropped version. But, I think my observation here is pointless at this stage. The truth is finally coming out. Some things taken at face value seem too good to be true. Can you say "hoax".

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