Sunday 10 February 2013

A Sighting from 1964


One of my articles was linked from Cryptomundo a while back and a comment was posted in which a veteran Nessie hunter called Barry from the 1960s recounted an experience he and a friend had back almost 50 years ago. I reproduce it with his permnission for your interest.


In the early sixties I myself was involved with a privately [self funded] investigation which involved a total of three trips per year to this famed locale. These trips covered a span of five years or so, and over this period my colleague and I experienced quite a few inexplicable sightings of something that was “not quite the norm”. We saw “humps” at a distance [not standing waves] disturbances in the water for no reason what-so-ever, but nothing really tangible to photograph.

I think now the year was 1964, we had been pursuing this legend since 1961 after the release of Tim Dinsdale’s book. This specific day was unforgettable to say the least. We started to set up our equipment on the lawn at the Foyers Hotel. I was patiently setting up a Russian 1000mm telephoto lens with camera attached onto a sturdy tripod, meanwhile my associate was busy scanning the bay below through powerful Binoculars. All of a sudden the silence was broken. He yelled for me to come and see what he had in his field of view. I could not leave what I was doing, as the lens which was a very big and expensive item needed careful handling. He sounded agitated, so I set the unit onto the grass and dashed to the edge of the lawn expecting to see some kind of prehistoric denizen cavorting in the bay below. 

I “glassed” the bay carefully following his instructions as to location, but all I saw was the head of “something” [not recognizable] just above the surface, that was moving across the bay at a steady clip. I went back for the lens and attached it to the tripod in record time, then returned. The head was now fully submerged with no sign of any disturbance in the water, — it never to came back up. Disappointment is not an apt description for what I felt, and yet my colleague was still in a state of high euphoria. 

Once things had settled down and he had “taken stock” of the situation I questioned him on just what he had seen. Now these are his exact words [or close to them] “What I saw lying just submerged, was what looked like a gigantic Turtle without the shell”, — “It also looked like it was “flattened out” and seemed extremely wide”. He also noted that it had four appendages of which he could just about make out. In length he thought it would have been 25 feet plus in length, size is a hard thing to estimate in the heat of the moment, with only a little more than a fleeting glimpse.

This mans word I could take to the bank. He was not one for imaginary flights of fancy. At the time he was in his early seventies and resided in Birmingham dealing in rare books. 

So you see GB, the Turtle theory may not be far from the truth. In 1967 I left the UK to reside in Canada. I’m now living in British Columbia still searching for those elusive cryptids.

6 comments:

  1. "turtle without a shell". perhaps a salamander?

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  2. GB this's slightly off topic but for the umpteenth time I noticed the pic down the side of your blog with the heading IS THIS NESSIE LOOKING AT YOU?

    This time though I'd recently been watching Wreck-it Ralph which I can heartily recommend especially for fans like myself of John C Reilly and I finally realised what the pic reminded me of.

    Pac-Man!

    Have I discovered Nessie's secret I wondered as I followed the instructions to Click on image for more...?

    Alas the full version of the Hugh Gray photo proved my burgeoning theory wrong.

    But at least I now know one of Nessie's lesser secrets.

    She doesn't so much play Pac-Man as plays around with him *wink*wink* said electronic based perversion explaining why there isn't a Mr Nessie and why the loch isn't filled with legions of baby Nessies and maybe where she learnt her apparent ability to virtually appear and disappear at will from or into pixellations of light on the water's surface.

    Maybe if people started using their mobiles to throw holograms of gold coins or even real coins sprayed gold over the loch the whore might start coming to the surface to grab 'em!

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    1. Well, my video game playing days are over, but I like the pac-man similarity!

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  3. Barry - can you describe the weather, surface conditions and time of day please?

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  4. Barry - A couple more questions - what colour or tone was the water surface and what colour was the object?
    Thanks, Dick.

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    1. Hi Dick
      (1)Weather and Loch conditions at the time of the sighting -- the Loch was smooth -- flat calm -- the sky was a bright overcast ---- time of day would be around 11.00am.
      (2)The creature he said looked to be beige moving to black in color --- that is it looked [in that lighting to be black on its back with beige coming up from the underside]. Looking down from the Foyers Hotel the water looked black but towards the shore you could see straight down through it [could see the bottom shelving upwards]. hope this helps -- Barry

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