I have posted on logs being misidentified as Nessie before, but a recent video from a Welsh river was the best Nessie-like log I have seen in some time. This log steadily "swam" past the observers as the river currents paraded it in front of them. If it had just been a snapshot, some may have found it curious, but after viewing the video clip, it is clearly a log. The video itself can currently be viewed here.
However, this prompted me to write a provisional formula for determining the "reliability" of a sighting. That equation is:
R = reliability rating of the event
W = witness experience and trustworthiness
t = time spent observing the object
o = obscuration factor
d = distance from object
The equation will be improved in several ways but it gets across the idea of what goes into a credible sighting. The experience of a witness concerns the observational skills of the witness. This can be influenced by several factors such as age, familiarity with water based objects and objectivity. There is also trustworthiness which is basically the hoaxer factor. Somebody such as Frank Searle would bring that number and hence the whole value close to zero.
Clearly, the longer a witness spends observing the object, the greater chance that misidentification can be eliminated. In contrast, the further away the object, the more chance of misidentification. The obscuration factor denotes the viewing conditions. Was it misty, were there trees hindering the view and so on?
But applying this formula to this Welsh "Nessie" would be pointless as we all know it is a branch. So, ultimately, a degree of human judgement is still required.
Dear Glasgow Boy
ReplyDeleteI agree, some things are quite obvious, especially when the object in question is static with no animate motion (no swivelling head or undulating neck). It take an eyewitness with a discerning eye to separate the chaff from the wheat. True believer turned skeptic Burton posited that the majority of LNM sightings were floating logs. The Mansi Lake Champlain "Champ" picture has been "identified" by various researchers and skeptics as no more than a floating tree stump, although that was just a still shot. Meanwhile the Rines "Gargoyle Head" has been tagged as a sunken log by Raynor et al. Which brings me to this: I would like to hear what your take is on the Rines "classic" underwater pics, for unless I missed something, they are not mentioned in your blog. If not maybe you can do a feature article and if you have, could you please direct me to the place in the blog. The "flipper" photo was a defining moment for me. At the time, I thought "here it is at last!, conclusive evidence of a Plesiosuar". But over the years that photo has been clouded in controversy with allegations of over-enhancement and re-touching. I've grown agnostic on that one. Thanks.
John,
DeleteI was always sceptical about the head - even when I first saw it. It didn't tally with the sighting description. I am open minded on the 1975 body picture and the flipper picture. But yes, nothing written yet.
John:
DeleteThe "flipper" is a shot of the loch bed with an anatomically improbable appendage painted over it.
I defy believers to recreate that image using modern computer technology.
EKM:
DeleteWell, you may be right, but that does not shake my belief in something strange in the Loch. Dick Raynor's excellent expose on his popular website played a part in my not being fully convinced anymore. On that photo and the “Gargoyles head” I am a bit of a skeptic. I guess we see what we want to see or what "they" want us to see, if in fact it is doctored to such a degree. For example in the Gray photo I see a long sinuous body with hints of flippers at about midpoint, tail to the left at best and by necessity, I presume, the head part to the right (not a translucent, ghostly Rover with stick in mouth as some skeptics would have one believe). I do not, however see a “face” to a head on the right as some might suggest. It would be a really big head at that, which would not conform to the small head-long neck paradigm so often mentioned in the literature and most importantly by eyewitness accounts. The blurring effect I would ascribe to the camera technology of the day i.e. fixed aperture, slow shutter speed and crude film emulsion (some accounts have the camera as being of the Box camera type, with minimal to no exposure adjustments), compounded by whatever it is disporting itself, much like a whale does, perhaps rolling. I admit I am seeing what think I want to see, but that’s my prerogative as a believer. Getting back to the flipper, I guess I won't be totally convinced until we compare it with a genuine specimen. As to your modern computer technology assertion, I would suspect the effect would be similar and not much better with a modern, state of the art computer, albeit without the retouching. After all the raw data (photo) has not changed in 41 years. I don't think one can assume that a modern computer would enhance and retouch at the same time. Even with specialized software and algorithms, you still have to "tell" it how to and how much. Digital is digital, bits is bits, and that was the technology for computers of that era as it is today. The main advancement being processing speed. Which, it occurs to me, why hasn't somebody tried? Or how about cleaning up (enhancing) the Gray photo. That would be interesting.
John - my entire long reply to your points disappeared when I pushed the review button, so it is gone. Maybe GB will move to a more friendly platform one day.
DeleteSoooooo......you concede that had it been a still, you might have bought it, but having seen the video, you recognize it for what it really is; but then you make excuses for witnesses who take still photos of ambiguous humps on the same phones that also shoot video. Three guesses as to the point I'm making here.
ReplyDeleteI said "some may have found it curious" which isn't quite a "it's a monster!" statement.
DeletePoint missed.
DeleteNope, never said I would have bought it.
DeleteJohn Alvarado commented "It take an eyewitness with a discerning eye to separate the chaff from the wheat." and "True believer turned skeptic...."
ReplyDeleteJohn, can you offer any examples of "skeptics turned true believers" who might demonstrate the reversibility of this process? It looks like a slippery learning curve to me, where a grasp of science ultimately aids progress towards knowledge.
Dick:
DeleteI’ll assume you require a reply and are not just stating a rhetorical question. And forgive my verbosity, I cannot give you a short, sweet yes/no answer. So here goes. Are you referring to well known, in the public eye skeptics, or just run of the mill skeptics in general? If the former, then no I cannot give an example of any contemporary professional skeptics I know of who reversed their positions. If in the latter case, then again no, I don’t know personally many people who are skeptical on this matter. I would surmise that more people than not believe in something unusual in the Loch, because of the evidence thus far, and simply because they are romantics and embrace the idea of an unknown or prehistoric creature extant in this day and age and because of the controversy it engenders. So much in life hinges on peoples opinions and beliefs. No controversy or mystery equals nothing there and that’s good enough for me. Maybe the world needs mysteries, but that’s neither here nor there in our search for the truth in this enduring and, I might add frustrating mystery. Could be the real mystery is not that there is a mystery, but why the truth is so hard to get a handle on. But I bet there are more believers than there are skeptics. This brings to mind two well known career skeptics: Binns and Campbell. I don’t think you could ever change their minds. You would have to slap them across the face with a bona fide carcass to get them to flip-flop. I think once one goes over to the “Dark Side” it is pretty hard to come back. Also I’m not sure what you mean by “where a grasp of science ultimately aids progress towards knowledge”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you implying that only learned people can be skeptics? I am no expert in any science or member of academia, but I’ve been a student of the LNM phenomena since the age of about 14, (I’m 59 now) and have kept abreast of all the latest evidence, controversies and personalities involved. So I believe that qualifies me to make common sense and informed observations on a mystery that, if there was nothing to it, would have been over long ago. For example I am well aware that as a young man, you where a true believer, even rubbing shoulders with the deans of monster hunters Dinsdale and Rines. And when, as a member of the LNIB you filmed something in the loch that is questionable and could not be adequately explained. Binns was a true believer, until for what ever reason, he found it preferable to become a skeptic. You on the other hand decided to sit on the fence, neither a true believer nor a full blown skeptic, although your idea of what “it” is does not conform to popular belief. I applaud and respect you for that. Hope I sensibly answered your query.
I would be interested to know if the believer-turned-sceptic scenario is proportionate to whether said person had a Nessie experience. what about LNI men such as Clem Skelton who claimed to have seen a hump with boiling foam about it? Did this experience confirm such as him as life long believers? Whereas, if someone did not think they have had an inexplicable event, does that increase the odds of them eventually going sceptic?
DeleteJohn and GB - the issue is clouded by inappropriately vague terms like "believers" and "sceptics" which are generally traded as insulting labels for guys in anoraks with cameras round their necks waiting to "witness" something, and people with formal or informal expertise in something or other who are able to recognise some of the phenomena observed.
DeleteJohn - you did answer my query, thank you, and I will get back to you another time.
GB - "a hump with boiling foam about it" is a pretty good description of a known physical phenomenon, which I will comment on further another day. For a video which I recorded two days ago please visit http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/Oddities3.htm and scroll to the last live clip. Does it remind you of anything?
Last clip is just a white box?
Deletelast live clip. The white box is just placeholder code to allow me to upload new videos quickly and easily.
DeleteHmmm, is that it?
DeleteI am trying to find what Clem Skelton claimed to have seen. This might be it but not sure. I quote from Cohen's "A Modern Look At Monsters":
DeleteOnce, he (Clem) says, he was practically on top of it. In June 1964 Skelton saw the creature's hump from a distance of only fifteen yards. "I was rowing a boat across the loch at 12.30 a.m. It never really gets dark at Loch Ness in the middle of June, there is always a glow in the sky. I looked over my right shoulder and there it was. It was the classic upturned boat sighting, but it was bigger than my boat and if anyone wanted to win the diamond skulls at Henley he should have rowed nearly as fast as I did to get out of its way.
The rowing story is fascinating and marred only by the fact that when he was asked what the thing looked like he said he only had one glimpse of it before trying to put as much distance between him and it and possible. Had he been rowing away from it he would of course have been facing it all the time.
DeleteI think I would like to read a fuller account of what Mr. Skelton saw. Did he not pass away some time back?
DeleteDick:
DeleteSorry, don't mean to sound contentious or insulting, just conforming to widespread usage of word in current literature. Books and Internet. Looked up synonyms for "Skeptic" and came up with a sampling of these: agnostic, disbeliever, doubter, doubting Thomas, freethinker, questioner, scoffer and unbeliever. For "Believer" these: believer, crusader,devotee, fanatic, partisan,supporter, true believer and zealot. Which do you prefer? I await your "disappearing" entire long reply.
Dick,
DeleteThe beginning of that last live clip certainly reminds me of a famous video shot back in 1960. As it progresses, it also reminds me of the 2007 Holmes video.
John Alvarado, Thank you for your reply. The point I was hoping to convey was that some forums, including this one, thrive on dividing and labelling people as either believers or non-believers, a.k.a. "skeptics" with regard to the existence of "monsters" in Loch Ness. All I try to do is to analyse the evidence presented, and in most cases there is an obvious explanation for any particular event, whether it be animal, vegetable, physical or delusional. Monsters require food, and there is very little to feed on in Loch Ness apart from human gullibility. The choice of being a believer or a non-believer is entirely unproductive and suggests a prevention of joined-up-thinking. I suggest that it is more important to be a collector and sharer of data, and that is what i try to do via my website. I report what I see, what I think, and why I think it. My latest updated web page today is at http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/8aug72sonarsciformat.html which naturally challenges Dr Henry Bauer's comments elsewhere on this forum. I will be happy to debate the matters.
DeleteBurton Caruthers,
DeleteIn your case I have failed then. I had hoped it would remind you of the David Elder images of a few weeks ago :-(
Dick - You didn't fail me. I somehow managed to miss the Elder sighting altogether. I can't find a working video, but you're comparison is spot on to what I've seen in the photographs.
DeleteLabelling both sides of the debate is neither here nor there. It goes on all the time - by everyone. Your comment suggests you are somehow neutral and just "analyse" the data but it is a fact that our position on a proposition influences our interpretation. You don't believe in a Loch Ness Monster and your analyses will always reflect that.
DeleteA skeptic doesn't believe in anything until he sees it with his own eyes, a strong believer ( religion aside) believes in everything...Dick Raynor,a scientist,stands in between and tries to find logical explanations,wave,monster,eels,seals,mirage effects,etc...Dick has been studying Loch Ness for more than 40 years not to say that Nessie is a log,a wave,a big fish or an illusion,but to find the truth,monster or wave,so...respect.
DeleteThere is no neutrality or "in between"-ness in this subject.
Delete"wave,monster,eels,seals,mirage effects,etc" ... haven't ever seen Dick propose a "monster" as an explanation!
Ask him,and he'll offer you the explanation of the possibility of an unknown kind of fish...call it Nessie if you like.
DeleteDick:
DeleteYou got me going again Dick. Hope I'm not banned from this site for being to verbose and taking up too much space. And I agree with you that labels do tend to create a schism between two sides. In the future when I refer to you it will be as “researcher” Dick Raynor, all others will be skeptics :-). Hopefully we can keep this debate civil, without it deteriorating to antagonism or animosity and respect each others opinions. So far I haven't seen much of that here, which is a credit to the class of people who frequent this Blog, and when some off the cuff remark is made, it's generally in good natured ribbing, In sharp contrast to the comments I saw on GBs review on Amazon regarding his review of Abominable Science. That soon degenerated into snide remarks and ad hominem attacks, not by GB, mind you, but from some on the other side. I think he fended off the attacks with a good measure of aplomb, professionalism, dignity and most of all patience. They have a fierce dog in this fight. So much for open mindedness! And sure, we try to get others to see it our way, but that’s the point of this whole debate and by default the purpose of this Blog, that comes with the territory, all others are welcomed with their input and they can makeup their own minds and opinions. You attempt to explain natural occurrences as possible explanations, we explore the unorthodox possibilities. If believers are branded as gullible, it’s only because something strange and unnatural to modern human experience has been going on in those waters for so long, such is human nature. I've heard you quoted as saying that maybe what is in the Loch is "some kind of large fish" (dare I say monstrous!) As for my personal gullibility, yes, I've been caught in that trap, guilty as charged. This in reference to a story a few years back of a supposed fang embedded in a deer carcass found on the shore of Loch Ness attributed to a vicious, monstrous, mutation of eel reaching 50 - 60 feet (monstrous indeed!). Sure, sounds possible I thought, probably out of frustration of this long ongoing conundrum, much as Ted Holiday probably felt when he proposed a paranormal explanation. (probably out of frustration too). I'm open to any possibility until I can discard it. I sway like a tree in strong winds of conflicting evidence. Turns out it was just a publicity/hoax stunt, for some guy’s work of fiction. How much different is that than thinking it's a large fish? At least you haven't tried selling a book or making an official claim until you’re absolutely sure. I would expect nothing less from you. And you are open minded on the fact that there is something unexplained going on and weren't "tainted' with the believer label by your time spent with LNIB. Why else would you still be trying to come to grips with this mystery yourself after all these years? On some evidence of this phenomenon I admit I pick and choose and am skeptical of. The Rines photos in particular. Never mind that there was concurrent sonar contact. If those photos had shown what they supposedly show, taken in crystal clear water, then there would be no doubt, case solved and closed. Maybe they do show the Loch bottom, maybe not. In that sense I'm not completely gullible! This whole LNM affair is like Churchill said in describing the Soviet Union "It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" Or as Ufologists say of their area of interest fraught with "high strangeness". But don't get me started on that!
GB I'm not that sure that is a log.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't bob rotate vibrate plunge tip rise sink but in fact exhibits incredible stability.
Aboveall its trunk seems remarkably untrunklike ie it isn't essentially tube like with a continuous surface both relatively straight and parallel with the river surface moreover save for the oddly stable leading branch it seems remarkably devoid of branches.
Nor I suggest is it a branch itself being both far too long far too irregular in shape and far too devoid of other subbranches.
It may well be a carefully weighted hoax constructed from logs/branches though.
I also felt the flipper photo was finally THE proof of Nessie's existence - I mean, what else could that be, and clearly it was attached to something much bigger, ergo ... plesiosaur. It was apparently (?) done by JPL ; does an organization get more scientifically respected than JPL? Now that more is known, it all seems like a cruel joke. It's hard to say when a young person (14) finally learns that even the most upstanding adults don't always play it straight, but as these photos slowly began to be exposed as more 'imaginative retouching' rather than merely enhanced I lost my naivete about Science and the supposedly unbiased people who conduct research and experiments. Lesson learned.
ReplyDeleteDo remember that the Academy of Applied Science was headed by a lawyer. They earn a living by persuading juries, not by telling the truth.
DeleteMy Facebook fan page of Lake Monsters.Regards.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-Monsters/537100722991730