Friday 30 May 2014

Underwater Webcam Photos







Jay Cooney at the Bizarre Zoology blog gives a summary of various images captured by the now defunct underwater webcam run by Scotland Online. The original article is by Scott Mardis. The webcam was pulled back in 2003 and by all accounts seemed quite popular (I was too busy with toddlers to notice). There is an online petition you can sign to persuade the owners to put the webcam back online.

My own impression was the blurriness of the objects compared to the clear images of the underwater rocks and vegetation. That would suggest to me the objects are quite close to the camera and hence small. You can see the same feature with the close up blurry, green vegetation. The other problem is similar to the problem with the dog interpretation of the Hugh Gray photograph. Where is the rest of the body?

 






50 comments:

  1. Toddlers? Get your priorities right, man!

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    1. They could be interpreted as monsters too!

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  2. You know,many we were too hard on frank Searle.that looks like his Muppet photo.also a close up witness to ogopogo said it looked like dino from the Flintstones, sort of.hmmm.

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  3. Thanks for the reference: it's an honor to receive mention at such a successful yet intellectually brilliant blog. I personally suspect that the Paula Schuman image is probably that of a newt, and that the rest of the online camera images probably aren't actual animals at all. So I definitely agree with your inference that the object in the image is close to the camera. Steve Plambeck left an excellent comment beneath the article, pointing out that the object in the Schuman image bears much similarity to a palmate newt. I agree with this contention and feel that this is its most likely identity.

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  4. The photo normally referred to as the 'muppet' photo was by 'doc' Shiels, rather than Frank Searle... however I don't spot a resemblance to these images myself!

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  5. hello people I just want to say good webssite and I love nessie it is definately real. Well done to glasgow boy for the comentary pruning we dont need different opinions on here apart from Believers !!!

    Nessie Rules!!!

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  6. Glasgow boy can you do a first hand expanded interview with that guy who had a close encounter with nessies belly in the murk UNDERWATER?
    It gives me the chills

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    1. His story is here:

      http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/classic-sightings-robert-badger.html

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  7. Love the classic understated semantics in the article. "A bit scared" That'd be putting it mildly i'd have thought!!

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  8. I know you have corrected me once already, and no I don't have a link to where I read this, but I thought that top picture was not from Loch Ness. I would agree with that, only because of the bright conditions, green veg and clear conditions. I have seen some underwater images from Dick Raynor that are clearer than I would have guessed Ness to be, but this looks like someone's aquarium...

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    1. Heh, that sounds like the old sceptical tactic - prove this picture was taken at Loch Ness!

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    2. Is it an unreasonable question to ask?

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    3. Not unreasonable to ask, I have not seen any comment that it is not at Loch Ness. The relative clarity of the water is not I think an argument against it as the camera was positioned in shallow waters.

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  9. I think it's fair comment. The top pic just doesn't look like Loch Ness water at all, which is famously tinged with peat. I agree it looks more like an aquarium scene. Unless there's been something done with the colour saturation on the image to try and bring the image out a bit more.

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  10. I've had a gander at the link (Bizarre zoology blog) and, while i may well be reading it wrong, it appears the top pic and the group like it are being used as comparison pics. There's a different copyright stamp on them. I don't think they're Loch Ness images, though the way the blog presents it is a bit ambiguous admittedly.

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    1. Hey, trevorthecat. Scott's article mentions "The background visible in Schuman’s picture is consistent with the back ground of other images filmed with the Scotland Online underwater camera that was located at the end of Temple Pier, Urquhart Bay, Loch Ness, described by long-time Loch Ness researcher Dick Raynor at this link." So yes, these images are supposed to all be from that location at Loch Ness.

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  11. Referencing South Park, the bottom pic looks like Kyle Broflovski's little brother Ike when he's talking. hehe

    Jon

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  12. Wherever I look on the web for information its always like this. Theres nothing of any substance to suggest the loch ness monster is anything more than a scottish fairytale. Very disappointing for me.

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    1. There may be not be enough to satisfy your demands, but there is more to this than a fairy tale.

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    2. perhaps not a fairytale. more a story which has gathered pace but has nothing to back it up. its a big shame its not real I wish it was!

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    3. In the case of the Loch Ness Monster, I think the term "no smoke without fire" does apply.

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    4. the trouble is there would be fire found by now if it were there!

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    5. The trouble is it cannot be agreed whether one is looking at a real flame or flame-effect!

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    6. Rubbish..plenty of first hand accounts.
      I thought you skeptics gave up.
      Well a jobs a job,pay per post.eh?

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    7. Oh its the return of the Tin Foil Brigade. Accusing people of being paid to post here. GB are you happy for your subject to be associated with mental illness once again?

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    8. Yup, okay. No more posts about other posters being paid employees of mysterious organisations, please.

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    9. Hello Gentlemen. It does seem peculiar that after all these decades we're looking at photos of the inside of an aquarium.

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  13. Chasing Leviathan4 June 2014 at 11:53

    Quite happy to be proved wrong, but I agree the top picture doesn't look like the peaty Ness. Scale looks a little odd to me too.

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  14. In can assure you that the underwater webcam photos were taken in Urquhart Bay, Loch Ness. It's murkiness is grossly overstated, usually by people who have never dived or operated underwater equipment there. Here is a link to my own video clip taken at exactly the same location - +/- 50 cm. Regards, Dick Raynor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF6GM66lVuQ

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    1. Dick just to be clear - the photo at the top of this page is not from your camera, correct? Your background is dark bordering on black. The background in the shot above is tropical blue. Please explain how this is Loch Ness, which is dark and peat stained, just like your video...

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    2. Dick replied:

      "hopkarma - the photos at the top of this thread are not from my camera but from the old Scotland Online one. The images have been copied many times and enthusiasts will have "improved" the quality at every opportunity. Those clumps of algae get blown around when the tour boat is arriving or departing, typically about 5 mins before and after the hour. The main differences between these photos and mine are that my new ones go out to a greater distance than the old camera, and mine use available light while the old one had a ring of permanently-on diodes. I could cobble together an old-school u/w webcam from junk in the shed"

      Unnecessary comment at end removed.

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    3. "Unnecessary comment at end removed" ??? Did Dicky Boy close out with an insult?!!

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    4. Two more observations/questions about the photos at top of this thread: That is very shallow water for a large unknown animal; and when did Nessie become albino?

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  15. Fair enough. What's the water depth in the area in question out of interest?

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  16. trevorthecat - I didn't measure the depth at lunchtime today but did make a short video for the anonymous folk who think my videos are faked. I'd guess the depth to be about 5 ft or 1.5 m. The video is at http://youtu.be/9hONm7J2d84

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  17. Chasing Leviathan7 June 2014 at 13:39

    I stand corrected. Thanks, Dick. And thanks for the video clip. I think the moving image helps with establishing scale.

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  18. I wonder why the numbers of Bigfoot and UFO videos and photos have massively increased since everyone started carrying cellphones. You'd think a nearby 8 foot heavily muscled apeman would cause much more of the rabbit in headlights syndrome than a hump in Loch Ness would.

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    1. UFO sightings are claimed all around the world & Bigfoots' are claimed all over the North American continent as well as other parts of the world. If a UFO or Bigfoot image is to be faked it can be undertaken in countless places which is why I think there are so many of their photos popping up these days. If anyone wished to fake a LNM image they would have to go to the one and only ............. Loch Ness.

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    2. Agreed, but the overall point was that with Bigfoot, sightings are now often being converted into footage or photos, thanks to cellphones. The sightings on Loch Ness are not resulting in footage or photos, even though cellphones are carried in Scotland.

      Do you not find this curious? I think the Bigfoot images put a huge dent in Glasgow Boy's "shock and awe" theory.

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    3. That was all covered in previous posts, but my theory was based on close in sightings.

      Most of the bigfoot videos I have seen do not seem to be close up or clear in detail (e.g. lots of trees in the way).

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    4. And we should be seeing the equivalent images of Nessie but we don't. No one covered this discrepancy elsewhere as far as I can see. Mid distance and long range images of Bigfoot are aplenty, such images of Nessie from cellphones? None, unless you count those two silly snake neck photos.

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    5. A Bigfoot-Nessie discrepancy? What is the picture to sighting ratio for Sasquatch?

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    6. Gian quasar just wrote the book,RECASTING BIGFOOT and did an interview on Bin all of America,he says the whole idea of bigfoot is incorrect.very interesting idea

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    7. Some of the recent Bigfoot videos and stills are from unmanned trail cameras, triggered by the presence of an object and taken at fairly close range. I don't think such cameras would work at Loch Ness, but at least they don't suffer from shock and awe.

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    8. Too right they don't suffer from shock and awe.

      Trail cameras at Loch Ness do work in the sense that objects close by will trigger them (e.g. birds, boats). A photo at 400m will not be a game changer. A shot at 40 feet might, but they are less probable.

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    9. No cameras ever work at loch ness if we are to believe in a monster.

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  19. Can anybody shed some light at the following personal enigma which would be a great help,.Remember the excellent video-dairy "Desperately Seeking Nessie" by Steve Feltham,....who was the person Steve ran into while being in Chester??? I would be very grateful if anybody could tell me please E-mail me at johndykslag@hotmail.com.

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    1. I would ask Steve on his own facebook page.

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