First blank Year since 1925?

Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, has been quoted as claiming that 2013 was the first year in which no there were no sightings of the Loch Ness Monster since 1925. You can read the story here and here amongst others.

He admits that people did come forward on three occasions claiming to have spotted the creature, but these have been dismissed as waves and a duck. I presume one of the reports was the wave-like Nessie or Nessie-like wave filmed by David Elder last August. That one is certainly in the inconclusive category which leads to a problem in deciding what is and what is not a Loch Ness Monster sighting.

In fact, it depends who you ask. Ask any of the leading sceptics whether such and such is a sighting of Nessie and you will get the answer "No" at all times in all places. In other words, no sightings ever since 1925. Ask people such as myself, Gary Campbell, Steve Feltham or other pro-Nessie researchers and you will get a "Yes", "No" or "Don't Know" depending on the case.

The other point is that there is often a delayed reaction in people coming forward with accounts, sometime decades past. The classic example is 1933 when the monster hit the headlines and people started to come forward with stories of sightings going back 40 years!

So I am confident not only that the creature has been spotted in 2013 but that these stories will be forthcoming in due time.

In fact, I have already mentioned a story which has "Nessie" written on it for me. To requote from my review of 2013, it appeared on the Facebook page of the cruise company, Cruise Loch Ness. It goes like this:  

Three different people came to the Wheelhouse today to tell me that they had seen something in the Loch on the 2 o clock cruise. They all described a long black thing on the surface behind the 'Royal Scot' it was visible for a few seconds before disappearing. I wish they'd said something when they were watching it, as I was busy looking where we were going and missed it !! 

This happened on April 5th just the day before the "Nessie at 80" Edinburgh Symposium. The skipper, Marcus Atkinson, gave me further details: 

I was skippering the Royal Scot when this happened, and it was me that posted on Facebook. It is unusual because, over the last few years no-one has ever mentioned seeing anything, then on one trip three different people from different parts of the boat came to the wheelhouse and mentioned seeing something? I remember that it was a flat day with no wind, and everyone pointed to the same spot on the loch.

At the time I didn't think much about it because - they were all pointing to the place on the Loch where the Royal Scot turns around. This off the horseshoe scree and on a windless day the wake from our voyage up will slowly move across the Loch, at times it does look like several humps moving across the water. Because I didn't see it, it's hard to say anything really. Other than I wish someone had pointed it out at the time!

The Marjory Moir Story Revisited

I showcased this classic sighting from 1936 in a previous article. You may think that would have been it but a comment submitted to that article recently has brought it back to life in more ways than one.

Marjory Moir passed away some years back but before then her account was recorded on audio tape back in the early 1980s by her granddaughter. The transcript of that conversation is given below as Mrs. Moir relives that exciting day fifty years previously.

The other fascinating thing about this new information is that one of the witnesses is still alive today and living in Scotland! Indeed, she had a second sighting of the creature, although it was not as spectacular as this famous account. She was the youngest of the party and is called "Ann" here to respect her anonymity.

The recounting of this story begins with some words from her granddaughter:

I am the granddaughter of Marjory Moir. She was one of the most sensible, down to earth people you could meet. She had a very interesting life, which included living and travelling in America and other far away places. She was intelligent and articulate and was absolutely not the kind of person that needed to invent stories to gain attention. She had many interesting tales to relate about her experiences and travels, of which the monster sighting was just one.

As several members of my family had seen the creature, it was simply common knowledge in our family that it did exist. It was a recurring topic of conversation over the years, and accounts were retold and discussed by all family members, with the details never changing.

A few years before my grandmother died, I asked her to tell me again about the time she saw the Loch Ness monster and recorded the conversation onto cassette. I still have the recording in my possession and it is six and half minutes long.

When this was recorded my grandmother was in her mid-eighties and a little forgetful, but nevertheless able to relate her experience very clearly. 

I notice there appears to be some confusion about who was driving the car on the day of the 1936 sighting. As I mentioned, my grandmother was becoming forgetful in her eighties, and although she remembered all of the others who who were there, she forgot to mention Mrs Grant Shewglie on the cassette recording. So who was driving and who had to move the car to make way for the other vehicle is not totally clear, but probably the earlier accounts are more accurate as her memory was obviously fresher then. However the details about the sighting itself remained unchanged, also during the numerous retellings and discussions of the subject within our family over the years.

The four other people in her car that day in October 1936 were:-

1. Her sister Barbara, also referred to as Bab or Baba

2. A girl, nine years old at the time, referred to as "Ann". (edited)

3. Her husband Jack's mother, 'Granny Moir'

4. A friend, Mrs Grant Shewglie who she forgets to name in this account.

Mrs. Moir now recounts her story. The event happened on the road north of Foyers. The picture below from 1951 gives an idea of the background to the story that day. The interviewer is designated as "I" and Mrs. Moir as "M".

I: "Tell me, you saw the Loch Ness monster, didn't you?"

M: "Hmm?"

I: "You saw the Loch Ness monster - haven't you?"

M: "Oh yes I did indeed. I got one of the best views ever got of it. We watched it for fourteen minutes."

I: "Tell me about that. When did it happen?"

M: "Well, oh what year was it? Before we came to Edinburgh. Bab and I were coming back from - we'd gone to Foyers, which is about fifteen miles up towards Loch Ness from Inverness - fifteen miles. We went out for afternoon tea and we had Granny Moir. Jack's mother was with us. There was myself and Barbara, Granny Moir and Ann. How many? How many people's that? Me and Baba and Granny Moir and - and em, Ann. Five of...four of us.

And we were coming - I was driving, and of course there was a part of the road that was very near the loch, and no trees between us and the loch, and - and eh, Baba said; "Oooh!" she said; "There's the Loch Ness monster." and I stopped the car. And sure enough here was this thing on the top of the waves. So I got - stopped the car - pulled the car into a sort of layby, and we went down to the edge of - of the loch, in amongst the pebbles, and we watched it. It would be about a third of the way across the loch.

At that particular place the loch would be about a mile and a half wide, and we went down to watch it, and it would be about a third of a mile from us. And it was a - it had three humps, a little hump and a big hump and a smaller hump, and a long neck with a head, you know. And we went down and we watched it. And it dipped - it kept dipping its head into the water and playing itself, and then all of a sudden it turned and fled - turned round away from us and went straight across the loch, and it made a terrific wave on the shore, and Ann had to get out of the way of the - of the - of the wave. It came up onto the shore.

And then it, it - you could see the top of its head or the top of the middle hump all the way across the loch to Drumnadrochit, and there it turned. It came straight back to where it was before and Ann was standing like this (gestures), scared of it. And it came right back to where it was originally and took up its position, but there were no humps on it this time, the back was straight. Previously the back had been three humps, but this time the back was straight but it still had the curved neck and dipping its head in the water.

And we watched it and watched it. And eventually there was a hoot, hoot, hooting on the road. It's a very narrow road, and somebody a - a baker's van or something was coming and I had to come up and move the car on. So by the time I came back from moving the car to let this other fellow past, it had disappeared. But it was a grand view of it. Three humps: a wee hump, a big hump and a little hump and a neck like that (gestures), and it would be about thirty feet long I should imagine. Nobody's ever discovered what it is."

"Oh yes, that was the Loch Ness monster. And I remember they (her grandparents) lived in a farm away up at the top of Dores. A farm called Urquhart."

I: "Oh yes."

M: "Lovely part of the country and eh, he (her father) used to be annoying the farm workers. It was quite a big farm, and my grandparents were good workers and it was a good farm. And he used to annoy the kids - the - the workmen, and my father said that - that they used to frighten him by saying that if they - if he didn't behave himself the em,...oh... 'something' would get him - the oh, the Gaelic name for the - for the monster - the Gaelic for a water horse, whatever that - I can't remember it unfortunately. But they said that if he didn't behave himself that the water horse would get him, using the Gaelic word which meant the monster. So the monster must have been there many, many years ago.

"Oh yes I've seen it. People don't believe me but I have seen it - watched it, stood on the shores and looked at it and saw it. And it was in television and I was on the radio about it too. They gave me a fiver for talking about it (laughs). Och, it's been a very interesting life you know."

I: "Yes I think so. You've only seen the monster once then?"

M: "Only once I've seen it, yes."

The Gaelic for "Water Horse" is "Each Uisge" and it is not surprising (to me) that old tales of this creature in Loch Ness were known to locals from the nineteenth century. So it is great to read this witness testimony coming back to us over the decades and also exciting to know that one witness still lives today.

You may have your own views on this story but it certainly continues to hold the status of "classic sighting" amongst believers in the Loch Ness Monster.

Jeremy Wade at Loch Ness

Finally, the two part episode of "River Monsters" at Loch Ness will be televised on British TV on 11th February at 7:30pm. Presumably, part two follows next week. This was first televised in the USA in May last year. More details here.

By some strange coincidence, I will be starting my talk on the Loch Ness Monster on the same day at the same time. Thank goodness for video recorders!

The Dornoch Dragon and Nessie

Over at Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog, I stumbled upon a reference to my book "The Water Horses of Loch Ness". The subject in question was the Dornoch Dragon which was reputed to have terrorised that Highland town in the 13th century.

The point of referencing that story in my book was to highlight the difference but co-existence of dragon and kelpie stories in the folklore of Highland times. The Loch Ness Monster is a Kelpie, but it is no Dragon. You can go over to Beachcombing's website to get the story.

But what interests me is not so much the story but the source. I picked up on the story from a letter to The Scotsman newspaper on the 1st January 1934. The author of the letter was a Mr. David Murray Rose. 

Mr. Rose had previously sent a letter to the same newspaper mentioning some pre-1933 references to a strange beast in Loch Ness. These are important references but they have been dismissed by sceptics because he does not state his sources. Now for those who think Nessie is merely a media creation of the 1930s, such pre-1930s references are inconvenient and the sooner they are debunked away the better. Now I admit he does not state his sources, but I accept they exist. This week's article on the Dornoch Dragon has reinforced that view.

The article ends with doubts being cast upon the veracity of Rose's account and again poor old David Murray Rose is in the dock. But then help came along in the shape of Mr. Borky (who I believe also frequents this blog). Borky informed Beachcombing that there is indeed an earlier source for the story and refers us to the Folklore Journal, volume six, published in 1888. You can find a link to it here.

So David Murray Rose is vindicated in this letter to The Scotsman and therefore I would suggest that he is also trustworthy in his other letter on the Loch Ness Monster. Of course, the task is to find these original sources and that is not a simple task if they have not reached the scanners of Google Books yet.

I examined Mr. Rose's research material in Edinburgh when I was researching my book. Suffice to say, my two days there was not enough to cover the vast volume of boxes there. Indeed, trying to read his pencilled handwriting was no easy task either! If I ever retire, I hope to revisit them.

On a side note, I noticed that the 1888 Folklore Journal stated the following:

The dragon killed by St. Gilbert (before-mentioned) must have been a salamander, since it was born from a fire which has lasted seven years. It lived in fire, and its breath burnt all the forests of the Highlands : onlv a man who should see it before it saw him had power to slay it, St. Gilbert dug a hole and hid himself in it, so as to get the first sight of it. 

Interestingly, the Loch Ness Monster was also reputedly referred to as "The Salamander" in the 19th century. Is there a connection here between dragon and kelpie?  As it turns out, folklore has an interesting view of the salamander. The old Gaelic dictionary of animal names say this:

SALAMANDER. — Corr or corra-chagailte ; Teighiollas ; Urchuil or urcuil. 
Fire-form, sometimes fire-bird. 

A belief exists, or existed, that one of these nondescript creatures grew in any fire that was kept burning continuously or incessantly for seven years, hence the reason for extinguishing all furnaces periodically within that period ; it need hardly be added that the reason is of a more utilitarian and prosaic nature in cities. 

Of Sir Robert Gordon, the Third Baronet of Nova Scotia, it is said of his wizardry:

He is said to have fitted up a forge, and here night after night for seven long years he sat watching the glowing embers, until at length his patience was rewarded by the appearance of a live salamander. From this creature he tortured many an unearthly secret.

Perhaps not the salamander of modern day theories, but I wonder if the two were connected?

And finally, I also stumbled upon this piece from 1907:

The Adder as a swimmer — I do not suppose that the adder which was discovered swimming across Loch-Ness knew what it was attempting. Apart from the doubt whether snakes have long sight, it is obvious that a creature whose eyes are always close to the ground must have a very near horizon, and can, therefore, have no notion of the width of a large piece of water. - (to P. C. Inverness.) 

Snakes swimming across Loch Ness? You learn something every day! The sceptics can add that to their list of misidentifications!

A Photograph of the Loch Ness Monster?

Trawling around the Internet as I do for Nessie information, I came across this photograph on a website compilation of holiday snaps. The owner of the picture had been to Scotland and elsewhere in Europe from the USA and had decided to put up a montage of her experiences. However, one of the pictures shows something a bit more than normal.

Here is a zoom in on the object of interest. It would appear the the picture was taken on the 15th July 2006 but the camera time is set at 0421. The location is given as a point off the Clansman Harbour at the north end of the loch but closer to the opposite shore, so the photographer was probably on a cruise boat (see map below).

Now I have tried several times to contact the owner of this photograph (who I believe is called Nancy) but without success and this basically leaves me in a bit of no-man's land. The reason I say that is because if I did establish contact the day after this article posted, several replies may be forthcoming. 

For example, the owner may say "It's a Photoshop job, I was just fooling around.". In that case, there is not much more to say and we move on.

Or she may say that is a genuine picture and we can take it from there.

Or she may come up with some other reply such as "The cruise boat had a Nessie sticker on the window for tourist Nessie snaps."

Of course, it may be the photographer is unable or unwilling to make contact.

But despite these unknowns, perhaps this is an opportunity to explore an area of Loch Ness Monster images that provokes debate. I am referring to digital images of the creatures and the argument over whether they are digitally manipulated images.

Of course, manipulated images of the Loch Ness Monster go hand in hand with the mystery itself. The 1977 Shiels picture is perhaps the best example, but the MacNab picture from 1955 has also been put under the scrutiny of sceptical enquirers.  However, such alleged images form a small part of the overall set of images. Others have been accused of being staged props or misidentification, the rest are genuine images of the creature.

PHOTOSHOPPING

Now one question levelled by sceptics today is why the clarity of the classic black and white pictures is not repeated today with superior cameras. However, when a photograph such as this turns up, it is automatically dismissed as a fake. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The "too good to be true" syndrome kicks in almost by instinct.

Now it may not have escaped your attention that the lake cryptid world has no lack of digitally faked images. A search for images of "loch ness monster" on google will throw up a good number of such "photoshopped" images (to quote the vernacular for such images). How can you distinguish the real from the fake? For me, this photograph is the catalyst to explore this more modern aspect of cryptid forensics more closely.

At the "lowest" level of analysis, the aforementioned snap judgements are oft to the fore. A picture appears on a cryptid website and not long after we get the photoshopping comments. People will look at such images and get a "feel" for whether it looks right or not. Of course, this involves a mixture of objective and subjective assessments, but we need something that eliminates the subjective.

At this point, I would have to point out that there are two types of photoshopped images, those that are intended to deceive and those that are intended as an obvious joke. The latter are not that difficult to spot. Those that intend to deceive put a bit more effort into their creation.

IMAGE ANALYSIS

One website I consulted gave five rules for detecting a Photoshop event:

1. "Software" metadata in image file is "Photoshop"
2. Image is compressed to JPEG file by Photoshop (which has some unique pattern)
3. Image is compressed to JPEG file twice (which has some other unique pattern)
4. Part of image has been cloned from another part of it
5. Image color or brightness is deemed abnormal which should be manipulated

I can't say I will exhaustively apply all these principles today - I am no expert on digital manipulation - but the need to "ramp up" on this aspect of Loch Ness Monster investigation has become more apparent to me.

On the first point of the metadata, this is part of the Exif (Exchangeable image file format) data that makes up JPEG, TIF and WAV image files. This data contains information on the circumstances of the image such as camera make and model, date and time, exposure time and focal length. Since the data does not actually describe the image, it is called metadata. You can see this for yourself on a Windows system by right clicking on a picture file and selecting "Properties".

However, on trying some images, finding the clue of subterfuge via the metadata was not as clean cut as one may think. One website that seems to be popular in looking for anomalies is imageedited.com.  This will run some basic tests on an uploaded image file and hazard a guess as to whether the image has been changed. 

When I ran this photograph through it, the decision as to whether image editing had occurred was "Probably" though it did not list any image editing software as a culprit. Is this a decisive conclusion? I do not think so. When I ran another of the owner's photographs from Loch Ness which was no more than an ordinary snap of the castle, it gave the same result!

It seemed apparent to me that both images had undergone some changes in preparation for web site hosting. One possible explanation being the downsizing of the image to a smaller size. I also wondered if an editing software program could be masked by running it through a subsequent, less suspicious program?

MORE DETAILED ANALYSIS

Seeking to take this further, I came upon the website fotoforensics.com. On top of the metadata analysis I just mentioned, two further tools are employed to ascertain the originality of a photographic image. The first is called Error Level Analysis ("ELA" hereafter). This works on the principle that a JPEG image should uniformly and roughly have the same level of data compression (JPEG is a process which compresses the original image to a smaller file size but usually with the loss of information). Any differences in compression rate in an image is suggestive of digital modification.

The website allows you to upload a file for ELA conversion which outputs an image. The guidelines given for that new image are summarised as follows:

Edges. Similar edges should have similar brightness in the ELA result. All high-contrast edges should look similar to each other, and all low-contrast edges should look similar. With an original photo, low-contrast edges should be almost as bright as high-contrast edges. 

Textures. Similar textures should have similar coloring under ELA. Areas with more surface detail, such as a close-up of a basketball, will likely have a higher ELA result that a smooth surface.

Surfaces. Regardless of the actual color of the surface, all flat surfaces should have about the same coloring under ELA.

With that in mind, I looked around for some faked Nessie pictures to analyze. In each pair, the first picture is the original and the one below is the ELA image. The first one presents an immediate problem as this white Nessie has an ELA which is higher (i.e. more complex) than the sky of a similar hue. 

The next picture is taken from Claudio Diaz's Lake Monster Facebook page. Claudio has produced various Photoshop reproductions and these provide an interesting comparison (indeed, Claudio's opinion on this matter is solicited). Here we see that the brightness of the edges around the "monster" are not consistent with other low/high contrast edges indicating a problem.

Another image from the Lake Monsters Facebook page shows a more indistinct hump image nestling within the reflection of Urquhart Castle. This fuzziness is mirrored in the indistinct lack of edge in the ELA image. A harder image to judge, but perhaps others have an opinion.

Now I bring in the same process for the main photograph of our interest. The result is that, unlike the other pictures, the object here is barely visible in the ELA image. Is this significant and is it an indication of no digital manipulation? Perhaps, but there is no foolproof technique here and it would have helped to have the original and larger image.

JPEG QUALITY

The second analysis tool is JPEG Quality. Each time an image file is opened in a graphics editor and resaved, there is a potential loss of image quality (this depends on the quality level selected). The loss of quality can be estimated and compared to other images. 

Using our fotoforensics tool, the JPEG quality is estimated to be 85%. When another of the Loch Ness holiday snaps from the owner was put through this filter, its quality level was also estimated to be 85%. This suggests both images went through the same sequence of events. If the Nessie photo had gone through an extra level of processing to add the "monster", then it would be possible for it to have a lower JPEG quality.

CONCLUSIONS

So, some conclusions may be reached, but I suspect an expert digital manipulator could produce an image which only experts could judge at the pixel level. Since the owner of the photograph has not replied to my requests, the jury has to remain out on this one.

But certainly, judging it purely as an image (independent of its source), it is a good one. You can see the precise detail that the object possesses as one observes the glint of the sun reflecting off the head and to a lesser extent off the humps. There is also the reflection of the neck on the water. Moreover, the image has packed more detail into a smaller area than the other images we compared here.

On the opposite side of the coin, the second hump to the left of the main hump looks out of place. What could that mean? Also, the zoomed in pixellated area to the left of the neck reflection looks a bit strange, but how valid is an image judgement when individual pixels are resolved?

So, I am bit new to this and would welcome comments from others who may have more experience of image analysis. I would also like to know when sceptics regard a photo as no longer "too good to be true" and not "photoshopped".

 

Forthcoming talk on the Loch Ness Monster

I will be giving a talk on the Loch Ness Monster to the Edinburgh Fortean Society on Tuesday 11th February at 7:30pm. The venue is the Counting House pub on West Nicolson Street in Edinburgh. The Society's website can be found here.

The talk will look back on the year past from the point of view of the Monster as well as the Loch Ness area. That will include excerpts on my own work as well as some stories from the area (some of which have not reached this blog!).

Entry is £1 only and the talk will have a Q&A session at the end. Finish time will be about 10pm. Hope to see you there.

 

Frank Searle Speaks!

A fellow monster hunter, Scott Mardis, altered me to an interesting YouTube video on Frank Searle. To be more precise, it is by Frank Searle himself and is described as a cassette recording he sent out to subscribers of his newsletter in 1979. My thanks to Terry Sly who owns the YouTube channel for putting this online.

You may or may not want to listen to the whole tape before I discuss it below. If you listen first, be warned there is a two minute silence at 28 minutes which is not a fault. The discussion by Frank can be divided into five sections:

 
The Search for the Monster

This is the main section consisting of Frank's views on the creatures as well as the attempts to track it down. Not surprisingly, he is somewhat scathing of organisations and expeditions he regarded as profiteering enterprises. The Loch Ness Investigation Bureau does not escape his judgement as he accuses the organisation of non-existent camera watches in the last few years and an amateurish approach. 

People involved in those latter days may choose to answer this themselves, though in my recent tribute to the late Roy Mackal, it seems there is an implication that the search had moved from surface camera watches to other techniques such as sonar, hydrophone and so on.

He is equally scathing of Robert Rines and the Academy of Applied Sciences and suggests the prevalent theory of the time that the famous "Gargoyle" photograph was none other than the monster prop for the 1969 Sherlock Holmes film. Frank even claims he has a shot of the sunken prop underwater, but gives no indication as to how he obtained this! It seems Frank's view of the AAS would not be far off that of modern sceptics!

Frank goes with the popular theory of its time, the advanced or modified plesiosaur theory. Though he also says the creature is not an air breather. Are these two reconcilable? Thinking also that there may be thirty animals in the loch, he splits them into three or four families which keep to their areas of the loch. An interesting view, though what makes him think that is not clarified.

Of course, there will be agreement between Frank's Nessie views and other monster enthusiasts. I agree with him that sightings are not much more than ten per year but I do not agree with him when he dismisses land sightings as all fabrications and misidentifications. Again, sceptics and Frank Searle meet on common ground. Curiouser and curiouser!

What would Frank do if he had unlimited exploration funds? He would dredge the loch for those Nessie skulls and bones. Now this kind of operation is objected to today, but given the loch floor covers over ten square miles, that would seem to be somewhat over protective. But then again, how much surface would you have to dredge to hit Nessie gold?

Review of interesting cases

The recording goes silent for a couple of minutes after 28 minutes, but don't adjust your controls as Frank does come back with a selection of his own alleged sightings and others from the literature.

Interesting points around Loch Ness

A whistle stop tour of the loch then begins as Frank begins near Dores and heads south and then north along the loch with various observations. One interesting statement he makes as his imaginary tour goes past Alltsigh is how he claims to have had his first sighting, not when he pitched his tent in 1969 but in 1965 when he was on holiday at Loch Ness.

Folklore

Some old folk tales are related as Frank relates the tale of the Witches Burn running by his tent and the soldier ghosts that reputedly march between Ballacladich and Dores.

Monster Hunting Tips

Finally, some monster hunting tips from our controversial figure as he sums up his time there with 25,000 visitors to his caravan exhibition, 2,000 letters answered, 38,000 hours of surface watching, 38 sightings and 9 pictures! The video finally puts up a picture of the interior of Frank's caravan exhibition which I took in the early 1980s. I am not aware of any other such snaps, but would like to see if any are out there to add to the historical Nessie archive.

I would also have to ask Terry about the Searle gravestone at the end of the video. I am not sure it is that of Frank Searle, who I believe died in 2005.

How the tape turned up is a story in itself. Terry's father was John "Sparky" Sly, a piano player, who met Frank Searle in the 1970s when he took his piano up north to try and "serenade" the monster. You can see a clip of a conversation he had with Frank Searle below. After that, Frank sent his tape and newsletters to the Sly household. How many of these tapes survive today is not known, so again, thanks to Terry for putting it online on his YouTube channel.