More on the Rip Hepple Nessletter Archives

 

As readers will know, a digitized archive of Rip Hepple's Nessletter has been available on this blog for some years, all you do is click on "Rip Hepple Newsletter" to the right. But recently I have been talking with Isaac Koi about getting another site to run these letters. That is the Swedish Archives For the Unexplained who asked if Rip's Nessletter could also be put online.

Naturally, that required Rip's permission who I put in contact with them and he gave them the nod not too long ago. Rip also said that the remainder of his newsletters run which I have not published could be done by both of us. The current run on this blog comprises issues 1 to 120 in 1995, but I will add the rest in due time, but they can be viewed at the AFU. So, follow this link to access Rip's archive at the AFU or follow them here, that's your choice.

Thankfully, a full hard copy set of the Nessletter is also held by the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. So it looks like all the bases are covered to preserve this important work. What we now need is a subject index, which is something I have been working on and off for some time.

It is uncertain whether there will be another Nessletter, so again we thank Rip for those Ness Information Service newsletters which he faithfully produced for over forty years. They were initially written to plug the gap left by the dissolution of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau, but they went beyond that plugging a general gap in Loch Ness Monster news and views as that generation of monster hunters disappeared and their books with them.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Interesting Blog on Nessie Postcards

I am an avid collector of postcards to do with the Loch Ness Monster and general views of the loch from the Castle and all along the shore. The way our favourite beast is depicted is a source of amusement with a tinge of sociology thrown in while the places shown from over a century old give some insight into olden days. They can also come in useful for research when considering eyewitness locations from the past.

So Leigh Penman emailed me to tell me about a new blog on Nessie related postcards he has started with discussions on selected postcards. If you are interested in such postcards and the history behind them then have a look, his blog is at this link.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

The Nessie Turtle Theory

My fellow Nessie believer, Henry Bauer, has been in the news recently as his latest views on what the Loch Ness Monster could be has gained some attention. Henry has moved away from the popular plesiosaur theory to consider whether the monster could be an ancient, unknown species of the giant turtle. Henry actually published this theory as a paper back in March 2020 for the Journal of Scientific Exploration and you can read his original paper here. 

Now as to the actual theory, the idea that Nessie could be some large form of sea-going turtle has been going around since the very first year of 1933 (see link). When Hugh Gray's famous photograph was published in the Scottish Daily Record, a Major Meikle wrote to the 8th December 1933 edition of the paper commenting on how much the hump and the head to the right of the picture looked like a "leathery or green turtle". He differed from Henry in that he thought a known species of turtle was sufficient to explain the new story from Loch Ness.

Now one could imagine that the head in the Gray picture (below) could resemble a turtle's head, though my own preference is fish like. However, the tail to the left is much longer than any known species of turtles swimming the seas just now. Nevertheless, it is an unknown species of turtle with some adaptions over the vast ages that Henry has more in mind.

Back in 2013, I also wrote on a TV documentary entitled "The Loch Ness Monster Revealed" from the Discovery Channel which speculated upon a possible variant of turtle that was dubbed the plesio-turtle which sounded more like Henry's speculated beast. They produced the theoretical image below with the outstretched neck which did not look that different from some known species such as the snake necked turtle (below). One has to be reminded that though such species have Nessie like features, they are significantly smaller than our denizen of the loch.

Other factors in this hypothetical turtle's favour are the long times they can spend underwater, even absorbing oxygen from the surrounding water and controlling their metabolism to even hibernating underwater. The high oxygen content of the loch also favour creatures who employ such biological devices. The fact that we do have very large turtles in the fossil record also confirms that no unrealistic gigantism is required as we see applied to other theories. This is demonstrated in the photograph at the top of the page which shows a fossil skeleton of the extinct species Archelon which grew to at least fifteen feet long.

However, like all theories (including sceptical ones), there are drawbacks. Turtles lay eggs and go ashore to lay them in often large numbers. No such activity has ever been witnessed of the Loch Ness Monster. Indeed, it is doubtful that any that could be construed as reproductive has ever been observed with any certainty.

Obviously, no eggs have been found or the mystery would have been solved by now. It could be counter proposed that such a cryptid turtle gives birth to live young but since all known turtles lay eggs, this would seem a drastic departure. It may be suggested, like our snake necked turtle above, that it could lay eggs in the waters of the loch. The problem here is that the snake necked turtle lives in the warm waters of Australia. It is unlikely a developing egg could survive in the cold waters of Loch Ness.

The other issue is that the recent eDNA study by Professor Neil Gemmell revealed no reptile DNA, let alone turtle DNA. Henry takes hope in the 25% of DNA samples that were not readily identified with any species from the genome database. That may be true, though the fact that less samples were taken at the lowest depths of 200 metres may be a better explanation.

One could go on further about shape changing humps, long necks with non-turtle heads and three toed limbs but the truth of the matter is that no theory fully explains all the features described. The turtle theory is at no disadvantage there compared to other theories and doubtless is ahead of others. But we have a eyewitness database which will contain misidentifications and hoaxes which only muddy the waters. To that we can add those genuine eyewitnesses to a genuine monster which imperfectly describe what they see. How that is handled is entirely down to each investigator and their own combination of skill and bias.

I certainly prefer the giant turtle theory to the giant eel theory but still have my doubts when I compare it to the AAA sightings. For example, our last article on the John MacLean sighting, would a giant turtle fit all that went on there? My thinking is that it would not.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Further Thoughts on the John MacLean Sighting

It is one of the classic Loch Ness Monster accounts from the 1930s involving Inverness man and angler, John MacLean. This sighting was covered on this blog back in 2015 and you can read that to get the basic facts. John himself stated that he was fishing from the shore near the mouth of the Altsigh Burn when the monster surfaced about twenty yards from him. It appeared to be in the act of swallowing something which he presumed was one of the abundant fish from that area.

The creature resurfaced further west displaying itself from tail to head as in the contemporary sketch above from The Scotsman newspaper from July 1938. The six minute sighting ended with the foremost hump inflating in an extraordinary manner before it submerged for the final time. All in all, a super sighting which surely would leave the sceptics scratching their collective heads?

Well, the answer to that is no as there is apparently no sighting of the Loch Ness Monster, no matter how close or detailed that cannot have a mundane, ordinary explanation arbitrarily assigned to it. To this end, one leading sceptic told me personally it was clear that MacLean saw a mere otter. This "fact" was communicated to me when I knew that another leading sceptic had assured us all that the sighting was nothing more than a group of cormorants. That opinion was presumably formed on the tenuous grounds that MacLean had stated that the creature swallowed like a cormorant. It seems we have a choice of what John MacLean "really" saw.

To get to the main point, when it was pointed out that John MacLean estimated the length of the creature to be eighteen to twenty feet while otters and cormorants are an unspectacular three feet long, I was told he had got his estimates wrong because he was looking across a very foreshortened loch due to him being right on the shore and not from an elevated position. Now there is a grain of truth in that and this is the danger of sceptical interpretations - part of it is based on something people would admit to be sensible. However, the devil is in the details. I took this picture near where John MacLean was to demonstrate the foreshortening effect. It is actually taken at the back of the youth hostel looking across the loch from the beach.

Would one have trouble trying to estimate the length of that stick out in the water? You might, but I would not have as I was there. The foreshortening problem comes if such an object is located further away towards the opposite shore a mile away. Looking at the water in the vertical axis, there is more nearby water visible in the bottom three quarters of water than there is of distant water in the top quarter.

The conclusion is obvious, the problem of estimating distance and therefore size is proportional to how far away the object is. It is not a binary solution. If the object is close to the observer, foreshortening is a minor issue. If it is three quarters of a mile away, the margin of error increases greatly. So the question is how far away MacLean's creature was? The sceptic says it was a long way off, despite MacLean's experience by the loch. 

The problem was recently resolved by an e-clipping sent in by Gary, a regular reader. He emailed to me an image from the Radio Times from 1938, just weeks after John MacLean's sighting. The BBC had sent a team out in their radio van to investigate the phenomenon of the Loch Ness Monster which included interviewing local experts and eyewitnesses. Now there is a program I would love to hear. That page gives us our first look at John MacLean alongside the BBC interviewer.

It is always good to get a contemporary photograph of an eyewitness, especially at the site in question, but that is not the only reason why this picture is helpful. Look at the direction he is pointing in and its orientation to the loch behind him. Since we know he was fishing by the mouth of the Altsigh Burn, we can project a line of sight onto a map of the area. The 20 metre scale at the bottom right of the map is roughly the same as 20 yards and gives you an idea of the arc along which the creature may have appeared.

John MacLean was not looking out over to the far side of the loch, he was looking across the mouth of the river where he was casting his line. A look at my stock of trip photographs gave me a shot of the view across the estuary where I stood close to where John did. The nearest headland point is about thirty yards away and the more distant one over a hundred yards away. The creature he saw lay in between these points, but it is more likely to have been closer to the nearest headland.

The proximity of the headland you can see which was opposite from John MacLean excludes any chance of observational errors due to foreshortening. There are multiple frames of references from which to deduce distances as John's eyes darted between monster and locality. Twenty yards puts us about halfway out where the river meets the loch, a perfect vantage point. 

So, a main plank of sceptical objections is removed. The beast sketched below at that time was no otter and no cormorant. Unless one wishes to pursue the view that John MacLean was an outright liar, you've got yourself an excellent view of the Loch Ness Monster seen by an experienced witness at close range.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Nessie Review of 2020

 

Looking back on 2020 can only leave one with a sense of good riddance to a bad year from just about every perspective. As the coronavirus swept across the world, vast swathes of the population hunkered down and battened down the hatches. Social distancing became the norm and many of the places we love to visit became off limits. Some levity was required as a debate ensued as to whether UFOs, Bigfoot or Nessie was the time honoured champion of social distancing as we only too well know.

You can make your own mind up on that, though in the year past, we did have one story from 1922 where Nessie and eyewitness seemed to break that two metre distance and even touched. That story may never be corroborrated but looking back on the Nessie highlights of the year, we first look at the claimed sightings from the last twelve months.

A look at Gary Campbell's Loch Ness sightings register has Gary reckoning on twelve reports this year. Five of these were from the webcam positioned high above Urquhart Castle, Those occupied the first half of the year when the loch was either quiet due to winter or due to the coronavirus lockdown which forbad any non-locals coming to the loch for anything but essential reasons. My opinion on webcam reports has been stated before. They may or may not show the monster, but they are too far away to make any difference and we await the day when a camera is installed somewhere near the shore to provide greater clarity (and I suspect fewer claims).

Next up was a smartphone recording by Ross MacAulay on the 8th July of which the best frame I could see is shown below.  This shows a white water disturbance in the centre of the loch described as twelve feet in extent and four foot wide. It had appeared near some kayakers nearer to the shore and the progressed to the centre where it was filmed.

Unfortunately, the witness was about a mile away from the object and so the recording is of little value in determining what it was. No doubt what he saw with the naked eye was better than what was recorded but herein lies the problem with surveillance. Having a high vista of multiple square miles of loch surface may improve the chances of seeing something but what you see is going to occupy a very small part of a smartphone's field of view. Conversely, getting closer to the shore brings the object into closer relief but less surface to survey.

Another image shown below was taken on the 29th August by Mr Van Scheurbeck from Point Clair. I was wondering if this object was a buoy to warn boaters of shallow waters. On enlarging what is a low resolution image, it did not appear that the object could be seen against the trees in the background on the opposite shore, which suggests it is not very tall as one sees in long necked sightings. 

The following month led to more pictures of a water disturbance taken from Bunloit Farmhouse which again were inconclusive. A video of an object in Dores bay by Trevor Ross in October was nothing more than a bobbing log though the large hump seen by Corey Sturrock in the same area sounded more genuine to me. 

Moving into November and another indistinct object was photographed by Karen Scott on the 24th which is shown below. On the original picture, you would not know where to look to find the object as it is so small, so the triangular object is not big, and as we know, size matters when it comes to Nessie. I covered a similar picture back in July when I was emailed a photo by Jeremy taken from the same vantage point of the Grant Tower at Urquhart Castle. If it did submerge and reappear further on then that does not suggest debris such as logs. Birds obviously submerge and resurface, but the witnesses claim it was not a bird. If you wish to see anything monstrous in this photo, you would be confining yourself to a small part of its anatomy.

Now even as I was typing this article, another report came in as reported by the Sun newspaper concerning yet another water disturbance filmed by local lady Louise Power some days before near Drumnadrochit. In the words of the Sun:

Louise, a school clerical assistant, said they saw “something strange” in the water less than half-a-mile away. She said: “There was a wake after it and it just kept moving slowly. Then it turned and just went under the water and disappeared. It was big and whitish grey. I did believe there was something unexplained in the loch — now I know there is!”

Again, being about half a mile away, we are not going to get much detail from a smartphone camera and mark this interesting but inconclusive. So not a great selection of images but that all changed on the 30th September when Ronald Mackenzie got this sonar image from his cruise boat at a point near the Horseshoe Scree opposite the village of Invermoriston. The object is at a depth of about 570 feet below and about 43 feet off the bottom of the loch. Monster Hunter Steve Feltham persuaded Ronald to go public and we are glad he did. I estimated the object was eleven feet thick in the vertical axis. The horizontal axis on the sonar display is time, but the manufacturers of the equipment estimated the length of the object was 15-20 feet. 

This excellent image was certainly covered in this blog, initially here and here where we suggest from Adrian Shine's own mouth that this is the kind of convincing image he was looking for in Operation Deepscan in 1987! We then dismissed theories about floating organic debris here. A few other sonar images turned up after this were publicised and the impression I certainly got was that the panoply of unexplained sonar hits that boats had picked up over the years are more likely to be large creatures than people are letting on.

So far to date, the sceptics have said very little about this image and would love it to just go away. They are quite happy with distant pictures of water disturbances, but not this. But what is the next step for sonar? Let us see what 2021 brings. 

As for me, the coronavirus restrictions meant I was limited in my trips to Loch Ness this year. But once the lockdown was eased in June, I headed off asap to the area. It was a good trip and as far as water disturbances are concerned, my game cameras caught their own version. What it was I am not making any assessment of.

What was more tantalizing was the large thirty foot depression I found at the estuary of the River Foyers. What had caused it? Canoes, wild campers or something else? The possibilities are considered in my trip report.

In terms of other research, the lockdowns must have had their effect as 2020 was the lowest count for blog postings in this its tenth year. I had published only 41 times (including this article). That compared with 104 in 2012 and the lowest ever of 33 in 2010, but 2010 posts began in July. However, there were one or two gems in that 41 including a video interview with Harry Finlay who had one of the most famous sightings of the monster with his mother, Greta Finlay, in 1952. That post is here and this is a sketch of the creature he saw at a distance of about twenty to thirty feet. Harry is not just a believer, he is a knower!

I also had the pleasure of talking to Arthur Kopit who had a land sighting back in 1961 which was related here. If you scroll down to the right of this page you will see the Blog Archive and you can click on the arrows to unpack various date ranges to see all the articles for this year and others.

So what will 2021 portend? Will one of those game cameras of mine snap something up close and personal? Will more exciting sonar hits aggravate the sceptics even more? Will some very lucky eyewitness get close enough to one of these shy creatures with a decent camera to snap something to rival or even exceed the photos of the past? 

I don't know, but I look forward to being back up at the loch no earlier than April this year ... coronaviruses allowing.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

An Article on Sandy and Hugh Gray

 

Nessie enthusiasts will know about the first photograph of the Loch Ness Monster taken by Hugh Gray in November 1933. This blog has also covered the sightings claimed by his brother, Sandy Gray. But a fuller account of Sandy Gray and events mainly around the Foyers area of Loch Ness has been written by journalist and author, Paul Brown.

I helped Paul with a few questions regarding his article and I commend his article to readers interested in Sandy Gray and various events that surrounded Loch Ness in those late months of 1933. You can access his article here. There you can also find a "Listen" button if you prefer audio.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com