Nessie and Logs

There is no shortage of theories to explain the range of sightings claimed for the loch ness monster. In a series of blogs over time I will explore the various explanations put forward. But first we start not with the Loch Ness Plesiosaur or the Loch Ness Squid but the Loch Ness Log. A very unexciting and uninspiring explanation for sightings but one that is undoutedly true for a certain percentage of sightings. That this was an explanation as old as the Loch Ness Monster media sensation is clear from this 1933 photograph.



The question one needs to ask is what constitutes a sighting? For our purposes, it is a claim that something large and inexplicable was seen by one or more people in the loch (clearly a log will not explain land sightings). Inexplicable implies that the observer thought there was no explanation beyond the normal (waves, known animals, boats, etc) for the event.

However, in the domain of sightings, there are ever decreasing circles in which the inexplicability of the object increases and the gamut of normal events available to explain the event becomes increasingly improbable.

The seminal work on analysis of sightings is Roy Mackal's The Monsters of Loch Ness published in 1976. He stated that there were over 10,000 known sightings reported but not necessarily put down in print. His estimate of sightings making it onto paper was about 3,000 of which he only accepted 258 as suitable for his computer analysis. That did not mean the other ~2500 were all misidentification, but rather he felt they could be accounted for by other known effects. He preferred to take an over cautious approach in his analysis so any doubt about a sighting was given a natural reason. If there is a large creature in Loch Ness (yes there is), then it is clear that sometimes a sighting of it will be indistinguishable from logs, waves and other items. In such cases, one is obliged to go with the natural explanation even though it may not have been the actual cause - we do not know in such cases.

Now how he came by the number 10,000 I am not sure since most of it was only verbal. But we will assume that the quality of those sightings was not much different from the 3,000 that made it onto print. It is that range of 10,000 sightings (or over 270 per annum between 1933 and 1969) that we refer to in accouting for what for the phenomemon may been been.

Now it is clear even to the most ardent Nessie believer that within these thousands of sightings that some people mistook parts of trees for the monster. One may then say "How can anyone be so easily deceived?"

The answer is that normally they should not and I only expect logs to form a small part of sightings for reasons laid out below. Firstly, where do the logs come from? They in the main flow into the loch from the large number of rivers and streams that feed the loch. The tree parts could have come off their source trees naturally or by the action of men. Then they usually drift at the mercy of tides in a slow sedate manner until they are washed up on shore or sink as they slowly absorb water over weeks.

During this time, it is clear that a suitably shaped branch in certain circumstances could deceive someone expectantly looking for a monster. I don't doubt that but normally this should fool no one. A log drifts at quite a slow speed and the exceedingly long time during which the log can be observed should over time dispel any notion of a strange creature. It is in that light that log explanations normally need some other event to reinforce their credibility. They are:

1. The witness did not stay long enough to verify it was a tree.
2. The Loch Ness seiche.
3. Underwater gas eruptions.
4. The log drifts out of sight.

In the first case, if the witness(es) is driving past in a car or for some other reason cannot stay then it is possible that a log could explain what they say. Though one would normally expect an excited witness to stop and stay to watch such an event, it is conceded that some people for some reason will not stop to watch.

In the second case, there is a phenomenon common to certain bodies of water called the seiche in which wind actions on surface water will force the water to one end of the loch upon which it flows back in such a way that a standing wave may form at the surface or above the thermocline (an underwater boundary between colder and warmer water). This has the effect of making a surface object such as a log move against the prevailing wind and give the impression that the object is alive. Note however that this does not preclude the log remaining sight a long time unless reasons 1 and 4 kick in.

Thirdly, in attempting to explain some long necked sightings, it was suggested that eruption of gas from fissures or decaying material could force an underwater log to the surface, stay visible for some seconds and then sink again with no time to verify the true nature of the object. This we consider an event so rare as to be a very specialised explanation.

Finally, if the log simply drifts out of sight into a bay then again there may be no time to identify the tree but note that this is dependent on the witness' position and how quickly it drifts out of sight (which will not be quick). Note that the loch's long dimensions and lack of big bays make this witness-log-bay configuration uncommon. The deatils of each individual sighting should determine if such a theory is possible.

In summary, tree debris may sometimes look like unknown beasts but by and large will not fool people unless some other event intervenes such as the object not being in sight long enough for verification. It is expected that claimed sightings of monsters which endure for a long time are open to such an explanation but those that last less than minutes require further analysis.

Lake District Monsters

So Bownessie is the new Nessie - at least for the time being! What the recently taken picture shows is a matter of debate. By Loch Ness Monster standards, it is a pretty lumpy looking beast with four tightly clumped humps (unless the foremost hump is the lowered head/neck?).

This event got me looking in my archives and behold, I found this account of a "floating island" in Derwentwater just eight miles up the road. This is taken from The Scotsman of 27th September 1842 and goes thusly:

The Floating Island which according to “Otley's Descriptive Guide,” has emerged to the surface of Derwentwater twelve times in the last forty years, made its appearance on Thursday week in two places, abou forty yards apart, and appears to be daily increasing its dimensions. It has become a source of profit to the boatmen, as numbers of the lake visitors are anxious to avail themselves of the opportunity of having ocular demonstration of so wonderful an appearance.-- Carlisle Patriot.

This apparition appeared to be a massive vegetable mat going by other accounts - but what about Bownessie? Vegetable mats tend not to whizz around the place and submerge as quickly as they appeared, so the jury is out on the mat theory. For the time being, we await the next development.

PS

Vegetable mats do not occur at Loch Ness - the peaty composition of the loch does not allow it.

Dinsdale, JARIC and Carter

I would like to spend some time in this post and others doing something unconventional and against the trend - defend Tim Dinsdale and his milestone 1960 film of the Loch Ness Monster. The trend is to demystify and debunk, and this blog is all about swimming against the current trend.

The "avant garde" thinking is that Dinsdale filmed a boat. Well, it is not quite new thinking but a Richard Carter some years back put together a theory that Dinsdale failed to distinguish between a common outboard engine boat and an unidentified creature of large proportions. Another researcher, Adrian Shine, published his own analysis which I hope to look at in a later posting.

Richard Carter was an active Nessie hunter in the late 1990s. He believed in the monster's existence (he also didn't accept the Spurling Hoax theory about the Wilson photo) but was prepared to literally push the boat out on the Dinsdale film being misinterpreted.

His analysis of the film and the 1965 JARIC report that examined it can be found at this link and it is this critique that I wish to critique.

You may wish to read through Richard Carter's analysis or read my hopefully accurate summary which is in three points:

1. The JARIC Report's estimate of a speed of 10mph for the object is overestimated because they did not take the winding time of the cine camera into account.

2. The appearance of the object submerging is a trick of the light.

3. A filming of a suitable boat under similar conditions can look like the object in the film and hence is the most likely candidate.

The focus of this article is point one - that JARIC overestimated the speed of the object in the film. Let me explain why it is so important that the speed of the object must be less than 10mph to allow a boat explanation to be considered.

The engine in typical use in a 1960s boat would have been a Seagull 5hp outboard engine which was capable of a maximum hull speed of 5.4 knots or just under 7mph. Richard Carter understood this and knew a 10mph object in the film would cast doubt upon an typical outboard engine boat being a candidate.

How could one suggest that one of these common boats that regularly flitted across the loch could be the "monster" in the film yet be seen to be going at a speed 43% above its top speed? Clearly there was a contradiction here which had to be dealt with.

Richard Carter had a brainwave. He knew that Tim Dinsdale's cine camera had to be stopped and rewound at certain intervals as the mechanical motor winding the film through the camera ran down. He estimated this happened every twenty seconds and a rewind took twelve seconds. He suggested that JARIC had not taken this rewind time into account and hence the object in the film would apparently cover more distance as a 12 second gap was instantly leapt over in the appropriate frames. He calculated this would bring the real speed of the object down to 6.5mph - acceptable for the boat theory.

He further suggested that because Dinsdale gave instructions not to project the film but only examine frames that these time jumps would not have been apparent the JARIC experts.

So, is this all done and dusted? Can we all go home now and bin the film? Not quite yet.

First we need to ascertain some facts about the film. The first is how long it lasted. In Dinsdale's book "Loch Ness Monster" he gives a full account of his sightings and various items of information about the filming process. Richard Carter takes the book to task at this point because it apparently contradictory in its account of how long the film lasted. In one place it says 50ft of film was exposed, in another 20ft to 30ft and in another place it is said that the monster was filmed for four minutes.

I will address these apparent discrepancies at the end of this post but first we need to know something about the technical specification of the cine camera that was used. The camera used was a Bolex Cine H-16 which was capable of running 50ft or 100ft of film at one time before reloading was required. The camera could run at various frame rates but in this instance it was running at 24fps (frames per second).

From this we can infer the maximum time of possible footage that could be shot. For 50ft it would be 77 seconds and for 100ft it would be twice as long at 155 seconds.

Referring to the JARIC report, it is clear from their analysis that he had loaded 50 feet of film. I say this because they numbered the frames from 1 onwards up to 1440 and if we divide this by 24fps we get 60 seconds. Since Tim had stated that he was nearly out of film when he drove to the loch to get a closer shot, then that would be consistent with 50ft and not 100ft (Note the report mentions frames 700 to 1700 but these are rounded numbers are given as an assumption to demonstrate an arithmetical procedure).

Now if Richard Carter's analysis is correct, Tim Dinsdale would have had to stop and rewind his camera at least twice. Once at 20 seconds in the film and again at 40 seconds into the film. A third rewind is possible at 60 seconds but no further film would have been shot as he stopped to drive on.

If we break that down into frame numbers, we get possible jumps in the film at frames 480 (24fps x 20s) and 960 (24fps x 40s). Note this relies on two assumptions. Firstly that the cine camera had been fully wound and ready for action that morning. Given the account by Tim of his meticulous preparation that day, I think this is a safe assumption. Secondly that Tim rewound the film only when he had to (i.e. keep filming Nessie!).

Does the film jump at these frames? Without a copy of the complete film, I cannot say. If anyone who has a full copy of the Dinsdale film would oblige then I could take this further. But we press on.

The first problem with the Richard Carter analysis is that in his book, Tim Dinsdale says he only rewound the camera once. The quote is here:

".. firing long steady bursts of film like a machine gunner, stopping between to wind the clockwork motor."

How could he rewind once in a 60s shoot when a rewind is required every 20s? The answer is because a rewind was not required every 20 seconds. Thanks to the power of the Internet, I trawled around for a technical description of the Bolex H-16. I found one at this link and this is what it says about rewind times:

"Fully wound, the motor will drive about 18 feet of film through the camera (about 28 seconds at 24fps)."

So it seems that 28 seconds and not 20 seconds was the expected run time for a model from that period and that would agree with Dinsdale's testimony. Why did Richard Carter's Bolex not perform the same way? It may have been a later modified model but for sure not all Bolex cameras are the same.

Therefore, only one rewind would have been required at around frame 672 (24fps x 28s). However, there is a slight discrepancy here because two runs of shooting lasting 28 seconds each at 24fps gives us 1344 frames which is 95 frames short of the 1440 frames JARIC stated (or roughly 4 seconds missing). Did Tim Dinsdale managed to run his rewinds longer? I would think so given that the document quoted is not dogmatic on the precise upper limit. That puts the film break at frame number 720.

The next problem with Richard Carter's analysis follows on from this conclusion. The sequence of frames which JARIC used to calculate the speed of the creature falls outside the range of where a 30s rewind would occur (frame 720). In their analysis of the speed as the monster swam away from Tim, they state they analysed frames 1 to 384 to derive a speed of 10mph. In their second analysis as the monster was moving parallel to the opposite shore, they used frames 816 to 1440.

In other words, the jump in the film would have been missed and irrelevant to the analysis. The calculated speed of 10mph stands.

As it happens, even if two or more jumps did happen in the film, it was probably not relevant. The first jump in a 20s run occurs at frame 480, but by then JARIC had already analysed frames 1 to 384 and calculated a speed of 10mph. Furthermore, I would find it incredible that the professionals at JARIC had failed to take pauses to rewind into account. The Bolex H-16 was a well known and popular model and they must have known about this. I doubt they would have made such a schoolboy error in their calculations.

As a side note here, Richard Carter speaks of the JARIC report on the difficulty of measuring the speed of an object moving away from the observer at an elevation:

"This after they tell you the difficulty of near horizontal photography, especially the measurements in depth view."

Richard uses this to suggest that the 10mph estimate was therefore not reliable. However, he omits to quote another passage from the report which says this:

Note: Difficulties of Y measure are mentioned at para.5. and during this sequence almost all of the measure is Y measure. However, since the object is travelling on a fixed bearing relative to the shore, the point of intersection on the shore becomes a fixed reference point and measures become more reliable. Moreover, the speed has been calculated from observations on 5 separate frames and the given speed is the sensibly LOWEST speed from these observations.


Note, 10mph is estimated at the lower range of their estimates - the creature coulsd have been travelling faster than this. So, the estimate is reliable and the techniques of the JARIC team are further vindicated by the fact that they estimated the speed of the boat Tim had sent out later as a control footage as 6.5mph which agreed well with Dinsdale's own estimate of 7mph as he paced the boat in his car.

But what about the apparent discrepancies of 50ft, 20-30ft and 4 minutes in the book's account? These are not difficult to explain. The 50ft relates to the entire length of film shot including the test boat footage. The 20-30ft is the estimate of how much monster footage was shot though my own estimate suggests the number is closer to 38 feet but it is no more than an estimate which Tim Dinsdale clearly did not see the point in pinpointing accurately for a general audience of readers.

As for the four minutes, Richard Carter wonders what Tim Dinsdale may have hidden or cut out if the footage lasted so long but in the same breath he says that four minutes would have been impossible to film (which I agree with). One can't suggest two contradictory things in the same paragraph.

But then again, the film lasted one minute but the book says he shot four minutes of film - which is clearly wrong. What I suggest is that the entire filming process lasted four minutes but that does not include actual footage time. I speculate that the missing three minutes came during the rewinding of the motor previously discussed. Without the full footage to examine, I cannot be certain, but it is a reasonable hypothesis. Why would Tim Dinsdale take three minutes to rewind the cine camera when it should only take a tenth of that time? In the excitement and tension of such an event, it is easier to take longer over things. Perhaps he had finger trouble, a temporary mechanical problem arose or he was distracted by something. It is hard to pinpoint an exact explanation but the film footage ought to show up a three minute gap in this case.

The analysis seems clear to me. The estimated speed of 10mph calculated by JARIC stands and this is a problem if you think the object in the film is a common boat.

Let me finally say something about Dinsdale's reputation in the eyes of others. All say, despite his alleged cock up on the filming front, he was not to blame for any deception, was as fooled as anyone was but nevertheless he rendered an invaluable service to monster hunting. To the last sentiment I would agree.

However, I do detect an undercurrent of criticism which needs to be answered. I already mentioned the 4 minute criticism and the suggestion of something being hid - that is not true.

Another person who thinks the object is a boat claims that Tim Dinsdale could not have driven down to the shore in the few minutes he claimed. This is said because they tried it and took them ten minutes. If you read Dinsdale's account, he seems to have driven like a maniac, blaring his horn and then running for his life to the shore. I would say that the person probably did not drive or run in the manner Tim did (he may have been arrested for dangerous driving!). What obstacles lay in one's way in 1960 as opposed to now is also an open question.

Finally, Tim Dinsdale's widow, Wendy, seems to come in for a hard time when she refuses to allow her husband's film to be examined or put on public websites. If those websites were to use the film to prove her husband wrong then her actions do not surprise me. That doesn't mean she thinks it is a fake, only because the recipients of the film do. I would also point out that Tim Dinsdale's son, Simon, publicly stated the film was the monster only a few months ago. If he thought his father had shot a boat, I doubt he would have come forward with those statements.

So much for the speed of the creature in the film. Richard Carter appears to have dropped out of the Loch Ness scene, but there are others objections raised against the film today which I hope to cover in later posts.

Classic Sightings - Marjory Moir

Date: October 12th-15th 1936
Time: afternoon
Location: Three miles north of Foyers
Witnesses: Mrs. Marjory Moir and four others.
Type of sighting: Head, neck and back in water

The first classic sighting I posted here a few months back was the Spicer's controversial land sighting which generated quite a debate on forums which picked up on the posting. Let's hope this one generates less heat!

Marjory Moir and her family were witness to one of the best sightings of the monster having a clear view of it for some minutes. It is a classic sigthing by all accounts. The sighting was first reported in the 17th October edition of the Inverness Courier which stated that the:

Loch Ness Monster seen by a party of ladies near Abriachan last week. Mrs
Marjory Moir, her sister Miss Fraser, & Mrs Grant, Ardlarich, Culduthel Road,
who was driving. Three humps were seen moving at great speed ...

The account was subsquently reported in the national Scotsman paper nine days later.

After the frenzy of the 1930s, her sighting was documented in Constance Whyte's More Than A Legend after she wrote to the author in April 1955. Evidently, Whyte and Moir were on first name terms as local residents because she states that she had related the tale to Mrs. Whyte often.

Five years later as Tim Dinsdale was writing his book, she wrote again (presumably in answer to a letter from Dinsdale) and I reproduce that letter below:

One October afternoon a friend took my sister, mother-in-law, my young daughter and myself for a little trip by car to Foyers. On the return journey, at a place where the road runs very close to the loch, about three miles from Foyers, my sister suddenly shouted, 'Look, there's the Monster'. We all got out of the car and ran to the water's edge. There, before us, at a distance of one third the width of the loch away from us, was this wonderful creature. It was a perfect view, if we had a camera the most convincing picture of the Monster ever taken could have been obtained, but alas! we had neither camera nor binoculars.

The sky was grey, the loch was grey and the silhouette of the creature was a very dark grey against the lighter background. A perfect setting. There were three distinct humps, a long slender neck ending in a small head, and the overall length appeared to me thirty feet approximately. I could see no details of eyes, mouth, etc. but the outline was all beautifully clear — the three humps, head and neck — (I shall enclose a sketch for you). The middle hump was the highest, the one behind the neck the smallest, and the in-between size was at the back, sloping in a graceful line down to, and under, the water. The creature was quite stationary, and often dipped its head into the water, either feeding or amusing itself.

We watched in awe and amazement, for about 5-8 minutes; then suddenly it swung round away from the shore, and shot across the loch at a terrific speed, putting up a wash exactly similar to that I saw in your film. All the time I could see a small dark spot, perhaps the highest hump, perhaps the head. When it eventually came to rest I noticed the humps had disappeared; the back was now more or less straightened out, but the neck and head were as before. The creature was in full view for 14 minutes. I have no idea how much of the body was underneath the water, but what we saw was a huge creature, evidently very powerful, graceful and quite at ease on and in the water. A thrilling experience — I actually saw the Loch Ness Monster, resting, and travelling at speed, I saw the humps, then the straightened out back, my 'Water Horse' in truth at last.

You can now — I hope — understand why your film was of such absorbing interest to me, so much in it was exactly what I saw and remember so vividly. One more thing — the composite picture shown at the end of your film was the same in every detail as the Monster I saw in October, 1936, even to the approximate length.

Quite a sighting by any measure especially with the creature in view for a full 14 minutes - a virtual eternity for the monster. The drawing she sent was reproduced in Dinsdale's book and is shown below.

Comparing the two letters there is not much difference between them. However, the Whyte letter says that after speeding towards Urquhart Castle it returned to the same spot it had first been sighted. One other difference is that the Dinsdale letter implies that the three humps had straightened out as if the back was flexible whereas the Whyte letter merely says the humps were not so much in evidence.

The Courier article however gets it wrong in saying the witnesses were near Abriachan which is on the opposite side of the loch. Sometimes reporters don't transmit everything perfectly ...

The other thing I like about this case is that it involves five women which I think adds to the authenticity of the sighting. In fact, let's face it, every Nessie hoax ever perpetrated was done by men. Women may not be perfect either, but when it comes to the Loch Ness Monster, they are untainted!

In fact, this sighting is not easy to debunk. Waves don't speed across the loch and return to where they begun - even the newly discovered underwater waves called the seiche could not do this to a log which just happened to look like three humps and a long neck. This is stretching things further than Nessie's neck!

Nothing seems to fit unless we fall back on the tired explanations of birds, otters which are somehow were warped into 30 foot monsters. In these days of skepticism, it is easy to lose sight of these classic sightings and the persuasive power of them. We read books which go through some sightings likely to have doubts about them, a somewhat plausible (but not probable) explanation is given and it is then stated generally that all Nessie sightings can be explained like this.

One should not be fooled by this logical fallacy. If one sighting is allegedly explained away, it does not follow that the rest automatically follow. As it happens, none of the books on Nessie which are skeptical of a new, unclassified creature mention the Moir sighting.

Perhaps it was a case too hard to crack for them.

More Tourism Wars at Loch Ness

The tourist wars hot up again at Loch Ness as the owners of the Loch Ness Centre and Jacobite Cruises clash over the development of visitor facilities only 800m apart on the north part of the shore. Robert Bremner who owns the once named "Official Loch Ness Exhibition Centre" in Drumnadrochit is not long out a legal wrangle with the once named "Original Loch Ness Exhibition" over naming rights and the potential confusion for visitors to this small town.

But having cleared that hurdle he now wishes to extend tourist facilites opposite the Clansman Hotel but tactically he is at a disadvantage as the Jacobite Cruises proposal (see picture below) is ahead of the game and was going to receive council approval first before his plans two months later. Bremner is set to appeal for both plans to be considered at the same time as not surprisingly the two plans are so similar and so close to each other. As I write this it looks like he has got his way as the council defers any decisions subject to further site inspections.



Now tourism is good for the local economy but too much tourism is bad - one only has to take a look at noisy, rubbish strewn Loch Lomond to see that. Loch Ness has been shielded from a similar fate due to it being much further north from the densely populated centre of Greater Glasgow from which you can reach Loch Lomond in less than an hour. Loch Ness is a three to four hour drive and hence prohibitive for a Glasgwegian day out.

Thankfully, Loch Ness is largely devoid of tourist traps, jet skis roaring across the loch and ignorant tourists leaving a trail of debris. On the other side of the loch, the topology and tightness of the roads precludes any large scale development. The two Loch Ness exhibitions just mentioned are well away from the shore line in Drumnadrochit but the two new proposals are "in your face" shore line developments. The commercial win of a shoreline development is clear as no one can see the loch from the Loch Ness Centre and a cup of tea on a Jacobite Cruise ship would be less comfortable than in their proposed visitor centre.

So what do I think of these two proposals? It is ironic in this Nessie-skeptical age that anyone would see fit to commit large sums of money to Loch Ness but clearly the two parties see big cash potential in what they are doing as Loch Ness scenically has a lot to offer. Ideally, I would prefer any development to build upon currently developed ground as we have it at the Clansman Hotel. This would minimise the impact on the shore line and would favour Bremner's plans. However, in the interests of competition and avoiding anyone trying to dominate the Loch Ness tourist scene, I would prefer to see Jacobite Cruises win and introduce some competition in goods and services. However, their proposal involves violating more virgin ground and adding to the tourism skyline.

One thing I would hate to see is both proposals being approved which considering their close proximity would be crazy and I suspect would be detrimental to the bottom line of both companies. For now, I lean slightly towards Jacobite Cruises.

Meanwhile as the big tourist players at Loch Ness vie for the upper hand, a word of congratulations to the Old Manse B&B at Invermoriston which has been voted best B&B on the planet by users of Trip Advisor. See BBC news article here.

Book Review: "Loch Ness, Nessie and Me"

Having looked at the very first book on Nessie in my previous posting, the latest book on the Loch Ness Monster by Tony Harmsworth was published some weeks back and I have recently obtained my own copy to read and review here. Details on the book were previously mentioned here.




As the title suggests, the book covers a history of Loch Ness from geological times thru the times of turbulent Scottish history with a mention of the folklore that was previously attached to the loch. The majority of the book is of course devoted to the time Tony spent there as the brains behind the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre and subsequent ventures as a Loch Ness Bus tour guide and at Fort Augustus Abbey and as a plain old resident overlooking Loch Ness for nigh on thirty years.

As you can imagine, he has a lot to say and for those interested in Loch Ness and its creature, it is a fascinating read as he recalls his times with well known Loch Ness figures such as Rines, Dinsdale, Shine and a host of others. To even the most knowledgeable Nessie-phile there is plenty to read that is new as well as facts that were forgotten and one needs reminding of.

There is also the human side and Tony recounts his highs and lows at the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre, his having to start again after leaving the Centre and later being laid low by a stroke. If any good thing can come out of this malady it was that he managed to finally finish the book he had been planning for years and which we now have the chance to enjoy.

As for Nessie, of course, many a page is devoted to the dark denizen of the Loch and Tony examines the various photos, films and eyewitness reports from a critical point of view. Such a task necessitates a biopic of his own journey of belief in Nessie from standard plesiosaur to something less exciting but nevertheless more probable in his view (he also recounts a sighting of his own which he feels is not so easily explained away by modern explanations).

From a personal point of view, I can sympathise with Tony's triumphs and tragedies and also with the thrill of those early days when there was a huge saurian beast awaiting final discovery in Loch Ness. We both started out plesiosaur believers but have both drifted in different directions. Tony now takes a view that is more skeptical while my own is still in that area where logicians disdain to tread.

Nevertheless, a welcome addition to my Loch Ness Library considering the low grade stuff that tends to permeate the real and virtual book shops and one I would heartily recommend to others.

The First Book on Nessie

A Happy New Year to any visitors as we look into Nessie past and present again.

I am an avid collector of Nessie books and naturally the very first publication on Nessie is one that would excite the imagination. Unless someone wishes to correct me, I believe there were four books of varying sizes and depth published on the monster in 1934. I am aware on none being published in 1933.

After comparing and contrasting these four books I believe the first was the one entitled The Home of the Loch Ness Monster written by Lieutenant Colonel W. H. Lane and published in March or April 1934. The publication date is not given but a foreword by Mr. Lane is dated 11th March 1934 from his home on the shores of Loch Ness at Tigh-na-Bruach. I published a blog on the author himself previously which you can read here. The cover of the book is shown below.



It is a small work of eighteen pages printed by Grant & Murray Limited of Edinburgh in conjunction with the Moray Press. There is one illustration and one map contained therein and there are two themes to the book as the title suggests. One is the monster and the other is its home, Loch Ness.

To the first subject, Lane devotes half the pages and puts up a defense of his theory that the creature is a giant salamander. To back up this view from eyewitness testimony he cites the case of a witness to the creature in the River Ness in February 1932 who describes seeing a six to eight foot beast which looked like a crocodile, but had "wicked pig-like eyes" on the top of its head. It had a long jaw and a number of round teeth visible filling the mouth. It was noted, critically to Lane, that it had no neck to speak of and had to half-turn its body when it turned its head. It slowly paddled upstream against the strong spate of the river and swam out of sight.

We now know the witness was a Miss K. MacDonald and the matter of short/no neck appearances has happened a number of times in Loch Ness lore. I would not presume to suggest we have two mysterious beasts in Loch Ness but not knowing with any certainty what the monster is leaves such a question very much open.

Lane then addresses the supposed long neck and head and examines the Spicer land sighting but asks us to consider that it was the tail and not the neck being observed there and elsewhere since it could not be ascertained with certainty that any eye nose or nostril was visible - which is a reasonable argument given the often breif and distant nature of a typical head and neck sighting.

Finally he (unfortunately) uses the now discredited tracks found by Wetherell as a proof since they fit so well with the spoor of the salamander.

The second part flows from the first when he asks how such a beast got into the loch and here he moves into his other interest of ancient history. His map puts forth the theory that there was once a grand trunk river that flowed along the great glen and formed tributaries which we now know today as the Tay, Tyne and even Thames and so on.

This he believed to have been a pre-glacial feature inhabited by man along its mighty banks. After this he discusses the possible migratory patterns of man and animals as they recolonized the area after the great melt. He adds that the North Sea was once a plain which this river flowed through as men and animals followed its banks back to Scotland.

Make of that what you will, I am no expert in Highland geology. But the book takes its place in Loch Ness lore and my own quest to obtain a copy was a long wait. I saw it first for sale on eBay perhaps in 2005 but was outbid to the tune of hundreds of pounds by a more enthusiastic collector. When another copy appeared on eBay a year or two ago, I was prepared to bid high but ended up getting it for £10! All good things come to them that wait ...

I shall look at the second book on Nessie ever published in a later blog.