Follow Up on the Latest Sonar Contact

Following on from the initial post, I was reading through various email/website/forum talk and the emphasis was very much on the skeptical side of the debate. But that is no surprise since most people do not think there is a large, unidentified creature in Loch Ness and so any story like this is going to lead to "natural" explanations.

Of course, there may be a natural explanation, I would not be so fanatical as to class every story as "monster". Where I diverge is in my view that not all sightings are explained by natural phenomenon.

As it turns out the favoured explanation is a submerged log. It's a theory and it sounds plausible and most people would accept that without any further critical thinking and move on to the next thing. I prefer to persist with some critical thinking.

Aside from the rather important question as to whether a submerged piece of tree debris could produce the strength of such a sonar trace, there are some other things to consider.

One skeptical forum summed it up (link here):

"Page 61 of Radford and Nickell’s Lake Monster Mysteries. Jerry Monk, a British hydrographic surveyor notes that when a piece of wood is immersed in water, over time, it sinks. If there is a thermocline, it is possible for the log to float in mid-water on the denser layer of cold water. Or, the log may sink, decay and form methane, which makes it rise again. The log idea, sinking and rising, degassing and sinking again was used to explain the Mansi sighting on Lake Champlain."

The thermocline is an area below the loch surface where the temperature drops rapidly creating a kind of partition between the upper and lower layers of water. For Loch Ness, it is usually stated to be at a depth of 40 meters but could vary between 30m and 60m depending on the season. Interestingly, the thermocline can be seen on sonar scans as well, which leads to the question as to why it is not visible on this particular scan if it is claimed to be buoying up the supposed piece of tree.

This is an open question since it may be a matter of sonar calibration and sensitivity but it does suggest that the "log" (which is 25 metres below the surface) is well above the thermocline.

Note that the quote mentions that the theoretical log would "float" on the thermocline. However, this target is moving at such a speed that the trace soon disappears off the screen. Can underwater currents achieve this rapidity? Yet another open question which suggests a log would tend to drift rather than speed.

Finally, the quote mentions vertical ascent and descent of a log due to water saturation and then gassification and renewed buoyancy from methane gas decay. Aside from the fact that the object moved horizontally, such a scenario is unlikely at Loch Ness. Decay of organic matter happens at very slow rates at the bottom and indeed tests have shown little gas production to stimulate ascent.

At this point, I have tried to contact the witness for his view on the matter and whether the tree debris he has seen in the past matches this. I suspect the answer would be "No". For me, talking to witnesses is important - unlike too many a number of critics who completely disregard verbal testimony (unless to find inconsistencies to discredit them)!

Another "natural" explanation often put forward are echo effects from sonar beams bouncing off the sides and bottom of the loch. These do produce strange effects such as vertical lines but it is unclear whether they would be capable of producing the trace in question and from the moored, stationary position he was at. Regular users of sonar equipment would be able to recognise such a pattern.

Other causes of unusual patterns are boat wakes. However, this would require a boat to pass fairly close by and again would be recognisable to a regular user (though as with side echoes it is unclear that they could even produce the pattern in question).

The Latest Nessie Sonar Contact

They just keep coming thick and fast these Nessie stories. On the back of two intriguing photographs these past four months and a head-neck sighting, a sonar contact has entered the fray.

This story appeared in the Scottish edition of the Daily Mail for Thursday 15th September 2011. It looks like it did not make the UK website of the Mail, so it is reproduced here for those outside of Scotland.

But first the basics on sonar. I do not claim to be an expert but it is an important tool in the hunt for the Loch Ness Monster. However, like normal photographs and pictures, there are degrees of interpretation, misidentification and, yes, hoaxes.

A sonar contact is a picture made from sound waves instead of light waves. The sonar device sends pulses of sound at various frequencies depending on how deep one wants to go. The reflected echo is processed to form a snapshot of the area within the sound beam.

However, being a continuous series of pulses, the sonar picture is more like a film than photograph and each successive echo builds a trail of images as the targets in the beam move. In fact, one could argue it is more like a picture taken with a very long time exposure.

So if an object is moving it will describe a trail of some shape and thickness. This thickness is not the girth or height of the whole object but whatever returns the strongest echo. This depends not on the size of the animal (for example) but the difference in density between the water and the object. In the case of the fish, the greatest density difference is between the swimbladder and the water since it contain much less dense air (or some other gases). The rest of the fish is closer to the density of water than the swimbladder. In the case of mammals and reptiles, one main area of interest would be the lungs.

The Daily Mail story now follows.

THERE is no sign of the trademark elongated neck, or the signature green humps. But the experts believe this almost unfathomable sonar image could be a breakthrough in the hint for Nessie that began in earnest in 1934.

Surrounded by fish, the ‘blip’ has a girth of about 5ft, though there is no way of estimating its length as it was moving. The image was captured by the quick thinking skipper of a pleasure boat who took a picture of the reading while waiting for his customers at Urquhart Castle, in Inverness-shire. Marcus Atkinson, 42, knows Loch Ness like the back of his hand and spends every day on its waters — but said he had never seen anything like this before.

He added: It's very weird. It was obvious it wasn‘t a shoal of fish and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. This thing is completely different from anything I've seen before.’ Mr Atkinson, of Fort Augustus, Inverness-shire, was idling in the bay when he saw the unusual sonar image. He said: ‘it's one of those moments where you just think, “What on earth is that?" I grabbed my mobile phone and took a picture before it disappeared of the screen. it's all very bizarre.‘ Mr Atkinson's picture shows a cross-section of the loch, with the boat itself at the top right of the picture.

The bright green area on the bottom right of the sonar screen is the bottom of the loch, which rises as the boat gets closer to shore. The small green flashes scattered across the monitor are deepwater fish. But the part of the picture that is exciting interest is the long, thin streak - that looks a little bit like a propeller - between the 20 and 25 metre depth markers. The measurements show it is about 5ft thick - but there is no way of telling how long it is as, if the object was following the boat, it would show up on every ‘blip’ of the sonar.


Expert Nessie hunter Steve Feltham said: ‘This is a sonar contact that defies all explanation — it's a huge object. ‘it’s fascinating, because the camera hasn't an imagination — it just shows what's there.’

So ends the account and I wrap this latest sighting with some comments. The first is that the captions editor makes a howler in comparing the elongated pattern to a sleek, lithe plesiosaur. If they had read the article, they would have gone for a different picture for (as said in the intro) this is a trace built up over a succession of sonar pulses.

The other observation is that the stated 5ft girth is not necessarily the complete height of the object because if it is an animal, it will be the lungs or swimbladder being measured. But then, five feet of lung or bouyancy organs points to one big creature.

I presume the five feet measure is taken by comparing it to the 20-25 metre depth scale in the picture above. Using my trusty ruler, I get an average estimate of 2.5 feet "girth" which is still quite a measurement. I would add that if this was Nessie and we assume a true girth twice as much as my measurement (i.e. giving us five feet) and apply classic Nessie proportions based on numerous eyewitness tesimonies and analysis, then a total tail tip to head length would come out as about 30 to 35 feet - which is a typical Nessie size.

So what was it with a minimum girth of 2.5 feet that was moving at a depth of about 70 feet? No doubt some will have a rational, non-Nessie explanation for this odd signal. Was it some human artefact somehow floating at a great depth? Was it a strange effect of sonar bouncing of the underwater sides of Loch Ness? Or was it the famous and mysterious denizen of Loch Ness?

As for us, this goes into our log of claimed Nessie sightings.

ERRATA: I just remembered "girth" is the measurement around an object as opposed to its thickness. So assuming a circular type girth, a rough girth estimate given a thickness of 5ft would be Pi x 5ft which is roughly 16ft.

Follow up on the Jon Rowe Nessie Photograph

Having initially posted the media's words on the latest Nessie report, I contacted the witness himself for clarification. It is always desirable to do this as newspaper reports may omit something important or misquote. Also, when various people critique the report publicly, the witness' reaction to this can also be educational.

As it happened, some things did have to be corrected. Firstly, the time of the reported sighting was 1230 and not 0830. This may seem a minor point, but since the time of day can often be easily deduced from shadows if a photograph is taken, then doubt is cast upon the witness if the reported time and photograph time are in conflict. In this case, the reported time was wrong.

Secondly and more importantly, the two hump like objects are not all there is to this sighting. In fact, if the witness report is read without reference to the picture, it is evident that Mr. Rowe saw a large, dark object moving just under the surface of the water. The two smaller objects are a sideshow in that respect. To quote from the Daily Mail:

"There was a rainbow so I got my camera out to take a photo and noticed this really large dark shape in the loch with two humps that were barely out of the water."

The dark shape was under the water, the humps (or perhaps bumps) briefly above. In fact, when I saw the photo, I saw this shadowy area centre bottom and asked Mr. Rowe if this was relevant to the sighting. His reply was:

"Yes, the shadow beneath the "humps" details the rest of the mass moving through the water."

I invite readers to look again and note the semi-elliptical shadow at the centre of the bottom of the photograph. In fact, Mr. Rowe described the experience of being near this large object as "very unnerving". This is not a wave shadow as the sun is directly ahead in the picture and the wave just to the right has no such shadow. In fact, on the higher resolution picture that Mr. Rowe provided, it looks as if the waves from the westerly wind are shallower and washing over something rough with contours perpendicular to them.

As for birds and seals, Jon is not convinced for one simple reason, the entire object he saw moving underwater and partially above was much bigger than anything he was accustomed to seeing, in fact 2 or 3 boats in length.

We can only guess as to what kind of animal would form the shadowy shape below, but what about those two small "bumps"? In that sense, we are in the area of speculation and can only guess. However, given the distance from the main shadow, one may speculate that this may be the head region slightly surfacing. Could these "bumps" be horns of some description? We know that witnesses in the past have described horns, though such events are a small proportion of the record and they tend to be stalk like. Zooming in on the objects just deepens the mystery - they certainly are not birds in the act of a bottoms up dive as no tail feathers or legs are visible.

An intriguing photograph which adds to the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster.

Latest Nessie Sighting?

Jon Rowe claimed to have spotted two humps in the water on the 7th September (story below).

(Also updated for Daily Mail coverage at end)

Long time Loch Ness researcher Adrian Shine thinks it may be a pair of birds diving for fish. The question I need to know is really how long did the witness watch this spectacle? If nothing came back up after a long enough time, then the bird explanation is unlikely. In fact since Mr. Rowe says "It wasn’t up for a long long time" then one wonders how it could be birds (unless they decided to drown and sink!).

Mr. Rowe's statement about a "really large dark shape" makes one wonder whether two birds could fulfill such a description. There is also the question of why this person who works as a fish farmer on the loch could fail to identify two birds local to the area?

However, the photograph itself needs some clarification. The two white dots I can see in no way suggest a large dark shape. There is however a large dark shadow bottom centre - so where exactly does one focus their attention and is this photograph uncropped to begin with?

This is a black throated diver pictured below. A quick check on their habits suggests they only submerge for half a minute or so. A bit hard to reconcile with a "really large dark shape" but there you go ...

Original story from Inverness Courier here.

'Nessie' spotted going for a dive

By Rosemary Lowne

A FISH farmer could not believe his eyes when two unexplained ‘Nessie-like’ humps appeared from below the surface of Loch Ness.

Jon Rowe, from Lewiston in Drumnadrochit, was working at Dores Fish Farm when he decided to take a picture of a stunning rainbow.

However, after taking the picture, something unusual caught Mr Rowe’s eye.

"It wasn’t up for a long long time," said 31-year-old Mr Rowe. "It was a really large dark shape and I’ve not seen anything like that on Loch Ness before."

Asked if he believes it was the elusive Loch Ness Monster, Mr Rowe said it is a possibility as he does not believe it was a buoy or a mooring as it is in the wrong place and ropes would be visible in the water.

"I think it’s interesting, that’s how I take it and I would like the photo to be checked," said Mr Rowe, who took his snap on Wednesday at 8.30am.

However, Adrian Shine, from the Loch Ness Project based in the Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit, cast his expert eye on the picture along with his colleague Dick Raynor.

He believes one possible explanation for the photo could be that it was two black throated diver birds captured diving for prey or emerging after a dive."It’s an interesting picture," said Mr Shine. "My colleague Dick is a skipper at Urquhart Bay and last week he spotted two black throated divers which are quite big and they have white undersides which you can see in the picture," said Mr Shine.

Previously there have been two possible sightings of the Loch Ness monster with white undersides.

But Mr Shine said if the birds were diving, which they often do in pairs, then it would explain their disappearance beneath the surface of the water.

"If it was one object with two humps and it dives, you would not see two undersides.

"You couldn't have one object with two humps having two bits of underside."

Mr Shine explained that the birds often dive in pairs

The Daily Mail has added its story here:

It's been said before and it's being said again .. Nessie is alive under the waves of Loch Ness.

Once more the notoriously shy Loch Ness monster has been reportedly sighted in Scotland's deepest loch. This time close to a commercial fish farm.

Jon Rowe, from nearby Lewiston in Drumnadrochit, took the eerie snaps moments before the mysterious shape slipped beneath the water.

And the stunned fish farmer is convinced that the shapes he saw in the morning light are Nessie.

He said: 'It was a very strange morning. It was misty with a bit of rain and sunny at the same time.

'There was a rainbow so I got my camera out to take a photo and noticed this really large dark shape in the loch with two humps that were barely out of the water.

'My instant reaction was "That's Nessie".'

Mr Rowe has dismissed claims that the shapes he saw in the water were not the legendary beast of the deep said to stalk the atmospheric Highland loch.

He added: 'I have no doubt, I work on the loch everyday and I've never seen anything like it.

'Almost as soon as I took the shot the shape disappeared under the water and out of sight.

The 31-year-old told how he had not believed that a monster swam the depths of Loch Ness until he captured Nessie on film.

'It can't have been a buoy or a mooring as it's in the wrong place and the ropes would be visible in the water.

'A few people have said it was birds diving under the water - but I didn't see any birds fly by. It can't have been birds - the whole thing went down into the loch.

'It was quite spooky but I think it's really interesting.

The Daily Mail also provides this zoomed in photograph below:

Mr. Rowe answers one question and that is that he does not think the two humps were birds because they disappeared under the water. As I said above, birds tend to come back up. That does not mean we immediately say "Loch Ness Monster" but then again, the alternatives are diminishing.

Loch Tarff

In my new book, I explore the various "satellite" lochs around Loch Ness which had traditions of water horses, water bulls and kelpies. I recently covered one such body of water in Loch Duntelchaig (link) but another caught my eye as I drove past it on my summer trip to Loch Ness. I did not cover this loch in the book mainly because no written tradition exists - unless you are prepared to dig a bit deeper.

I am speaking of Loch Tarff which is on the south side of Loch Ness. You encounter it as you head north to Foyers on the B862. Having ascended the steepest incline around Loch Ness, you head downhill to a dip and the loch is on the left. I took this picture at the time.

There is nothing to recommend the mysterious about it apart from that general gloominess which descends on such lonely places under cloud. It was apparently used as a skating rink by the boys of Fort Augustus Abbey's school in decades past but not much more can be said about it apart from its name. The word "tarff" is a transliteration of the gaelic word "tarbh" meaning bull. This has significance because place names often have something to say about the place itself. In this instance I suggest that this place had a tradition of a water bull inhabiting its shallow depths (as other authors have suggested for "tarf" rivers or lochs).

Indeed, its maximum depth is about 90 feet (though the mean is 24 feet) and it is about 960 feet above sea level. Its dimensions are half a mile by about one third of a mile in a roughly triangular shape. Not a lot of space to sustain a Tarbh Uisge one may say but then again it is not alone in that attribute.

So I add it to the half dozen or so satellite kelpie lochs around Loch Ness. One final note concerns a river one encounters as they drive back down the hills to Fort Augustus. It is the similarly named River Tarff that empties into Borlum Bay beside Fort Augustus Abbey. This river begins its course further south in the Glendoe region and flows through Glen Tarff towards Loch Ness. The headwaters have been dammed to now form part of the Glendoe Reservoir for the Glendoe Hydro Power scheme. However, the waters of the river and loch Tarff are not directly connected.



One would presume that a river and loch of the same name and seperated by only a couple of miles would be related in folklore and perhaps they are but as yet I have found no evidence. It seems this small south eastern corner of Loch Ness has more of the Water Bull about it than the Water Horse. One wonders, did the local residents occasionally see the water bulls of Loch Ness head out of Loch Ness along this river and hence decided upon this name? After all, the River Ness and Garry are blocked by canal locks and other Loch Ness rivers rise quite steeply.

One can only speculate!

New Book on The Loch Ness Monster

A new book has just been published on the Loch Ness Monster entitled "The Water Horses of Loch Ness" by Roland Watson. The product can be viewed here in the USA and here for the UK.

The back cover gives us an introduction to the theme of the book:

"Back in the 1930s the Loch Ness Monster exploded onto the scene and sent tourists and journalists northwards in their droves to catch a glimpse of this new sensation. But before the Loch Ness Monster there was the Loch Ness Water Horse. Before Nessie there was An Niseag - a devilish creature of notoriety feared and talked about in hushed tones by local people and whom none would dare cross paths with.

Today people deny that any such creature ever existed or was known about before the media circus of the thirties began. But the literature of the time says “No” to this and this book sets out to prove the telling of a centuries old story.

In this new book, the landscape of the ancient and supernatural Highlands is surveyed and its most feared inhabitant of all – The Water Horse – is unveiled as well as the various haunts in which it lay in wait for its victims. The investigation then begins to home in on the “Each Uisge” of Loch Ness and discovers that its reputation preceded it then as it does now in the realm of lake monsters.

New stories of the Kelpie of Loch Ness are found and analysed as well as surprising parallels to how people reacted to the Water Horse then as they do now in disbelief, imagery and both modern and ancient folklore.

Finally, the old Highlanders’ belief in the supernatural origin of this beast is explore and that thread of belief is traced right through to the modern age with those who continue to think that there is more to the Loch Ness Water Horse than just flesh and blood."

Nessie watchers will be aware that the Loch Ness Monster is a phenomenon beginning in the 20th century and is 78 years old this year. However, the first report from the Inverness Courier on the 2nd May 1933 also looked back and wondered whether the Loch Ness Kelpie of old had made a comeback. Despite that, no more was made of this semi-mythical creature as the world began to speculate on what candidate from the animal world could explain the sightings.

The aim of this book is therefore to focus on the centuries prior to 1933 when the term "Loch Ness Monster" was unknown and the world's press was oblivious to the idea of a large creature in a remote Scottish loch. In that respect, the book has two approaches. The first is to prove there was a tradition of the Water Horse in Loch Ness prior to 1933 and to put it in the context of other such traditions throughout the Highlands.

The second is to recount the development of creature sightings that were seperate to the Water Horse lore yet increasingly ran parallel to them with the implication that these sightings in fact were the seed for the legendary tales (and indeed locals continued to claim to see such water horses). The Loch Ness Water Horse was not a myth but a beast based upon a real creature inhabiting the loch.

The human reaction of the day is also examined as Victorian academics headed north to record these oral traditions for posterity but also brought their skeptical views to bear upon these "benighted" Highland folk. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Finally, being perceived as a supernatural beast by the natives, we see how that view of the creature has persisted today in contemporary Nessie thinking. There are people today who do not believe Nessie is an animal at all and this has been covered in this blog previously.

Monster Hunting in The Western Isles

I spoke in a previous post about my Highlands trip last July which took me past Loch Ness and onto the island of Lewis and Harris. I did some research first at home to see whether there was anything of a monster or kelpie nature to take in. To that end, I read Glen Vaudrey's "The Mystery Animals of the British Isles: The Western Isles" which can be obtained from here.

Now this book spoke of two lochs, Loch Suainabhal which had a tradition of a water horse therein and Loch Urabhal of which a sighting of a strange two humped beast was claimed in 1961 (but had no water horse tradition).

Doing some further grubbing about, two more lochs with some kind of monster activity turned up. The first was Loch Ulladale to the south which had a tradition of a water horse but is actually located in Harris. The final one was Loch Bhreacaich south of Stornoway near the village of Lemreway which long time Loch Ness researcher, Dick Raynor, had visited around 1971. Apparently there had been a sighting of some description which sent him westward with sonar equipment and dinghy. Nothing was found and he presumed a seal or otter had actually been involved.

The story of the water horse of Loch Suainabhal seems to come from a story that was copied amongst various publications in the later part of the 19th century but one early source was Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science for April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. However, the story is given in the context of a fictional story and a conversation between individuals.

"But I have not told you yet about the Black Horse that Alister-nan-Each saw at Loch Suainabhal one night. Loch Suainabhal, that is inland and fresh water, so it was not a seal; but Alister was going along the shore, and he saw it lying up by the road, and he looked at it for a long time. It was quite black, and he thought it was a boat; but when he came near he saw it begin to move, and then it went down across the shore and splashed into the loch. And it had a head bigger than a horse, and quite black, and it made a noise as it went down the shore to the loch.

'Don't you think Alister must have been taking a little whisky, Miss Mackenzie?'



'No, not that, for he came to me just after he saw the beast.'



'And do you really believe he saw such an animal?' said Lavender with a smile.



'I do not know,' said the girl gravely.



'Perhaps it was only a fright, and he imagined he saw it; but I do not know it is

impossible there can be such an animal at Loch Suainabhal.'"

Now being a subplot in a larger story may weaken the argument that this water horse was part of a local tradition, but for now we will assume it was knowledge of the local legend that caused it to find its way into this storyline. The locations of these two water horse lochs and two monster lochs are shown on the map below.

As it turned out, visiting these lochs was more than a simple matter of driving, especially with a family of kids in tow. Focusing on the two lochs with claimed modern sightings, I passed on Loch Bhreacaich simply because there was not enough time. Loch Urabhal it turned out was a three or four mile round trip on hills by foot from the nearest road at the village of Achmore. I once again passed on the opportunity.

Having said all that, lochs with only one claimed sighting of something strange do not quite pass muster for me. For a loch or lake to be taken seriously as a "monster lake" there has to be a consistent pattern of sighting reports. How many reports there have to be to "qualify" is partly subjective but there would also be a time element to allow rogue explanations such as stray dolphins, seals, etc to move on. Seals and dolphins won't explain what goes in these land locked bodies of water, there will be other natural explanations which may or may not prove adequate over time.

Now there may be witnesses to other strange events on such lochs but we need to see the data. In that respect, I was not too enamoured by these two lochs. But water horse stories evoke a more mysterious echo from ancient and simpler times. I drove as far as I could to Loch Ulladale but even from there it was an eight mile round trip hike. Yes, I am a bit of a wimp, but it was after all first and foremost a family holiday.

So that left Loch Suainabhal which is near the famed spot where the Lewis Chessmen were discovered in the 19th century. A small single track road got us there and I spent a few minutes scanning the deepest loch in Lewis.


As the picture suggests, it was a lonely but serene and beautiful place. Apart from the boat moored in the distance, it looked untouched though the modern world in the form of Scottish Water had some operations attached to the loch. I scanned the area, took some camcorder footage and breathed in the Atlantic air but even with my Nessie-type enthusiasm, I was not expecting an equine like form to rise menacingly from the depths (though perhaps being there at midnight may have made that feeling more real!).

If there was an Each Uisge here, it is either slumbering at the bottom waiting for simpler times to return or it has flown to pastures new in search of fresh victims.

Either way, we left to re-enage with civilisation and the Calmac ferry.