Sandra Mansi's Painting of Champ

Cryptid researcher, Paul Cropper, has unearthed another gem with this painting from 2007 of Champ done by the famous Sandra Mansi who took a picture of the creature back in 1977. Compare this painting with the actual photo below. Paul thinks the painting is somewhat Brontosaurian in nature and Sandra may have used some dinosaur painting as guidance.

Bigfoot and Nessie

The two great cryptozoological mysteries of the age, the hairy hominid stalking through the North American forests and the large creature swimming in the inky blackness of Loch Ness. They have vied for the top cryptid slot for decades.

But, in recent years, Bigfoot has certainly been to the fore of public consciousness thanks to its presence in the United States of America with the resources, zeal and "can do" attitude of ordinary  Americans who form an army of hunters and researchers in the subject. Bigfoot websites outnumber Nessie websites and perhaps also the number of people who accept its existence.

However, recent events in the Bigfoot world  have got a casual Sasquatch believer such as myself taking more notice. I refer to the controversy over the alleged Bigfoot shot by Rick Dyer over a year ago. This event apparently happened as he took part in the filming of a British made documentary called "Shooting Bigfoot" which will hopefully soon be broadcast on the BBC's BBC4 channel as part of their new "Storyville" season.

Towards the end of that documentary is a claimed scene of Dyer racing out of his tent in underpants to shoot the seven foot creature dead. There is also an alleged scene of another Bigfoot assaulting the film producer, Morgan Matthews, and leaving him with a noticeable black eye and other injuries.

However, Dyer has a serious credibility problem in that he faked another dead Bigfoot back in 2008 and is generally disliked by other Bigfoot researchers for his arrogant manner. In other words, even the majority of the Bigfoot community are lining up with the usual sceptics to condemn him. In a sense, Dyer is the Frank Searle of the Bigfoot world.

Dyer says he has the taxidermied corpse and is beginning a tour with it. So you have a documentary with some kind of footage and a stuffed animal. Whether you believe it or not, this is going to prove very interesting.

Rick Dyer claims there is a forthcoming press conference to announce findings of an unknown university's examination of the corpse. His cause is not helped by the postponement of said conference on Sunday. The longer this drags out, the bigger the doubts.

I can't imagine a "Shooting Nessie" documentary. Firstly, you need a very good reason to own and use a gun in Britain and, secondly, even if you shot one in the water, it would most like sink without trace and without hope of recovery. Mind you, a "Finding Nessie" series has some appeal.

So, is it a mockumentary backed up by a fake Bigfoot body or something else?  Either way, it makes for good reading. If he has the real deal, cryptozoology will never be the same again, but don't hold your breath quite yet!

WHALES

On another point, scientists now say they can count whales from space. If they think they can do it with whales, why not Loch Ness Monsters? See this BBC article. Of course, people have attempted to point out strange objects on Loch Ness from satellite images before, but nothing that looks conclusive. Searching the loch from above has been attempted in a minor way in the past, but it is an expensive way of doing it. Maybe one day, we will have a satellite webcam feeding images of Loch Ness every time it passes overhead to a worldwide audience of hunters.

1975

To round things off, this item appeared on eBay bringing back childhood memories of more feverish days. It is the Daily Mail from November 25th 1975 as interest continued to mount about the Rines underwater photos. A mere snip at $198!

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".