Early Depictions Of Nessie

The way men have represented the creatures of Loch Ness has varied over the centuries, be it in oral or visible form. I wrote on the basics of this process in an earlier article. But today, I would like to concentrate on some tangible examples.

I was researching some old newspapers which are not available online and came across some interesting media uses of the Loch Ness Monster over the period of weeks between December 1933 and January 1934. Now we should understand that the Nessie phenomenon was still quite young at this time. In fact, it was only seven months old as of early December.

In terms of influences on how people perceived the Monster, these were few and far between. There was the Spicers case which gained traction over the months since August 1933, Rupert Gould’s report to the London Times on the 9^th December and the King Kong film.

But for the Scottish Daily Record and competing papers, things took off when the first purported photograph of the creature was published by the Record on the 6^th December 1933. This was the Hugh Gray picture which (to some) showed a long neck lying low in the water. In fact, the impact of this picture should not be underestimated in assessing the public evolution of the monster.

The Daily Record was onto a good thing here and began a series of articles. In fact, the Spicers’ land sighting was printed the day after the Gray picture was published. After this followed various reports and visits to the loch. Indeed, the normally quiet cloisters of Fort Augustus Abbey were invaded as the Record’s correspondent was allowed in to photograph the monks at their daily activities.

Furthermore, once the Record published the Gray photo, readers were invited to draw their pictures of Nessie in a national competition. The entries flooded in and some of the drawings printed are shown below.

Quite an assortment of imaginative representations, and not all as we may expect. But then again, when folklore (ancient and modern) begins to weave a tapestry, the original truth can begin to fade somewhat. Going back to my initial comments about how people represented the Loch Ness creatures, it is evident that people were either not quite sure what was in the loch or were employing a wide diversity of artistic licence. Clearly, we have a mix of short neck, long neck and serpentine monsters here. 

Did Hugh Gray's photograph have an influence? It undoubtedly must have as people, with pen in hand, pondered what this strange beast must look like. The professional cartoonists employed by the newspapers seemed to be a bit more resolute in representing the monster. In fact, the long neck creature seems to be moving up in preference quite quickly. Here are two political cartoons from that short time period.

The first is from the Daily Record of 27th December 1933 and depicts the then British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, towing some political monsters of his own. The cartoonist's curious Nessie looks like a cross between a plesiosaur and an anteater. Why it should emit dog-like barks is another idiosyncrasy (I am aware of no reports to that time which mention the monster making such a noise).

The Loch Ness Monster was often employed in political cartoons to add some light heartedness and topicality to the message behind the drawing. The second one below is from the Glasgow Evening Times on the same day. Again it shows that Britain had its own economic and political monsters to contend with during the Great Depresssion. I like the depiction of St. George the Dragon Killer being confronted by a Nessie like dragon. Was this Scottish paper implying that the various social problems had to be solved by England (Scotland's Patron Saint is St. Andrew)?
 

The long necked theme continued in foreign publications as we see here from the American Salt Lake Tribune of the 14th January 1934. The Hugh Gray photo is again mentioned as well as the Scotsman's propensity for whisky and its after effects. Clearly, the images that began in the British Isles were easily propagated abroad as other cartoonists considered how to depict the Loch Ness Monster. The trend was now very much in evidence.

 

Moreover, commercial advertisers in newspapers saw an opportunity to recruit Nessie without any fear of invoices over image rights being sent to them. Two advertisers from the Daily Express for the 9th, 13th and 25th January 1934 carried these images of the beast.

Meanwhile, other witness testimonies continued to be reported and inform people as to the nature of the Loch Ness Monster. It was not just the Hugh Gray photo that promoted the long neck theory. Other papers published sketches of what witnesses were claiming to see. The example below is from the Singapore Strait Times of the 29th December 1933. What long necked sightings it is referring to, I am not quite certain as it does not supply enough details. Readers' suggestions are welcomed.

So, by the time the famous Surgeon's Photograph appeared three months later in April 1934, it seems the die was cast. The Loch Ness Monster had a small head perched on a long neck. The lasting image of the Surgeon's Photo did not create the long neck stereotype, but it was certainly the hook upon which the particular coat was hung. 

I have not yet found any media representations of the Monster in the May to November 1933 period prior to our study here. It would be interesting to see how diverse the interpretations were or whether the long neck candidate was one which took the lead from the start. That will await a future article.

Nessie and the Falkirk Kelpies

Our local artist, Jack Rumney, hits the ball out of the park again with another great painting of our favourite lake monster. In his own words,

I have seen pictures of the Falkirk Kelpies illuminated so I thought I would send you a painting of Nessie giving them her seal of approval (this is the long necked paranormal variety).

You can watch the official opening of the Kelpie statues below.

Loch Ness Trip Report - August 2014

I must admit that this excursion to Loch Ness proved a bit of a wash out. As it turned out, the remnants of Hurricane Bertha was about to greet me as I made my way up the high road. Going by the lashings of rain that came upon us, I was grateful that we rarely experience such storms in their full vigour. So, it was a period of almost continuous rain, but the old tent held up well as we camped over the weekend of the 9th August at Foyers.

Given the weather, some of my activities were curtailed and I also failed to get in touch with some people I intended to talk to. However, some people I did talk to, such as Ala MacGruer who is a long time resident of Foyers and knows the area like the back of his hand. He is a keen fisherman and is old enough to remember Frank Searle. In fact, he featured in the 2005 documentary, "The Man Who Captured Nessie", in which he reminisced as a local on Frank's time there.

Ala was an independent witness to a head neck sighting made by the Hargreaves in 2011. He was sticking with that story and I have no reason to doubt him.  As an experienced and down to earth observer of Loch Ness, he has one of the better tales to tell of strange sights at Loch Ness.

I also chatted with him about other things, such as the memories of his neighbour, Hugh Gray, who took the first photo of the monster. Ala was also the nephew of William MacGruer, whose experience of a strange animal lurching into Loch Ness around the time of World War I has long formed part of the Loch Ness story.

Apart from the usual surface watches for anything unusual breaking the surface, I also tried out some new trap cameras. However, the aim of these was not to capture the monster in the water, but on the land. So, in  a sense, they are pointing in the "wrong" direction. But my reasoning is that the creature is more likely to trigger the camera on land since the motion/heat detection area is much smaller (i.e. the creature is not 300 metres away in the water). Also, you'll get a far more interesting and decisive picture than a hump in the water.

The problems dictating against an installation are manifold. Firstly, car traffic will continuously trigger the camera and wear out the batteries over a multi-month period. The trick here is to set the camera to night mode (between 0000 and 0700) since it is highly unlikely that the monster will venture onto land during daylight hours. I know it did in the past, but the loud presence of fast moving cars is now a deterrent. 

Also, the camera has to be in a hidden spot so it is not easily spotted by parked cars or hikers. So I will run those for a few months but the rarity of land sightings dictates against immediate results. One trap camera experiment that did not go as well as I thought was the Covert Code Black Special Ops camera (or the UM565).

Now this is an expensive camera and offers leading edge new features such as sending MMS pictures over the 2G/3G mobile phone network to your phone or email account. It also has a remote control command set using SMS text messaging so that you can request immediate snapshots or reconfigure your settings.

All in all, a great set of features, but no good for my research. I have to first say that it was a bit of a pain to set up for mobile networking. I bought a rolling monthly SIM contract from Vodafone and eventually got it sending pictures to my gmail account and mobile phone. I set it up and left it for a few months.

So, I was regularly getting pictures from the camera as events such as birds and waves triggered the detection software in the camera. I must admit I felt a sense of satisfaction being able to conduct monster hunting from wherever I was located in Edinburgh. Also, the occasional SMS message would automatically send me a view of the loch at that time.

However, the problem began when the camera began to send multiple images from sun glare. This was not an issue in and of itself but it became clear that the act of sending an image across the network was a bigger drain on battery power than simply saving the image to a file on the SD card. Within six weeks, the camera shut down! This was despite running on twelve AA batteries.

I retrieved the camera and took it back home. On further thought, I realised this was not going to improve in the autumn and winter months as sun glare would be replaced by continual shots of heightened wave activity. So I will sell the camera and replace it with two or three simpler SD card cameras. We live and learn.

Meantime, the other usual experiments continued. Infrared recordings of the loch at night, the car dashcam recordings and beach searches. There is nothing to report there on the monster front (though I am still reviewing the night videos). Even though technology has improved and cheapened immensely, the monster hunter of today has the same problem as the monster hunter of old - a creature that rarely breaks the surface is not beholden to any such technology.

However, Loch Ness continues to bring up other interesting images. Firstly, one wonders how tourists manage to forget things so easily?

Walking along one of the beaches on the south side of Loch Ness, we came across this bivouac pictured below. We wondered if someone was down on their luck or was at the loch without a tent. The owner was nowhere to be seen and there was no sign of food  - just an empty bottle of whisky.

Beside it was a bottle filled with small stones with a plastic bag below. Presumably this was an improvised rainwater collection system. I left wondering what the purpose of that person's visit was and whether they had any tales to tell of their lonely nights sleeping on the shores of Loch Ness.

But it was not all negatives from the downpour. A visit to the Falls of Foyers presented a raging torrent which I had not witnessed before.

That video clip was taken from the upper viewing area beside the waterfall. However, attempting a shot from the lower area proved impossible as the spray being thrown up threatened to drench us quickly. A quick retreat from that spot was the best tactic. Below is a clip of the nearby River Farigaig in spate also providing an impressive display.

But this particular trip was not all about Loch Ness. On the suggestion of Doug, a blog regular, I took a detour to Loch Morar on the way home. Doug had not long been back from Loch Ness and Morar and felt that this was a loch that has not been as watched as it should be. Indeed, I read that Adrian Shine thought there was a better chance of a large creature in Loch Morar than Loch Ness.

I have to confess that I have never been to Loch Morar in my long time here in Scotland, so it was finally time to remedy that omission. The main purpose of the trip was to install another trap camera as I had to get back home the same day. The loch is quite a contrast to Loch Ness and its tourist noise. At Loch Morar, it was a quiet single track road along the north of the loch with not much in the way of activity at all.

Having installed the camera, I visited the site of the Mhorag sighting I wrote on a while back. The video clip below is a quick survey of the area where the creature allegedly lumbered over a sandbar before disappearing into the loch.

So, as the tourist season winds down for another year and cryptozoological interests are pursued from home, it is hoped those silent trap cameras will snap something that doesn't quite look normal.

Tim Dinsdale's Operations Newsletters

Tim Dinsdale spent over 25 years in his quest for the Loch Ness Monster. They were exciting times, frustrating times and challenging times, but something drove him on for a quarter of a century. That something was the prospect of another glimpse of that thing that had seized his attention long before in April 1960.

He wrote occasional books, magazine articles and gave lectures, but he also kept Nessie people up to date on his activities via his Operations Newsletters. I have some of these from 1973 to 1977 and have now put them up for public viewing on my Google Drive. Most of them were sent alongside Rip Hepple's Nessletter but the 1977 one was sent to me by regular reader, Brad. 

That one is particularly fascinating as it was owned by that other monster pursuer, Roy Mackal, whose collection is up for sale. Brad had bought Mackal's copy of Dinsdale's "Leviathans" and the newsletter was found between its pages. 

I am sure there are other newsletters and similar items published by Tim. If anyone cares to provide scans of these, I will add them to this archive.

The newsletters can be found at this link.

Nessie says "No!"

Scotland's most famous citizen (not Alex Salmond) says "No". Mind you, forming a "Yes" would be an interesting proposition. Good on yer, Nessie! It is easier to believe the Loch Ness Monster exists than the promises of the "Yes" camp as far as I am concerned.

Exclusive from Loch Ness here.

Two Forthcoming Lectures on the Loch Ness Monster

I would like to publicise two talks on Nessie which are coming over the next two months. 

The first is part of the Scottish Paranormal Festival which runs in Stirling, Scotland from the 30th October to the 2nd of November. The talk is by our old associate Jonathan Bright who took that controversial picture of what may be the Loch Ness Monster which was analysed on this blog. My own take is that this is the creature. Other have differed and think it is a wave, but I beg to differ.

Jonathan will be giving his views on how the Loch Ness Monster could be viewed as a paranormal phenomenon as well as looking back at his photo and some other items. The talk is at 10am on the 31st October and you can find further details here. Click through to the other talks at the Festival, you may find other things of interest to you.

The second talk is on the 11th November at 7:30pm in which Charles Paxton gives the Edinburgh Fortean Society an update on his statistical analysis of Loch Ness Monster reports. Charles has been working on a project to perform an in-depth analysis of all the monster reports he could find going back to centuries past.

I have had access to this database and it is quite comprehensive and Charles has some results to share from it (though not all of them). I suspect there may be something for both the pro- and anti-monster groups, but we shall see. Charles hopes to publish some more detailed papers in the months ahead. Check out the website of the EFS for updates.

I hope to be at both meetings, so it would be nice to meet up with any regulars (even sceptical ones!) who make it to these events.

 

The Scots, The English and Nessie

So, in nine days the voters of Scotland decide whether to stay in or opt out of the United Kingdom. The main arguments will revolve around currency, tax, oil and so on. It is not likely that Nessie will figure in the debate, which is no surprise but it should be remembered that the Loch Ness Monster is a top attraction in one of Scotland's major economic sectors - tourism.

Whether tourism will decline or rise as a result of independence is unknowable. But the whole debate made me look at who's who in the Loch Ness Mystery. As it turns out, the leading sceptics of the notion of a monster are all English. They are Adrian Shine, Tony Harmsworth and Dick Raynor (pictured below).

Though it has to be said that Tony on at least one occasion has tried to pass himself off as a Scotsman (below). Now, all this English Scepticism, is this a conspiracy against Scotland's Nessie? After all, they don't have any lake monsters in England. Why should Scotland have one if they don't? It's just not fair!

Conspiracy? I would say probably not (though I am now bracing myself for some fruity comments).

But if Scotland does gain independence, will Tony have to dust off that kilt for continual wear? Will Adrian have to dye his impressive beard a ginger colour? Will Dick have to stand in front of the mirror practising his Och Aye The Noos in as guttural tones as he can muster? I would say probably not.

Then again, perhaps all three will be fleeing across the border the day after independence is announced? I would say probably not. But it is all not doom and gloom. After all, our own Steve Feltham is English too and a believer in Nessie. He can be an honorary Scot anytime.

But to be fair, you don't have to be English to be a sceptic. Nessie has had her most able defenders from south of Hadrian's Wall. The roll of honour includes Rupert T. Gould, Tim Dinsdale, Ted Holiday, Alastair Boyd, Paul Harrison and Richard Carter (though one can never be quite certain of every birth country).

So, with there being ten Englishmen for every Scotsman, it is no surprise they have invaded Loch Ness. But where are the Nessie loving Scotsmen? Who has stepped up to the plate for home grown research and hunting in times past?

Well, there was dear old Alex Campbell who stood up for the monster many a time. As a result of this, he has become the especial target of the sceptics. But that is another article in its own right. Constance Whyte, who wrote "More Than A Legend" is an uncertainty. I don't know if she was a Scot. The aforementioned Alastair Boyd has a Scottish sounding name, who knows?

All in all, a meagre harvest as Scots have stood back and let the English dismantle their monster. Come on, lads! We can do better than that. Will independence send the English sceptics homewards tae think again and spawn a new generation of Scottish monster hunters? I would say probably not, but who knows.

And should any English sceptic take this article seriously? I would say probably not. After all, they don't take anything else this blog says seriously.