The Peter O' Connor Photograph (Part IV)

THE OBJECTIONS CONTINUE

Having taken a rest from the previous three articles on this intriguing photograph, I now consider some other objections to its authenticity. The first is taken from Maurice Burton's 1961 sceptical work, "The Elusive Monster" and makes the claim that the light configuration in the picture suggests a camera elevation of twelve feet (about 4 metres) rather than O'Connor's two feet. He also claimed that the object was no more than 15 feet away (New Scientist, January 1969). He added the further thoughts that the photograph showed the object was in water less than a foot deep with the object itself no more than three foot across.

Now Burton states these numbers but makes no attempt to demonstrate how he came to them. No maths, no diagrams, no nothing. It seems we just have to take him on trust in this matter. As it turns out, Burton had been relying on someone else to do the maths and that person was a Neave Parker, former RAF photographic analyst turned wildlife artist. In fact, Parker was an accomplished monster artist as the drawing below shows. Going by this, perhaps Parker had a mutual interest in goings on at Loch Ness?

So, as things stand, what Burton says here should not be accepted unless the maths and the assumptions made in the calculations are brought to light and can be verified by independent parties. Enquiries made to Loch Ness researchers who had made contact with Burton in the past managed to reveal the name of Neave Parker, but nothing else as regards calculations.

But taking these numbers at face value raises one or two issues. A calculated camera elevation of twelve feet is hard to envisage from a visit to the site where the photograph was taken. Assuming the foot to eye distance was about five feet, that leaves seven feet of height unaccounted for. There were some raised areas along the beach such as the one mentioned before where I found the circularly arranged stones, but I would not give that much more than three feet above the usual beach level.

The only two options I could think of was either to fall back to the wooded area as the hillside begins to rise to the road or climb up one of the occasional trees that grow out of the shingle. The problem with the first scenario is that being so far from the shoreline would undoubtedly bring the beach into the foreground of the picture. But why would a hoaxer even step back that far?

Concerning the second scenario, a typical picture of the trees along that beach is shown above. One could conceivably climb seven feet up a tree to take the picture, but that makes no sense either.  Apart from introducing an unstable photographic environment as the tree groans under ones weight, it also risks injury as such trees are rather thin trunked. To that one could add the foliage interrupting the field of view as it sways between you and the loch. But again what advantage is gained from taking such a picture seven feet up in a tree as opposed to the safe terrain of the beach?

As a consequence, I suggest the numbers stated by Burton make no sense from a practical point of view and so we move on to another objection.

MORE PHOTOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS

The following objection to the photo was posted as a comment at the end of one of the other O'Connor articles I published.

The distortion of the circular ripples emanating from the left of the image can be calculated by extending these into an ellipse on a graphics package and dividing the short axis by the long to give the cosine of the angle at which they were viewed. This turns out to be somewhere between 62 and 65 degrees (the reproduction of the photograph is distorted such that it no longer conforms to the original aspect ratio of the negative, although this is only by a few percent.) 

Should the object be at the claimed distance of 75 feet, then the camera would have to be 35feet above the water level to account for the geometry of the ripples.

In summary, the equipment used could not have produced a flash exposure of a subject (whatever that subject indeed was) at the distance claimed, but instead the picture should have shown the subject and it's surroundings lit mainly by ambient (sun) light.

Also, the distortion of the ripples in the picture suggest that it could not have been taken under the claimed conditions, that is, at the distances claimed.

I would point out that the statement "the claimed distance of 75 feet" is not quite accurate as O'Connor told Tim Dinsdale he was "within 25 yards of the creature". Needless to say, "within" is not the same as "at" and estimating the distance of an object without a frame of reference in low light can lead to errors. As we focus on the commenter's ripple calculations, I have four problems with this interpretation of the photograph.

First, the calculation does not make sense. If the stated angle of viewing was indeed 62-65 degrees, then the height of the observer to an object 75 feet away would have to be 160 feet and not the stated 35 feet. However, to give him the benefit of the doubt, he may be referring to the angle between the hypotenuse and the height of the observer, in which case the viewing angle is 25-28 degrees which agrees with the commenter's alleged 35 feet height. But if the commenter really did suggest 62-65 degrees, there is a contradiction in his analysis.

Secondly, there is the assumption that the ripples in the picture will be circular. That is an essential requirement to calculate the angle of incidence. However, these waves are coming into the shore and that means they will suffer from the effects of refraction. That is, the part of the wave nearest the shore will slow down in relation to the rest of the wave and this is going to result in the overall arc distorting and becoming non-circular. This has not been taken into account.

Thirdly, there is a lot of perspective leading to foreshortening in this picture considering how close the subject matter is. That will again distort the apparent elliptical shape of the wave. This also has not been taken into account.

Fourthly, an angle of incidence of 62-65 degrees is calculated. But just where exactly does this point of incidence occur in the photograph? The arc used to calculate the angle takes up half the height of the photo (or more depending which arc is chosen). Since the angle of incidence from the camera decreases as an object recedes from the camera position, then the angle of incidence of the object in question will be less than the angle of incidence of an imaginary object visible at the very bottom of the photo. The wave arc used is too big to give a precise answer. This also has not been taken into account.

The great thing about using mathematical equations such as these is that it gives ones analysis an air of authority and accuracy. However, equations are useless without numbers to plug into the input side of the equation. They are even more useless if the numbers plugged in are speculative assumptions rather accurate numbers.

On a final trigonometrical note, assuming our commenter meant 25-28 degrees, I note that when I apply Burton's 12 feet height and maximum 15 feet distance, I got a viewing angle of 38 degrees. When I attempted my own calculation of these ripples, I got 33 degrees (see picture below with an ellipse ratio = 106mm / 2x146mm = 0.363 gives 32.7 degrees). That is a 13 degree difference in calculations.

Did Neave Parker use the same ellipse calculation? If so, this looks just as much art as science. But one may say these calculations are way above what one would expect from O'Connor's account. If he was waist height in the water and was up to 75 feet away from the creature, that gives an angle of incidence of no less than 2.3 degree based on a water to camera height of three feet. Quite a difference, but my aforementioned objections to the objection makes it all look rather imprecise.

A WAKE BEFORE THE FUNERAL?

Now from this and my previous articles on this subject, you may have guessed that sceptics have been all over this photograph like a rash looking for anything that can give them a reason to dismiss it. Even the most obscure and tiny blobs of light or darkness are transformed into die cast objective facts that settle the case for those with a solution looking for a problem.

There was, however, one feature on the photo that seems to have evaded all their fine tooth combing and interpretations. I am referring to what looks like a bow wave emanating from the presumed neck of the creature. If you inspect the zoom in below, you will see two lines either side of the neck moving out from right to left of the picture. There is also a light area on the water under the head which I take to be the reflection of the head-neck from the flashlight and forms no part of what I interpret as a wake.

If that is the case, then it poses a problem for sceptical theories which all presume the object to be static. If the object is indeed moving, then some kind of bow wave should be visible either side of the neck and what we see here is perfectly consistent with that idea.

That thinness of the neck compared to a typical boat hull would suggest a less pronounced bow wave which is tighter to the creature's profile. Also, if O'Connor was also as low down in the water as he said, there would be a foreshortening effect visually drawing the two bow waves closer together. Which of these two factors  is most influential in the picture is not readily apparent. Indeed trying to analyse this theory by comparing similar animal wakes proved to be challenging. 

What I was trying to find was a creature in motion with the body followed by a gap and then the head-neck. Long necked water birds looked an obvious choice, but every image I found had no water gap between body and neck. Turtles fared no better while snakes gave you a water gap behind the "neck" but little in the way of body. Finally, the otter came to my rescue with this photo below.

So compare and contrast as best as one can between two creatures of very different genres. What I did notice was the lack of bow wave immediately to the side of the main body in either the otter or O'Connor picture. This appears to become more visible further to the back in the otter photo, but we do not have an image of the water to the left of the O'Connor creature's rear and so cannot confirm the main body bow wave is there.

Mind you, there are some creatures which swim with little in the way of bow waves as this slow moving crocodile demonstrates. It is to be noted O'Connor's creature was not described as moving at a fast clip when he describes it as moving "at a fast walking pace". The case for the object moving in the photo is stronger and has a thin lined wake pronounced the funeral for various sceptical theories?

There is another reason why I do not think the O'Connor object is stationary and that is shown in the montage below. If an object is stationary (like the island in the drawing) then incoming waves will diffract around it to create a mesh of constructively and destructively interfering waves.

The problem with the O'Connor photograph in this regard is that we only see waves coming in from the left. If, as is reasonably assumed, the loch waves were roughly heading towards O'Connor, then we ought to see diffraction occurring around the alleged stationary object and waves also bending in from the right to create some kind of discernible diffraction pattern.

I don't know about you, but I only see waves coming in from the left, which to me suggests again that this object is not stationary.

CONCLUSION

Quite why the various sceptical researchers have failed to comment on these features may seem a mystery, but it is not to me. One leading Nessie sceptic devotes a whole research paper to this picture and makes no mention of this bow wave or lack of diffraction pattern. Perhaps their negative bias towards the photograph blinded them to these and that is why you should always read the arguments on both sides if you are serious about coming to a conclusion.

Don't be fooled by researchers who are always putting down research by those who advocate the existence of such creatures. Indeed, such people may now tell us how they always knew of these features but quietly dismissed them as unimportant. In some cases, that may well have known about them, but I await comments from those who will try to say that not only is it not a bow wave, but it is not even a defensible position to take. Not only should there not be a diffraction pattern, but it would be idiotic to expect one.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

On the Track of Unknown Animals

I recently attended a lecture by cryptozoologist, Richard Freeman, on the matter of unknown or unexpected animals and his attempts to prove their existence. It was a great talk and covered various beasts such as the Orang Pendek, Thylacine, Almasty, Olgoi-Khorkhoi and others. What came across was his enthusiasm for the quest as he has undertaken various expeditions across the world under the aegis of the CFZ. That includes such far flung places as Sumatra, Tasmania and the Gobi Desert.

His stories about intolerable heat, parasites, dysentery and various other afflictions in the face of research made me think my excursions to Loch Ness were no more than a walk round the block in field research terms. So I take my hat off to him and wish him well in his endeavours as he continues in the tradition of Heuvelmans and Sanderson "on the track of unknown animals".

What also struck me was his disdain for zoologists whom he described in somewhat flowery language and the prejudice in which they hold people such as himself. Richard has a degree in zoology and continues in the tradition of the zoological explorers who tracked down the Mountain Gorilla, Okapi and Komodo Dragon. It seems the negative bias of such so-called learned people does not stop with the Loch Ness Monster.

Which is somewhat surprising as the search for the possibility of surviving hominids in the form of the Orang Pendek or even the less sensational survival of the well documented Thylacine is a degree of magnitude below so called relict plesiosaurs. The problem seems to lie partly in what he calls "armchair sceptics" who never once went into a jungle or across a desert. Sitting in their labs or standing in their lecture halls, they have assumed the world is largely explored and the likelihood of large animals being discovered is next to nothing.

Richard thinks he is "that close" to getting scientific evidence for his two favoured animals, the Orang Pendek and Thylacine. What he does not need is a group of "experts" carping from the sidelines and offering nothing in the way of encouragement. But one question did come to mind as I considered what he had said.

If, for example, the presence of the Thylacine is finally proven by live capture or carcass, what does that say about eyewitness evidence? The thylacine became extinct in 1936 when the last captive one died. Since then there have up to 4,000 claimed sightings of the creature along with inconclusive films and photographs.

However, like sightings and pictures of the Loch Ness Monster, the pronouncement from science is that the Thylacine does not exist. At this point, there is no carcass, live specimen or close up photographs to allow zoologists to move in that direction. However, if a Thylacine is eventually found, what does that say about zoology's assessment of the anecdotal evidence?

It means that a percentage of the eyewitnesses were indeed correct in what they claimed to have seen. It means that the misidentification-hoax theory used to explain these things away is flawed because it was a theory that always produced a negative conclusion as regards species existence.

For now, the misidentification-hoax theory stands relatively unscathed because no cryptid claims have been validated and so advocates of the theory can continue to claim it is the best theory. However, the arrival of a dead or living Thylacine will blow this theory out of the water and will have ripple effects for sceptical treatments of other cryptid phenomena, including the Loch Ness Monster. I will bet that proof of a thylacine will come before those for surviving hominids or aquatic monsters. When it does, critics of cryptozoology will be in for a rough examination.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

A Review of "The Loch Ness Mystery Reloaded" (Part II)

BINNS ON THE MACKAYS, SPICERS AND RUPERT T. GOULD

In the first chapter of his new book, Binns continues his retrospective on his previous book, "The Loch Ness Mystery Solved", by revisiting some old classic cases. The first is Aldie Mackay's report from 1933, generally regarded as the first sighting of the modern Nessie era. Binns rehashes some of the arguments he levelled against the Mackays in his 1983 book, finally concluding this witness had just seen a boat wake. Binns in both books does not answer the objection of how a long time resident who was an angler and familiar with the moods of the loch surface could be taken in by such a simple deception.

Despite Binns admitting he reads my blog, he makes no mention of my 2013 article on the Mackay sighting which takes him to task for errors in his analysis. This was a perfect opportunity for Binns to show how weak my arguments are, but no answer came. I could make some argument from silence, but I refrain as I will point out for effect later on in this article. However, Binns adds nothing new of substance to his previous book on this matter.

The Spicer case is equally dismissed on questionable grounds such as the fact that the witnesses were driving a car. Now why this should cast doubt upon the case is unclear, especially since they were driving towards the creature, not to the side and not away from it. What is worse is that, like the Mackays, the nebulous tool of "expectant attention", which can magic away many an inconvenient eyewitness testimony, is employed as Binns tries to convince us that George Spicer knew all  about the monster beforehand and this therefore prejudiced his judgement.

The theory of "expectant attention" is the idea that an observer's assessment of an observation such as bow waves, otters, etc is compromised by an expectation that the Loch Ness Monster needs to be included in the list of candidates. It is a theory that no one disputes has merit. What is under dispute is the application of it. In what circumstances should it be used? How can its use be judged when nothing is known about the witnesses' psychological state? How is it to be used, if at all, when we have a witness that has experience of the loch's various facades?

I do not recall any article by any Loch Ness sceptic on application guidelines. Rather, it appears to me that the theory of "expectant attention" is applied in a lazy and indiscriminate manner without any regard to the situation it is being applied to. I put it to the readers that this is the case here. Now I covered Binns' objections to the accuracy of the Spicers' account in a previous article, but since it was published after Binns' book, I do not expect to see a response in said book (if ever).

Binns does add a new complaint concerning changes to the original Spicer-Gould sketch in the books of Whyte, Dinsdale and Holiday. I had already pointed out this issue in my aforementioned Spicer article and took Whyte to task for it, but it clearly has no impact on the original sketch and account which should be taken as the primary source. As for Dinsdale and Holiday, apart from Dinsdale relocating Spicer's "flap" to be a tail tip, this matter looks very much to be in the eye of the beholder - be they sceptic or believer. To me it just looks like hand copying errors, to Binns it is one of his  overstated "important" things. 

Binns further takes Holiday and Dinsdale to task with the suggestion that they had a dodgy agenda missing things out in the Spicer case which again look wholly insubstantial to me. Yet how ironic that Binns decides to omit the subplot of William McCulloch who was a corroborating witness to the area of flattened undergrowth which "was as if a steamroller had been through". Dodgy agenda? Surely not.

For some reason, Binns changed his mind on George Spicer. He initially put him down as taken in by an otter but now he is fooled by some deer. The deer "huddle" argument is covered in my aforementioned article. Indeed, Binns was mainly covering old ground here. I could get most of this stuff from his 1983 book, so what was the point in these chapters?

BINNS ON GOULD

Now moving on, Ronald Binns devotes a chapter to Rupert T. Gould and, not surprisingly, the critique is designed to cast doubt upon the subject's integrity and ability. Binns makes certain accusations against Gould that are questionable. This latest book has given me renewed opportunity to analyse this form of argumentation and I would liken it to the traditional game of Jenga.

As you may know, Jenga is a game based upon a tower constructed from wooden blocks. Blocks are successively removed by players until the tower collapses. I would suggest the Binns argument against Gould is a Jenga tower doomed to topple. In fact, the Binns tower appears to be one constructed from easily challenged sub-arguments, the successive removal of each causes eventual collapse. The tower may look impressive in sum total, but the overall structure is not sound at the individual level. Let us look at each block in turn as they are then pulled from the tower.

BLOCK ONE

The first "block" is an accusation that Gould was a liar. Binns tells us that Gould was indulging in a fabrication when he said that he initially put down the first reports of monsters coming from the loch as something with a normal explanation. To quote Gould from his introduction in his book, "The Loch Ness Monster and Others":

In so far as I had any theory on the subject, I considered that the witnesses had probably seen, but failed to recognise, some well-known creature which, in some unexplained manner, had made its way into Loch Ness.

However, Binns does not accept this statement from Gould on the grounds that he had previously written a book in 1930 entitled "The Case for the Sea Serpent" which advocated the cryptozoological existence of sea serpents. Binns portrays Gould as a prejudiced researcher loaded with confirmation bias.

But where is the proof for such an accusation? There is none provided and the grounds for such an attack is merely based upon a line of reasoning that says, "Gould believed in sea serpents", "People were reporting sea serpent like creatures from Loch Ness", therefore Gould would have believed them to be sea serpent reports.

This makes no sense at all as a deduction and looks more like biased speculation. When I thought about this from my own point of view as a believer in aquatic cryptids,  I certainly do not jump on the next monster bandwagon whenever I hear about some report from a lake in some other country. Neither do I presume there must be a large, unidentified animal in a body of water just because a distant blob is snapped from someone's mobile phone camera.

Indeed, examining Gould's 1930 book, one is left wondering whether Binns had actually looked at it. I have a copy and so reviewed it in the light of Binns' accusation and what I found was a Gould who didn't swallow every sea serpent report that came his way.

In his introduction, Gould admits that "there were practical jokers who took a delight in hoaxing the public with stories of sea serpents". As to the matter of misidentifications, Gould refers to the previous work of Oudemans entitled "The Great Sea Serpent" and its 187 sea serpent cases. From these, Gould dismisses "at least half" on the grounds of insufficient evidence or more natural explanations. So much for the version of Gould that is desperate to see monsters everywhere.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that Gould did believe in sea serpents. But it does change the idea that he uncritically accepted claims for them from any old region of the world. The last word against this feeble accusation goes to Gould, who with keen prescience saw Binns coming when he said (pp.16-17):

Of course, if anyone chooses to assert that I went to Loch Ness with the intention (conscious or subconscious) of identifying the "monster" as a "sea-serpent," and points for confirmation to the fact that I have already committed a book about such creatures, and am an avowed believer in their existence, I have no means of disproving his assertion. But if I am any judge of what I think, and of how I form my convictions, I can - and I do - contradict it most emphatically. I retained my original theory - that some known creature had found its way into the Loch - so long as it appeared to fit the facts; I only discarded it under the compulsion of what I consider to be reliable and convincing evidence. 

It is to be noted that Binns decided not to quote this passage in his book.

BLOCK TWO

Binns move on from his whataboutery tactics by further accusing Gould of not consulting any sceptics at Loch Ness. This employs the decidedly weak approach of argumentum ex silentio since Gould does not explicitly state this to be the case. Indeed, Binns tries to wrestle Gould's words to imply he was out only to speak to believers. This is said to be the case when Gould stopped off in Edinburgh to confer with Scotsman journalist, P. G. Stalker.

Binns employs hyperbole by describing Stalker as "an ardent promulgator of the monster" and "second only to that of Alex Campbell". However, Binns cannot even get his basic facts right here as it was not Stalker, but his boss, J. W. Herries, who directed reporting of events at Loch Ness. Herries told Stalker to break off from reporting on Navy manoeuvres on the Moray Firth to find out what was going on at Loch Ness.

Consulting my copy of Herries' autobiography, "I Came, I Saw";  he makes this clear enough and  admits it was a bit of a risk putting such articles into the normally sober minded newspaper. However, the reaction of readers proved it to be the right decision and The Scotsman began a long association with the Monster of Loch Ness.  It is no surprise that Ronald Binns is not pleased with this "promulgation", after all, he does not believe there is anything unusual in Loch Ness. To deride the Scotsman newspaper for printing these eyewitness accounts says more about the derider than the derided.

Of course, Gould did not go to Edinburgh to be indoctrinated by "ardent promulgators". His chief mission was to examine the various articles to extract eyewitness information for his own research purposes later on at the loch. At that time, only Scottish newspapers were reporting with any consistency and detail on events at Loch Ness. Therefore, it is no surprise that Gould made his way to Edinburgh.

Did Gould only consort with "believers"? Well, Gould's book says he consulted with Mr. E. W. Porter, resident engineer of the Caledonian Canal on the waterways between Loch Ness and the sea. That doesn't sound like an exercise in confirmation bias. I guess that disproves Binns' accusation and it is clear from Gould's book that he quotes and examines the opinions of well known sceptics such as the zoologists Calman and Boulenger.

But Binns demands to known why Gould did not visit Captain John MacDonald. John MacDonald is one of the poster boys of Loch Ness Scepticism. Back in the early days of 1933, MacDonald wrote to the Inverness Courier as captain of one of the loch's steamers saying he had not seen anything unusual in his decades of navigating the loch. Binns rolled this man out in his 1983 book and does so again here.

Unfortunately, for someone who puts himself out as an accomplished researcher, Binns seems yet again unaware of an article of mine from 2011 in which MacDonald recants his scepticism with these words to the Daily Mail in 1934:

If so many reputable people say they have seen 'the beast' one inclines to the belief that there is something in it.

MacDonald says his daughter, Christina, saw the monster and I take her to be the Miss C. MacDonald who saw the creature in its single hump aspect on 22nd October 1933, and whom Gould interviewed for his book. Perhaps Gould met the captain while he interviewed his daughter? If so, I suspect John MacDonald was less than sceptical. So what other local sceptics should Mr. Gould have consulted? Perhaps Mr. Binns can name some more for us.

BLOCK THREE

Binns then takes Gould to task for eventually deciding that the Spicers had seen nothing more than a huddle of deer. Yes, that's right, Ronald even finds fault when somebody comes to, in his eyes, the correct conclusion. The basis for this argument is that if Gould had this"extraordinary volte face" on the Spicer case, it doesn't say much for his research techniques and therefore calls everything he did into question. Gould said this:

"Were I rewriting the book, I should have omitted this case. I think the Spicers saw a huddle of deer crossing the road. RTG".

Now Gould concluded his research for his book in the first half of 1934. I had contacted Jonathan Betts to get the original annotations of Gould's book and it turned out his Spicer recantation happened no later than November 1941, or about seven and a half years after his book. I suppose I must go out on a limb here and ask how changing ones mind on a single case seven years later calls into question ones entire methodology?

After all, Ronald Binns changed his mind on the same case when he went from an otter to a deer explanation. Does that call into question his investigative techniques? The answer is "no"; well, in this instance anyway. Gould does not explain why he changed his mind but one may presume he came across information he regarded as new data which was fed back into his assessment of the case. For Gould, it seems the data changed and not the method of investigation.

BLOCK FOUR

Binns then descends into more whataboutery by taking Gould to task for not contacting Hugh Gray or Kenneth Wilson about their headline grabbing photographs. It is not enough that Gould discusses the photographs in his book, but he must also show proof of interviewing them. The lack thereof is taken by Binns to again prove that Gould was not a thorough investigator.

This is another instance of Binns devising ways in which Gould should have gone about things and since he didn't, it is an easy win for Binns. But the correct deduction from the source material is not "Gould did not contact Wilson or Gray" but rather "We do not know if Gould contacted Wilson or Gray".  However, by setting up his straw man statement, Binns can proceed to fill the fact free void with less than neutral speculations for another Jenga block.

In the case of Kenneth Wilson, my counter balancing speculation is based a bit more on the facts. Wilson's role in faking the Surgeon's Photo was documented by Boyd and Martin in 1994. What comes across in their investigation was a picture of a man who was very reticent to talk about the picture and indeed give oblique hints that all was not what it appeared. In that light, it seems more unlikely than likely that Wilson would have granted Gould an interview (if anyone is aware of Wilson granting interviews to the media, let me know).

In the case of Hugh Gray, the two men were separated by over 500 miles. I have no idea if Gray had his own phone line and I am sure Gould would not have undertaken a special journey just to see him (note Gray's photo had not been published at the time of Gould's loch visit). If Gray was amenable to written correspondence, we will never know as such a thing is not stated either way.

 I would add that Gould comes across as not too enthusiastic about Gray's photo and employs words such as "vagueness" and "indefinite" to it. Having said that, he does accept it as a photograph of the creature. One also has to add that as a sea serpent investigator, Gould would have had next to no experience in critiquing such photographs. Indeed, I find no reference to such pictures in "The Case for the Sea Serpent" as such an item is even more rare than any of the Loch Ness Monster.

BLOCK FIVE

The final argument Binns employs against Gould seems to have some merit and that was Gould's use of sketches from his sea serpent book to help eyewitnesses in their description of what they had seen out on the loch. This appears like an attempt to influence witnesses in a certain direction. Unlike Binns' other assertions, we know this to be true because Gould said it in his book:

I must plead guilty to having taken a copy of the book North with me, and I must also confess that I occasionally showed it to a witness - but I made it my rule not to do so until after I had taken the statement, and to attach no weight to suggested modifications of this which I considered the book might possibly have inspired.

I used its illustrations as a means by which witnesses who could not draw might be able to indicate something to me which more or less resembled what they described; and I consider that this was a very natural proceeding. If, for example, I were an insurance official, going to interview a witness who had seen a car accident, but could not tell the make of the car, I should certainly take an illustrated catalogue of cars with me. And if for some reason (or prejudice), no such catalogue were available, I should certainly do my best to compile one of my own.

The Binns hyperbole machine goes into action as phrases such as "extraordinary admission" and "blatantly manipulative" are wheeled out to increase the impact of the argument. As the old preacher's notes used to say - "argument weak here, thump pulpit". Note that Binns does not include the first Gould paragraph above which lessens the alleged impact of the second paragraph.

However, Binns claims Gould used these sea serpent illustrations to "clarify some of his drawings" for his Nessie book. That is certainly not clear to me as I read the two paragraphs in toto. What is clear to me is that Gould did not allow any feedback from the sea serpent sketches to colour the statement from the witness. Neither is there any indication that these sketches formed any basis for any sketch that appeared in his Nessie book. In other words, this is another straw man argument and the pulling of the final block gives you this:

CONCLUSION

In the hierarchy of persuasive arguments, there are empirical facts, deductions and finally speculations. What Binns has done to Rupert Gould lies at the far end of the "speculation" spectrum. The fact that Binns employs some ready made binnsisms* to dress them up in the language of empiricism should not fool anyone.

Since I undertook to review this book, I have found so many errors, exaggerations and weak logic it would be a herculean task to enumerate and dismiss all of them. But I have better things to do with my time, such as finishing off my own new book. So, I will do one more review and that is Binns' critique of my own previous work, "The Water Horses of Loch Ness". In the meantime, take it from this and the previous article that this is a book that continues the ignoble tradition of "slasher" scepticism.


* Binnsism (n.) A psychological tactic derived from politics in which the weakness of an argument is obscured by the use of hyperbolic language.

Still Fancy a Move to Loch Ness?

On the back of my recent article about retiring to Loch Ness, a reader emailed to inform me that his house was up for sale in Drumnadrochit. You can get all the details here. Of course, you may ask, having spoke of the attractions of living by Loch Ness, why this person is leaving. He has told me in his own words with a summary of his time at the town and loch.

AFTER TEN years of living the dream, we have decided to leave our Loch Ness-side village and return to our south England roots. Why? Because every single one of our family lives down there, and we don’t want our young daughters growing up without knowing them. And we miss them ourselves.

 

Drumnadrochit, some 14 miles south of Inverness, is the traditional centre of all things Nessie. It hosts the two major exhibitions – the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition, and Nessieland – and boasts gift shops and places to eat. But it is much more than a tourist centre. There is a Primary School and a High School (both well-regarded), a childcare centre, an after-school club, a community centre where senior citizens get together and enjoy good food, a library… essentially, everything a good village should have, and more.

 

Some people have sincerely-held doubts about living here. Well, speaking from a decade of experience, I can only say that we have led an enjoyable, trouble-free life here, and would probably continue to do if our family had joined us. Tourists? Not a problem. Yes, they visit Drumnadrochit during the summer, but it never results in Oxford Street-like crowding, and their presence here is always welcomed. 

 

Road conditions? I have yet to fall foul of wintry roads, and the gritters and ploughs do a fine job. Snow? Yes, we sometimes get a fall of the white stuff, but it is part of the allure of the Highlands – when the snow settles, there is no more beautiful sight in the world. We were awestruck when snow fell one Christmas Eve; gorgeous and uplifting. And when the snow does come, children and adults alike can be seen sledging on one of the many hillsides which are perfect for it.

 

Drumnadrochit is a small, friendly village. Many residents have lived here all their lives; others have moved away, only to return because they missed it so much; and those of us who arrive from England are made to feel part of what is a close-knit community. Indeed, there are many examples of people from England following their families to Drumnadrochit… and staying.

 

Then, of course, there is Loch Ness. You can see it from the top of our road. As can the sheep who inhabit the field. When conditions allow, you can walk to the shore and gaze in rapture at the breathtaking view of the Loch. It really is a magical feeling. And you hop in your car and take a short drive, there is any number of vantage points from which to admire the water.

 

Urquhart Castle is close to us. I wonder how many people have – as I did – stood in the very spot where the Surgeon’s Photo was taken and felt that delicious sense of history. I cannot count the number of times I have looked out upon Loch Ness and witnesses tantalising ripples in the water, wakes with no obvious origin, and distant shapes that have made me wonder… what if?

 

There is no feeling of isolation here. Buses stop at various points in the village (my partner has made numerous friends while travelling back and forwards to Inverness). And the nearby A82 provides an excellent link to the rest of the region.

 

Among our neighbours is Adrian Shine. A great man: charming and friendly. As is Nessie-Spotter Steve Feltham, who lives at Dores on the other side of the Loch. He recognises us now and always has time for a chat. We will miss all of the above, for sure. A lot. But we also miss our family, and the time has come to return home and be among them again.

 

We will certainly miss our bungalow. It’s detached, with a self-contained annex. This leaves scope for renting and/or holiday letting. There is serious money to be made for those who fancy it. You could live in the main bungalow and let out the annex; or vice-versa, as the previous residents did. Or just take over the entire building and wallow in the living space. Our Loch Ness adventure is approaching its end; a new one lies on the horizon. For anyone wanting to live the same dream, you could do no better than move here. It really is fantastic.

 

 

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

 

 

Wanted: Dead or Alive

It is the ultimate dream of any monster hunter, obtaining final and decisive proof that there is indeed a large and exotic beast in Loch Ness. But for others, the ambition has extended to capturing a specimen dead or alive to put the matter beyond even the doubt of the most ardent sceptic. Apart from the kudos such an achievement would bring, the other motivation is financial as various individuals and organisations over the years have offered rewards for such final proof. The recent news of yet another reward being put on the table brings the history of this side subject into relief.

The first we hear of such a reward was in 1934 when circus owner, Bertram Mills (above), offered a reward of £20,000 for the monster's capture. One presumes that on capture, the monster was to be handed over to Mills in exchange for the money. It is also pretty clear that Mills' motivation was entrepreneurial rather than scientific as one suspects he would immediately have put the creature in a huge tank of water (or the cage above) and embarked on a lucrative national tour in order to recoup his investment with interest. Quite what the scientific and secular authorities would have made of Mills making off with a gigantic new species is another matter. I doubt he would have got very far if they thought this was the scientific event of the century. As you may have guessed, Mr. Mills did not get his monster and had to make do with the one below.

Such stunts often go hand in hand with Nessie fever and so the next reward turned up in 1971 as interest in the monster was again mounting. This time round, whisky distillers, Cutty Sark, offered a generous one million pounds for the capture of the beast. Why a whisky manufacturer would get into this is probably to do with the increased probability of sighting the monster if their product was consumed in sufficient quantities. Be that as it may, they began to get cold feet when they heard about the various expeditions planned for the loch, including the Rines underwater expedition which was to enter the monster's own lair in pursuit of it.

As a precaution, they asked insurers Lloyds of London to underwrite the whole caper, but they refused on the grounds that it was an unquantifiable risk. When the newspapers got wind of this, Lloyds backpeddled and calculated the premium but also made some demands if they had to pay out. Namely that they got to keep the monster and that they would only pay out if the creature was in excess of twenty feet long and that the Natural History Museum would verify it as a genuine Loch Ness Monster. How the Natural History Museum went about verifying a genuine Loch Ness Monster is beyond me and though one can imagine what a circus could do with a twenty foot monster, the answer is not so clear for an insurance company.

Things then went quiet again until 2007 when a leading bookmakers firm, William Hill, offered another £1 million for verified proof of the monster's existence. This was to be again confirmed by the Natural History Museum but there is no mention of a capture and I doubt the Museum would accept anything other than a specimen, dead or alive. This stunt seems to have been cooked up in conjunction with the RockNess festival as the bookies also handed out 50,000 disposable cameras to attendees. I doubt one is going to get anything irrefutable on a throwaway camera.

But the rewards seem to have become a bit miserly in recent years as the organisers of the 2015 Loch Ness Marathon offered a mere £50,000 to any runner who managed to take a selfie with Nessie. Would any self-respecting monster hunter get out of bed for anything less than a million? Personally, I would be too busy looking at Nessie rather than having to turn my back on her for a pittance of fifty grand. Any selfies would have been submitted to a "panel of experts" for verification, but the Natural History Museum seems to have been frozen out of this one.

As an aside, I liked their comment "given the number of confirmed sightings of the Loch Ness Monster throughout history, participants are probably better off buying a lottery ticket" because I am not sure how many "confirmed" sightings there have been! Who does this "confirming" anyway? Perhaps yet another mysterious "panel of experts" which issues verdicts such as "duck", "log" or "boat" as the sightings come in but does give out the occasional "monster" verdict? Well, you get my point, every claimed sighting of the monster is disputed and none has ever received unanimity let alone a large majority.

This miserliness brings us to the present day as games developers, Capcom, joined forces with cryptozoologist, Jon Downes, to also offer £50,000 for "genuine evidence" for the monster. Once again, the reward is offered to garner publicity for a product, in this case their new monster video game. But this offer actually seems to be guaranteed an outcome as the winner will be announced in July. So it seems this is more a "best picture" scenario along the lines of the annual competition run by William Hill every year. However, the William Hill reward is only £1,000, I suspect there may be one or two "better than usual" pictures coming out from Loch Ness this summer as the temptation of grabbing fifty big ones proves too much! But having spoken about miserliness, in fairness, Capcom and the Loch Ness Marathon are not asking for the capture of the monster, so perhaps we can forgive their frugality.

Looking back on all these stunts, I would have thought Betram Mills' offer was the only genuine one amongst them as he had a clear interest in getting such a famous beast for his menagerie. But who is the winner from all these rewards? Mills' 84 year old offer of £20,000, adjusted for inflation, comes to a hefty £1,360,000, but the clear winner is Cutty Sark with a stupendous inflation adjusted figure of £13.4 million. Wow, no wonder there was so much monster hunting activity around Loch Ness in the 1970s!

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Retirement At Loch Ness?

There was a time when I had a monster hunter's dream and that was to one day retire to a house overlooking the shores of Loch Ness. The plan was simple enough. When my working days were over, I would downsize the three bedroom bungalow in Edinburgh for a cosier two bed affair on the southern shores of Loch Ness. But not any house would do, it had to have certain specifications. For one, it really did have to be beside Loch Ness and that excluded the main towns of Foyers and Dores. The little village of Inverfarigaig looked more promising, but a house that was that intimate with the loch is not so common.

Of course, it could not be that close to the loch else one bad stormy night could see the loch lapping at your back door. It some sense I felt like that old rascal, Aleister Crowley who scoured the same region with a specific tick list before he settled on Boleskine House! Once found and bought, I could settle into life servicing the various cameras and tests like some gardener tending his prize roses or some other utopian analogy.

So you see, I was formulating a plan until reality intruded. One of my older relatives would say how the "incomers" would come up for their first summer and be gone after their first winter. What that meant was the winters could be so bad that may wish you had never made the move in the first place. Allied to that was the very short days of sunlight just to make you that little bit more depressed as you tried to contemplate the beautiful snow laden scenes from your temporary prison.

I like to peruse the Loch Ness community facebook groups just to get the local news and views. If there is one subject that dominates such forums right now is the treacherous road conditions that prevail over a Highland winter. Such forums will have posts about this road being impassible and another being passable with care. People will also post for road reports before they attempt any travel.

Sure, the snow ploughs will (hopefully) come through after 9am and life is better if you can afford a 4x4 "chelsea tractor" and let's hope the snow isn't blown back onto the roads after the plough has done it work! Likewise, pray for an understanding boss in Inverness when you tell him you're blocked in again and won't be at work.

I guess those who made the effort to come up all the way from England will generally tough it out and think of those beautiful summers by way of compensation. As for me, I just wondered how folk who had retired cope with all this. Stuck in their houses and even more infirm on their feet on ice and snow. And if you have a sudden illness, how is that ambulance from Raigmore hospital going to get there? Do they have helicopters?

Oh well, perhaps it was best to retire to Loch Ness, but not that close. Perhaps Inverness, Nairn or Culloden? Only time will tell but for now I had a comical vision of Nessie gambolling on the snow choked roads, confident in the knowledge that no human can get near her by design or luck!

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Maurice Burton and Degrees of Scepticism

In the light of what I said in my previous article about sceptics, I refer you to the article below from the New Scientist, dated 22nd September 1960. It is by Maurice Burton and it depicts a man on a journey. Burton traced his involvement with the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster back to his young days at the Natural History Museum in the 1930s where we are told he considered the animal may be a giant eel. 

He says no more on that and reveals that after reading Constance Whyte's "More Than A Legend" in 1957, he became more inclined to the popular relict plesiosaur theory. During this time, Burton, as a zoologist, was often consulted and quoted on matters pertaining to the monster. Indeed, he offered advice to two people at that time - Tim Dinsdale and Peter O'Connor.

These two people proved to be instrumental in Burton taking the next step towards, not a new zoological identification of the creature, but a step away into the world of scepticism. Just a few months before two events happened in quick succession. Dinsdale's famous film was revealed to the world on the BBC Panorama TV programme and Peter O'Connor sensational photograph of a humped and long necked creature was published in the newspapers.

Burton had a choice, either continue is his role as the Loch Ness Monster Guru and analyse and confirm these images or step away from them. This was virtually decided when he made a week long trip to the loch to investigate the phenomenon in June 1960. Based on that trip, he decided Dinsdale's film was no more than a local boat and O'Connor's photo was a hoax.

The die was cast and Maurice Burton would soon become the hate figure for the growing Nessie movement in which Dinsdale would become the de facto leader through the 1960s and 1970s. Burton's article here promotes his favourite sceptical theories while the mention of large otters betrays a residual belief that disappear as he hardened himself against the opposition of the "believers".

Eventually that hardness gave way to indifference as he threw away all his research material and died in 1992. Doubtless, others have trod his path from belief to unbelief. I, for one, don't plan to tread that path.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com