Loch Ness Monster Filmed from Air?

A reader of my blog just drew my attention to a comment made by a "William Smith" some months back on a Nessie video clip. What he said sounds astounding but I myself have no recollection of such a TV event back in 1981. To quote his words:

I was in the US Air Force in England circa 1981. The BBC used to broadcast the news at 9pm. They would always run a teaser just before 9 at the end of whatever program that was on before that. We lived in a dorm on base and there'd always be TV's on while we did whatever we were doing. One night, there were 4 or 5 people in my room and the TV was on.

It was also on in our dayroom, which was a communal relaxing room on the floor. ANYWAY,,,,,the teaser for the news came on. It totally blew us away. There in front of us on the TV was footage,,,,not video,,but film,,,taken from inside an RAF helicopter over a shallow area of Loch Ness. The guys in the copter were yelling and the camera was pointing below them. You could see the wash from the propeller on the water and in the middle of it was a creature. It looked like a small dinosaur,,,it had four flippers, a long neck and a somewhat short tail. It was thrashing about in a panic under the helicopter. The footage was real. They didn't have CGI back then, the inside of the copter was real,,,the men were yelling, the noise was loud,,,and the scene on the water was real.

The announcer was saying something to the effect that the RAF had found Nessie and details would follow at 9. Of course we all freaked out. We watched at 9 and absolutely nothing was said. We were completely perplexed. Many people saw the clip,,,I know of at least two of my superiors who contacted the BBC and the RAF and no one seemed to know anything.

We'd all seen it. I met locals who saw it as well. There was no internet then,,,no phones to text with,,,,so word couldn't get around like we can do today. I talked to people about it for weeks and many people saw it. The story faded away and one can only wonder what the hell happened. But for me,,,,the creature,,whatever it is, exists.

By some coincidence, a seperate facebook post from yesterday stated this:

I have not been able to find it again but I saw a video a few years ago taken from a helicopter hovering over Loch Ness and a sturgeon, from 20-25 feet long, was just under the surface of the water. Parts of its back were above the water. It is a perfect candidate (use Occam's Razor) for the Loch Ness "monster." It settled the matter for me.

It sounds like they are referring to the same video but with a differing interpretation. But anything 20-25 feet long filmed in the loch is a must see, sturgeon or not. So there are two questions here. Does anyone remember seeing this alleged clip back then and if it really was recorded, where is it now and why was it pulled?

Let's see how far we can go with this and see what turns up. I blogged on some airborne sightings a few months back.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

 

No, Dr Burton!

For your interest, I publish yet another article on the Loch Ness Monster from decades past. This one was published in May 1962 by The Scots Magazine and the author was no less than Alex Campbell, water bailiff at Loch Ness, multiple witness to the creature and an expert on the lore of the monster.

The title is a pointed reply to the writings of the monster's first major sceptic, Maurice Burton. He had just published the first sceptical book on the subject entitled "The Elusive Monster" and was active in pushing his views in various publications. It was Burton's predilection for vegetable mats that particularly drew Campbell's objections and to which he relates his own experience.

Campbell covers other topics such as pre-1933 reports which later made their way into Nicholas Witchell's 1974 "The Loch Ness Story". Giant eels also get a mention as well as a night time sighting from 1938. I am not sure if Campbell wrote any other magazine articles, if so let me know.

Depending on your browser, click on each image below to expand it and also expand it further by right clicking to "view image" on Firefox or "control-+" to zoom in for MS Edge.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Who is Mickey Weatherly?

I now quote an article from the Adventure Club of Europe.



This letter from Mickey Weatherly was written in 1940, but was handed over to the members of the Adventure Club of Europe in 1994.

Dear friends and colleagues of the ACE,

I would like to apologize to you all with all my heart. When you will get this letter, then my secret is probably somehow betrayed. Yes, I falsified the photograph of the creature in Loch Ness. But, to my soul, I would like to say heartily that I have personally seen this being and proved its existence. In 1932 the great goal of my life was fulfilled, I found the evidence of a being in Loch Ness. I had risked my life there several times in dives since the difficult tectonics under water, the sharp-edged stone slabs and an opaque arrangement of caves make the superficially quiet lake a subterranean labyrinth.

Loch Ness is dark waters and I meant not only the color. The lake holds a secret. It is deep, gloomy, and unyielding, like the sea itself. I don’t have to tell you how much this mystery kept pushing me into the highlands of Scotland, is it not an incentive for all of us to curb these secrets of the world? On one of my dives on 21.08.1932 a white plate shone through the dirty, gloomy water. I tried to grab this plate, but it was heavy, very firm and unusually furrowed. Nevertheless, I could grab it, and from the entanglement of mud, algae and the tribulation of the lake a huge egg-shell appeared. Yes, my dear colleagues, a bowl of ice about 1 meter long.

I noticed how the wave movements in the water grew stronger, as the pressure changed, and in the cloudy a still more turbid being swam towards me. I swear to God, I looked the dam straight into the eyes. My lungs were filling with water, dirty, muddy water. I wanted to spit. On a sharp edge my air hose had blended. I would not give this egg for my life, but I had to get to the surface. The wave movements made the orientation difficult for me, and the egg shell I held were pushed repeatedly, as if this Loch Ness creature would want to prevent the proof of its existence at all costs.

I lost consciousness when I saw the sunbeams of Scotland in front of my eyes. When I woke up and was still alive, I also had the egg next to me. Heureka! But my euphoria was suddenly quenched by the reactions from the presumed research. But what kind of researchers are these, what servants of the truth are they, who accused me of lying? They claimed that my lack of oxygen had dampened my senses, that my craving for attention had invented the piece of evidence, and that my relic, the egg, whose battle I had almost lost my life for, was a simple stone showing its age.

I went for diving several times at the place where I found the egg, but could never again look into the dark eyes of the Loch Ness. This disgrace, this disappointment and then this rage. They drove me to this. Yes, I displayed the photo some months later and today I feel ashamed about it. But at that time, I wanted to give the research, what they returned to me only with mockery. It would give me some peace of mind, if Nessi’s egg, would get exposed at an exhibition venue here in the Adventure Club of Europe, where it would be taken more seriously by real adventurers.

Your ACE friend,

Mickey Weatherly

Quite a story you may think albeit with various errors. Just in case you think we have a Nessie egg in a similar fashion to "The Water Horse" film, it is all just a fiction. The Adventure Club of Europe is a new addition to a German theme park, so you can go along and see the egg for yourself if you are nearby.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Two Nessie Talks

Firstly, I had a telephone interview with Richard Syrett of the website "Conspiracy Unlimited". You can click on this link to hear our chat on the Loch Ness Monster which covers a range of topics over about half and hour.

Meantime, I am also pencilled in for yet another talk at the Edinburgh Fortean Society on Tuesday July 10th of which details can be had here. I will be looking back on the year past with an emphasis on a few subjects of recent note such as the eDNA search.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

A Loch Ness Monster Article from 1967

I have an old copy of the Readers Digest dated February 1967 in my possession which carries an article on the search for the Loch Ness Monster entitled "Closing In on the Loch Ness Monster" authored by a David Scott. The article is actually based on an earlier article dated November 1966 from the journal "Popular Science" of whom David Scott was the European Editor.

You can find that original article here, and it is interesting to see an article on the creature embedded amongst other features on space exploration, car technology, practical devices and electronics. Back then the Loch Ness Monster had more respect amongst scientific thinkers, partly driven by such items as the Dinsdale film, the O'Connor photograph and the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau.

The JARIC report on the Dinsdale film had been published earlier in 1966 and this seems to have also added grist to the mill as people began to focus more on the mystery of Loch Ness.  The optimistic title of the article laid out the various tactics and technologies that were in use and hoped to be used in what was seen as the final and definitive search for the monster.

To be more precise, it was the first and inconclusive search for the monster. Sure, we had people scanning the loch in the early 1930s and there was the brief Mountain Expedition, but nobody had seriously undertaken any kind of search as advocated by the likes of Donald Munro in the 1930s.

Then came the Whyte book, "More Than A Legend", the Dinsdale film and things began to gather pace with the formation of the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau in 1962. They had been at the loch for four years when David Scott visited them, but still no film or photograph of any substance had been produced.

The article images follow below and you can click on them for enlarged views, but what of that oft used phrase connected with the LNIB that the more the loch was watched, the less the monster was seen? Yes, people outside of the LNIB continued to see the creature, but nothing came within range for the LNIB. This is seen as a disproof of the monster's existence or is it?

I say that because despite this being one of the biggest undertakings of the hunt, there is surprisingly little written in retrospect about the operations of the LNIB that allows one to evaluate the sum of the parts. We have various members of the organisation still alive and around today, but nobody has seen fit to write a detailed history of the organisation - warts and all.

Rip Hepple would occasionally refer to the workings of the group in his Nessletters, others incidentally referred to its operations such as Ted Holiday in his book, "The Great Orm of Loch Ness", so what we do have are some annual reports published by the Bureau which were sent to members far and wide. Someday we'll get greater clarity on the "eyes on the loch" in those days, in the meantime, enjoy an article from more optimistic times.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

An Unsettling Incident from Loch Ness

It was back in February that I gave a talk on the monster to the SSPR, a society founded by Glasgow University's Emeritus Professor of Astronomy, Archie Roy. Coincidentally, he taught me the mathematical delights of Celestial Mechanics many moons ago.  After the talk, I made my acquaintance with Sandy, a monster believer for years and one with a story to tell. He recounted his experience to me and was happy to email it to me for general dissemination. Without further ado, I present his story here.

My wife and I were staying at a B&B in Dores (The Pottery House) for the weekend in mid October 2010. I arranged to borrow a local residents canoe and, after a late start, we set off in perfectly calm weather to paddle a straight line from Dores village to Urquhart Bay. We have our own canoe in Glasgow so are quite experienced and the kind donor gave us life jackets etc.

We reached Urquhart Bay about 3:00pm and stopped for a rest and lunch. After exploring the area around the mouth of the river Enrick we decided to head back. At this point I realised that it would be dark before we reached our destination but, since the weather was perfect with hardly any breeze, we set off. 

It was a little cloudy but after we reached the middle of the loch it began raining and the sun had set. We carried on with me in the rear of the canoe and my wife in front. The rain stopped and the clouds broke up a bit. You could see the reflections of them in the water and it was quite beautiful.

About half way back I noticed a lighter patch in the water which I took for cloud reflection. My wife had stopped paddling to tell me about a difficult incident she had experienced in the past and was mid-story when I saw the light patch. We were passing close by the light patch soon after I spotted it. 

When I realised it was a fairly large thing right at the surface I was absolutely petrified; we were half a mile from the shore in the dark, slowly passing a large strange object in Loch Ness. I paddled like mad trying to get past it and away but it was too late to do anything but go right by it with only a couple of meters between it and the canoe. 

It was pale creamy white, round or oval in shape, domed, about 4 metres across and lying motionless right at the surface. It looked like a king size duvet without a cover seemingly with patches or stains and with an irregular edge that vanished into out of sight beneath the surface. It hardly broke the surface at all but just affected the water immediately above it, as though it was only submerged about 2cm.

It didn't move as we shot past as fast as possible and continued going as quickly as I could paddle so that my muscles were sore for days afterwards! I couldn't tell my wife as her story telling was the only thing keeping me going. As soon as we got back to dry land an hour or more later I told her about it.

Since Sandy is an accomplished artist, I asked him for a sketch of what he saw. I have no answer yet from him and so I publish the verbal account and may republish with the drawing as and when. Now, if only I had my quadcopter drone hovering over that scene! It would have provided some very nice footage that may have helped explain what Sandy saw.

There may be alternate explanations and doubtless people may suggest things such as algae bloom (in an oligotrophic lake?), mass suspension of pollen, floating garbage and so on. Though to me it sounds like Sandy was convinced it was more like something he did not want to go and explore. Having said that, a pale, creamy white Nessie is off the beaten track. I checked the record and perhaps five reports over 85 years could be described as some shade of white.

I include in that list the Hugh Gray and Richard Preston photographs, the latter being more suspect that the former. How would one explain a pale Nessie? Undoubtedly species change their colour according to age, season, situation and so on. How would the species known as the Loch Ness Monster fit into that list? Five reports is not enough to detect a meaningful pattern over such a long time span and so we will just have to leave this one to the vicissitudes of speculation.

I put one of Sandy's drawings at the top of the article to demonstrate an extreme example of what an unsettling incident at Loch Ness would look like. Here is some more of his artwork below.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Another Land Sighting from Days of Yore

It was while I was finishing off an article on the Alfred Cruickshank land sighting, I was reminded by someone of another such story related by Mr. Cruickshank himself. It comes from Nicholas Witchell's book, "The Loch Ness Story", and it comes after he finishes relating the Cruickshank case with this brief note about another possible land sighting:

Mr Cruickshank also recalled that towards the end of the 1920s, he spoke to a girl working in a baker's shop in Fort Augustus who told him that she had once seen a large animal hauled up onto a beach near Fort Augustus. "She said that she was coming down the hill east of the village on her bicycle when she saw a big animal lying on the beach below her. She was so frightened she jumped off her bicycle and ran the rest of the way home."

Now when I read this again, I was reminded of the Margaret Munro land sighting of 1934, for this short account surely happened on the same beach as her famous account. The girl is described as cycling downhill east of Fort Augustus when the creature came into view. Now where the creature may have been in this story is a matter of some speculation, but a guess will be made.

Certainly, until recently, as you drove down the B862 road to Fort Augustus, Borlum Bay did not come into view until you were nearly at the bottom of the hill. The trees covering the hill prohibited an earlier view, but recent forestry work has cleared the trees to bring us a magnificent view of the loch.

As to the state of this treeline in the late 1920s, I am not sure and so we will assume the bay only came into view for her near the bottom of the hill. Now, I am just looking at this from the point of view of how people react to traumatising situations, but I doubt I would be dismounting a bike and running until such an unsettling sight was behind me rather than before me.

Also, as I explained in my Munro article, most of the beach would not be visible from the road level as it flattened out from the hill. So, I would suggest the creature came into view when she was higher up, just as the bay below came into view and just before the road levelled off. In that light, I place a "B" at the point where she claimed to have seen it and I place an "A" where I think the Munro creature was.

People can feel free to speculate, but the stretch of beach upon which this creature is said to have been on is shown below.

One can imagine Alfred Cruickshank, having been shocked by the sight of that strange creature crossing the road in front of him in 1923, becoming interested in anything anyone else had to say about strange creatures about the loch. With perhaps a combined sense of reticence but also a great curiosity to learn more, he may have asked the locals to keep him informed of events. And when this girl came forward with her tale, it would have naturally resonated with Alfred and stuck in his mind until interviewed by Nicholas Witchell in the 1970s.

It was a pity the story was not followed up as the girl may well have still been in the area by the time Witchell spoke to Cruickshank in the early 1970s, being (I suppose) in her 60s. But then again, going by my own experience and without a name, such investigations can often just run into dead ends.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com