An Inverness-shire Water Bull

In my previous blog about the angler on Loch Ness, it was pointed out to me that there was a water bull story just before it! Unfortunately, the loch is not stated as being Loch Ness but a body of water four miles by two. An inspection of an ordnance survey map may reveal some likely candidates but here is the story:

"In Inverness-shire there are many lovely lakes, and many an hour and day have I passed in fishing on some of these. There was one beautiful lake to which I used sometimes to take net and boat, as well as rod. It was a piece of water about four miles long, and one or two broad ; at one end were two sandy bays, forming regular semicircles, with their beaches covered to a width of a few feet with small pebbles. Between these two bays was a bold rocky promontory running into the lake, and covered with fine old pine trees. Along one side was a stretch of perhaps three miles of grey precipitous rocks nearly covered with birch and hazel, which hung over the water, casting a dark shade on it. The other end of the lake was contracted between the rocks till it was lost to the view, while on the remaining side was flat moorland.

Indeed, the hill side which sloped down to the lake had the name of being haunted, and the waters of the lake itself had their ghostly inhabitant in the shape of what the Highlanders called the water-bull. There was also a story of some strange mermaid-like monster being sometimes seen, having the appearance of a monstrous fish with long hair."

After a bit of grubbing around various maps, I think the most likely candidate for the loch is Loch Duntelchaig which is the biggest "satellite" loch around Loch Ness and lies about 3 miles south east of Dores. It seems it once (or still does) form some of the water supply to Inverness. On an older map the loch is named "Loch Dun Seilcheig". Curiously, "seilcheig" is the gaelic genitive singular form of "seilcheag" which means "snail" or "slug". So this loch would appear to be the "loch of the fort of the slug". There are the remains of an Iron Age fort nearby but we wonder what the word "slug" connates. Ted Holiday and other Nessie invertebrate theory fans would be pleased ....

Interesting Loch Ness story from 1846

Charles St. John in his 1846 book "Short sketches of the wild sports and natural history of the Highlands" had an interesting experience on Loch Ness:


"I was crossing Loch Ness alone one evening with my rod at the stern of the boat, with my trolling-tackle on it trailing behind. Suddenly it was seized by a large trout, and before I could do anything but take hold of my rod he had run out eighty yards of line, and bent my stiff trolling-rod like a willow, carrying half the rod under water. The loch was too deep for me, and he snapped the line in an instant, the rod and the twenty yards of line which remained jerking back into the air, and sending the water in a shower of spray around. Comparing the strength of this fish with that of others which I have killed when trolling, he must have been a perfect water-monster. Indeed I have little doubt that the immense depths of Loch Ness contain trout as large, if not larger, than are to be found in any other loch in Scotland."

Now I don't fish and I doubt Mr. St. John actually saw the brute he got a hold of if it had already spun out 80 yards of line in seconds. Note that if our intrepid angler had taken five seconds between hearing the line turn and grabbing it, then 80 yards in 5 seconds is an average speed of more than 30 miles per hour.

Clearly he was impressed enough with its strength and speed to class it as something beyond an ordinary trout - in fact he calls it a "water-monster" in Loch Ness!

Perhaps some anglers could enlighten me as to the strength required of a freshwater fish to treat a fishing line like this one. Pretty big would seem to be the answer ...

RockNess

In its continuing attempts to make visitors come to Loch Ness for reasons other than you know what, the local authorities have been supporting the RockNess music festival for the last five years and it continues to grow in popularity.

There is normally something Nessie related and this time we have the mini submarine being rolled out for some monster hunting. No doubt there will also be a good chance that someone high on alcohol or drugs may see something unusual in the waters.

However, some sightings of the monster suggest that the creature is sensitive to noise. Someone shouts, the creature submerges. A car door slams, it's gone. RockNess is reasonably out of the way in the Aldourie Castle area but it seems certain that Nessie will be steering clear of the cacophany.

The BBC Gaelic channel BBC Alba will be showing highlights from the festival tonight so may be worth checking out for any monster related items.

Loch Ness Monster Revisionism

There is a trend I see today in Loch Ness Monster research and perhaps cryptozoology in general that I can only describe as harmful to future research. I describe it as a form of revisionism in which the original raw data is subject to additions and deletions all in the name of said research. Let me state the obvious, raw data is of vital importance and to subject it to unwarranted change is to be avoided at all costs.

I have witnessed this in various forms across the board and there is no one single person particularly guilty. It just seems to have become the accepted norm that the data can be revised as if it was incomplete. The problems arise however when the data is being arbitrarily altered to fit current theories rather than because other raw data or the internal evidence demands it. Let me give two theoretical examples where the two opposing approaches are used.

Firstly suppose a witness states that they were looking south towards Castle Urquhart from Foyers. This is patently wrong since Urquhart Castle is north of the village of Foyers. The raw data can be acceptable revised to say "north" instead of "south". However, suppose the editor of the data decides to move the story from Foyers to Inverfarigaig (a few miles north of Foyers). The change may seem negligible but it is wrong if the internal evidence does not warrant it. The first example is correction, the second is revisionism.

I have been debating Dale Drinnon on his theories that some land based sightings of Nessie were elk and six foot otters. Dale is entitled to hold these opinions, promote them and defend them. I don't single him out as being the worst example of what I have seen, in fact, those who believe in a large, unknown creature may also indulge in this. But since he is currently blogging on this, I give my critique. Let me give an example of the problem here.

I posted recently on the Alec Muir land sighting. I quoted verbatim from the original text which you can read here.

Dale mentions this case in a recent blog and I quote:

Name: Alec Muir
Date: 1930's
Location: Inverfarigaig
Description: Large beast crossed road in front of car. Left visible trail (footprints or hoofprints, normal 4-legged animal) and showed depression in vegetation where it had been resting.

The first problem encountered here is the addition of the data "footprints or hoofprints, normal 4-legged animal". The words are not offered as opinion or labelled probable but are given as a statement - they were four legged footprints. However, you will not find these words in the original account for they are words extrapolated and then interpolated into the text above. The original in no way offers any internal evidence to suggest what kind of animal left what kind of trail. There is not enough internal data to make this extrapolation. These are unwarranted words.

The second problem is the omission of data or rather what is not mentioned in this text. The original account states that the creature obstructed the car for a full ten minutes! Now I may be going out on a limb here, but if a witness cannot after ten minutes figure out they are looking at a moose or something that is patently "normal" then they are most likely blind and should not be driving in the first place. The problem is that if the ten minutes is not mentioned in the text then the uninformed reader will naturally assume that this account was fleeting like the other ones and hence "may" have misindentified the creature. I will assume Dale was not aware of this ten minute problem and the omission of data is accidental - although the effect is the same.

So the underlying problem is the all too common problem of making the data fit the theory. Assume a theoretical researcher does not believe that Loch Ness holds large unknown creatures. As a consequence, if he reads an eyewitness report as reporting a long serpentine head and neck, this will be regarded as untrue and inconsistent with whatever theory they hold. The witness was clearly wrong in the researcher's eyes and two things must have happened:

1. The witness misjudged the situation and/or
2. The original account was subsequently exagerrated by the witness or another.

... even if there is no evidence to suggest these accretions happened. However, this leads to the problem of what the witness actually saw and this is where the interpolation prejudiced by the researcher's pet theory comes in. The researcher has justified re-editing the account, but solely on the grounds that there just cannot be a large unknown creature in Loch Ness.

The danger here is that what the editor has added as a comment/opinion can often end up as part of the alleged "original" account. Perhaps in 20 years we will see "de facto" accounts of the Alec Muir sighting in which a beast quickly shot across his car and left hoof marks in the grass and all because of a succession of copying and pasting off the Internet.

I said those who believe in a monster in Loch Ness can be guilty too. Regarding the Alfred Cruickshank land sighting of 1923, Tim Dinsdale was troubled that the beast described was khaki green and had a short neck. This did not harmonise with the usual elephant grey and long neck. Tim to his credit still published the account without any redactionism but offered his thoughts on why this was so. Perhaps the creature was looking towards the car and gave a foreshortened neck appearance. Perhaps the car's ancient magneto lights as they faded gave the creature a green tint.

Ironically, Dale Drinnon accepts Dinsdale's fading green light explanation (presumably because it is convenient to his theory with its inconveniently brown-gray colored super otter). I emailed the owner of a Model T Ford enthusiast's website and asked if the colour of a magneto headlight emitted any colour in full or fading luminence. His reply was this:

"The bulb was a typical light bulb of the time. It was bright white at full brilliance but turned a bit yellowier as the engine slowed down. Looking at it, it just dimmed...a color change was not too evident."

In other words, not very likely to turn a grey/brown otter khaki green. Whatever Cruickshank saw was most likely green. So, when the redactionist approaches this account one can imagine the checklist:

Short Neck (fits my theory - accept)
20 Feet Long (does not fit my theory - change)
Emits barking sound (fits my theory - accept)
Khaki Green in colour (does not fit my theory - change)

You begin to see the problem I hope.

We are in the third generation of Loch Ness Monster researchers. The first were led by Rupert T. Gould and believed in a monster. The second generation were led by Dinsdale thirty years later, went through the LNIB and the Rines expeditions and believed in a monster (with some exceptions like Burton). Nearly thirty years on again and this third and current generation largely does not believe in a monster. In this case, those who believe in a monster are now the exception. Such is the evolution of a skeptical society. The Loch Ness phenomenon is shoehorned into the genres of each successive generation but what the beast actually is when stripped of each generation's preconceptions is another matter entirely.

The Elk debate continues ...

Sadly, not a lot happens on the cutting edge of cryptid research as far as the Loch Ness Monster is concerned. You may read what is called research as people offer new explanations on how a famous case was actually a hoax or some known animal will be brought in as a new suspect for what was actually seen by witnesses. Useful in terms of cleaning up at the edges, but it does not get us further in identifying what actually lurks beneath the waves of Loch Ness.

That this should not surprise us is evident for most researchers I will bet do not believe anything monster like exists there today. It is all misidentification and lies. I have addressed this overblown theory before and will continue to highlight its deficiencies. But that does not mean debate should be stifled on either side as some kind of sense is made of the raw data.

In that light, I go back to Dale Drinnon who has replied to my earlier posts on elks at Loch Ness (see link). Elks follow on in the line of deer, otters and homo hoaxus as possible explanations for lumbering nessies.

My latest reply is this:

I think you are making the data fit the theory. Firstly, there are no elk in Scotland. I asked you for specifics on where and when but you did not choose to reply. Unlike the more exotic interpretations of Nessie, surely an Elk carcass or live animal would have been found or caught around Loch Ness a long time ago. They can't hide under 700 foot of peaty water after all. Or the idea that an elk turned up in 1933 and died a few years later is just too convenient. There are too many improbables that have to come together for the elk theory:

1. One or two turned up when they are not indigenous to Scotland.
2. Witnesses exaggerated their statements through misperception, lying and partial amnesia.
3. No one stayed around long enough to see one submerge and if they did it was probably drowning.
4. Why no such sightings along the other Great Glen lochs?

If you say that the stories become more plesiosaur like with the telling then you have to go the whole hog. Fordyce would have added flippers and made his animal less hairy to keep up with the plesiosaurs! And to be frank, an elk head is HUGE, it is a bit of a push to have us believe it was not noticeable to witnesses.

Some of the accounts may have elk like features such as hooves which need some explaining on my part. But others don't and that invalidates the elk theory - it has to explain everything.

So please do not go down the "rest are hoaxes" approach to shoehorn in partial theories! I know it bolsters your case but try and make your elk theory stand on its own four feet.



As some kind of advance publicity, I will be talking on land sightings of Nessie in January 2012 at the Edinburgh Fortean Society. I will be taking the stance that the thirty land sightings do in fact describe an unknown or unidentified large creature. That does not mean I gullibly swallow all accounts but neither should the extreme of rejecting the lot be countenanced either!

Elk, Water Horses and Nessie

What is the Loch Ness Monster? Why, it is a Water Horse, of course. That may not answer some of the more scientific questions, but before the Loch Ness Monster there was the Each Uisge as they called it in the native tongue centuries before.

Dale Drinnon offers an interesting theory that distribution of lake monsters has a good correlation with distribution of elk (or moose as they are also known by). His thoughts can be found here.

No doubt that elk have been mistaken for lake monsters but can one extrapolate the whole way to make them one and the same? The fact that some countries called elk "water horses" is an interesting point but then again hippopotami are literally called "river horses" but look nothing like long necked lake monsters. That did not stop some Scottish academics of old speculating superficially that the Each Uisge may have had its root in an extinct hippo. This theory is nonsense but the Elk theory demands more respect since these creatures are recent or contemporary inhabitants of such lake areas.

However, Dale goes on to liken some land sightings of Nessie to moose taking to the water. The implication is that moose did not really die out in Scotland thousands of years ago. Can one really explain one animal which is not supposed to be there with another animal that is not supposed to be there? I think this improbable and would have expected a moose carcass to have turned up on some Scottish hillside a long time ago. I would also expect the moose to keep swimming to shore and not submerge.

The idea that such a creature would seed the Each Uisge tradition is troublesome at best. The assumption behind most of these theories is the ignorance of the natives and their inability to distinguish a supernatural entity from a moose (or deer, dog, otter, duck) out for a swim. That is why some folklorists prefer to go for the theory that something more realistically monstrous existed in the racial memories of the locals.

Well, that's also plausible so long as they don't keep on seeing it right up to the present day!

UPDATE:

Dale has replied to my comment on his page that elk did not exist in Scotland so what is the point in using them to explain Nessie sightings? Check the link above though the discussion pretty much follows my take on the Greta Finlay case which is erroneously ascribed to a deer. My reply:

Granted, but how many elk and how close to Loch Ness? I would speculate these very few Elk were kept on the landowner's estate and not allowed to escape.

Agreed that water horses were never seen as plesiosaurs. The locals matched them to known animals of their time and they were seen right up to 1933.

Your theory is not that much different to ideas that people mistake common deer for Nessie. How significantly different is the Elk, especially when one is far more likely to see a deer swimming across the loch?

One area the descriptions do not match is that the creature submerges and stays submerged. Elk do not submerged (or deer).

The Fordyce creature is unusual but frankly looks nothing like an elk (big head v small head). Other land sightings describe a creature nothing like an elk or deer. Pre-1933 land sightings also do not have the "expect a monster" mentality of witnesses but still they were startled by the unusual and frightening appearance of the creature. Elk or deer would not evoke such a response.

Men in Black at Loch Ness?

Nick Redfern in his Mania blog comments recently on the potential link between the infamous men in black of UFOlore and cryptozoological creatures. This link is here.

This reminded me of the only alleged MiB encountered at Loch Ness and it is no surprise that it came from Ted Holiday, the paranormalist pursuer of Nessie who died in 1979. I mentioned Ted Holiday in my series of occasional blogs examining what people think the Loch Ness Monster is and Holiday was the definite champion of the paranormal creature theory (see link).

It is a strange story not just for the weirdness factor but because of some inconsistencies. The encounter apparently happened only days after the Reverend Donald Omand had conducted his famous exorcism of Loch Ness in June 1973. Holiday had heard of a report that a flying saucer and occupants had been spotted on the ground near Foyers by a Jan Ove Sundberg previously in 1971. He wished to track down the site but first visited local psychic Winifred Cary who advised him against visiting the site because she felt it presented a danger. At this point Holiday writes:

"At that precise moment, there was a tremendous rushing sound like a tornado outside the window, and the garden seemed to be filled with indefinable frantic movement. A series of violent thuds sounded as if from a heavy object striking either the wall or the sun-lounge door. Through the window behind Mrs. Cary, I suddenly saw what looked like a pyramid-shaped column of blackish smoke about 8 feet high, revolving in a frenzy. Part of it was involved in a rosebush which looked as if it had been ripped from the ground. Mrs. Cary shrieked and turned her face towards the window. The episode lasted 10 or 15 seconds and then was instantly finished."


He did not visit the site but instead found himself in the local village of Foyers the next day and saw a peculiar figure entirely dressed in black looking at him from about 30 yards away:

"He was about 6 feet tall and appeared to be dressed in black leather or plastic. He wore a helmet and gloves, and was masked, even to the nose, mouth and chin."

He walked towards the figure but turned his head to look at the loch for a couple of seconds, heard a whispering or whistling sound and turned to see the person had gone. Nothing more came of it until a year later when he came back to Loch Ness but suffered a mild heart attack. As he was taken to the ambulance, the medics passed over the spot where he had first seen the man in black.

What do we make of such a story and what has it to do with creatures in Loch Ness? The problem lies with the Sundberg sighting. The impression is given that the incident revolves around avoiding this alleged UFO site. However, in 1981, a Stuart Campbell, writing for the March issue of Flying Saucer Review, found the site based on the photograph Sundberg had taken and discovered the forest was too dense to allow any clearing for the 30 foot craft and three occupants claimed. The sighting was then dismissed as a hoax or hallucination.

(I believe this is Steuart Campbell, who wrote the sceptical book on Nessie, "The Loch Ness Monster: The Evidence"). Now allowing even for 10 years of extra tree growth, that would seem to discredit the whole thing. Jan Sundberg now runs the monster hunting organisation GUST where the focus is on aquatic monsters and not flying saucers.

If the UFO sighting did not happen, then what would be the point in an alleged MiB giving a typically dark warning about it? Holiday would have known about men in black from John Keel whom he corresponded with. John Keel popularised this aspect of UFOlogy some time before in his book "Operation Trojan Horse". What we are to make of this incident and the Biblical like pillar of cloud is bewildering. Did Holiday merely encounter some kook? No doubt Loch Ness is a magnet for people who are one sandwich short of a picnic. Was it just a trendy motorcyclist kitted up from head to foot? A fuller description would have helped.

And what about the whirlwind? Was it nothing more than that - a cyclone stirred up by aerodynamics that allows the topology of Loch Ness to funnel air currents and whip up squalls and other gusts of wind?

The problem with Holiday was that he was not always consistent in what he reported. One case was the infamous MacRae film. In his Great Orm book, Holday claims that a Mr. Dallas filmed the Loch Ness Monster in 1936. When Nessie researcher, Mike Dash, investigated this claim years later, Mr. Dallas denied he had shot any film of the creature he claimed to have seen.

In other areas, his research lacks follow up as when he claimed in the Orm book that his aforementioned friend, John Keel, had read an 1896 article on the Loch Ness Monster when researching archives in America. The claim is true but the article has yet to be found.

We can only guess as to what Holiday thought he witnessed. He is gone as I suspect are the other witnesses of that day. However, we finish on the eerie note that all these things occured just down the road from the infamous house of Aleister Crowley. A place which Crowley thought was a mystical energy portal!