Review of "River Monsters" Loch Ness Special

Though I suspect most readers have seen Jeremy Wade's "Legend of Loch Ness", the two episode special may be viewed by British viewers for a limited time at ITV's online catch up website. The obvious spoilers will now ensue.

The first episode focused on Loch Ness as Wade attempted to form a picture of what he was looking for by pouring over old reports, speaking to contemporary witnesses (Val Moffat's account from 1990, reproduced below by the show) and local expert, Adrian Shine.  However, the analysis began to take a turn in a certain direction as Jeremy discarded all long necked sightings as irrelevant to the investigation.

Now I have spoken in the past about cherry picking the data to suit one's theory. Admittedly, the sightings database is not a perfect representation of the mystery. It includes unrevealed hoaxes and misidentifications; but it also contains real experiences by people of an object unclassified and unknown. Add to that mix, inaccurate descriptions of the creature (as opposed to misidentified birds, waves, etc) and you see the magnitude of the work.

To this we can add the second unmentioned but discarded class of land sightings. With apologies to Oscar Wilde, to lose one class of sightings may be regarded as a misfortune; but to lose two looks like carelessness. But we defer to Jeremy as he develops his argument.

Having decided the Loch Ness Monster has no long neck, it opened possibilities to our renowned fish catcher. But first, he indulged in a spot of fishing at Loch Ness. Casting his line more in hope than realism, he pulled up a few eels. That surprised me somewhat as I was more expecting char, trout or something else. But a sturdier form of rod would appear later as Jeremy moved on.

Seeking a more ancient route, Jeremy looked at the well known but unknown Pictish Elephant of Highland symbol stones (below). What this might represent has always been a matter of debate, but in this program it is linked to the St. Columba story and then to Norse Mythology. Quite how I am not sure, but it provided the stepping stone to the next episode.

In episode two, it was off to Iceland as Mr. Wade linked the Loch Ness Monster to Norse monsterology. He surmised something that lurks in the cold depths of the North Atlantic could be a creature known to the Vikings and somehow made its way to Loch Ness.

That creature is the Greenland Shark, a twenty foot plus, two thousand pound plus brute that wouldn't think twice about snacking on a polar bear. It is a life largely mysterious to science but it is believed to grow at a slow rate due to the cold and who knows how long it lives for. Armed with sonar and a sturdy 2000 foot line, he attempted to catch one over an indeterminate number of days.

The small dorsal fin is seen as an advantage in Loch Ness Monster morphology as it allows a more hump like appearance on the loch surface. However, the picture above suggests a rather flat back on this shark which does not look capable of presenting the classic "upturned boat" presentation.

One interesting aspect of this creature as they fished for it was its invisibility to their sonar systems. The Greenland Shark possesses no swim bladder to register on sonar and it was plumbing depths of up to 2000 feet below. That made me contrast and compare it to our sonar shy quarry in Loch Ness. Does Nessie have lungs or a swim bladder? Perhaps not, though those flexible humps may contain gas of some description at various times.

Eventually, a smaller 400 pound Greenland Shark was pulled up but was too big to land on the boat. After looking it over, they let it go back. Again, because of its lack of a swim bladder, it was a creature that could be pulled up from the depths without suffering the equivalent of the bends and a ruptured swim bladder.

With that the search concluded. A Nessie sized animal from the seas surrounding Scotland had been suggested and in some ways it was not too dissimilar to the Atlantic Sturgeon theory favoured by more sceptical researchers. Apart from issues around long necks, how would such a creature get into Loch Ness?

This was not discussed, but I would presume they may favour a smaller, juvenile creature swimming in the River Ness. Only seals (and perhaps porpoises) have been proven for sure to make it into the loch from the sea, but no evidence for sturgeons or sharks is forthcoming.

Do I think the Greenland Shark is a credible theory? No, I don't, but in terms of size, weight and cold adaptability, it is perhaps the one animal in the region that comes closest to the large creature that occupies the attention of this blog.

A New Sighting from 2012

The Aberdeen Press and Journal reports today on Gary Campbell's recent comments about the lack of Nessie sightings since 2012. In response to this, a retired Royal Mail worker by the name of Ken  Ross, contacted him to recount his sighting and his four photographs from October 25th 2012. His story begins as he was driving from his home in Inverness to Fort William and as they passed the village of Inverfarigaig.

"My wife said she could see something strange in the loch so I stopped in a lay-by and took four photographs. It looked like a boat wake, but it wasn’t wide enough to have come from a boat, was about 200ft long and travelling at a fair speed for a while then stopped – there wasn’t a boat to be seen for miles. I don’t know what caused it and didn’t give it a great deal of thought until I saw Gary’s appeal to get in touch.”

I can't really add much more at this point. The location itself is a highway for cruise boats, but the witness says he saw none and was convinced it behaved in a way different to a wake. Indeed, boat wakes don't just stop, they just dissipate slowly. I have seen a couple of videos like this recently which show some unusual surface activity without anything solid revealing itself. 

I refer readers first to a video below from April 2010 which I highlighted some months back by way of comparison. Also, there follows a strange water disturbance filmed from the tower of Urquhart Castle filmed on the 24th August 2010 near the location of the first video. What these could be is a matter of conjecture and may all well be classed as having the same cause (hat tip to jimmy_sher for second video).

And for those in the comments section, this photo was requested.

Sandra Mansi's Painting of Champ

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

Bigfoot and Nessie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHALES

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

1975

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

First blank Year since 1925?

Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, has been quoted as claiming that 2013 was the first year in which no there were no sightings of the Loch Ness Monster since 1925. You can read the story here and here amongst others.

He admits that people did come forward on three occasions claiming to have spotted the creature, but these have been dismissed as waves and a duck. I presume one of the reports was the wave-like Nessie or Nessie-like wave filmed by David Elder last August. That one is certainly in the inconclusive category which leads to a problem in deciding what is and what is not a Loch Ness Monster sighting.

In fact, it depends who you ask. Ask any of the leading sceptics whether such and such is a sighting of Nessie and you will get the answer "No" at all times in all places. In other words, no sightings ever since 1925. Ask people such as myself, Gary Campbell, Steve Feltham or other pro-Nessie researchers and you will get a "Yes", "No" or "Don't Know" depending on the case.

The other point is that there is often a delayed reaction in people coming forward with accounts, sometime decades past. The classic example is 1933 when the monster hit the headlines and people started to come forward with stories of sightings going back 40 years!

So I am confident not only that the creature has been spotted in 2013 but that these stories will be forthcoming in due time.

In fact, I have already mentioned a story which has "Nessie" written on it for me. To requote from my review of 2013, it appeared on the Facebook page of the cruise company, Cruise Loch Ness. It goes like this:  

Three different people came to the Wheelhouse today to tell me that they had seen something in the Loch on the 2 o clock cruise. They all described a long black thing on the surface behind the 'Royal Scot' it was visible for a few seconds before disappearing. I wish they'd said something when they were watching it, as I was busy looking where we were going and missed it !! 

This happened on April 5th just the day before the "Nessie at 80" Edinburgh Symposium. The skipper, Marcus Atkinson, gave me further details: 

I was skippering the Royal Scot when this happened, and it was me that posted on Facebook. It is unusual because, over the last few years no-one has ever mentioned seeing anything, then on one trip three different people from different parts of the boat came to the wheelhouse and mentioned seeing something? I remember that it was a flat day with no wind, and everyone pointed to the same spot on the loch.

At the time I didn't think much about it because - they were all pointing to the place on the Loch where the Royal Scot turns around. This off the horseshoe scree and on a windless day the wake from our voyage up will slowly move across the Loch, at times it does look like several humps moving across the water. Because I didn't see it, it's hard to say anything really. Other than I wish someone had pointed it out at the time!

The Marjory Moir Story Revisited

I showcased this classic sighting from 1936 in a previous article. You may think that would have been it but a comment submitted to that article recently has brought it back to life in more ways than one.

Marjory Moir passed away some years back but before then her account was recorded on audio tape back in the early 1980s by her granddaughter. The transcript of that conversation is given below as Mrs. Moir relives that exciting day fifty years previously.

The other fascinating thing about this new information is that one of the witnesses is still alive today and living in Scotland! Indeed, she had a second sighting of the creature, although it was not as spectacular as this famous account. She was the youngest of the party and is called "Ann" here to respect her anonymity.

The recounting of this story begins with some words from her granddaughter:

I am the granddaughter of Marjory Moir. She was one of the most sensible, down to earth people you could meet. She had a very interesting life, which included living and travelling in America and other far away places. She was intelligent and articulate and was absolutely not the kind of person that needed to invent stories to gain attention. She had many interesting tales to relate about her experiences and travels, of which the monster sighting was just one.

As several members of my family had seen the creature, it was simply common knowledge in our family that it did exist. It was a recurring topic of conversation over the years, and accounts were retold and discussed by all family members, with the details never changing.

A few years before my grandmother died, I asked her to tell me again about the time she saw the Loch Ness monster and recorded the conversation onto cassette. I still have the recording in my possession and it is six and half minutes long.

When this was recorded my grandmother was in her mid-eighties and a little forgetful, but nevertheless able to relate her experience very clearly. 

I notice there appears to be some confusion about who was driving the car on the day of the 1936 sighting. As I mentioned, my grandmother was becoming forgetful in her eighties, and although she remembered all of the others who who were there, she forgot to mention Mrs Grant Shewglie on the cassette recording. So who was driving and who had to move the car to make way for the other vehicle is not totally clear, but probably the earlier accounts are more accurate as her memory was obviously fresher then. However the details about the sighting itself remained unchanged, also during the numerous retellings and discussions of the subject within our family over the years.

The four other people in her car that day in October 1936 were:-

1. Her sister Barbara, also referred to as Bab or Baba

2. A girl, nine years old at the time, referred to as "Ann". (edited)

3. Her husband Jack's mother, 'Granny Moir'

4. A friend, Mrs Grant Shewglie who she forgets to name in this account.

Mrs. Moir now recounts her story. The event happened on the road north of Foyers. The picture below from 1951 gives an idea of the background to the story that day. The interviewer is designated as "I" and Mrs. Moir as "M".

I: "Tell me, you saw the Loch Ness monster, didn't you?"

M: "Hmm?"

I: "You saw the Loch Ness monster - haven't you?"

M: "Oh yes I did indeed. I got one of the best views ever got of it. We watched it for fourteen minutes."

I: "Tell me about that. When did it happen?"

M: "Well, oh what year was it? Before we came to Edinburgh. Bab and I were coming back from - we'd gone to Foyers, which is about fifteen miles up towards Loch Ness from Inverness - fifteen miles. We went out for afternoon tea and we had Granny Moir. Jack's mother was with us. There was myself and Barbara, Granny Moir and Ann. How many? How many people's that? Me and Baba and Granny Moir and - and em, Ann. Five of...four of us.

And we were coming - I was driving, and of course there was a part of the road that was very near the loch, and no trees between us and the loch, and - and eh, Baba said; "Oooh!" she said; "There's the Loch Ness monster." and I stopped the car. And sure enough here was this thing on the top of the waves. So I got - stopped the car - pulled the car into a sort of layby, and we went down to the edge of - of the loch, in amongst the pebbles, and we watched it. It would be about a third of the way across the loch.

At that particular place the loch would be about a mile and a half wide, and we went down to watch it, and it would be about a third of a mile from us. And it was a - it had three humps, a little hump and a big hump and a smaller hump, and a long neck with a head, you know. And we went down and we watched it. And it dipped - it kept dipping its head into the water and playing itself, and then all of a sudden it turned and fled - turned round away from us and went straight across the loch, and it made a terrific wave on the shore, and Ann had to get out of the way of the - of the - of the wave. It came up onto the shore.

And then it, it - you could see the top of its head or the top of the middle hump all the way across the loch to Drumnadrochit, and there it turned. It came straight back to where it was before and Ann was standing like this (gestures), scared of it. And it came right back to where it was originally and took up its position, but there were no humps on it this time, the back was straight. Previously the back had been three humps, but this time the back was straight but it still had the curved neck and dipping its head in the water.

And we watched it and watched it. And eventually there was a hoot, hoot, hooting on the road. It's a very narrow road, and somebody a - a baker's van or something was coming and I had to come up and move the car on. So by the time I came back from moving the car to let this other fellow past, it had disappeared. But it was a grand view of it. Three humps: a wee hump, a big hump and a little hump and a neck like that (gestures), and it would be about thirty feet long I should imagine. Nobody's ever discovered what it is."

"Oh yes, that was the Loch Ness monster. And I remember they (her grandparents) lived in a farm away up at the top of Dores. A farm called Urquhart."

I: "Oh yes."

M: "Lovely part of the country and eh, he (her father) used to be annoying the farm workers. It was quite a big farm, and my grandparents were good workers and it was a good farm. And he used to annoy the kids - the - the workmen, and my father said that - that they used to frighten him by saying that if they - if he didn't behave himself the em,...oh... 'something' would get him - the oh, the Gaelic name for the - for the monster - the Gaelic for a water horse, whatever that - I can't remember it unfortunately. But they said that if he didn't behave himself that the water horse would get him, using the Gaelic word which meant the monster. So the monster must have been there many, many years ago.

"Oh yes I've seen it. People don't believe me but I have seen it - watched it, stood on the shores and looked at it and saw it. And it was in television and I was on the radio about it too. They gave me a fiver for talking about it (laughs). Och, it's been a very interesting life you know."

I: "Yes I think so. You've only seen the monster once then?"

M: "Only once I've seen it, yes."

The Gaelic for "Water Horse" is "Each Uisge" and it is not surprising (to me) that old tales of this creature in Loch Ness were known to locals from the nineteenth century. So it is great to read this witness testimony coming back to us over the decades and also exciting to know that one witness still lives today.

You may have your own views on this story but it certainly continues to hold the status of "classic sighting" amongst believers in the Loch Ness Monster.

Jeremy Wade at Loch Ness

Finally, the two part episode of "River Monsters" at Loch Ness will be televised on British TV on 11th February at 7:30pm. Presumably, part two follows next week. This was first televised in the USA in May last year. More details here.

By some strange coincidence, I will be starting my talk on the Loch Ness Monster on the same day at the same time. Thank goodness for video recorders!