Peter Costello's In Search of Lake Monsters

This year saw the republishing of Peter Costello’s classic 1974 work, “In Search of Lake Monsters”. I have recently purchased the Kindle edition and now share my thoughts on a book that was influential in my early years of cryptozoology. 

Back in those days as a teenager, I would probably have not classed myself as a cryptozoologist (if I had even heard of the term). However, my enthusiasm for the subject of freshwater cryptids was evident enough, and Costello’s book was ready and timely grist for the mill.

The new edition includes an introduction by Loren Coleman, who interviewed Peter back in 2013. Peter Costello (pictured below) tells us that, like many, he was influenced by the 1960 Dinsdale film as well as the works of Bernard Heuvelmans. 

Indeed, Dinsdale had written his own book eight years before on aquatic cryptids, variously called “The Leviathans” and “Monster Hunt”. But, having been spurred on by these men, Peter wrote the first book exclusively devoted to freshwater monsters.

Heuvelmans especially encouraged Costello to complete the work, and even stood back from the hundred page essay he had prepared on the Loch Ness Monster (now there is a piece I would love to read). In fact, Heuvelmans wrote a preface for the French edition of “In Search of Lake Monsters” and this is usefully included in this new edition as well.

Costello and Heuvelmans shared the same idea that a long necked variant of the pinniped swam the oceans of the world, and in Loch Ness as well. Building on Oudeman’s Megophias megophias, Heuvelmans decided on the taxonomy of Megalotaria longicollis for this variant of sea serpent. It was during this enthusiastic era, that Nessie aficionados also went Latin with Nessiteras rhombobteryx. 

I was never a fan of the mammal theory. I just expected such an air breathing creature to be visible far more often – especially in the relative confines of Loch Ness. What Peter Costello himself believes now is not clearly stated in the new book. He merely satisfies himself to be classed as a retired cryptozoologist. I myself emailed him back in October 2014 as part of my research on a certain subject and I got the impression he was a bit more sanguine about certain aspects of the phenomenon.

I still have the paperback edition from the 1970s and recently added the hardback edition as the paperback is beginning to show its age. In the case of the new edition, I completed the set by purchasing the digital version. I have been slowly building up a digital library of cryptid books, but this is a trickle rather than a flow. I would love to see the publishers (Anomalist Books), continue this theme with other classic works such as the works of Gould, Whyte, Dinsdale and so on.

That is a long term aspiration, but the advantage of a digital book to a researcher such as myself, is the convenience of multiple books on one device, the cut and paste capability for short quotes and the ease of searching for key texts which are not always in the index.

 

As to the book itself, clearly forty years has elapsed and had its effect. Some of the pictures he lauds have passed into hoaxdom, such as the Surgeon’s Photo. The unease he had concerning Frank Searle was confirmed shortly after. Other lake monster stories, such as the Lake Khaiyr of Siberia have proven fraudulent. As to specific eyewitness accounts, these will continue to be argued over as no researcher was there to see what was claimed.

The section devoted to the Loch Ness Monster is large, over a third of the book. That is fine with me as Nessie is the lake monster par excellence. Peter starts at Loch Ness and widens the search out to other Highland lochs and beyond into North America, Europe and so on as Mhorag, the Pooka, Ogopogo, Manipogo, Champ, Nahuelito, Bunyip, Skrimsl, Waitoreke and the Storsjo animal get the treatment. Not surprisingly, Antartica is the only continent with no lake cryptid tradition, mainly due to the absence of lakes.

All that aside. For me personally, the force of the book’s argument remains. I may not agree with his identification of the various animals described, but that there is a case to be answered rather than rejected remains.

Lachlan Stuart's Daughter Speaks

It is one of the most iconic pictures of the Loch Ness Monster. A photograph that demands a reaction, whether it be one of disbelief or one that salutes a continuing mystery.

The picture was taken on the morning of the 14th July 1951 by Lachlan Stuart and appeared in the Scottish Sunday Express the next day. Shot in the shallows of the southern shore, the picture has taken its place in monster history.

Now this picture has been discussed at length on this blog and you can find the chain of articles starting here. Since the first was written in July 2012, nothing has since come to light that would make me alter anything. Well, that was until the grandson of Lachlan Stuart made contact with me.

He informed me by email that his mother, was the daughter of Lachlan Stuart and wished to discuss the story with me. Naturally, as a Loch Ness Monster researcher, I was delighted to have the opportunity to speak to someone that was close to such a famous case. I have her name, but I will call her Mary in this article. So, I phoned Mary in early February and had a half hour conversation about her father and that famous photograph.

One half of me was expecting Mary to inform me that the whole thing was a hoax, but that proved not to be the case. I suppose the conversation was akin to the testimony of a character witness with details about the three main players in this story - Lachlan Stuart, Taylor Hay and Richard Frere.

Mary was about one year old when the photograph appeared. In fact, she appears sitting on her mother's lap in a family photograph that appeared in a Sunday Express feature on the picture. What she learnt was as a result of her later persistent requests for her parents to retell the tale of that day in 1951.

Lachlan Stuart interviewed for the 1958 documentary "Legend of the Loch"

Constance Whyte had sent Lachlan Stuart a complimentary copy of her book, "More Than A Legend" and Mary told me her father's oft retelling of the story was always a near verbatim retelling of the account in that book (which she still has).

For example, Mary confirmed that her mother told them that the picture was taken in the morning and the press had descended on the place by the afternoon. Those who claim the photo was taken in the evening take note.

The other person involved in the taking of the picture was Taylor Hay. One sceptical researcher has even implied that Hay may not have existed, but Mary remembers him over a period of twelve years as he lodged with the Stuarts, not only in the Whitefield cottage at Loch Ness, but also in other places that their forestry work would take them.

Within about a year of the taking of the photograph, the Stuarts and Hay had left to take up new residence in the west of Scotland. Taylor Hay eventually moved out when he married and in due time the Stuart family moved south to England.

Lachlan Stuart passed away in 1979 and Taylor Hay died afterwards. What exactly happened that day passed away with them as they were the only ones present on the beach. However, we have the words and views of those who survived them and this is where Mary comes in.

What was her view of her father in the context of that well known picture? In her opinion, Lachlan Stuart was "the most honest person she knew" and not a practical joker at all. This was why the accusation of Richard Frere came as a shock to not only her, but her mother and two brothers. This was not the father she had known and grown up with and they were left wondering why Frere had said such a thing.

Now, the Stuart family were part of a close community of forestry workers and their families. Her Mum was well informed as to names, places and situations as she talked with not only her husband and lodger (Hay), but also other wives. Did she know who Richard Frere was? She had never heard of him, came the answer from her daughter to me.

Richard Frere

When Frere strode up to Tony Harmsworth only days into the opening of his Loch Ness Monster exhibition in May 1980, it began Tony's descent into an eventual, total scepticism. Tony tells us later when he:

published the fact that the picture was faked in his "Loch Ness - The Monster" publication, he received a poison-pen letter from one of Lachlan Stuart's friends ... which shows how well the photographer conned his friends.  Recently his son called at the Loch Ness Centre and, surprisingly, he didn't know that his father had faked the picture either.  

It might have been wiser to take the denial of Lachlan's son as a counter balance against what Frere said rather than some kind of confirmation. I would be interested to see this poison pen letter that Tony received. Whether that would be allowed is another matter. Tony finishes with this interesting statement:

It must be understood, however, that if you are going to produce a convincing hoax you must tell no-one the truth.

But, Tony, he did allegedly tell someone. Well, that's what Frere claimed. I have picked apart Frere's claims in the aforementioned series of articles. But, Lachlan's daughter asked me why he waited until her father was dead before he accused him. Was he making sure there would be no comeback on his claims?

That sounded logical enough, but on further thought, I am not even sure that Frere was bothered whether Lachlan Stuart or Taylor Hay were dead or alive before he made his way to that exhibition nearly thirty five years ago. Indeed, I am not sure how easily he could have found out about them, given what Mary told me. In my opinion, this major exhibition centre opened and that was the only incentive he needed.

There are three options in assessing Frere's claim. Either he was accurate in what he claimed, he was lying or he misremembered the whole story. In the first regard, Frere's story has too many inconsistencies to be regarded as an accurate portrayal of events. Was he present at the so called hoaxing or did Lachlan Stuart confess to him weeks later? They both can't be true.

Moreover, Frere was looking for a horse for his timber business, and this is linked to his so called conversation with Lachlan Stuart. However, he only went into this business in 1953 and the Stuarts had left the area by then.

So, did Frere lie? It would be easy to fabricate a story in which he and Lachlan had a grudge, or there was some axe to grind. That would be simple to concoct, but very difficult to prove. In fact, there is no reason to suggest it, so I won't go down that path.

MEMORIES

So, did Richard Frere simply misremember some encounter back in 1951? The red flag for me was Frere's opening remark to Alistair Boyd in 1988, "I happen to remember clearly ...". Now, can someone remember something clearly after 37 years? I think that is generally not true.

I have looked at other events brought to light decades after they happened. I covered one only recently from 1909 or 1915 where the witness unveiled the story in 1951. There is a general agreement that memory of events will gradually fade over the years and that may accelerate as the brain enters old age. The minor details will go first and the grosser details will follow until the entire event disappears from the mind.

It is a bit like a footprint being impressed in mud. Over time, erosion from wind, rain, heat and other factors will gradually obliterate the footprint. There are two instances where this process can be mitigated. The first is to regularly rehearse the memory to re-impress the "footprint". So, in our case above, Mary's repeated requests for the retelling of the story from her parents kept the integrity of the memory of the event to a higher degree.

The other is the "impact" event which leaves a greater impression on the mind. Seeing the Loch Ness Monster counts as one of these, something startling or extraordinary that leaves a deeper impression on the memory. This is akin to our footprint being impressed with a huge weight upon it or in more durable material such as clay.

After 37 years, Richard Frere was not going to have a clear memory of a conversation made in 1951. I concede the two may have met in the course of forestry work at the time, they may have had a conversation about Lachlan Stuart's newly taken picture. Being a brief and one off encounter, Lachlan Stuart may not have bothered mentioning it to his wife, hence her lack of recall of Frere.

Lachlan Stuart may even have said that some had suggested he took a picture of hay bales whilst pointing to some nearby hay bales and tarpaulin. After 37 years, such a conversation could become a confession in the mind of someone who regarded the Loch Ness Monster as the worst example of the Highland commercialism he so loathed and fought against.

One clue to this is why he did not take this story to the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau when they had a high profile presence at the loch between 1962 and 1972. Frere had lived in Drumnadrochit since 1959, yet there is no record of him confiding a hoax with anyone. But, at that point, the conversation could have been less ambiguous or may have entered an ambiguous state regarding exact words used. Either way, the better recall of the conversation back then was not sufficient to provoke a visit to the LNIB.

Frere was also heavily involved with the author, Gavin Maxwell, and ran many of his corporate affairs till his death in 1969. Thereafter, he focused on writing Maxwell's biography, "Maxwell's Ghost". In my opinion, this busy part of his life helped to erode memories of this casual conversation even more.

CONCLUSION

Lachlan Stuart's daughter says allegations of a hoax are inconsistent with her father's character. Richard Frere's words are accepted because of his perceived character. Apparently, character witnesses do not count on the other side of the argument.

This is not, primarily, an assessment of the photograph taken in 1951, but rather the characters involved. People will have already made their minds up based on Frere's testimony, photographic analysis and attempted reproductions.

Based on my own years of assessing the Loch Ness Monster debate, witnesses of any sort are not perfect, photograph assessment is not always objective as made out and any famous picture can be reproduced given enough time and resources.

In that light, and as with other cases, I leave the individual reader to form their own judgement on the matter!

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Finding Bigfoot goes to Loch Ness

The popular "squatching" series, "Finding Bigfoot", headed to the shores of Britain on a recent airing on Animal Planet. I, for one, was curious to know how they got on with the hairless cryptid that inhabits Loch Ness as well as their take on cryptid humanoids in Britain.

The first stop was London and that meant things like Buckingham Palace and, in the case of leader Matt Moneymaker, managing to bump into another car on London's busy streets. Well, perhaps he just mounted a pavement. Like some Nessie or Bigfoot sightings, the details were a bit vague.

Meeting primatologist, Dr. Anna Nekaris, at the appropriately named "Green Man" pub, she discussed the most likely habitats for large primates and the forms of ancient man that once inhabited these isles (namely, Homo Erectus and Neanderthalensis).

One such prime spot appeared to be Harwood Forest in the north of England where our team met Neil Young and an alleged photograph of a hairy hominid he took some years back. It is definitely a blobsquatch and not a lot could be deduced from it. Certainly, it made some Nessie photos as clear as day by comparison. It became evident that Bigfoot hunters have the same issues with getting close to their quarry as we do at Loch Ness.

Nevertheless, the staple night hunt ensued as the team acquired cricket bats instead of baseball bats to do their wood knocking and the thermal cameras scanned the opaque woodlands. Nothing was seen and it was onto their "Town Hall" meeting where they heard some people recount their "squatchy" experiences.

I noted a familiar name in the crowd and that was Adam Bird who, back in 2011, sent me some pics he had grabbed from the Nessie Webcam, you can detour to that article here. Also at that meeting, was a Hamish MacDonald  who invited the team to come further north and investigate the Grey Man of Ben MacDhui and therein lay an excuse to take a detour to Loch Ness.

Matt Moneymaker and Ranae Holland accompanied Adam and his father Paul to Sherwood Forest where they had an experience of knocking and thumping noises in an area alleged to have hosted Bigfoot type sightings. It seems Adam has had a subsequent Bigfoot experience where a footprint and figure were photographed.

Prior to this, the team had visited a 900 year old church with some greenman or wildman carvings inside. Are these carvings a latent memory of ancient encounters between Homo Sapiens and some of his more distant relations? 

Meanwhile, James "Bobo" Fay and Cliff Barackman had arrived in the Cairngorms to check out the Grey Man who reputedly haunts the mountain, Ben MacDhui. Now that may be a better word than "inhabits" since that particular phenomenon seems to have a more ethereal quality to it. Nevertheless, our duo met with the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team and their tale of two men they had rescued from a shredded tent with the connotation that something had attacked it (though some have questioned this story).

Now, to my surprise, I noticed a William Cameron amongst the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team. Actually he is a marketing man for the Loch Ness area based at the Clansman Hotel by Loch Ness. Methinks he was a plant to draw our dynamic Bigfoot duo closer to Loch Ness. Indeed, it clicked that the aforementioned Hamish MacDonald who mysteriously appeared in England was likely another link in the chain.

What Willie Cameron thought of  the Finding Bigfoot editorial team subtitling some of his Scottish accent, I may never know.  It's not surprising, though, when I was in California some years back, I had a hard time making myself understood to a fast food waitress. My wife eventually had to translate for me.

So, finally, Bobo and Cliff got to Loch Ness and a familiar face was there to greet them - Adrian Shine. They went out on his Deepscan boat and discussed the Loch Ness Monster in the middle of the loch. Cliff thought there was something to the mystery but Bobo was non-committal. Adrian took them through a brief, potted history and the things that can fool observers of the loch such as standing waves, etc.

Though Adrian thought anything unusual he had seen had a natural explanation, there were still some sonar readings that had no ready explanation. Cliff drew the parallel that a proportion of Bigfoot sightings were also explicable in their own way (but clearly this had not affected his belief in the creatures).

Now, I was hoping that the team would go out on the loch and do a Bigfoot-type search with those FLIR thermal cameras that I so covet. But, alas, I was to be disappointed as the hunt for Nessie amounted to no more that Bobo improvising one of his Sasquatch hollers with a kind of heavy breathing outburst!

In fact, Cliff and Bobo did do a night search at Loch Ness with Hamish, but it was up in the hills of nearby Abriachan. The first mistake they made was presuming there was a hairy hominid to look for in that part of the world, I am aware of no such stories from that area south west of Inverness. The second mistake was putting on kilts and going into a forest full of midges. Epic mistake, but we live and learn.

But I was indeed curious to see how their thermal cameras would have performed on the surface of Loch Ness. In fact, I am interested in acquiring such a device for my own research at the loch. The gadget I had in mind can't be that different from the Bigfoot team and is the Flir TS24 Pro (below).

It runs at 240x180 resolution with a 19mm or 65mm lens and can record up to 16Gb on an SD card (after all, I'll need to prove what I saw). It's a mere snip at around £3,500 and if anyone wants to lend me one or even buy one for me, just drop me an email!

The whole team finished with a night search amongst the old caledonian pine forests along the Moray Firth coast a few miles north east of Loch Ness. Deemed the most "squatchy" territory by our team, the most they got out of the hunt was a sound that may well have been an owl.

Finishing off their special trip to the United Kingdom, it was felt that there may have once been a hominid in Britain which inspired the old folk tales of wild men and green men, but even Bobo concluded that there may have been nothing in Britain for maybe centuries.

I, myself, am neutral on whether such bipedal creatures have appeared recently in Britain. I shall leave those arguments to such people as Adam Bird. For me, it's back to the Loch Ness Monster - with the odd glance at the next episode of Finding Bigfoot.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

 

 

Nessletter No.162 now published

Rip Hepple, veteran Loch Ness Monster expert, has published the latest issue of his long running Loch Ness newsletter, "Nessletter" (dated February 2015). The main focus of his newsletter this issue is his time at the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau, with a particularly interesting feature on "night drifting".

 

If you wish to find out more, the subscription rates are: £5 (UK) or $10 (USA) for 12 issues which are published intermittently, not monthly. Send your payment and address details to:

 

R.R.Hepple
7 Huntshieldford
St John's Chapel
Weardale
Co Durham
DL13 1RQ
United Kingdom

 

 

I would point out that an archive of Rip's older newsletters can be found here on Google Drive. Rip's newsletter has been running now for over forty years and has been a valuable source of information and analysis throughout those years. I continue to look forward to his wisdom and analysis.

Frank Searle Items

There are a few items on Frank Searle that have built up, so I would like to put them under this one article. As ever, anything about the most infamous of monster hunters always generates more than average interest.

Firstly, I got back to Paul Harrison, author of The Encyclopaedia of the Loch Ness Monster, asking about his book on Frank Searle. Some readers may recall a previous article in which it was stated that Paul had tracked down Frank to his home in Fleetwood before he died and conducted a series of interviews. Frank Searle died on the 26th March 2005, having previously spent fifteen years camped at Loch Ness in pursuit of the Monster.

Paul now tells me that the book will be published in August or September this year. It should prove to be a stimulating read! As I have said before, I don't regard any person as 100% evil, nor any other as 100% good. Most of the stuff we read demonises Frank Searle, and some of it will be deserved, but as they say, the victors get to write the history.

On my second point today, Frank Searle certainly gets that kind of treatment in a book called "50 People Who Screwed Up Scotland" by Allan Brown. This is a recent publication, having come out last May.

Amongst these fifty personalities, I found that Frank Searle was entry number 48 after Alex Salmond. If you go to the Amazon entry and click on the book image to "Look Inside", you can find that entry and read what Allan Brown has to say about Frank Searle. I don't think one would learn anything new as a Loch Ness researcher, but you'll get the point about the vilification of Frank Searle.

Finally, and I suppose by way of balance, I have placed one of Frank's books on my Google Drive. It is his 1977 booklet, "The Story of Loch Ness" and you can access it as a PDF document at this link. It will prompt you to enter a password which is "nb2vsm6p". I reviewed that book in a previous article, but you can read it for yourselves now. I see no reason to withhold its distribution as I see no copyright claim on it and I am sure it would be Frank's wish to see it receive a wider readership.

After all, having by then spent eight years at Loch Ness, you would expect some degree of knowledge from the man. Judge for yourself, but I am leaving the main judgement until Paul's book comes out.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

A Piece of Loch Ness History

I note a piece of Loch Ness history is on sale for the mere price of around £450,000. It is the Foyers Lodge just outside of the village of Foyers on the south side of the loch. Holding twelve bedrooms, it has been a hunting lodge, a hotel and a house to let.

But, as I recall, and others may correct me, this was where Tim Dinsdale lodged during the week he captured his famous film footage and I do believe Peter O' Connor was there when he took his controversial photograph down the hill. It was the then proprietor of the lodge, Hugh Rowland, who motored his boat out onto the loch for Tim to film his comparison footage and Hugh claimed his own triangular hump sighting back then.

One previous owner, Buddy MacDougall, also claimed her own sighting of the creature when she said:

We were constantly being asked about the Loch Ness monster and one afternoon, along with two guests, we did see an upturned cabin cruiser sized object out in the bay which sank and then reappeared then sank for good.

Apparently, it even has a ghost and Buddy MacDougall again relates:

The hotel had a very friendly ambiance but quite often we did see a little white dog disappearing under the kitchen table. Also, after pooh poohing Lorna and Mhairi for reports of eerie goings on in their bedroom, I also had a frightening experience when I rushed upstairs one dark night to get something from their room when they were away from home. On opening the door, I was utterly shocked to feel a presence right in front of me. There was nothing there when I switched on the light.

Quite how many have thought they have seen the Monster from the lodge's high vantage point is difficult to tell, but for less than half a million, you can get your own piece of Loch Ness real estate.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

At the Scholarly Research of the Anomalous

The Counting House in Edinburgh hosted a series of speakers this weekend for the Scholarly Research of the Anomalous Conference. Since I live in Edinburgh, I made my way along to take part in proceedings. The event was organised by Gordon Rutter and Charles Paxton, who had previously done the successful "Nessie at 80" event at the same venue in 2013. Gordon organises the regular, monthly meetings of the Edinburgh Fortean Society which I often attend.

DARREN NAISH

First up was Darren Naish, well known author at the popular Tetrapod Zoology blog. He spoke on "The Evolution of Sea Monsters in Terms of What people Report". Darren spoke of the four phases of Sea Serpent cryptozoology, starting with the classic exploratory stage in Victorian time when biologists such as Huxley and Owen would debate living plesiosaurs.

From there is was onto Oudemans and his pinnepedial Megophias and then onto Bernard Heuvalmans' more complex classification system of up to ten variants. Finally, the revised taxonomies of Coleman, Huyghe and Champagne.

But Naish sees us in a post-cryptid cryptozoological period and perhaps in a last phase as these reports are re-analysed. I could see the parallels with the Loch Ness Monster and would disagree with the post-cryptid scenario. But it was an interesting talk nonetheless. 

At the end, I asked Darren if the presumed absence of serpentine megafauna in the seas suggested there was evolutionary pressure against such a morphology. He thought this was the case for mammals and the way endothermic energy is dissipated in such a shape, but not so much for exothermic. Which suggests a gigantic and slender reptile or fish is not impossible, yet nature (from a sceptical point of view) has not seen fit to produce such a beast. Then again, perhaps not.

CHARLES PAXTON

Charles came up next with a familiar theme, the statistical analysis of cryptid sightings. This has been a long running pursuit of Charles' in the sea serpent context and now for the Loch Ness Monster. The problem for analysts such as him is to measure the precision and accuracy of such anecdotal evidence. One can make some estimate of this by comparing the same single eyewitness accounts over different time periods or comparing multiple eyewitness accounts of the same event.

The other is to attempt to set up a controlled environment with known parameters and measure how eyewitnesses make their own estimates of distance, length, height, etc. It turns out Charles had some Edinburgh Forteans go past some witnesses in a Bigfoot-like suit in order to measure their responses!

In terms of the Loch Ness Monster, I later suggested to Charles that he should try and track down the transcripts of the 2005 Channel 5 documentary "Loch Ness Monster: The Ultimate Experiment" where an animatronic plesiosaur was put into Loch Ness for unwitting boat passengers to see. It would be interesting to see if it contained any witness estimates of the object's attributes.

ROGER MUSSON

After lunch, it was Roger Musson of the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh. He spoke on the 1974 Berwyn Mountain UFO case which is dubbed by some as the "British Roswell" as it allegedly involved a crashed flying saucer. Even though this was the only non-cryptid talk, I had an interest in it as a documentary on this case had recently appeared on British TV.

As it turns out, Roger's explanation that the crash noise was actually a magnitude 3.5 earthquake made sense. The interpretation that the lights seen in the area were poachers' car lights and/or meteors was more open to debate. I asked him at the end whether such an earthquake instead could have produced light energy as well as sound energy. I offered that theory with Paul Devereux's Earth Lights theory in mind. Roger did not think so in this case, but was open to it happening in other cases (such as one in Lincoln in 2008).  

BETTINA BILDHAUER

Dr. Bildhauer from St. Andrews University next spoke on "Monsters in Medieval Manuscripts". That world was a world of all manner of strange beasts including unicorns, dragons, basilisks, mermaids, sea serpents, crane headed people and single footed humans. 

We also had an insight into medieval medicine as the four humours of black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm were explained and their relation to the Evil Eye of the basilisks and witches. Things got even stranger as this was linked to menstrual cycles. Changed days.

MIKE DASH

I have enjoyed and been informed by Mike's fortean writings over the years, so it was a pleasure to at last meet him and hear his talk on "Our Artist Pictures What the Witness Saw". Mike's talk focused on the various artistic renderings of Fortean phenomena that have been less than accurate in the representation of what the witness saw. Such pictures are almost too numerous to mention and range from the sea serpent drawings of the HMS Daedalus in 1848 to Mike's dealings with artistic depictions for the Fortean Times.

It is an issue I have seen myself in the Loch Ness literature, though original witness testimony and sketches can obviate some of the more dramatic touches of periodical artists. I pointed out to Mike later that embellishment is a two way street and pointed out the case of Maurice Burton and his sceptical 1961 book, "The Elusive Monster".

In that book, Burton, shall we say, reinterpreted one or two photographs as drawings to fit his theories. Moreover, his drawing of a deer which, by coincidence, looks amazingly like the Greta Finlay creature is "interesting".

PANEL Q&A

The day ended with an informative and entertaining Q&A session involving all the speakers. Just to show these people were not all crusty sceptics, they were asked which Fortean phenomena they gave credence to. Darren Naish said out of place cats, Mike Dash had a penchant for poltergeists, Charles Paxton was still open on large, undiscovered creatures in the oceans and I am not sure what Bettina and Roger said.

My only question to the panel was for Roger the seismologist. I recalled reading a book on an earthquake in Inverness at the start of the 20th century and how the author described seeing the waters of Loch Ness boiling like a cauldron. 

Roger said this was in 1901 and was one of the largest recorded earthquakes in Britain. The effect on Loch Ness was perfectly explicable as a giant standing wave shaking the loch as opposed to my expectation of a tidal surge. That must have been a sight to behold.

All in all, it was a good day, and I look forward to the next conference.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com