Karl Shuker's Book on Nessie

It seems I am going to busy for the next few weeks. No sooner have I just publicised Malcolm Robinson's book, "The Monsters of Loch Ness", than Karl Shuker's book, "Here's Nessie!" is about to be published too! Here is the front and back covers for your enticement.

You wait ages for one Nessie book and all of a sudden two turn up!

Malcolm Robinson's Nessie Book Now Published

Malcolm Robinson's "The Monsters of Loch Ness" is now out and he has put out his own details below. I have already bought the Kindle edition for ease of searching but will also buy the paperback for the library shelves (do people do hardback now)? I will review in due course.

MALCOLM ROBINSON NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT

The Monsters of Loch Ness (The History and the Mystery) is NOW available to buy and download. I’m very proud of this book folks, it’s been in the offering since I was at least 15 and now it’s finally seen the light of day. 

THE MONSTERS OF LOCH NESS (The History and the Mystery)

OK folks I’m pleased to say that I can now give you information on how to obtain a copy of my new book, The Monsters of Loch Ness, (The History and the Mystery) You have three options.

OPTION 1: LULU. Order it direct from Lulu (not the singer, the company) Just type in either my name in the search bar or type in The Monsters of Loch Ness (The History and the Mystery) Upon doing so the booking form will come up. www.lulu.com
 
OPTION 2: AMAZON. No matter where you are in the world if you are from France, Belgium, Italy U.K. or the Netherlands, go to the Amazon of your country and again type in the search bar The Monsters of Loch Ness (The History and the Mystery) Upon doing so you can place your order. www.amazon.co.uk Please note that for the moment that the paperback version of the book is not at the moment up on Amazon (but it will be very soon, I’ll keep you posted when it’s up)

OPTION 3: KINDLE. My book is also available in those dam blasted kindle thingys. (I’m not a fan of Kindle as you will see) I’m from the old school you can’t beat holding a good old book in your hands a Kindle for me doesn’t give you the same feel. But hey ho, for some that’s their bag. So should you want a Kindle version and only get an 80% feel of what my book is all about, then again go to the Amazon of your country and type in the search bar The Monsters of Loch Ness (The History and the Mystery) www.amazon.co.uk Download at £1.99 (Remember, I can’t sign a Kindle !)

THE PRICE.
The retail price for my 590 page paperback book with 73 photographs is £15:99. For Kindle it’s around £1:99 per download (I believe)

GETTING IT SIGNED.
OK boys and girls some of you have asked me to sign you a copy of my new book The Monsters of Loch Ness (The History and the Mystery) If you were to order direct from the publisher then of course it wouldn’t be signed. The only way to do this is for you to pay me, I’ll order the book at this end, sign it for you, and send it straight off to you. Job done.
So if you want a signed copy, here is what to do;
1) Send a cheque made payable to Malcolm Robinson for £18:00 (this includes the postage for me to send the book to you. (*)
2) Send your cheque and who you would like the book signed to (if it’s not you let me know who to sign it to) and send to. Malcolm Robinson (Books) Flat 5, Unicorn House, Croft Road, Hastings, East Sussex, England, TN34 3HE.
3) (*) The book’s retail price is £15:99
It’s as simple as that over to you. E-mail me at malckyspi@yahoo.com if you want a signed copy.

CLASSIFICATION: Non-Fiction
FORMAT: Paperback
PUBLICATION DATE: August 2016
ISBN NUMBER: 978-1-326-72942-4
PRICE: £15:99
PAGES: 590
PHOTOGRAPHS: 73

9206 Pictures and Counting

I am currently relaxing on holiday on the fair Isle of Lewis and now have time to get through a prodigious task - getting through the 13,400 or so pictures recorded on one of my trap cameras left at the loch over a sizable number of months until this May.

It is a mind numbing labour, I have to say, pounding the left arrow key to proceed to the next picture which pretty much looks like the previous one. These cameras were designed to take away some of the monotony of sitting by the loch staring at it for hours waiting for the monster to break surface. The problem with this particular make and model is the picture below. 

Whenever the sun set in a clear sky across the loch, it triggered hundreds of pointless pictures. The solution is pretty clear, just point the camera further north and avoid these glares. Mind you, the pictures are not so pointless if the creature accidentally appears in such a picture. So far, that has not occurred. Some pictures of interest do appear from time to time as now illustrated below.

Here's some people out on a boat. It looks like they are preparing some fishing rods. A good sized hump would occupy much of the same length to give you an idea of scale.

The approach of night gives the loch a darker hue of blue in this picture.

Within ten minutes, the camera switches to infra red and it is into black and white mode.

Here is the moon over Loch Ness.

Now what do you think this night shot shows? I do believe this kind of picture has been associated with UFO phenomenon, but I think it is more likely to be an insect travelling more rapidly than the shutter speed of the camera. Well, something like that!

The next picture is a definite life form, but what I don't know!

These two creatures are most assuredly known to me....

This picture made me wonder if there was a fire in progress on the opposite hills.

So, about 4000 more pictures to check. With some tweaking for the autumn and winter months, I will hope to obtain only pictures of actual animate, nearby objects. The hunt continues!

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Malcolm Robinson's The Monsters of Loch Ness

Malcolm Robinson's book on Nessie will be out soon, so look out for it the usual outlets. Two thoughts struck me. The first was how Malcolm managed to use the same title as an existing Nessie book? I refer to the book by Roy Mackal from 1976. I guess you're allowed to do that sort of thing. With 66 titles on the beast, I guess authors can only juggle the words "loch", "ness" and "monster" so much!

Secondly, I note that Frank Searle's infamous February 1976 Nessie picture features on the cover. I look forward to Malcolm's treatise on Frank Searle and his book in general!

POSTSCRIPT: I note the book is now available at Lulu here.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Barry Blount RIP

Loren Coleman has informed the cryptozoological community of the death of Barry Blount at his news website. I had been in correspondence with Barry a few times over his love for the Loch Ness Monster mystery.  By the time he had touched base with me, he was living in the province of British Columbia involved with the various cryptids in that part of the world. Now, if I had to leave Scotland, the beautiful province of British Columbia with its Sasquatch, Cadborosaurus and Ogopogo would be a pretty attractive option. Perhaps I'll get there one day.

Barry told me of an experience he had with Nessie once while pursuing the beast with a friend back in 1964. I published that account on this blog in 2013 and you can read it here. Barry also communicated some ideas to me including a novel one on the Lachlan Stuart photograph. You can read his document on that here.

Once again, rest in peace, Barry.

Five Hundred Posts and Counting

As the title says, this is the five hundredth posting I have made to this blog since its inception. Also, if this blog manages to survive another six days to reach the 18th July, that would mark six years of blogging on the Loch Ness Monster.

Now I recall years back when this blog was bright eyed and bushy tailed that somebody of a sceptical persuasion suggested I was wasting my time with such a thing and should employ my talents elsewhere (perhaps being a sceptic?). That advice was declined and I am glad I did it as the website has gone on from strength to strength.

The visits to the blog began slowly enough, but now it enjoys thousands of hits per day with Google ranking it high on a search of "loch ness monster". Sometimes the blog manages to rank as high as third (below), most of the time it is lower down as it competes with the latest Nessie stories from the more popular pages of the mainstream media. But the main thing is that it has a presence that ensures the alternate sceptical view is not dominant.

But, as said before, that is not so much as a matter of boasting but rather the recognition that people find what I do interesting enough to revisit the site on a regular basis. I am happy to oblige them as I find the whole subject of the monster a fascinating business myself, bolstered by the fact that I continue to believe that a real creature of monster proportions inhabits the loch.

And I would say that I increasingly believe that proposition to be true as I have re-examined old monster reports, films, photographs and looked at them from a fresh perspective. Classics such as the Hugh Gray and Peter MacNab pictures have gone up in my estimation as have others.

This also includes reports from sincere and experienced witnesses who bolster the argument despite the withering attempts of sceptics to put down witnesses and portray them as incompetents and liars. I have spoken to some of these people myself and I do not get the impression that they are fools who can't tell a bunch of birds flapping about from a large, dark hump bigger than anything known to be in the loch.

The strap line at the top of the blog to reclaim the monster from the current tide of scepticism has included reviewing past eyewitness testimony as well as critiquing not so convincing sceptical theories. Those arguments are laid out elsewhere, but as time has progressed, I have increasingly seen their ideas as hollower and hollower.

If the idea of a colony of aquatic dinosaurs can be seen as naive, then the idea of boat wakes, birds and logs solving the mystery is simplistic to say the least. The solution lies in between and as you can see in the picture below, there is no lack of candidates! Each theory has its shortcomings and therefore the search continues.

This has led to conflict, especially when the comments section of the blog was left open to all and sundry. That left the door open to sceptics who, when they lacked a rational argument, resorted to ad hominems. Admittedly, those on the other side of the debate were not averse to the same approach, so now that part of the blog is tightened.

You still get the odd nutter sending glib and insulting comments. They even pose as believers and say solemnly that my own arguments have convinced them there is no Loch Ness Monster! These get binned and never see the light of day.

One sceptic even said that restricting comments would send web traffic down so much the blog would die. Since that comment was made, web traffic has doubled. The problem with sceptics was that they valued their comments higher than the content they were trying to discredit. Sorry guys, we're here for the Monster, not you.

Of course, the blog is not all about sightings. We have discussed theories, folklore, cultural and media representations, the people and personalities behind the whole mystery, book reviews, upcoming events, my own trips to the loch and other mysterious beasties from around the world. It's all there and if it isn't, I hope to include it in the future!

As ever, there is a backlog of subjects to address, investigate and write up. This is a subject that just keeps on giving as new reports and photos roll in, old material comes to light or a new angle is found on an old subject. While other websites grind to a halt, rarely update or just try and present tired, sceptical opinions as objective data, I will aim to continue to provide more material on this centuries old topic.

What is the conclusion of the matter? Someday this blog will have a final entry and I would like to think it would be a welcome message completing the circle on the first post back in 2010 as it introduces the website and directs future enquirers to the various sections.

But when that end is near and faces the final curtain, the record will show that I did it my way and not the sceptics' way!

Thank you for your support.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

A Loch Ness Monster Sighting from 1993

I found this Nessie report while I was doing my usual rounds of the Internet a few weeks back. It is taken from the Highland News dated 28th August 1993. It is a known account and Gary Campbell has the sighting listed on his sightings register site for the August 10th.

Steve Feltham, stationed at Dores Bay, has known Roland O'Brien for 25 years and I asked for his opinion of this report. He certainly regards this as a very good sighting by a local fisherman who has fished on the shore extensively.

And I would agree with him. I have said it before, but I always give more credence to people who have a long track record of watching the loch (for whatever reason). They are the ones who are more than familiar with the moods of the loch and are far less likely to be deceived than someone just off a tourist bus who has never lived near a body of water in their lives.

The original clipping is below with the text of the report further below for ease of reading.

A SCANIPORT man has broken his silence on a rare double sighting of the Loch Ness Monster. He is 41-year-old forestry and landscape contractor Roland O'Brien of Balmore Farm, Scaniport.

The memorable night Nessie gave him an encore was Tuesday August 10 but he said that, like most country folk, he's been reluctant to talk about it. He told the Highland News he was waiting for a fishing mate at the 30mph limit sign on the Foyers side of Dores when he had the biggest shock of his life. 

 "I had baited my rod and had been fishing for 10 minutes. and there were quite a few fish rising," he said.

"Something caught the corner of my eye, but I didn't pay it too much attention to start with. It was its strange behaviour that made me look again. I saw a large dark hump about 500 yards out from the shore and heading toward the buoy in Dores Bay. From the size of the buoy, I would estimate that what I saw was between eight and 10 feet long." Roland revealed.

"It was about four feet out of the water at its highest point, making it larger than the buoy. It moved rapidly for about five minutes and seemed to be making lots of splashing in front of it. It came to a stop, then started again. It stopped again, then started off again a third time." Roland said.

"About 50 metres from the buoy it stopped. appeared to turn round, then headed back. Then it sank on the spot without a trace." Roland said he did not know what to do, because he was simply shocked rigid by his experience. But he was to receive a second helping! 

I'd been watching for about four minutes before the creature went down," he said. "then, about a minute later, up she came again! The second time, there was no great commotion. It was moving reasonably slowly back towards me in about a 60-degree angle. The shape was the same as before. It looked fairly bulky.

Swimming back from the buoy, it came to about 350 yards from me. I watched it again for about five minutes. About halfway into the second sighting, there was a big splash beside the hump," Roland said. "The splashing continued for a couple of minutes, then it sank again, and again it left no trace."

Again he was not frightened, just shocked rigid, not knowing what to do. Altogether, he had had a grandstand view of Nessie for something like 10 minutes in excellent visibility with the loch calm.

"I have been watching Loch Ness for something like 10 years," Roland said, "I had seen something twice before, but never anything like this. Any talk of logs, dogs, cattle or deer swimming is nonsense. What I saw was large and capable of going from standstill to extremely fast in seconds. Not only that, but when it turned, I seemed to see something light. There seemed to be a lighter underside to the creature."

His main regret is that his fishing mate Kenny MacKenzie, who has had a classic sighting himself, missed Nessie's double show by 10 minutes.

"Mind you" he laughed, "it was even worse for monster hunter Steve Feltham. He was on the wrong side of the loch, at Fort Augustus, at the time!"

So ends the report and consider that statement, "any talk of logs, dogs, cattle or deer swimming is nonsense". I like that. This man is a "knower" and not just a "believer". I don't actually know Mr. O'Brien's view on his sighting 23 years on, but I suspect he hasn't decided on logs, dogs or ungulates.

Or perhaps, as some sceptics like to aver, this is another of those local "jokers" who love to pull our legs and have a laugh behind our backs. I think I will reserve judgement on who is actually joking here.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com