The Lancashire Policeman who saw the Monster

 

Here is a sighting report that is new to me which recently appeared in the Lancashire Evening Post (link). It dipped into its archives to retrieve this account from 86 years ago and from which the illustration above was taken. I reproduce the text below.

Lancashire police chief spotted the Loch Ness Monster

Officer on holiday when he saw a creature in the Scottish loch

In August 1935, when the holiday season was at its height, one of Preston’s most prominent citizens journeyed to Scotland and returned to town with an astonishing tale. At that time the policing of Preston was carried out by the Preston Borough Police Force, under the guidance of the Chief Constable J P Ker Watson, who had been in charge for 20 years. That summer Watson packed his suitcase and headed for Scotland, in particular the area around Inverness.

During his vacation he drove along the road from Fort Augustus to Inverness and halted at the 13 miles to Inverness sign post, near to a castle on the shore of the famous Loch Ness. What he observed from his vantage point was to make the following headline in the Lancashire Evening Post - ‘The ‘Monster’ Of Loch Ness - Appears before Preston’s Chief Constable’. At that period of time the search for the Loch Ness Monster was a frenzied one with innumerable sightings and the Chief Constable had been told to look out for the creature as he ventured into Loch Ness territory.

He was keen to tell a Post reporter how he had seen a head and humps moving above the water, almost a mile from the shore. He estimated the length of the creature as between 25 and 30 feet with a relatively small head and very large bumps. Keen to record his sighting, he had done a rough sketch which the Post cartoonist Furnival happily reproduced for inclusion in the newspaper. He told the reporter he felt it was not unreasonable that a creature could survive in the deep waters, with vegetation in abundance on the bottom of the lake.

The Chief Constable then relating how many of the locals were convinced the monster did exist and thought it quite conceivable that such a creature could have come up into the loch and stayed there. With hundreds continually flocking to Loch Ness, hoping to catch a sight of the creature, it had boosted tourism in Inverness, but he felt the locals did not have any ulterior motive for publicising their monster’s existence. It seems Preston’s senior policeman was not the only Chief Constable who believed in the existence of ‘Nessie’, because in 1938 the Chief Constable of Inverness penned a letter stating that it was beyond doubt that the monster existed. He was at the time concerned over reports that a hunting party were about to descend on Loch Ness armed with harpoon guns and were determined to catch the creature ‘dead or alive’.

Sporadic sightings continued for some 30 years and in 1963 a film of the creature was taken on the loch – but from some five kilometres distance it was of poor quality. Some of the most infamous photos of the monster were taken by Lancashire man Frank Searle, who moved to Loch Ness in 1969 living in a tent looking for definitive proof of its existence. When his photos were published in 1972 it caused a worldwide sensation, before they were eventually exposed as fakes. Searle moved back to Fleetwood and lived out his years in relative anonymity in the port.

Now I have no idea whether this 13 miles signpost still exists. I would hazard a guess with the use of Google maps that the place he saw the beast was perhaps a mile north of the entrance to Temple Pier, which is on the opposite side of Urquhart Bay from the Castle. The object was a mile away from him and the fact that the improvised map in the illustration suggests it was between the castle and the distant monastery at Fort Augustus means he was more or less looking south down the loch.

Of course, Fort Augustus Abbey is not visible from Urquhart Bay and the map is rather idealized. You would think, looking at the map, that the monastery was on the other side of the loch from the Castle. Now as to the sketch of the monster, there are some issues which point to artistic licence. For example, no one is going to make out those eyes at one mile distance. But then again, for those who may suggest he saw a bird, I don't think birds are very visible at all at that distance.

The statement that there is an abundance of vegetation at the bottom of the loch is a wild guess and false. There is nothing but silt at the dark floor of the loch. Quite why the police officer thought the beast did not rather live off fish is a bit of a puzzle. However, the idea that the beast may have been a visitor who decided to stay in the loch had more merit. The estimate of 25 to 30 feet is a pretty standard monster size, though when such statements are made, one is never quite certain if the eyewitness is trying to include any invisible features such as a tail.

So, another sighting for the record, albeit a bit lacking in detail. The original article can be found on the British Newspaper Archive. If I renew my subscription, I will update this article.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

One of the Silliest Nessie Theories

I was recently contacted by Sean Murphy from the Scottish newspaper, the Daily Record, regarding a "novel" theory about what the Loch Ness Monster may be. Was it giant eels or some new variant of the plesiosaur or something new to excite debate and discussion? Well, if you think whale penises can generate discussion, you have your answer. The article from the paper says:

'Loch Ness Monster just a Whale Penis' theory is 'mostly false' says internet fact-checking site

A recent article by Snopes.com looked at one of the strangest theories over what Nessie could be.

Over the years, sightings and photographs of the Loch Ness Monster have been attributed to everything from toy submarines and floating logs to giant eels or even a surviving prehistoric plesiosaur. However, one of the latest theories to emerge on the internet might be the most bizarre one yet, even prompting the fact-checking website Snopes.com to investigate in a bid to clear things up.

A post on the popular site headlined "Is the Loch Ness Monster Just a Whale Penis?", added that the strange online theory is "more plausible than it might appear". Focusing on the famous Surgeon's photograph, reportedly taken by surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson in the 1930s, the theory, which appeared online earlier this year, compares the pic with another one taken of a similarly shaped whale penis rising from the water.

The bizarre theory is based on a study by a team of researchers, which was published in a paper in the Archives of Natural History and speculated that many accounts of large mysterious sea creatures with a “serpent-like tail” were actually a large baleen whale and its “snake-like penis”. They added that other accounts could be attributed to the male members of certain whale species which can be at least 1.8 metres long and are sometimes spotted rising from the water during mating.

However, Snopes stated that the famous photo of Nessie couldn't be, as it was a confirmed hoax, but added that it's possible that other sea serpent and Nessie sightings throughout history may have been misidentified whale penises. The team at Snopes summarised: "While the famous picture of the Loch Ness Monster certainly wasn’t a case of mistaken whale-penis identity, and while whale-penis sightings probably can’t explain every sea serpent sighting throughout history, it is plausible that some of these 'sea serpents' were attached to the bottom of a whale."

Considering the fact that Loch Ness is technically landlocked, fresh water and the biggest mammals regularly spotted there are seals, it seems the whale theory cannot be applied to Nessie. Famous Nessie Hunter Steve Feltham is happy to rule out the theory that whales could have been mistaken for the famous Scottish monster, he said: "I have lived on the shoreline of Loch Ness for over 30 years, watching and waiting for for a glimpse of one of the animals that are reported to live in here.

"I have never seen a whale in Loch Ness, and one hundred percent believe that I never will.

"One thing that I can do after all these years of investigation is cross whales off the list of possible explanations."

While author Roland Watson, who runs the Loch Ness Mystery blog, added that even if whales did make an appearance in Loch Ness then long necks emerging from the water would only be seen during the whale mating season, however, sightings of long necks are reported all year round.

Now it is apparent that this theory was originally suggested for cases of sea serpent sightings and we could give some credence to that, but inevitably it got linked with Nessie. One could give various answers to this. Steve Feltham gave the straight answer, there are no whales in Loch Ness. It has to be said that some such as Roy Mackal and the recent book by Ken Gerhard have suggested ancient whales as a candidate for the monster, but I am sure they did not have this in mind when they formulated those ideas.

If there was a whale in Loch Ness, we would soon know about it as it blew water into the air and generally splashed about. The recent story of the young Minke Whale which got quite far up the River Thames in London shows that they can travel quite far inland, but to their detriment. Getting through the tighter, shallower River Ness is a different proposition to the huge Thames.

That would settle it, but I added my own geeky kind of answer that long neck sightings are reported all year round, whereas this genital spectacle would be confined to the mating season for whales, which I understand is confined to the colder months of the year, but involves long scale migration to the equator.

So, yes, it is a silly theory which is entirely false and not "mostly false" and we can ignore it. But I know some of you will be asking the question, perhaps it is the male organ of the Loch Ness Monster? Well, that all really depends on what the Loch Ness Monster is, doesn't it? But I somehow doubt that this organ can reach the dimensions we require if it belongs to a thirty foot creature.

What more can one say?

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

More on Giant Eel Stories

It is back to giant eels as I went through my research material and found a few stories of interest. Now I myself do not think the Loch Ness Monster is a giant eel, but that doesn't mean that opinion is false and various theories regarding the beast will continue to be blogged for the benefit of discussion. Of course, if a thirty foot eel is found at the loch, I would have to accept that the monster has been found and some explanation for the non-eel type sightings will be required. That has not happened and so we now continue with some letters from the Fortean Times magazine dated July 2006 (No.212). The first letter is from well known Fortean researcher, Mike Dash:

Loch Ness Eels 

I was very interested to read Jim Currie's letter (FT208:74) concerning rumours that apparently circulated in Glasgow shipyards during the 1960s of an underwater sighting of the Loch Ness Monster. According to Currie, a story went around that a car had careered off the road and into the loch and that when a diver was sent into the water to search for it, he found the vehicle perched on a ledge 80ft (24m) down and surfaced babbling about "giant eels, the size of a man's body, hundreds of them!" In one version of the account, Currie adds, the diver's hair went white and he was rendered insane by the experience.

This tale, which while undated seems to refer to an incident occurring in the latter half of the 20th century, is readily identifiable as a variant on a supposedly much older account first published in the first edition of Nicholas Witchell's The Loch Ness Story (1974) p.29. "There is an interesting story," Witchell writes, "of a diver, Duncan MacDonald, who was sent to examine a sunken ship off the Fort Augustus entrance to the Caledonian Canal in 1880. MacDonald was lowered into the water and shortly afterwards the men on the surface received frantic signals from him to be pulled up.

When he did surface it is said his face was like chalk and he was trembling violently. It was several days before he would talk about the incident, but eventually he described how he had been examining the keel of the ship when he saw a large animal lying on the shelf of rock on which the wreck was lodged. 'It was a very odd looking beast,' he said, `like a huge frog.' He refused to dive in the loch again."

The first point to make is that Witchell's account of the MacDonald sighting is unreferenced and no primary source has ever been found for it (see Ulrich Magin, "Waves Without Wind and a Floating Island: Historical Accounts of the Loch Ness Monster" in Fortean Studies 7 (2001) p.102). Thus, if Mr Currie's memory of dates is correct, his apparently later version, involving cars and eels, may actually predate the MacDonald story. The second is that neither account is at all likely to be true.

Aside from the obviously folkloric elements featured in both tales (hair turning white, refusal to dive again), numerous underwater surveys of Loch Ness, conducted with sonar and echo sounder apparatus, have failed to reveal the various subsurface features so often featured in popular accounts: underwater ledges, caves and even tunnels leading to the sea. Finally, as is fairly well known, underwater visibility at Loch Ness is negligible - of the order of a few feet once one ventures to any depth below the surface - thanks to the heavy concentration of silt particles washed into the loch from the surrounding hills. The reported observations of Duncan MacDonald and of Jim Currie's diver would simply not have been physically possible.

Mike Dash

London

That letter from issue 208 of Fortean Times is short and reproduced below:

When I worked in the Clyde shipyards in the 1960s, a story went round about Loch Ness. It was said a car had careered off the road into the loch and a diver was sent to investigate the insurance claim. Apparently the car had landed on a kind of ledge only about 80ft (24m) down. When the diver broke surface after investigating, he was heard to be babbling about "giant eels, the size of a man's body, hundreds of them!" In one version of the tale, the diver's hair turned white, while in another he became a babbling wreck confined to a lunatic asylum. Has anyone else heard this story? 

Jim Currie

Baillieston, Glasgow 

First off, Mike compares this underwater encounter with the better known story of Duncan MacDonald from 1880 described in Nicholas Witchell's "The Loch Ness Story". Though it is described as a "variant", the two tales are undoubtedly unconnected. It is correct to say Witchell's tale is unreferenced and it is my opinion, it was one of those stories related by locals to the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau team in their years at the loch during the 1960s and 1970s. The local was probably known to Witchell but requested anonymity.

At this point we can also include the stories of Robert Badger (link), James Honeyman (link) and an unnamed diver (link). So you can see we have a growing line of such stories. Now as to folkloric elements,  if Robert Badger in 1971 said he would never dive in the loch again, that would be understandable, not folkloric. We can quite readily assume it for any other diver after such an event. What is not clear is whether they vowed never to dive in Loch Ness again or anywhere at all.

The reference to hair whitening is indeed not true in the sense of happening overnight. However, extreme stress could trigger an autoimmune response which renders further hair growth a lighter colour, but that is speculation as such a condition has not even been recorded in Death Row. The only defense is that it is a figure of speech and not to be taken literally.

The two points about the nature of the loch itself take a rather binary view of the situation. The Duncan MacDonald account actually says "the rock ledge" and not "the shelf of rock". A rock ledge can mean several things. In the case of the loch, the land underwater can gently incline before one reaches a precipice which takes us over the edge into the deeper parts of the loch. Or it could simply be a ledge with a small drop and nothing more. It is my opinion that when ledges are spoken of in these reports, we are talking about these initial shallows and it is no surprise that boats end up there.

The other point about poor visibility underwater is taken, but in both cases discussed, the distance between diver and animal is not given, so how do we know it is a problem? Robert Badger states the creature he saw was about 15 to 20 feet away from him. The answer here is depth, once you get to a certain depth at say about seventy feet, then all light is lost. I would suggest these divers were at lower depths and/or the creature was as close as Robert Badger's incident. So visibility, though poor, is not a blocker.

However, Mr. Currie's diver's comments about hundreds of eels does not sound literally true if visibility is out to twenty feet, unless he had a good flashlight or he employed a metaphor to signify a lot of eels. One final thought I would add is that Jim Currie reminds me of the apocryphal James Currie, who was an alleged banker from the 1930s, who held a sensational film of the monster, but held it back until the public took it more seriously (link).  Does that suggest this person's name is not real and is taking us for a ride? With that we move onto the second letter by James Kitwood:

Jim Currie makes reference to a story about a giant eel seen in Loch Ness. He asks if anybody else has heard a similar story. It is said that during the construction of the hydroelectric plant at Foyers on the shore of Loch Ness, a lorry that had been dumping soil into the loch reversed too far and slid into the water. During the salvage operation. divers came up in a hurry and refused to go back as they had seen huge. hairy eels. In a related story about the Foyers power station, there was a rumour of giant eels that had been trapped against the metal grilles on the entrance to the water intake pipes. (Ness Information Service Newsletter 84, Oct 1987) In 1998 I wrote to Scottish Hydro Electric and received a letter from a man who had worked there since its commission in 1975. He said that the story about the lorry was unsubstantiated and the issue of large eels getting into the water-cooling system was a physical impossibility.

He did, however, relate a story he heard as a child about a diver who was lowered into Loch Lomond. When he resurfaced not only was he badly shaken, but his hair had turned grey. It seems this story is not unique to Loch Ness. Another Loch Ness eel story that may yet be possible to verify concerns a minesweeper travelling through the loch at the end of World War I. Apparently, the crew thought it would be a good idea to try and blow up the creature. They released a depth charge and after the explosion the bodies of two eels floated to the surface. One was 11ft (3.4m) long and one was 9ft (2.7m) long- but this was just the tail end of it! (Ness Information Service Newsletter 116, April 1993)

James Kitwood

Calverley, West Yorkshire 

Since James mentions his sources as Rip Hepple's Nessletters, we can have a look at them in more detail. The first being number 84 from October 1987 which I quote below. Rip had contacted a Mr. Hancock on updates for the then Operation Deepscan. He worked for the company which distributed Lowrance sonar systems in Britain and he relayed the story:

One evening after the days operation and evening meal they were relaxing in the hotel when a local man approached them and told them of a big eel. Foyers hydro-electric station is one of the water storage type, pumping water from Loch Ness up to Loch Mhor when there is spare electricity, then using it to generate power during peak periods. The water intakes have metal grids over them, to protect fish being sucked in. This local told them that some time ago staff noted that water pressure was falling and when they investigated, the grid on one of the intakes was clogged up with eels among them a real giant of around 18 to 20 feet long and some 2/3 feet in diameter. I do not really know what to make of this story, Mr Hancock said the man seemed sincere.

One point that came to me later was the question of how could the grid be seen, the intakes must be some distance below the surface, well out of sight unless there are observation ports of some kind built into the installation. To clear the grids of debris the usual practice is to stop the turbines and allow the water to back-flush the system.

I remember that another giant eel story did the rounds when the power station was being built. A wagon driver was dumping soil in the loch when he got too close to the edge and managed .to lose the wagon into the water as well . The story was that divers went down to attach lifting gear, but they came· up in a hurry and refused to go back down, claiming they had seen huge, hairy eels. Attempts were made to locate the divers later, but failed and the story remained hearsay. Perhaps the account told to Mr Hancock will remain in the same category. 

This story has been remarked on before in less detail and it presents a few questions. The first is the obvious one as to why finding the remains of a 20 foot eel did not lead to sensational headlines and a carcass ending up at the Natural History Museum? Since the grid has to stop all manner of fish, the meshing must be quite fine which makes one ask how a powerful large eel could get stuck there? The answer to that may be the ability of the pump storage devices to suck up 160 tonnes of water per second! 

Nevertheless, why no body parts? I thought perhaps this was a pre-Nessie event before 1933 since a hydro-power station has been in operation since 1895 when it supplied power to the now derelict aluminium smelting plant. Perhaps so, but that was a low powered setup and it was not until 1976 that the present 300MW plant came into operation, so I suspect the tale is from that year onward. 

Or we could speculate they failed to obtain any physical evidence because, as Rip says above, the pumps were turned off and the back-flush drove the eels back into the deep. Or perhaps they couldn't get samples. If any of these critters were still alive, no diver would go near one, even for a ton of gold. We also have James Kitwood's letter above in which he states he wrote to a worker at the power plant who could not confirm the story and thought it was a physical impossibility anyway. Which turns us back to 1987 and who on earth was this chap who walked into that hotel and related the story? We may never know and move on.

Rip's second tale about the dump truck falling into the loch is also tantalizing and the hairiness of the eels reminds us of the mane seen on the monster. If this were true, it would suggest these are not the species of European eel that inhabit the loch. But once again we are frustrated by the lack of a first hand testimony by one of these divers. The second account from Mr. Kitwood regarding the depth charging of Loch Ness is from Nessletter 116 dated January 1994 and relates a story told by an angling correspondent for the "Salmon, Trout & Sea-Trout" magazine called "Viking". It is dated February 1993 and Viking is quoted first:

At the end of the first world war, a mine-sweeper was on her way through from Fort William in the west to the Beauly Firth in the east, by the Caledonian Canal that connects the great lochs to the sea. On her way down Loch Ness she passed over the depths below Urquhart Castle which are a favourite of the 'Beastie'. The crew had been celebrating peace all the way and still had depth charges ready to launch. Some one had the bright idea of having a go for the monster, so they set off a charge and up came two gigantic eels. One was 11ft long and the other 9ft, but that was only the tail-end!

Rip Hepple then adds his thoughts:

Viking said that is a true story. I wonder how, after seventy years such facts could be checked? Lobbing live depth charges into Scottish lochs would hardly be legal, even in celebratory high spirits, so I doubt if any official record would have been kept. However he does go on with an account of an incident which happened to him. Saying, 'An old friend of mine, now long gone to the 'fishers tryst', was trapping salmon for the hatchery on the River Garry at the top of Loch Ness. The fish he trapped were kept in a long iron tank until they were ready to be stripped of their eggs. The water supply was piped from the tail-race of the small hydro-electric generating station a short distance upstream, where the blades in the Francis turbine could chop up migrating eels. A chunk of eel had blocked the pipe which was 5 inches in diameter. it must have come from an eel at least 10 feet long.' 

One does not doubt that minesweepers passed through Loch Ness and it is possible they indulged in this foolish behaviour. However, the incident is dated to 1918 and the Loch Ness Monster did not become a national phenomenon for another 15 years. It was however a well known local legend, but since a Royal Navy vessel would contain a crew from all over the United Kingdom, they were unlikely to have any regard to this.

Depth charges were developed to take out German submarines and could be preset to detonates at depths of up to 300 feet. In this instance two dead giant eels were observed coming to the surface. One presumes they were forced to the surface by the explosion and then promptly sunk again in the normal manner. To achieve this, the charge must have detonated at a depth a lot less than 300 feet. Viking says this is a true story and, 28 years on, perhaps he is still alive to state who his source was? To that we can add nothing more, you either believe it or you don't.

Viking's final tale about finding a five inch diameter chunk of eel is interesting and probably the most credible to the bulk of readers. He suggests this scales up to an eel at least ten feet long. My own scaling measurements based on a good picture of an adult European eel suggests a length of eight feet. Nevertheless, that is a substantial eel as all eels caught in Loch Ness will be less than three feet and would raise some serious questions. Note a thirty foot eel would scale up to a diameter of  about one and a half feet, unless you ascribe to Roy Mackal's thick bodied eel theory.

So there we have several tales of giant eels in Loch Ness, all at best second hand tales. Where does it take us? Not very far, but it will be of value to some more than others.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Prince Philip and the Loch Ness Monster

As the day of the funeral of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh approaches, it would not be out of place to mention in the various and numerous articles and documentaries, that he had an interest in the mysteries of life.

In listening to the various tributes to the Duke of Edinburgh, I learnt he had amassed a total of over ten thousand books in his library at Buckingham Palace. These would have covered a vast array of subjects to satiate his inquiring mind. Naval, historical, equine, theological and others filled the shelves and apparently also his keen interest in UFOs after one allegedly landed on the estate of his uncle, Lord Mountbatten (see link).

That interest looked to have persisted as we are told that only in 2019, he was reading a book on the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident in Suffolk. Apparently he amassed a sizable number of books on that subject. But what about the other mystery swimming in the depths of Loch Ness? How many books did he possess on that subject? I suspect more than a handful.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, it would seem he was well connected enough on the subject through his association with Sir Peter Scott (both below). Their shared love of ornithology and conservation work led to a lasting friendship. Scott's work with the Loch Ness Monster is well known. In fact. in the same year that he was inviting Prince Philip to be the first President of the World Wildlife Fund, he was also setting up another organisation, the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau.

It was unlikely that he would invite the Prince to patronise such an organisation in the same manner, especially after the embarrassing episode the year before of Scott using his Royal connections to persuade the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to be amongst the first viewers of Tim Dinsdale's film and to discuss the creature being dubbed "Elizabethia Nessiae" in her honour (further details here).

However, it is fairly certain that Sir Peter Scott kept the Duke abreast of developments at the loch, especially when they tended to sit together at WWF board meetings. One suspects, though, that prudence kept him from recording any such private conversations. A better source is from David Clarke's book, "Britain's X-traordinary Files". In it he mentions how another of the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau's founders, David James, got involved.

We learn that James had a conversation with Prince Philip regarding his plans for the Bureau at the loch and how to fund it after their second expedition there. I'll wager Peter Scott brought the two together. The Prince's reply was that he contact Solly Zuckerman, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Defense. The lending of sonar equipment and expertise was discussed, but the MoD did not think it prudent to be seen using military resources in the pursuit of a monster. David also point out on his blog another instance where the Duke was involved:

Indeed when sightings began again after the war, the Duke of Edinburgh suggested calling in the Royal Navy to solve the mystery.

It seems this suggestion did not get very far either. The Duke of Edinburgh evidently had a love of mysteries, but we are left with the unanswered question which he is no longer here to answer - what did he think the Monster was? I suspect that answer would have depended what year you asked him. 

Perhaps his last answer would have been "a load of bloody nonsense" which seemed a phrase attributed to him. But then again, I would like to think he visited this blog and other like minded ones at least once or twice ....

Rest In Peace, Prince Philip. A reading taken from his funeral, Ecclesiasticus 43:23-25

By His wisdom he calmed the great oceans

and placed the islands there.

Sailors tell about the dangers of the sea,

and we listen to their tales in amazement.

In the sea are strange and marvellous creatures:

huge monsters and all kinds of living things.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Audio Interview on the Loch Ness Monster

 

It is time for another audio interview with yours truly. I was invited for a chat by Corbin Maxey recently, who is an animal expert and biologist who will normally be found talking about animals that have been recognised by science.

Since he had already done a podcast on the Bigfoot, it was time for the Loch Ness Monster and that was where I came in. We had a good conversation and some questions old and new were discussed and answered. Whether you agree with the answers is another thing. 

The link to the podcast can be found here,

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Readers' Letters to the Newspapers in 1933

  

Back on the 17th October 1933, The Scotsman published an account of some sightings of the new phenomenon of the Loch Ness Monster. The story had been running for about five months previously up in the Highland newspapers, but the Scotsman's increasing coverage from that point raised its profile throughout the nation. So it was on the 23rd October that a selection of letters from readers with their varying opinions were published which we shall now have a look at. First we have a letter from Captain Munro.

All the accounts that I have seen point to this "monster" being a large grey seal. Seals have been known to make long trips inland, generally over frozen ground. A seal may have ascended the Ness during a spate, and gone overland when he came to rapids. It might also be a large sea otter, or a pair of them. Whatever it is, it is no new animal to the zoologist, and it is certainly not a fish. Seals are often caught by drift-net fishermen on the West Coast, and a drifter might have had one on board and dumped  it in the loch as a jest and to get rid of a troublesome shipmate. If a seal, when he has dived he would come up again some distance off, and also the same with an otter; but in either case,  probably only the nose and eyes would be above the water. It is strange that no stalker with his glass has sighted this "stranger." Whatever it is, it should not be interfered with or killed.

D. J. Munro, Captain, R.N. October 20 1933

Now we already know about Captain Munro as he was the first person to try and place camera stations around the loch via a share offering in 1938. Monster Hunter, Ted Holiday mentioned him in his "Great Orm of Loch Ness" book in 1968 and I wrote about him in an earlier article linked here. The Captain first appears in this letter and is sceptical of anything mysterious about the whole affair, suggesting seals or otters. That attitude evidently softened in the years ahead as the monster proved stubbornly unsolvable and he turned to camera stations. The next letter is from a Mr. Morrison.

Sir, Allow me to make a suggestion which may be an explanation of  the phenomenon which apparently is causing such a scare among people in the neighbourhood of Loch Ness - the so called "Loch Ness Monster." Many years ago a man in my father's employment, whom I knew very well, saw a creature of an appearance similar to that described in the Press in a fresh-water lake in one of the outer islands of the Hebrides. He got such a fright, that it was said that it left its impression on his eyes till the day of his death. The matter was investigated by others who saw this apparition on the lake afterwards, and it was found out that it was nothing more or less than a number of  otters following one another in a line. This episode may help to clear up  the "mystery"of the "Loch Ness Monster".

I am etc. ALEX C. MORRISON.

Here we have a somewhat tongue in cheek story of a man being fooled by a train of otters, mistaking them for a frightful creature. Now we have blogged on monster lochs on the Isle of Lewis and Harris a couple of times. There was the creature of Loch Ulladale (link here) and more monster lochs here and here. Mind you, I can't see any link between those and this story, and it may not have even been that island, but we note otters are getting trotted out again as a solution. The next letter is more interesting.

Sir, Amongst many letters to your paper I have not observed a contribution from a believer of the plesiosaurus. To any such believer who has not come forward - I should like to present the following information. Some years ago a skull was taken in the salmon nets at the mouth of a West Coast river. The Gaelic inhabitants of the district called it a crocodile, but I have an idea that their own name for it  may be vastly different. I have examined this skull on many occasions, and it undoubtedly possesses the teeth and approximately the jaws of a crocodile. So far as I know, the skull is still in existence, and if any believer in a family of old-fashioned monsters would like to spend two days and some money in visiting the place, making inquiries and seeing the skull, I believe that I can arrange the matter. A knowledge of Gaelic is almost essential, and the visitor must not blame me if he finds the skull of a crocodile thrown into the water by an ex-sailor's wife when spring cleaning.

I am &c. C. W. INGRAM.

You will see Mr. Ingram is an early contributor to the plesiosaur theory and tries to link it to an odd story about a skull pulled in with salmon nets at the mouth of a west coast river. Assuming the skull was indeed pulled from the estuary, it obviously could not be a crocodile. What other candidates should be considered? There are no doubt several, it could be a Beluga whale which strayed from the northern waters to be stranded on the west coast of Scotland and die. The picture below shows how its skull looks crocodilian with teeth and a narrow jawline.

This may not be the solution, but these animals should be considered first before introducing plesiosaurs. Where that skull from 1933 resides now is anyone's guess, but we do not think it has anything to do with the Loch Ness Monster. The next letter brings us back to stories of giant eels.

Sir, The "oldest inhabitant" has been strangely backward, and has not yet been trotted out to state the facts of this most interesting subject. Well, here is one of them, at last brought up in Upper Stratherrick, near Loch Ness, of a family located there for well over 400 years, and in close contact with the people of that district. We knew, and, accepted without question, from tradition and common knowledge, that there were and always had been "monster eels" (plural) in Loch Ness and not a "Loch Ness Monster" (singular), for there were many, and of various sizes.

We accepted as a certainty, based on experience that the body of anyone drowned in would never be found. To talk of underwater currents in is nonsense. There are none. Anyone can dispose of an obscure question which lie cannot solve by saying that it is all a myth, good enough for the ignorant and credulous. He may even deign to explain it in some paltry and superficial way; posing as one too wise (shall we say too materialistic?) to be taken in by fairy tales. Such negative or destructive criticism is futile. The critic has not even begun to understand the subject.

Let us get some competent naturalist from South Kensington to interview all these who can give direct evidence, to collate their statements, and give his own skilled conclusions for the benefit of the public, now peculiarly interested in this question.

One might suggest as a hypothesis that, at some remote period when the world was young, eels, migrating from the Garry, the Moriston, the Foyers or Farigaig rivers, through on their way to spawn in the deep Sargasso Sea, have thought it unfit for them to go so far while the depths were available so near their home.

Hence a race of land-locked eels may have evolved. Some of these may have survived the spawning crisis and developed into the "enormous eels" always traditional in Stratherrick, Some such abnormal creatures may possibly be the foundation of our tales of the "each-uisge " (anglice "kelpie'') or of the "seilcheag" (great water-snail), or even of the sea serpent, all of them interesting monsters upon which we need not now dilate, but realities to unsophisticated person: in whom materialism has not yet bred blindness to natural phenomena.

I am &c - OLD STRATHERRICK

As you can see, the idea of a eunuch eel staying in the loch and growing progressively larger over the years and decades is not new. It is a theory as old as the monster and in fact predates the Nessie era by an indeterminate span. So this letter is itself not new in content but re-affirms such stories. However, as pointed out in previous articles, one searches the old Highland newspapers in vain for any stories of large eels of any notable size being caught in Loch Ness.

We get stories of large marine eels being caught or found along the Highland sea coasts nearby and one can be sure that if a seven footer was landed at Loch Ness, it would also make the news with no effort. Note that "Old Stratherrick" does not expand upon this "common knowledge" to back up his claims, apart from the statement that the loch doesn't give up its dead, which is not really related to the issue of oversized eels.

But it cannot be denied that the locals believed in such things, but based pretty much on anecdotal evidence in the same way as our modern monster. That they were called eels is more based on speculation rather than one being dragged ashore for classification. In fact, I would suggest "giant eel" was one descriptive term for them like "plesiosaur" was during the 1960s and 1970s. It was basically considered a good candidate by 19th century locals. One such sighting from 1885 by a Roderick Matheson would have helped propagate this tag for the monster:

Mr. Matheson was part owner of the schooner Bessie, which frequently made passages from the West Coast to the East via the Caledonian Canal and, of course, Loch Ness. On one of these journeys Mr. Matheson, who was mate of the vessel, saw in Loch Ness what he described as ‘the biggest eel I ever saw in my life. It had’ he said ‘a neck like a horse, and a mane somewhat similar’

Moving on from eels, comes a letter from T.J. with some florid and prosaic language.

Sir, - With monsters so much "in the air" - to say nothing of the lochs - it seems rather strange that none of your correspondents should have drawn attention to Mr J. St J. Graham's delightful thriller, "The Wee Loch", in the current number of Chambers' Journal. Compared with the creature therein "featuring," surely 

the monsters of the prime

Rending each other in their slime

Where mellow music matched with him!

while the editorial instinct, in anticipating the present visitation, is almost as marvelous as the marvel itself. Mr Graham's monster is not seen; it is smelt, and it occurs to me, to wonder whether anything 'uncommonly "ancient and fishlike" been encountered in the atmosphere of Loch Ness? I would also suggest that the healthy excitement aroused by this "'questionable shape" - alas, in Shakespeare's sense, unquestionable!  - calls for addition to our numerous anthologies, a collection of stories of monsters.

Why not call it - shade of John Knox! - A Monstrous Regiment? Anyway, permit me to make your readers a present of the suggestion.

I am &c - T. J.

I am not sure the author has much to say here apart from one wondering what that short story entitled "The Wee Loch" was all about? Apart from that, he asks a question as to whether the monster has been detected by the sense of smell. That would seem an irrelevant question as most sightings of the creature are so far away from the witness. Indeed, a search of the sightings database confirms there is no such data. The only sense that really matters here is sight with the rare addition of sound. The last letter addresses the issue of sea serpents.

Sir,—Some of your readers may be interested to hear that as far back as between 1858-60 I heard a minister of the Scottish Church assert that he had seen a sea-serpent. I cannot recall whether he said it was in the North Sea or elsewhere. He had lived for some time at Lochaber. He was afterwards minister of the Parish Church of Golspie and librarian to the Duke of Sutherland: Dr Joass, a geologist and antiquarian. Of course, he was laughed at.

This morning I had a visit from the daughter a minister in East Ross-shire. I asked her if she knew him. She did; she remembered about it. She had seen a drawing of it made by him. There may still be some in the north who remember about it and where he saw it.

I am &c - A CONSTANT READER

The Reverend James Joass did indeed claim a sea serpent sighting but dated to 1873 and the sketch below is taken from Bernard Heuvelman's great work "In the Wake of the Sea Serpent".  

The relationship between the Loch Ness Monster and Scottish sea serpents was covered on this blog in a previous article (link). There is no doubt in my mind that Nessie is a sea serpent either marooned in the loch or an itinerant visitor ... or both. That ends this series of interesting letters and they continued to flow into all manner of newspapers for years to come. Some entertaining, some informative and some just frustrating. But everyone is entitled to their opinion.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Back to the Surgeon's Photograph

It is time to look over some recent debate on this photograph and perhaps some new information that leads to the true location of the picture. It is the most iconic photograph that purports to be of the Loch Ness Monster and it just about features in every documentary or major article devoted to the monster. Since 1994 and the publication of "Nessie: The Surgeon's Photo Exposed" by Alistair Boyd and Dave Martin, it concluded that the photo was a hoax perpetrated by big game hunter. Duke Wetherell, his family and associates in revenge for how the Daily Mail handled his expedition.

Most have accepted that theory but others have not and scrutinized the hoax story suspecting it is a hoax itself. I must admit, having read the book, that I side with its evidence and reasoning, but I always keep an eye open for any thinking on the matter. So, well known cryptozoologist, Karl Shuker, recently posted his thoughts on why the Boyd-Martin hoax theory should be treated with suspicion. His article is here.

He has various things to say in his long article, but there are some main points which are worthy of discussion here. The first is his objection that there is no evidence that the submarine toy used to mount the plastic wood monster neck was ever used. No photos of it, written notes of the time or pieces of the contrivance. I agree with him, there is absolutely nothing of that kind to back up what Wetherell's stepson, Christian Spurling, said about his monster model. You basically either accept it or reject it.

That the components for such a hoax were available at the time is not disputed or perhaps even the engineering to make such an item float in the water (though Karl is not totally convinced of that without a demonstration). I myself do not doubt that the model would float, I am not so sure they could make it submerge with that long neck attached, but I am also not sure it had to. In this case, I am quite happy to accept such a model could be constructed and accomplish its task, unless someone can provide evidence to the contrary.

Karl also has doubts about how the model would look in a photo at Loch Ness and thinks the item looks further out than is suggested in the hoax account, perhaps too far to wade out. That is a difficult thing to establish without knowing where the actual location was. Robert Wilson's statement that it was somewhere near the Altsigh Burn is nigh on impossible to prove. However, Boyd and Martin conducted their own experiment with their own model which established that a similar photograph with similar foreground and background could be done from only a few metres from shore.

That may sound like deep water, but you can walk out on level ground in the water for such a distance before the ground begins to worryingly recede from you at the loch. The original uncropped Surgeon's Photograph and the Alastair Boyd experiment are shown below (original first) and you can see the similarities. There is one caveat to these, Boyd said he had to crop his picture to match the original one.

Since he thinks Wilson's accomplice, Maurice Chambers, transferred from a Leica 50mm film to a quarter plate, he thinks this involved cropping as well. Though why he says the top was cropped and not the bottom is not made clear. Apart from that,  I do not think the way the Wilson picture presents itself poses any issues. The only quibble is how different the two cameras sixty years apart were, which could present different results for the same view.

WITNESS ACCOUNTS

But let us move on the main contentious issue of divergent testimonies. There are at least three people testifying that the photograph was faked. The first was Ian Wetherell, son of Marmaduke, who confessed to his participation in an article written by Sunday Telegraph columnist Philip Purser on 7th December 1975. He said he went up with his father and Maurice Chambers to stage the shoot. Ian himself took the pictures and Chambers took the pictures to be developed. However, the article was largely ignored and lost in the noise of the anticipation of the Rines underwater pictures.

The second is the star witness and step-brother of Ian, Christian Spurling who was interviewed by David Martin in 1991 and subsequently by Alistair Boyd. Some of the interviews were recorded but, to my knowledge, have not been made publicly available in any form. Spurling died shortly after in 1993. He said he did not go to the loch and manufactured his hybrid monster-submarine for the Wetherells at his home in Twickenham, London.

The third witness was a Major Norman Egginton, a colleague of Robert Wilson, who wrote to Nicholas Witchell in 1970 claiming that Wilson had boasted of his involvement in the hoax. This letter constituted quite an amazing coincidence as Witchell had merely written to a bookshop seeking some Loch Ness Monster titles. One of the bookshop directors was Egginton who opened up to Witchell how Wilson had confessed all in 1940 to him and two others. Why Witchell ignored this letter in his subsequent book on the monster is not clear, did he doubt Egginton or was this an inconvenient story?

Now the problem is that these three witnesses do not deliver testimonies that are in complete harmony with what is known and this forms a major basis for objections to the hoax theory.

• Wetherell and Spurling disagree on the material for the neck. Ian said rubber tubing while Spurling said plastic wood.
• Both of them agree that the photo is a model but Egginton claims Wilson said it was a monster cut out superimposed on an empty photo of the loch.
• Ian Wetherell says Chambers handled the development of the pictures while Robert Wilson (the "surgeon") himself said he took the plates to a chemist in Inverness.
• Ian Wetherell claimed they shot the model moving to create a V-wake but the photo evidently shows a stationary object.
• Ian Wetherell stated the model neck was a few inches high while Spurling said it was a foot high.

Now let us get onto the general subject of contradictions between witness testimonies as this is not an unfamiliar subject to myself and other researchers on the subject of the Loch Ness Monster. By way of example, a recent case I looked at from September 1933 concerned multiple eyewitnesses to a large creature seen in the loch. That article is here and once read you will note that despite looking at the same object, the eyewitnesses drew and described a creature that was not quite the same. 

Does this mean their accounts are not to be regarded as honest and trustworthy? Of course not, and one will find these degrees of inconsistency throughout the literature where imperfect humans are involved. This leads us into the issue of how to handle parallel stories as one should not just receive them all as acceptable just because people make mistakes. Some people do not make mistakes - they tell lies.

To my mind, there are different levels of inconsistency that exist. The first is a person's testimony which is at variance with empirical facts. For example, they may state that it was a fine, sunny day on the date in question whereas the weather report states it rained all day or they stated a person they met later was named John Smith where in fact it was Reginald Perrin.

The second instance is where a person's testimony is at variance with themselves in what the person recounts at another time. The other accounts may not be related entirely to the first account, but may contain elements which pose a contradiction to the other. For example, the person may state they were at a certain place at a certain time, but in another text they state they were somewhere else.

Finally, there are the testimonies of multiple people which are at variance with each other in the whole or the part. The multiple testimonies of Wetherell, Spurling and Egginton being the prime example here and we also mentioned the group who saw the monster in 1933.

Now in my estimation, when assessing claimed events, these three levels are ranked in importance. So the first level poses more problems for a story than the second. Likewise, the second poses more problems for it than the third. I say that because it is more likely for separate minds to produce disharmony than one mind and if a story does not line up with reality, there is little hope for it (unless in our example, the witness got the dates wrong).

So, it is really down to one's tolerance levels as regards inconsistencies. I tolerate the inconsistencies in group accounts because we are not perfect recording machines, but if the inconsistencies become too great, a judgement call has to be made. When that call is made is different for all of us depending on our levels of reasoning, prejudice and how much data is at one's disposal.

So what about Wetherell, Spurling and Egginton? In the case of rubber tubing and plastic wood, we assume Spurling is right as he used the material and Wetherell never asked him and guessed it was rubber when he inspected the submarine at the loch.

Egginton has Wilson stating it was a photographic overlay which makes one wonder how much Wilson was in on the details of the creation of the photo as his role was to hand in the final negatives to the chemist in Inverness and repeat the story given to him? There is a degree of compartmentalization amongst the participants in this story.

The discrepancy between Chambers developing the pictures or Wilson may be explained by Chambers (said to be a keen amateur photographer) developing the originals, checking they were up to the job and rephotographing them for development by Wilson in Inverness. Here we have two distinct but separate developments processes. 

The V-wake versus stationary object is on the face of it not resolvable. Either Wetherell made it up or he had an imperfect recall of events 41 years on and the same goes for the few versus twelve inches for the neck. Spurling must be more likely correct as he made it and Wetherell is again making it up or not recalling properly. Make up your own mind on these and weigh the pros against the cons.

However, there is no reason why someone (like Karl Shuker) should not stick to these objections as a basis for doubting the story behind the hoax. As Karl says, this may not preclude any hoax, but it would preclude this particular hoax story concerning a toy submarine and a moulded head-neck.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the main reason for me why it is true is because three or more people have come forward claiming either direct participation in the hoax or hearing a confession to the deed. Despite the problems with points of testimony, this counts more for me than the finer details. If one person came forward and claimed they did it, I would be dubious about it. If they came forward, not claiming participation, but heard a confession, I would be even more dubious. But these three are separated in time and space. Egginton did not appear to know Wetherell or Spurling and Wetherell had died some years before Boyd and Martin met Spurling, so no chance of collusion or preparation.

That is the way I see it and that leaves us with the issue of the second photograph which is raised in objections to the hoax story. This is not a contradiction per se as no witness mentions it. To be frank, this doesn't surprise me as it never entered the public view until Constance Whyte published it in 1957, and even then, I am not sure it ever appeared in the newspapers.

Nevertheless, the photo exists and a satisfactory explanation for it, if one believes the main photo is a fake, is still beyond our grasp. The claimed differing head shape is not conclusive to me as it is a bit more blurred than the main one (see overlay above). The wave patterns are certainly different, indicating a sufficiently different time or place, unless a gust of wind opportunely came in to ruffle the waters. It is possible they are indeed pictures of the same object.

Boyd and Martin do not offer an explanation, but cast some doubt on the story of the chemist who developed the Wilson plates who claimed he kept the second photo after Wilson expressed no interest in it. Perhaps there is something there to explore, but currently there is no evidence to take it further and there we leave it.

 

ANOTHER LOOK AT THE PHOTOGRAPH

Moving on from the current arguments for and against the Wetherell hoax, I thought I would take another look at the photograph itself and see if there were any clues in it. And why not? There have been plenty of opinions given as to what is visible in the picture beyond the main subject. These range from wires to seagulls to monster limbs to second animals. That is on top of the general views that the main object of interest is a bird, an otter's tail, a branch and so on. I was once told eyewitness testimonies were subjective but photographs were objective. The truth is more likely to be somewhere in between for both cases.

Like the three witnesses to the hoax, there may be three "witnesses" to where the photo was actually taken. So, there are three observations I wish to make which I may class as speculative or even deductive, but not perhaps empirical. The first concerns waves. Below is an uncropped version of the photo and below I add lines to give a clearer view of where the waves are coming from. They are coming in at a slight angle from the left. I estimate (in the absence of a protractor) about 5 degrees from the horizontal.

Now the thing to point out about Loch Ness is that the prevailing wind is from the south west as low pressure fronts from the Atlantic come in rotating anti-clockwise and air currents are forced through the funnel of the Great Glen complex. As the waves that are pushed north east by these winds travel up the loch, the waves weaken as they bend into the two shores along the loch until they roll onto the shore in a parallel fashion. I believe the waves we see coming in from the left in the photo are those weakening waves.

What has this to do with the Wilson monster debate? If Robert Wilson was near Invermoriston on the northern shore as he said, the photo would have the south on its right and the north on its left. Therefore, the prevailing south westerly wind would be coming in on the right and so would the waves they are pushing along. The main reason that they would be coming in from the left is because the photo was taken from the opposite shore where the south is to the left.

Of course, that cannot be presented as a cast iron argument. Perhaps there was some unusual wave generation going on due to boats or a rarer weather front coming in from the east. Perhaps one could even argue the photo is inadvertently reversed. I would deem it unlikely it was boats as Ian Wetherell and his co-conspirators would have sought a place where there was no one else around. However, on the balance of probabilities, the normal prevailing wind is causing those waves.

Now let me move onto the second observation. If the hilltops on the opposite shore had been visible, there would have been a good chance of establishing the general vicinity of the picture. Unfortunately, the hilltops are cropped out and it would be no surprise that this was the intention of Maurice Chambers. But there is a feature present that may offer help. It is the white line on the upper left of the photo above. 

It doesn't look like a stream or the main road which would be largely flat along that stretch, so what is it? With this in mind, I began to search through old photos and postcards for a feature that would match this. I searched both sides of the loch in this case and the best feature I came upon is best shown in this postcard from the 1950s (click on the image to enlarge it). Notice the line heading up at angle on the opposite shore on the right of the postcard. This was taken from a vantage point high up near the village of Foyers which is to the left and out of sight in the postcard. The land feature on the near side of the loch is the spit of land surrounding the estuary of the River Foyers. The old aluminium works is beyond the bottom left near the shore.

This would imply the photo was taken from the shore nearest to Foyers, somewhere near where its river empties into the loch. As to what the feature on the opposite side is, it may be a logging road or something similar, but that is secondary to the fact it is there and a good match for the Wilson photo feature. Now, I could be wrong and someone may come up with some other feature on an old photo, but let us carry this a bit further. A modern satellite picture shows the feature on the left (marked A) starting at the loch and rising into the hills.

Which leads me to the third and final observation. Ian Wetherell was quoted in the 1975 Mandrake article as saying:

We found an inlet where the tiny ripples would look like full size waves out on the loch.

If we draw a line across the loch from the track to Foyers where this feature would be to the left of the field of view, we do actually come to an inlet marked at B, one I have visited on many an occasion at the end of Foyers beach. Could this be the very location where the Surgeon's Photograph was taken those long years ago?

The proposed location obviously fits the prevailing waves theory I presented and it kind of fits in with what we know of the Wetherell expedition. When Marmaduke Wetherell was commissioned by the Daily Mail in December 1933, he started along the south shore going from Dores down to Fort Augustus, so he knew it was a quieter part of the loch and offered better spots to stage a later hoax with less likelihood of interference. In fact, Wetherell's infamous hippo tracks were made on a beach somewhere south of Foyers. Let us just say he was familiar with the area.

When the Wetherells headed to the loch with their toy monster weeks later, they sought that inlet to create the impression of a larger object. How that subplot panned out is not clear. There may be some others inlets around the Foyers river, but the further north you go, the closer you get to the busy aluminium works and the power station (though I suspect this happened on a Sunday). The fact that a water bailiff turned up (Alex Campbell?) suggests it was indeed near the river where anglers are more likely to fish and perhaps closer to April than January as the fishing season ramps up.

All speculation, of course, but food for thought. Eighty seven years on, I camp by the River Foyers once or twice a year and walk along that stretch of beach to its very south end, watching the loch, enjoying the views, contemplating various things. Could it be that yards away, the minuscule remains of a toy submarine with a plastic wood neck now lie amongst the rocks and pebbles, beyond detection but still causing a controversy which echoes down the decades even unto this day?

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com