The Statistics of Nessie Sightings

Is the study of the Loch Ness Monster a subjective or objective matter? I suppose the answer has to be both when one considers what the particular focus is. Photographs and films can be considered objective evidence although the interpretation of each item can be considered a mix of the subjective and objective. Likewise, eyewitness accounts are objective but again the interpretation is often in the eye of the beholder.

However, in all of these there is usually a collection of quantifiable data points than can have statistical techniques applied to them. For the next few articles, we shall have a look at some of these in no particular order. When it comes to the Loch Ness and large enough statistical datasets, we are mainly talking about eyewitness accounts which can be subdivided into a variety of metrics related to time, motion and dimensions.

The database I use is an augmented version of one based on the work of Charles Paxton and consists of over a thousand accounts divided into various sub-categories. By way of example, I will open up with a dataset that one would expect to be Nessie-agnostic, in other words, no correlations may be expected. In this case, I am using the day of the month on which individual eyewitness accounts happened. Using the total dataset, it was ascertained that 639 accounts had a complete date associated with them. The number of reported sightings on each day from day 1 to day 31 is shown below.

The expected average over days 1 to 31 is 20 sightings. However, there is a slight skewing of the data as four months have 30 days, seven have 31 and one has 28 or 29 days. So it is no surprise that the 31st has the lowest count of 10, but the 2nd comes in just behind at 11. However, the data is quite varied about that average of 20 reports, ranging from 10 on the 31st to 32 on the 27th. Does this mean Nessie is more disposed to putting in an appearance on the 27th of any given month or that more eyes are on the loch on the 27th of the month? Or is it just a random effect of the data?

One way to approach this statistically is by calculating the normal (or Gaussian) distribution curve for this dataset. This curve basically shows the distribution of data points around a mean value. For example, in a set of student exam marks, we may find that most students score a C grade at the peak of the bell curve while one half of the curve are the higher grades which tail off to the end where a small number achieve an A+ and on the other side of the curve the low achievers tail off to the small number who get F grades or worse.

Given enough data points, it is found that these bell curves occur in many areas of society and nature. This dataset of Nessie reports is no different as it produces a nice normal distribution below centred around the peak of the average of about 20 sightings per day of month. We see it also tails off towards the extremes of a high or low incidence of reports for the days mentioned above. This suggests the distribution of sightings is within statistical norms.

However, one further confirmation of this is the so-called "68-95-99 rule" which is a heuristic (or approximate rule of thumb) which states that:

68% of the data is within 1 standard deviation of the mean.

95% of the data is within 2 standard deviation of the mean.

99.7% of the data is within 3 standard deviation of the mean.

The standard deviation of a set of data points is a measure of how much the data varies from the mean or average value. The higher the variance, the higher the standard deviation value. The value of the standard deviation for this population of data points is 5.35. Applying the 68-95-99 rule, vertical lines are usually drawn at the 1st, 2nd and 3rd standard deviations (or sigmas). The 1st, 2nd and 3rd deviations are calculated by adding or subtracting 1, 2 or 3 times the standard deviation of 5.35 from the mean of 20.6 on either side of the peak.

Thus we should have 68% of the data within the 1st deviation or between the vertical line values of 15.3 and 26.0 and 95% of the data between the values of 9.5 and 31.3. In this case practically all the data is within the 2nd standard deviation. Statisticians tend to only regard data points as being significant or out of the normal if they go beyond the 3rd standard deviation (here between 4.6 and 36.7). None of the Nessie data points get near the 3rd deviation and so we conclude nothing of statistical significance is notable here. For example, if a third of all sightings had occurred on the 15th day of the month, then we would have had something to scratch our heads over.

But one might venture to say that the dataset is corrupted by accounts which are not sightings at all but are misidentifications and hoaxes. Will this not skew any analysis of the data? After all, do not experts claim that 90% of all monster sightings are explicable by known and unremarkable phenomenon, either natural or man-made? The quote below is from one of the leading Loch Ness Monster researchers, the late Roy Mackal, who wrote this in his conclusion at the end of "The Monsters of Loch Ness":

The realization that surface observations are rather rare has developed gradually over the years. The number of recorded reports during the 30-year period following 1933 was roughly 3,000. This figure, taken at face value, would mean that about 100 observations were made annually. From this it is clear why it was reasonable to expect photographic surveillance of the loch surface to produce evidence rapidly. However, as noted, a more careful examination of the reports tells us that a large proportion of these observations, perhaps 90%, can be identified as errors, mistakes, misinterpretations, and, in a few cases, conscious fraud.

In my opinion, this 90% statistic is as meaningful as saying nine out of ten cats prefer Whiskas. Firstly it is based on a premise that about three thousand sightings were recorded between 1933 and 1963. The database I use has been thoroughly researched and it lists about 570 unique reports over that period or one fifth of the claim by Roy Mackal. Where can these missing 2430 reports be found? I doubt they all exist and I cannot tell how this number was arrived at. Perhaps some were low grade LNIB eyewitness reports. So, perhaps the 100 observations per year that made Roy Mackal conclude a paradox and led him to a 90% reduction is not so paradoxical when it now reduces to 20 observations per annum over that thirty year time span.

I would add the caveat at this point that the original author of the database I use may have found 3000 reports and culled them. I know he excluded such dubious items as Frank Searle's accounts, but 3000 sounds unlikely. Secondly, this ninety odd percent assertion is something that occurs elsewhere and seems to just be a number symbolic of human error and the triumph of scepticism. The number was repeated again by LNIB member Clem Skelton (see link):

Skelton figures that eighty to ninety percent of the people who think they have seen the monster have really seen something else.

It gets worse as the same numbers appear in Bigfoot research (see link):

... even those who research Bigfoot will admit that roughly ninety-five percent of Bigfoot sightings are either mistakes or purposeful hoaxes.

Imagine that, a completely different phenomenon with completely different explanations, yet they come out at about 90% as well! And let us not forget the UFO phenomenon where, you guessed it, nine out of ten cats, I mean debunkers, prefer swamp gas and the planet Venus (see link):

UFO reports -- 90 percent explained; scientists say rest should be investigated 

Perhaps if it said often enough it will be believed. The truth of the matter is that as the observational qualities of the report deteriorate, the curve of natural explicability approaches the 90% range in an asymptotic manner. Deterioration can mean increasing distance, decreasing time to observe and assess or poor weather conditions, light levels and so on. It would be naive to claim that 90% of all reports seen at 100 yards are as easily explained as 90% of all reports at one mile away. I hope I have made my point, but having said it, a certain percentage of the total claimed sightings will be in error. What is that percentage?

No one knows and let us leave that guesstimation to personal opinion rather than being dogmatic about it. In that light, an attempt should be made to extract a subset of sightings which can be regarded as error free as possible. So we go back to Roy Mackal, who in the same book, tabulated a series of 251 reports he regarded as the best up to the year 1969. On page 84 of the paperback edition, he says he extracted them from the three thousand aforementioned reports. I have made my comment on that, but I will largely take these 251 sightings as of a higher standard and graph them. I say "largely" as the St. Columba account is included, but not surprisingly, the day of the month for this encounter is not given. The graph using the Mackal data is shown below.

We have 138 out of the 251 reports supplying a date or 55%. Does this graph bear any similarity to the first one now that the quality has been increased? One can see similarities such as the expected dip on the 31st and again the count for the 2nd is very low, but there are also divergences. Going back to statistical techniques, similarities in data sets can be quantified using a correlation function. The one I will use is the Pearson correlation coefficient formula. If the coefficient approaches a value of 1 then the two data sets are increasingly similar. If the value approaches 0, there is less similarity between the two. If the value goes past zero to approach -1 then the two are more negatively correlated, or a mirror image of each other.

The correlation coefficient for the two data sets turns out to be 0.32 which means they are not particularly correlated. Does this mean anything? Given that we are examining the Nessie-agnostic day of month, it shouldn't and we are looking at one set of random data against another. The normal distribution graph for the Mackal data is shown below.

This distribution is not as smooth as the larger data set which we can perhaps put down to the lack of data points compared to the other. If a data set gets too small, statistical analysis becomes less reliable. However, the lines indicating the 1st and 2nd standard deviations once again show that the data is within normal bounds and there are no anomalies here.

CONCLUSIONS

We deliberately started this series of articles with a data set which should bear no relation to monster or people activity. There is no theory that either should be more disposed to one day of the month over another, apart from the slight dip expected on the 31st. In other words, it should be data which varies around its average conforming to normal statistical techniques and this has been confirmed. So we can go forward with some confidence in the tools tried out. In the next article, we shall look at data more relevant to the statistics of Loch Ness Monster sightings.

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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Marmaduke Wetherell makes a Film

 

Before Marmaduke Wetherell engaged in his most famous production - the Surgeon's Photograph of 1934, he was in the African continent making another production, though this one was more based in fact being the story of the 19th century missionary, David Livingstone. The image above is the front cover of a promotional magazine from 1925 shows Wetherell playing the lead part. I saw the item on eBay which describes it thus:

Programme for one of the (presumed) first British screenings of the silent movie Livingstone, directed by “Duke” M. A. Wetherell, who also played the title role, David Livingstone the explorer of Africa. (For more on Wetherell and the Loch Ness Monster, see below) The film opened in the UK in January 1925, and though the programme has no date or venue it was certainly produced at around that time. The cover has an image of Wetherell as he appeared in the movie and the 5.5” x 8.5” programme is stuffed with information about the life and expeditions of Livingstone as well as the making of the film in October and November 1924. It includes a cast list, photos of film scenes, and even photographs and biographies of two African performers, one of whom claimed to have been Stanley’s servant as a boy, and therefore present at the actual meeting between the two men in November 1871. Eleven of the twelve pages are devoted to film-related content, with the only advert being one for Osram light bulbs on the back cover. In fair condition, the programme has some creases but is clean and bright. A very rare programme indeed.

* M. A. Wetherell was the hoaxer behind the famous “surgeon’s photograph” of the Loch Ness Monster. Details can be found on the Monster’s Wikipedia page, but it is interesting to note that the photo was actually taken by Ian Wetherell, who played David Livingstone at age 10 in the movie Livingstone.

Here is a picture of Wetherell from that magazine which tells us he had spent fifteen years in Africa up to that point. It made me wonder if he had ever heard of the mysterious Mokele-Mbembe of the Congo being the big game hunter he claimed to be. Then again, Africa is a huge place, and him being in Rhodesia must have put over a thousand miles between him and that cryptid.

Another player in the Surgeon's Photograph drama was his son, Ian Wetherell, who took part in the taking of the model photo at Loch Ness. As it turns out, he is in this film playing a young David Livingstone as shown below. Another person mentioned in this magazine is Gustave Pauli, who is credited with the photography. Now some may remember him as Wetherell's cameraman when he mounted his Daily Mail expedition to Loch Ness in late 1933. He is shown below with his beret on with his camera at the ready beside Wetherell at the loch. The location is Dores Beach on the pier which is now just a number of decaying posts sticking out of the water.

A thought passed my mind on the matter of Pauli. He had been at Wetherell's side since at least 1925 helping him with photographic matters. So he would seem the natural choice to get these monster pictures properly processed with the minimum chance of error. Not much is known about him and perhaps he was an honest man who would have nothing to do with Wetherell's planned revenge upon the Daily Mail. 

The eBay item can be viewed here.

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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Arthur Grant's Wall

 

Its a funny old world sometimes. Just a couple of weeks after posting on Arthur Grant and whether our favourite beastie had to negotiate a wall to get back to the safety of deep waters, something turned up on eBay. It was a Mexican magazine called Duda issue No.9 from July 1971 devoted to the subject of the Loch Ness Monster. The title "Duda" means "Doubt" in Spanish and they seemed to have published on various mysteries from all parts of the world over the years. A look at the pages displayed on the listing showed that the author had included the Grant case as you can see below.

As was the case with these illustrated magazines, they did like to go a bit beyond what had been reported in the original testimony from the primary source newspapers of the time. The more dramatic the picture, the better the sales I guess. Here we see Arthur Grant fully kitted out in motor cycling gear, leather boots, goggles and all. The creature itself is more threatening than what Grant described with human chomping teeth included. I suspect Grant is a bit too close to the creature here for his own good.

But then the wall appears and the creature clambers over it. The translation from the Spanish reads "and awkwardly climb the wall that separates the road from the loch". One would be interested to know what the magazine's source material was for this account as none I know of mention a wall. Either way, their version of Nessie with powerful hindquarters knows how to get over a wall.

A bit of a fun coincidence. Maybe someone can translate the Spanish and I include the other pages I saw and wonder what report they are referring to when the monster pops up in front of a man in a boat. The one from 11th July 1935 in the adjoining Loch Dochfour is the Mrs Gerald McGrath head and neck account from 11th June 1935 which I include at the end from The Scotsman of the 12th June. The description of two rows of fin like "excrescences" refers to some kind of abnormal protuberances which is quite curious and difficult to envisage without a sketch.

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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Interesting selection of Cryptozoological items

Just a quick note to refer readers to a long listing of dozens of Loch Ness Monster books and other cryptozoological items on eBay just now by seller roman10818. I don't think I have seen quite a good collection coming under auction from just one seller in my years of watching eBay. The listings include books from Gould and Oudemans in the 1930s right up to the present day and they can be found here.

Now I admit I own practically all of the Nessie items but I have been scouring the book landscape for decades. One item I did not own was an original copy of Frank Searle's unpublished "Loch Ness Investigation: What Really Happened", presumably posted out by Searle. I only have a photocopy given to me by one of Frank's supporters back in the 1980s. 

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Arthur Grant meets a Wall of Scepticism

 

I have to say that Arthur Grant is one of my favourite accounts of the Loch Ness Monster. A giant creature lurching across a lonely road under a full moon before a befuddled motor cyclist? What's not to like? Of course, the dramatic story line makes some think it is just that - a made up story. I cover this account in my book, When Monsters Come Ashore, and will no more than quickly reproduce some words from the time to bring you up to speed. The event happened in the early hours of the 5th January 1934.

"It was," said Mr. Grant, "a bright moonlight night after rain had fallen. When almost forty yards away under the shadow of the hills, a short distance from the part of the reconstructed Glasgow-Inverness road near Abriachan, I observed what appeared to be a large black object on the opposite side of the road. I was almost on it when it turned what I thought was a small head on a long neck, and the creature, apparently taking fright, made two great bounds  across the road and plunged into the loch.

"I had a splendid view of the object; in fact, I almost struck it with my motor cycle. It had a long neck with an eel-like head and large oval-shaped eyes, just on the top of the small head. The body was very hefty, and I distinctly saw two front flippers. There were other two flippers, which seemed to be webbed behind, and there was a tail, which I estimate would be from five to six feet long. The curious thing about the tail was that it did not, so far as I could see, come to a point, but was rounded off. The total length of the animal would be from 15 to 20 feet.

"Knowing something about natural history, I can say that I have never seen anything in my life like the animal I saw. It looked like a hybrid. 

"I jumped off my cycle," said Mr. Grant, "but the animal with great speed had rushed into the loch, splashing the surface violently and making away."

Having written the chapter on this event, it is never wise to close the book as things always turn up for further discussion and insight. For example, news of a three toed cast found back then came to light after I wrote the book (see link). Today, the focus is on addressing another attempt to discredit this account by sceptics. In this case, pictures of the then newly developed Glasgow to Inverness have been posted with what is claimed to be an important feature - walls. One is shown at the top and another below and they were part of the completed construction of the new road running for miles.

If you wonder what walls have to do with this case, then the implication is that if there was a wall in front of the alleged Nessie, it would not have got over it. Ergo, Grant lied and the sceptics can remove another famous case from their hit list (though I suspect they think they have done that already). Now by my estimate, these walls could be up to two or three feet high as they seem to vary. It is not clear if there was a consistent height depending on the situation or risk at that point by the shoreline. One can still see them today in various states, some missing stones or covered in vegetation and so on.

The first question to ask is whether our creature could hurdle such an obstacle? That depends entirely on what kind of species the animal is and so we could go off in different directions speculating on our own favoured beast. Could a mammal such as a long necked version of a seal get over such a wall? I would say yes going by this video clip of a much smaller seal negotiating an imposing rock of similar height to the walls by Loch Ness. One would think a larger pinniped would have less trouble getting over.

Could a plesiosaur negotiate it? Now you're asking a question. Are you talking about the ones preserved in the fossil record or the evolved one popular in the 1970s? When a plesiosaur is proposed to have evolved, there is no end to the adaptive qualities one may add to achieve ones ends. Well, I see no reason why it couldn't, but I am not being authoritative on that matter. And so we may go through the list of candidates.

But one may cut through this and say if the creature managed to get out of the loch, get on to the road and over it then surely it can retrace its route in reverse with similar skill? One can see the logic there, though another may retort that it may have disembarked at an easier point further away. Such is the cut and thrust when information is lacking. But another observation may come to our aid. As explained in my book, the location of the Arthur Grant encounter is almost certainly along the stretch of road now occupied by the Clansman Hotel. The Google image below shows the hotel and note the green Nessie statue to the left conveniently reminding us of the event nearly ninety years before.

A look around shows a lack of walls such as this shot where the only visible wall bridges over a stream. Obviously, the metal barriers are a modern addition. The second image is looking the opposite direction towards the south and you can see the entrance to the pier where various vessels such as the Jacobite tourist cruisers pick up passengers. One would surmise that a brick wall is less likely to be found at a pier as it would hinder access for vehicles and if a boat had to be towed onto land.

A look at contemporary ordnance survey maps may help us here. The first is the one inch per mile (1:63360) "Popular" edition published from 1921-1930. You can see the pier clearly marked and note that the red road is delineated by either solid black line or dotted black line. According to the symbols of the time, the solid line with a red road indicates a main route between towns but if it changes to dotted line then it is an unfenced boundary. The road goes from solid to dotted as the pier approaches and for a distance after before going solid again. We can take it that this means any wall disappears to accommodate access to the pier. This stretch of unfenced boundary is where I think Grant encountered his monster.

However, this map was published in 1929 and Grant himself refers to the reconstructed road in the account above five years later. Did that result in a wall being constructed near the pier? A look at another map from 1940 says not. It is a military map at at scale of 1:25000 and the broken/unbroken lines follow much the same pattern. So no wall along the shore and I think we can dispose of this sceptical objection.

Of course, other objections to the Arthur Grant land sighting have been made over the years. The arrival of Marmaduke Wetherell at the scene gave sceptics the opportunity to play the guilt by association card. However, an expedition led by Mr. A. F. Hay, a Fellow of the Zoological Society of Scotland, visited the site and their report was published by the Scotsman newspaper. They had examined the road and beach and proposed a walrus was the best candidate. Curiously, they did not mention anything about walls getting in the way and I have no reason to doubt this was because there was no wall there.

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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

A Recent Video Examined

 

A few days back came the latest video published by the Daily Mail of a wake filmed by an anonymous couple from above Urquhart Castle at about 6am on the 25th April. Below is the relevant text from that article:

The woman had woken up just after 6am on Monday and decided to take some photographs as the loch was so still that its surface was like glass. But after spotting something large moving in the water, she began filming on her iPhone and could be heard saying ‘What on Earth is that?’ as her husband joined her to watch what was unfolding. The couple filmed for two minutes and 37 seconds from 6.21am as the mysterious creature – they estimated it to be between 20 and 30 feet in length – swam beneath the water and gave them tantalising glimpses as it broke the surface.

It appeared to have at least one fin or limb, which paddled under the water ‘like an oar’. The woman also took several still pictures from the vantage point of their holiday cottage set on the hillside opposite Urquhart Castle, around a quarter of a mile from the loch. She added: ‘I really don’t know what it was in the water. It was something large. I don’t think it really equates on the video quite how large it was. ‘We don’t know what the creature was. It was propelling itself with something. It wasn’t how a fish would do it.

‘You could see it much clearer than it’s come out in the photos. The lumps or humps or whatever they are kept disappearing under the water, but it was still pushing forward under the water. ‘You could see something under the water, then it rushed forward and turned round. From what we could gauge, it was between 20 and 30 feet long. There was nothing else on the loch, no boats, nothing.’

The shot below with the castle in the foreground gives some context. Now when I read the headline that it was a double hump film and the best footage for twenty years, I thought I have to see this. But as they say, the trailer is often better than the film and I was disappointed with what I saw. In fact, I struggled to see much detail in the mobile camera clip. We are told they were high on a hillside about a quarter of a mile away from the loch.

And therein lies the problem, they were in a comparable position to the controversial webcam clips that have regaled newspapers in recent years. Though admittedly, the resolution of this is a bit better. I believe this is a 640x360 resolution (at 25 frames per second) and it looks like the webcam is 480x360 and so the couple's video has about 33% more information. This is not much compared to the webcam, though I suspect the original iPhone video would be higher, perhaps 720p. If so, an investigation is incomplete without seeing this original file.

Now the image at the top of the article is taken from the Daily Record presumably was a highly zoomed in frame from the video. I say that because we also learn that some photographs were taken by the lady and I suspect they may provide more detail than the video. At this point, I do not have access to these and again the investigation may be incomplete without them. However, if this is an enlargement of a photograph, then perhaps they are not that useful.

But what we see in the top image is interesting in that the two dots are behind the bow of the wave which is being generated by something else. In fact, there appears to be nothing at the head of the wave. Clearly there has to be something there and the conclusion is that whatever it may be is lost in the pixellation.

We have the video and there are photos, but we must not discount the naked eye testimony as others are wont to do. The eyewitness said what they saw with the eye was superior to what was recorded and that I can agree with. The human delivers something which no camera can. In that context, some details come out:

It appeared to have at least one fin or limb, which paddled under the water ‘like an oar’. ... The lumps or humps or whatever they are kept disappearing under the water, but it was still pushing forward under the water. ‘You could see something under the water, then it rushed forward and turned round.

Nevertheless, they were still a quarter of a mile away or about 400 metres. This is not a great distance - unless a thirty foot creature wholly breaks the surface with a double hump and long neck display and goes on a swim for a good few minutes. But certainly, going by the video alone, nobody could conclusively identify what is in the sequence - unless somebody comes forward and confesses they had a vessel or something in that area at that time. However, the lack of detail in the video should not be taken as a reason to discount the naked eye testimony.

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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

The Usse of North England

 

Here is a clipping from the Cleveland Standard dated May 5th 1934. The news of a monster in Loch Ness brought out various interesting stories from the end of 1933 onward as some newspapers vied for attention bringing up stories about their own local monsters both past and present. This one goes right back to the 17th century for one of oldest tales that I have come across. Here is the text of the article:

Just an Usse!

I have just come across something which will make the Loch Ness Monster wish he had never seeen the light of publicity. It is an Usse. There is recorded in an old 17th Century volume I was looking at the other day an account of a queer monster stated to have been found at Coatham back in 1615. The entry reads:

October 28. Being Satterday, 1616. In Teasmouth, besides Cotham, in the Countie of Yorke, came ther to land a mightie ffish, the length whereof was 19 yards. The bodye in compass 20 yards. Betwixt the eyes four yards with 32 teeth as big as one's arme, long 9 inches. In coloure like the blewe sky. Skynn without skaylis with haire like the seale. The same (as some may yt having seen such fish) is an Usse. Sir Henry Bellansys having the title and right to all sea wrecks and pisces regale from Runswick to Yarme, sold the cyle and parmasetye to one John Whyte, of Cotham, for £120.

And now we know!

The town of Coatham is located near the modern city of Middlesbrough and the creature appears to have been stranded at Teasmouth or in or near the estuary or mouth of the River Tees. The location is shown below in two maps.

One can certainly imagine big fish stories coming from the East of England bordering the North Sea. But what of this strange beast called an "usse" by this narrator from over four hundred years past? So we have a beast almost sixty feet long, which excludes a lot of candidates right away. The "compass" of twenty yards we presume to be the circumference, in which case if it was a circular body would equate to a diameter of 6.4 yards or nineteen feet across. So the length to diameter ratio perhaps was three to one indicating a bulbous body.

However, no mention is made of our typical long tail or neck associated with the Loch Ness Monster. In fact, perhaps in the manner of a catfish, we have a great gash of a mouth four yards long dominating the front of the beast, which was not far off our suggested body diameter of six yards. Add to this the teeth each of nine inches and we have a formidable beast. With blue skin like that of a seal, what could it have been?

The fact that this was deemed a rare find is shown in the fact it was sold for £120, which is over £30,000 in today's money. This suggests this was something that didn't arrive on those shores very often. In fact, a clue lies in the word "parmasetye" which equates to our modern word "parmacetti" which I am told "is the pearly white, waxy, translucent solid, obtained from the oil in the head of the sperm whale: used chiefly in cosmetics and candles, and as an emollient."

What the other material named "cyle" is I am not sure, but we seem to be in the realm of toothed whales such as the sperm whale, whose teeth indeed can reach up to nine inches as a maximum and sixty feet is easily achievable as a length. They can also be blue-grey in colour. So perhaps not such a competitor to Nessie as first suggested.

As for that old English word "usse", that is the mystery to me. The word "whale" was already in use at that time. In fact, the King James Bible, published at that time uses the word "whale" when referring to some large sea creatures. So why didn't they just refer to it as a whale? Perhaps it was a local dialect used by people from that region? Suggestions are invited in the comments.

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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com