Wednesday 21 December 2011

Alex Harvey Presents The Loch Ness Monster

Alex Harvey and his The Sensational Alex Harvey Band had a string of hits in the 1970s but one album he produced in 1977 took an entirely different tack altogether. Entitled Alex Harvey Presents The Loch Ness Monster, his interest in Nessie is evident to see in this collection of eyewitness accounts.

Where this item acquires high status in Loch Ness Research is in its recordings of the actual witnesses recounting their experiences. Clearly there is an advantage to be gained here from listening to the actual people who claimed to see what they saw as opposed to reading it on a more dispassionate page. The following witnesses were interviewed:

Father Gregory Brusey
Frank Armstrong
A. Hewson
Sam Job
Alex Campbell
Mrs. Margaret Grant of Invermoriston
Frank Searle
Sandy Smart
Sgt. Nicholson
Mrs. Kathrine Robertson
Ian Dunn
Billy Kennedy

Some accounts such as Frank Searle will no doubt be viewed with disdain. Alex Campbell's account of something he earlier said was cormorants is controversial. The rest are people largely removed from the Loch Ness investigation scene and were just ordinary people going about their lives before being stopped by something regarded as extraordinary.

The album is available to listen to on YouTube in three parts via these embedded links:





Saturday 17 December 2011

Final Thoughts on the Jon Rowe Photograph

Back in September, a new photograph of Nessie hit the headlines as fish farm worker, Jon Rowe, took a snap of something unusual out in the water beyond the pier of the farm. I have previously discussed this event in two previous posts (here and here).

Now being a website which believes in an exotic species of creature living at the bottom of the loch, nevertheless, we try and avoid being a "Never Nessie no matter what!" or an "Always Nessie no matter what!" kind of website. So we have something here for both skeptics and believers alike.

Living relatively near Loch Ness, I headed up there back in October and visited the said fish farm just south of the village of Dores. I parked my car just outside the entrance and walked down the pathway to the locked gate (though it was an open site). Despite there being cars parked at the entrance, I could not find anyone there. I could hear a loud humming noise of machinery behind the trees but could get no one's attention.

That was a pity as I had hoped to enquire after the whereabouts of Jon. At the end of the path, I could not proceed further due to health and safety regulations avoiding contamination of the site without wearing the right equipment or receiving the correct treatment (they don't like the salmon getting infected!). Nevertheless, there was plenty to see as my first photograph below shows.


To compare this against the Nessie photograph shows we are in the same place as claimed by the witness.


As I panned over to the main area of the fish farm, I noticed and photographed something that skeptics will no doubt make much of.


The pier you can see is most likely where Jon took his photograph from but what is the small object floating just beyond the pier? It's a buoy, of course, and skeptics will suggest that this (and presumably another buoy) were the objects actually photographed. Clearly, the thought did cross my mind, so I did a bit of analysis. Here is a close up of the buoy and a close up of the "bumps" Jon photographed.



Do the objects in the Rowe photograph look like the buoy in the upper photograph? Well, they don't to me but perhaps some skeptic can put up a convincing argument. I don't think they do, but in the interest of open debate, I put these pictures up for discussion. Comparing various pictures I took, I also thought the buoy was bigger than the two objects.

But I said I had something for both sceptic and believer alike today. I have two further observations to make about the "bumps" photographed in September. Take another look at the uppermost "bump". You will have noted that there are various black dots on the surface of the two objects. However, it appears that from the centre dot (or perhaps orifice?) that there is some kind of fluid being ejected. I have annotated the ejecta line in the picture below.


Make of that what you will. Some won't see it, some will. What it means if it is really there (and not an artifact of the image) is another matter. Some may think this revives the discredited "synchronising birds" explanation. Do birds pee upside-down? I would not have thought so (these systems have evolved to be gravity assisted!).

However, on my second thought, two bumps suggest bilateral symmetry which suggests a lifeform. Another suggestion of something looking bilateral if visible further down the photograph.


If you look at the bottom centre to right of the picture there is a curious oval-like structure which to me is not suggestive of wave interference but something ridge like and barely below the surface. The water around looks slightly raised as if pushed up by something underneath. The nearest analogy I could think of to demonstrate what I was seeing was something like the back of a crocodile (below).




















The perpendicular lines to the left of the item are the water waves rising and curving over this interesting piece of symmetry. Is it the back of the Loch Ness Monster? Judge for yourselves. But I better stop there as I am getting a bit cross eyed looking at the pixels of this picture!




Tuesday 13 December 2011

The Recantation of John MacDonald

Who is John MacDonald, you may ask?

Back on May 12th 1933, ten days after the first Loch Ness Monster article was printed in the Inverness Courier, the editor evidently favoured a second opinion in the form of Captain John MacDonald who had commanded several ships which had steamed their way up and down Loch Ness for nearly 50 years. Who better to ask about what sights may been seen on the loch surface, they may have thought.

The Captain proceeded to solemnly declare that the Mackays were the victims of their stirred imaginations and had probably seen salmon at play in the waters. After all, he had embarked on nearly 20,000 trips on the loch and he had never seen a thing and he knew what he was talking about.

He also dismissed any talk about a legendary creature being known about in the loch. Why is that? Because no one had ever told him about it! As it turns out, the tradition of a Water Horse in Loch Ness was well established.

Ronald Binns in his sceptical book, reprints the entirety of the captain's letter and holds it up as an authoritative example of how to answer the "myth" that was to develop.

As it transpired, this all turned out to be irrelevant as I was studying the archives and diaries of Cyril Dieckhoff in Edinburgh recently. Our erstwhile monk and monster hunter had kept various newspaper clippings and an undated one from the Daily Mail (probably after January 1934) proved most illuminating.

The reporter had tracked down Captain MacDonald again and asked his opinion over six months on from his letter to the Inverness Courier. This is what he said:

If so many reputable people say they have seen 'the beast' one inclines to the belief that there is something in it.

The article also relates how his own daughter, Christina, claimed to have seen the Loch Ness Monster.

So Captain MacDonald came to realise his 20,000 trips on Loch Ness counted for nothing in the grand scheme of things. The truth is that you can spend your entire life on the loch and never see the monster or you can see it within minutes of arriving for your first visit. When you have a creature that spends almost its entire life in the silt at the bottom and sides of the loch, it is surprising that it puts in an appearance for anyone.

But it does and the mystery depends on those who have seen it and not those who have not!

Saturday 10 December 2011

Webcam Photo of Nessie?

For some years now, webcams have been trained on various locations at Loch Ness enabling people from all over the world to indulge in some monster hunting.

Adam Bird, a regular reader of this blog, sent me something he snapped last year as he was scanning the loch surface on the webcam run by Mikko Takala. which was trained on Urquhart Bay looking north. The incident happened on September 18th 2010 at about 12:20pm and in Adam's own words:

I happened upon the Nessie Cam by accident and had been watching it for about 20 minutes when I saw the object you see on the photograph. I quickly took a snapshot and copy and pasted it. It is hard to make out much detail, I do admit. I am not saying that there is anything 'monstrous' about the thing in the water but about an hour later a boat came and passed by and I took a shot of that too to compare it to the shape in the water.


The picture is shown below accompanied by the boat image (you can click on the images for a bigger view).





Here is Adam's zoom in of the object.



Grabbing the image of the boat an hour later is an important help as it gives an indication of how large the object is. Typical cruiser boats on Loch Ness are about 30 feet long, 12 feet wide and 8 feet high. My estimate is that the object is smaller but not significantly. As you can see, the webcam is trained on an area quite far out which though enhancing the chances of seeing something is countered by the large distance to the object which must be at least 1000 metres.

Comparing the two pictures, we note that it was a misty day and was a bit mistier at object time rather than boat time. There is also a ripple line going across the centre of the picture which I presume is the right arm of a wake from a boat that passed previously. There is however, no indication that the two are connected in any way.

The zoom in reveals something almost dome shaped in appearance and a grey area behind it that is suggestive of water disturbance, but I may be over-speculating.

The other interesting point made by Adam is that though the webcam refreshes every few seconds, the object was there and then it was not there. So where did it go? If it was a rowing boat or dinghy then it would surely have been in view for a long time given the wide vista of the image (for a dinghy type analysis go here). As Adam said to me:

The webcam only displays still images that updated every few seconds, so it went from being nothing in the water, then as it refreshed the object was there. On the next image the thing was gone. So I cannot say how it appeared and disappeared.

So, though the object is too far away for a conclusive identification, the mystery is how it literally popped in and out of the webcam?

Finally, Adam, had an even better webcam experience some years before:

I did see an object on a similar webcam about thirteen years ago, in Urquhart Bay, and I can say for sure that it was something out of the ordinary. It was the classic upturned boat shape and my estimate compared to nearby boats would put the length at around 15 to 20 foot long.

It was dark in colour and moved around the water in a horseshoe shape. I tried to get a still of it but unfortunately could not get one. It is something I have regretted ever since. I am 100% sure that it was some sort of odd object which could not be explained by any rational explanation such as a seal, deer, elk, otter, wave nor log. Unfortunately I have no proof of this sighting except my word.

ADVICE TO WEBCAMMERS


Webcams overlooking Loch Ness seem to have come and gone over the years. There has even been an underwater one. If anyone knows of any others then post a comment below this article or send me an email (lochnesskelpie@gmail.com). The point being that what is available should be valued and put to use.

Whilst watching whatever webcam, if something appears then employ the snapshot facility to capture as many images as possible. If the object disappears then take some more snapshots as their timestamp will prove the object did not simply drift out of view like a normal boat.

If there is another webcam trained on the same area, see if the object is there too and then snapshot from that (in the past this was certainly possible around Urquhart Bay). Obviously, it helps to have both webcam sites already running ready to go.

Finally, like Adam, wait for one of the regular white cruiser boats to pass near the spot to provide a size and shape comparison. It is better to do this nearer to the time of the object's appearance. It can be done on a different day so long as it is near the same time and weather conditions are similar.

Who knows, with persistence, perhaps you will capture the elusive head, neck and humps of the Loch Ness Monster itself.

UPDATE: Dick Raynor has some webcams running on Urquhart Bay, so perfect for a bit of triangulation! Go to this link.



Thursday 8 December 2011

Top Cryptozoological Books of 2011

Loren Coleman has published his top cryptozoological books for 2011 and yours truly has managed to get his book on the list. Nice to have some recognition. You can find out more about the book here.

Wednesday 30 November 2011

The Skeptic Theory of Nessie


In this posting I would like to address an interpretation of the Loch Ness Monster which though the most popular has nothing to do with a monster in Loch Ness.

It is of course the sceptical view on what is being seen at Loch Ness. I am not aware of any official name for this theory so I will simply call it the Skeptic Theory. The theory itself can be summed up in the phrase "Deceived and Deceivers" which states that all claimed sightings of a strange creature are either

1. Deceived witnesses who have been fooled by perfectly normal phenomenon.

OR

2. Deceivers who lie about what they have seen.

I think the theory is nicely summed up in the humorous picture above. Let us look at each of these sub-divisions in turn.

THE DECEIVED

It goes without saying that people make mistakes in all walks of life and claimed sightings at Loch Ness are not exempt. All Loch Ness researchers accept that people misidentify known objects and events, the problem is the degree to which it happens in the face of some pretty extraordinary witness claims.

In one sense this theory is the most complex because it employs a large array of items to explain what witnesses claim to have seen. The "deceived" category itself can be further subdivided into three sub-categories.

  • The Object
  • The Context
  • The Person


Firstly, we look at the object under observation. An incomplete list follows:

  • Standing Waves
  • Boats
  • Birds
  • Tree Debris (such as logs)
  • Vegetable Mats
  • Otters
  • Deer
  • Seals
  • Sturgeons
  • Fish Commotions
  • Moose
  • Dogs
  • Rubbish
  • Buoys
  • Rocks
  • Surface Reflections
  • Surface Shadows
  • Gas bubbles


You can add your own definitions to this list. Now since it will be rightly argued that people tend not to mistake otters, boats and trees for 30 foot monsters, the second subcategory of context is generally required. Context is the means whereby the theory attempts to blur the distinction between "object" and "monster". A context will obfuscate the physical perception of the object. Examples of context are:

  • Distance (to object)
  • Time (e.g. light levels)
  • Light Effects (e.g. reflections, shadows)
  • Weather (e.g. heat haze, rain)
  • Seiches (counter-underwater waves)

The idea being that increasing distance makes it harder to identify the object, a dark time of day makes an object more indistinct and seiches can make an object such as a log behave in a counter-intuitive manner.

So proponents of this theory will combine the object and context to reinforce an explanation for a sighting. For example, one explanation of the Spicers land sighting requires "Otters" to be combined with "Weather (Heat Haze)" and "Distance" to produce what is claimed as an adequate explanation.

(Interestingly, some skeptics take the Spicers' original size of 7-8 feet instead of his revised size of 20+ feet but take his revised distance of 200 yards and ignore the original distance of 50 yards. Unbiased selection of data?)

However, these two sub-categories are still not enough to take on the thousands of claimed Nessie sightings (indeed the context is largely irrelevant if the object is close). What has to be added is the human factor or how the human mind perceives the object under observation in the given context. Examples of this are:

  • Inexperience
  • Expectation
  • Hysteria

This category is more controversial since it involves qualitative and subjective elements. Objects are real and solid, context can be determined to some degree but the mind of the given witness is not so amenable to measurement. Consequently, there is less agreement as to the degree of this category's merit.

Inexperience is probably the least controversial element. Some people will indeed fail to recognise an object for what it is because they either have never seen it or have not seen it in the given context (if context is important). People who have spent their lives in urban areas may be more susceptible (though this has to be countered with any knowledge gained from books, zoos, hobbies, etc). However, those less prone to this element would be locals and experienced observers such as anglers, water bailiffs, boat operators and of course hands-on "Nessie hunters".

Expectation is more controversial in its claim that the mental state of the visitor or local resident is somehow "primed" to see a monster in the loch and hence will prejudice their powers of observation. In other words, the person "wants" to see a monster and therefore is more likely to "see" one. Again, there is no doubt that some people will view the loch with this attitude but the question is "How many?" and that is where disagreement arises.

Since it is a safe assumption that the majority of the population do not believe the loch holds a large, unidentified creature then it follows they will not be viewing the loch with such a sense of expectation.

But it has to be noted that "expectation" is normally a pre-condition rather than a continuing one. Once a person begins to process what they are seeing according to their level of experience then expectation will normally tail off as reality sets in. However, if the context mitigates against this (i.e. object too far away, too dark, etc) then the expectation may remain and even heighten.

Hysteria is related to expectation but is more group oriented. It is basically the "crowd effect" in the situation where a group is watching an object in the loch and their expectations may begin to mutually reinforce beyond what may happen if only one person may be present. Richard Frere in his book "Loch Ness" tells of how he managed to whip up monster enthusiasm in a group of people by pretending some distant object was the Loch Ness Monster. An interesting "experiment" (we couldn't call it an experiment in the scientific sense), though we doubt every sighting has such a cheerleader egging on the witnesses!

Another claimed aspect of hysteria is media coverage of the Loch Ness Monster. The idea put forward is that the Press not only perpetuates the Loch Ness Monster "myth" but instills across their readership an unreasonable expectation regarding the beast. The problem with this approach is that newspapers do not take the subject seriously at all. As a result, one should not expect the bulk of their readership to be different on the matter.

As you can see, the interplay of object, context and observer is a complicated affair. In fact, I am not aware of any attempts to successfully model this and come to some hard conclusions. All we have is anecdotal evidence such as the Frere example above.


THE DECEIVERS

One could with tongue in cheek summarise this whole theory in the following way:

The further away the object, the more likely the witness is deceived. The closer the object is, the more likely the witness is a deceiver.

When it becomes untenable to insist that the witness is a victim of object, context or his own preconceptions then this theory in its full blown form still does not admit to the existence of an exotic creature. In such instances, the "safety net" of deceiver is employed (although surprisingly some will continue to insist that witnesses at less than a hundred yards still misidentify common objects). In other words, the account is a hoax.

This part of the theory is mainly targeted at film and photograph but can be applied almost indiscriminately to any and all witnesses whose stories are deemed inconvenient. Of course, photographs of the Loch Ness Monster are emotive and powerful icons. These are the items that stick in the public memory and often motivate and inspire others to research into the subject. If these photos can be proven to be hoaxes and removed from public memory and credulity, then the theory has made advances.

Now, it is admitted that as with reports which are a result of being deceived, so there will be photographs or testimonies that are the products of deceivers (hoaxers). However, in the realm of film and photograph, I am hard pressed to come up with a confession by anyone to being a hoaxer.

We have hearsay about somebody saying something to someone else, but next to nothing that can be verified by more than one witness. The one exception is Christian Spurling and his Surgeon's Photo confession. Does this imply that deceiving the public is in fact less common than proponents of this theory claim? Perhaps, but we move on.

Hoax photographs can be exposed in other ways. The best example was one of Frank Searle's head and neck pictures where it was proven beyond doubt that a wooden post out from shore had been used as the "neck".

But whereas one expose will cast doubt upon one person and their pictures, every other photo be it Hugh Gray, F.C. Adams, Peter MacNab and so on has to be judged on its own merits. So various means will be employed to discredit the photo. Like non-photograph testimonies, the account will be scrutinised solely for errors or inconsistencies to "incriminate" the person. The photograph will be poured over for any tell-tale signs of tampering or damning clues based on field of view, light levels and shadows, etc.

There is nothing wrong per se with these methods, it is rather the non-neutral way in which the picture is handled. Perhaps the most withering aspect of this procedure is the popular "reproduction" technique. Here an attempt is made to reproduce the picture using hoaxing techniques such as models, natural items (e.g logs) or photo development trickery.

Once something that resembles the original picture is produced, the copy is proudly displayed to the world as "proof" that the original was hoaxed. The problem with this technique is that it is a complete non-sequitur and useless as a critical tool of analysis.

The reason being that almost anything can be copied to some degree of accuracy if enough time and resources are applied to the problem. The art world is awash with copies of famous works of art - some of which only experts can distinguish between. If someone can copy something as complex as that, they can copy a blurry picture of the Loch Ness Monster.

Some may be careful in only using tools available at the time of the picture but in truth, apart from image editing software, most of what is available now has been available since 1933 (or close substitutes were on the market). More modern photographs claiming to be of the Loch Ness Monster will be debunked as the product of Photoshop or similar packages. Thus, the tautology of reproducing look-alikes moves from the lochside to the computer screen.

Reproducing a photograph is a pointless act because if in theory a real picture of a monster in Loch Ness appeared, then that too would be reproducable using tools and techniques not beyond the wit of man. Hence, in the context of Loch Ness Monster research, this is a tautological procedure and an unfalsifiable process. Anyone employing this process to debunk Loch Ness Monster photographs should give up as they will only be preaching to the converted.

But even if this reproduction aspect of the "Deceiver" theory was viable, there are still problems. For a hoax has three aspects to it:

  • The Intention
  • The Plan
  • The Execution

What we have only discussed here is the "execution" or the end product in the form of a photographic negative or print. What has not been discussed is how the sceptic proves the "intention" to hoax and whether the skill, time and resource was in place to execute the "plan". Since we suggest here that the "execution" critique is flawed, it therefore does not add anything in pursuit of these two other aspects of an alleged hoax.

As it turns out, unless a confession is forthcoming (to multiple witnesses) or there is a serious flaw in the testimony which cannot be put down to lapsed memory or newspaper error, the "hoax" aspect is unprovable. And the same is true of the ability to "plan" the deception, most anyone (with possibly help from others) can put together such a thing. So unless the incriminating model or tampered negatives are found, nothing can be gained from saying "it is possible for someone to fake this".

So photos can be obviously faked, but reproducing a similar picture is meaningless. What is required is:

  • A verifiable confession
  • The "tools" which did the job
  • Internal evidence from the photograph

I would note that the last point can be a bit of a quagmire since Loch Ness investigators are not always thorough in establishing the facts. One recent example will suffice. The Inverness Courier printed an account of a photograph taken recently in September. The witness was said to have taken the picture at 8:30am but a well known Loch Ness researcher cast doubt upon the picture as a result of this because he (correctly) pointed out that the picture suggested the event happened closer to midday.

As this point, we could have all turned negative on this event and began to walk away from it. However, I contacted the photographer and he said the picture was indeed taken near noon and the paper had misquoted him.

Now one may cynically accuse the witness of backtracking to preserve their debunking - but I call it going to the original source (NOTE: I had not asked any leading questions either - I had merely asked if the newspaper account varied in any way from his own). If it means a key fact is lost in critiquing the picture, then so be it, better to be thorough than shallow. After all, critical thinking needs facts not what suits one's case.

One wonders how many cases have been discarded as dubious when all it took was a rechecking of the facts with the witness?

So the Skeptic theory reigns supreme amongst the general population. But like all the other theories about the Loch Ness Monster, it is flawed. It's biggest problem is its assumptions about witnesses. To not put too fine a point upon it, it regards them as observational idiots.

This flaw has already been discussed elsewhere on this website, such as the Greta Finlay and Spicers cases. Check those articles to see how incredulity is stretched when skeptics try to assassinate witness credibility. There are also plenty of other similar cases which challenge this view of witness competence.

Advocates of this theory will fall back on Occam's Razor and claim that this theory is the best one because it requires less improbable assumptions than any exotic creature theory. Well, not quite. It has to make hundreds, if not thousands of assumptions about every person that has ever claimed to have seen a strange creature in Loch Ness. That is, that every witness was an incompetent observer. Each individual and circumstance was unique, so each assumption is unique.

Now that I do find improbable.



















Tuesday 29 November 2011

Strange Loch Ness Images on Google Earth

Readers may remember the Sun newspaper article from two years ago which claimed to show a strange object on Loch Ness visible from Google Earth. The image is shown below but a close inspection plainly reveals it to be one of the many cruiser boats with its wash rippling in its wake.



However, a couple of months ago, some stranger looking images revealed themselves as I scanned the same Google image of Loch Ness. They were definitely not boats, buoys or logs and had a strange looking structure to them as you can see below. The images are to the same scale as our boat image above. I found all four of them in the top half of the loch and because of the strange "ball" attached to a snake-like "body" they did not look like the micro-debris that may accidentally fall onto the image as it went through the stages from satellite transmission to Internet image.




If they really were on the loch then they would be 40 feet long by 3 feet wide, longer than the boat which caused the original interest.

As a comparison, I scanned other major Scottish lochs to see if they had similar images. I checked Loch Lomond, Loch Tay, Loch Maree, Loch Awe and Loch Morar but none of them had anything like these strange images. I also checked the land around Loch Ness but to date have not found any similar image. I asked one local expert what forms of junk may be found floating on Loch Ness but nothing sounded like these pictures. So far, I have no satisfactory explanation for these images. Obviously, if they were Nessies, they have a rather weird shape compared to our traditional "plesiosaur" shape which makes one less inclined to say they are creatures. Nevertheless, an explanation is sought.

All a bit strange and so I turn to you readers to help solve this mini-mystery. You can zoom in on the objects via Google Earth or Google Maps by using these coordinates:

Object 1: 57°23'3.76"N 4°21'30.84"W
Object 2: 57°22'7.29"N 4°21'53.41"W
Object 3: 57°21'3.92"N 4°22'30.19"W
Object 4: 57°21'4.96"N 4°23'37.89"W

Have a look at them and tell me what you think they might be and why (as far as I can see) they only appear "on" the waters of Loch Ness. The possible explanations are image debris, image defect, image tampering, unidentified artificial objects on the loch or something unidentified on or just below the loch surface.