Tuesday 3 April 2018

Did Nessie pass under their Boat?

By accident, I came across this letter to "The National" newspaper dated the 6th March this year. It was in response to an article on the beast's truly iconic nature, but this time it was something of a more solid nature. I reproduce the text of the letter here (original link here).

I AM intrigued by Pat Kane’s piece on a new ten pence coin bearing an image of Nessie (Here’s to Nessie! Why we’re all in thrall to Scotland’s mystic monster, The National, March 3). 

While not putting forward any theory, I did have a strange experience on Loch Ness. We were spending a holiday weekend with friends in Turriff, and were invited to visit another friend who had a cabin cruiser, the Rubicon, on Loch Ness. 

It was a lovely day and we cruised down the loch to Drumnadrochit, where we had lunch. In the late afternoon we cruised back and just off Foyers the boat’s owner, Jim Hunter suddenly said: “We’re running out of water!”. He switched the depth sounder from fathoms to feet and it was as if we were approaching the shore, but we were in the middle of Loch Ness! 

The ladies came out of the cabin to see what all the excitement was about, and we watched the depth sounder coming up and sticking until there was only eight feet under the keel. There were six adults, four of whom have since died, and three boys – I am talking at least 30 years ago. 

In any event the eight feet depth lasted probably about five minutes, then the echo sounder went back to no recorded depth; as soon as this happened Jim opened the throttle and we departed the scene, sharpish. We saw nothing, we heard nothing, and we discussed what had happened. My Turriff friend finally said: “There was something big underneath the boat.” 

I sent a letter to the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau in Foyers recounting this experience but I did not receive an acknowledgement; I know I have a copy somewhere in my loft as I came across it some years ago – I am not in the habit of throwing things out, as my wife continually reminds me.

Jim Lynch, Edinburgh.

There may be some small inaccuracies in the letter (the LNIB were not based at Foyers) but the drama of that day is I am sure etched onto his mind. However, it would be great to see the original letter which would carry more details for us to ponder. So if Jim Lynch is reading this, let me know if you have anything further to say.

This actually gives me some greater anticipation as regards the use of a drone. Whether the 4K video recorder could register anything definitive eight feet under the surface of the loch, I am not certain. However one wonders how often the creature drifts towards the surface but no one is any the wiser as to its presence?


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com


Sunday 1 April 2018

Any Other Dumb Nessie Stories Today?




In the past we have had a dead "Nessie" stopped by police from being taken out of Scotland. It turned out not to be Nessie. Then we had the medieval Nessie story which more evil than medi. And people have always wondered if the infamous Surgeon's Photo was made on April 1st. Not forgetting even Adolf Hitler got in on the joke. Anyway, here's something along the same lines, had to do a double take before I realised the date.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Tuesday 27 March 2018

Thoughts on the Alfred Cruickshank Land Sighting




As part of the promotion for my new book on land sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, I thought I would cover the curious case of Alfred Cruickshank and his encounter on a lonely road during an April night in 1923. Before I proceed, may I ask readers who have bought the book to consider posting a review to amazon.co.uk or amazon.com?

But what of that event 95 years ago and the closest we have to primary sources? Alfred Cruickshank of Buckie, Banffshire near Loch Ness wrote a letter to famous monster hunter, Tim Dinsdale on the 9th January 1961 regarding his curious encounter. That communication made it into Tim's first book, "Loch Ness Monster", which I reproduce verbatim here:

I thank you for your letter about our famous `Nessie'. I usually went from Buckie to Speanbridge to meet a train from Glasgow at 8 a.m. This meant leaving home about 3 a.m. as the roads at this time were very narrow and rough, 112 miles. The car I had was a Model T Ford and the headlamps were off the low tension magneto. The faster your engine ran the better the lights, so that when you slowed down at a corner (there were hundreds of them) your lamps faded.

I have done this journey hundreds of times but I have had only one view of the Monster, and I believe I was the first to see it, but I never told anybody (bar my wife) what I had seen (also my boss). If I remember rightly it was on a Monday morning in April, 1923, when I was going to Speanbridge, that I had the encounter with the Monster, of which I got a very good view as it crossed the road in front of me; but as I was nearing a corner of the road I was slowing up and the headlamps dimmed. I can still show you the place although the road has all been remade and widened.

If the road had been wider I would have turned the car for a further look but it was too narrow. My view of the Monster was: Body 10-12 ft. long, 5 ft. 6 in.-7 ft. in height, tail 10-12 ft. Colour, green-khaki resembling a frog, with cream coloured belly which, trailed on the ground. It had four legs thick like an elephant's and had large webbed feet, in reality it looked like' an enormous hippo, but arched back and long trailing tail which was on the same level as the belly, as you will see in my rough drawing. It gave out a sharp bark, like a dog, as it disappeared over the road into the water.

I think this is all the information I can give you. I wrote the B.B.C. about the Monster when they put down divers to photograph under Loch Ness for the Monster, for one bite of its large mouth would have halved any man, but they never replied. Hoping I have been of some assistance to you ...

A second source comes from the chapter on land sightings in Nicholas Witchell's "The Loch Ness Story", published 13 years later in 1974 which is reproduced below. Since I believe Mr. Cruickshank lived about 60 miles from Loch Ness in Buckie at the time, this looks a visit from Nicholas Witchell rather than a letter.

It was still dark and Mr Cruickshank's route was being illuminated by the car's rather primitive headlamps as he bumped and wound his way along the deserted road. About two miles north of Invermoriston he crested a small hill and his headlamps picked out a large object on the outside of a bend in the road about 50 yards ahead of him. "I could see something moving - it had a large humped body standing about six feet high with its belly trailing on the ground and about 12 feet long, to which was attached a long thick tail which was ten to 12 feet in length. It was moving slowly, sort of waddling away from the road on two legs which I could see on the near side.

I saw the outline of what appeared to be the head which was big and pug-nosed and was set right on the body — in other words it didn't seem to have much of a neck. I was slowing down to go round the corner so the lamps faded but as I went round the corner 1 heard a grunting noise from where it was. I stopped the car once I was round the corner but I couldn't turn the car round and I certainly wasn't going back on foot." Mr Cruickshank described the colour as dark olive to khaki and lighter underneath although obviously in the poor light it was difficult to determine colour clearly.

When Mr Cruickshank arrived at Speanbridge station and met his employer, the latter apparently asked him what was wrong since he was looking very pale. "He thought I must have had an accident," recalled Mr Cruickshank, "but I told him what had happened and he said I must have been dreaming. A couple of other friends who I told about the sighting said I must have been drunk. Apart from them I just told my wife and then kept quiet about it all." 

So what are we to make of this extraordinary account of a huge beast upwards of 25 feet crawling across a dark Highlands road during the inter-war years? The sceptics will of course dismiss it out of hand and we shall come to their theories later. However, even those who accepted there was a large beast in the loch were a bit non-plussed by the account as it did not include the obligatory long neck of Nessie lore.

Be that as it may, as researchers, Dinsdale and Witchell were honest enough not to sweep it under the carpet and both published the account for the world to read. What disappoints me is that we do not have any sketch to accompany either account. From the above, we know Cruickshank sent Dinsdale a sketch which, rather than printing, describes as:

a squat and bulbous creature with a large doglike head, little or no neck, four stumpy legs with flipperlike endings with fingers or claws, and a huge tail ...

I contacted the Dinsdale family regarding the possibility of this sketch still being in their father's archives, but nothing was found. But gone is the small head perched upon the long slender neck and to summarise the statistics:
  • larged humped body 10 to 12 feet long and 5.5 to 7 feet high
  • tail about 10 to 12 feet long
  • big, pug nosed head
  • little or no neck
  • four thick legs like and elephant with webbed feet 
  • belly and tail trailed along ground
  • emitted bark or grunting noise
  • colour dark olive to khaki with lighter cream coloured underbelly

What are the mitigating factors that may compromise this description? The first is that the event (according to Witchell) happened about 0500. The specific day in April is not given, and so we can only surmise that sunrise occurred between 0643 and 0529. A mid-April date gives a sunrise of 0605 which suggests there was not much natural light around and Mr. Cruickshank was largely dependent on his headlights.

As stated above, the headlights were driven by the engine in a manner similar to wind up torches today. As Mr. Cruickshank initially saw the creature fifty yards ahead of him, he was not about to take a corner and so the headlights were at normal brightness for his given speed. However, I am pretty sure a combination of seeing this hulking beast and knowing he was about to reach a familiar corner was sufficient for him to start applying the brakes. So, though Alfred says he had "a very good view" of it, this would have only lasted for seconds.

I say seconds because we are told he regularly undertook a 112 mile journey in 5 hours for an average speed of 22.4 mph. At an initial distance of 50 yards from the creature, he would be upon it no sooner than five seconds. In terms of movement, our creature had to move its 25 foot length across a road probably 15 feet wide in about the same time which gives a probable speed of five feet per second or about 3.4 miles per hour to avoid a collision. As a comparison, bull elephants seals can comfortably manage such a speed.

Apart from brevity and light levels, there is also the memory question as Alfred Cruickshank's letter to Tim Dinsdale was 38 years after the event happened. As stated before, whatever the eyewitness testimony, the passage of decades is going to have some effect on the powers of recall. I say that asking the reader what events they can recall from 38 years ago in 1980?

And herein lies the rub, the vast majority of what we saw in 1980 is long gone and beyond recall, but what is memorable, exciting or traumatic is not so easily eroded. Seeing a large form filling the road in front of you on a lonely road is what I would call "traumatic" and is more permanently encoded onto those ancient memory paths which carry those things which had to be recalled for the purposes of survival and preservation of life and limb. That he arrived at Spean Bridge looking like a sick man sums it up.

I think a large, unknown monster fits that bill nicely and note that the two accounts given about 13 years apart do not differ greatly in detail. Having said that, even this will not be subject to perfect recall in regards to exact details as I note that the two accounts differ in who Alfred Cruickshank told his story to (but note details omitted in one account do not constitute a contradiction). One also describes the noise emitted by the creature as a "grunt" but the other says a "bark".

One may think I am using brevity, light and memory factors to wriggle out of this lack of a long neck, but the Witchell account states that he only saw the "outline" of a head which suggests the full beam of the headlights was concentrated on the middle portion of the creature and weakened towards the sides of the road putting the "head" in relative darkness.

Thus, Nicholas Witchell asked whether the neck may have already progressed out of view into the trees or perhaps the neck had turned to look at the approaching car to give the impression of no neck. Mr. Cruickshank did not think so and thus some Nessie researchers are left with an incongruity. Others are not, such as advocates of a giant salamander like creature or those who think the creature is not resident in the loch but is actually several differing cryptids that occasionally find their way into the loch over the centuries.

But where did this all happen? I made some provisional deductions and visited the potential site back in April 2015 when I was investigating the nearby John MacLean sighting of 1938. As Alfred Cruickshank rightly pointed out, the road has been remade and widened since 1923 and so comparing his account to the current road is not a good idea. However, the incident is said to have occurred about two miles north of Invermoriston and happened near a cornering of the road. Using a pre-1933 Ordnance Survey map of the area will help narrow down the options as shown below.



As you can see, there is not much in the way of bending roads closer to Invermoriston (out of view to the bottom left). Also, as the road heads south to Invermoriston the road rises away from the loch and provides less of a comfortable route for the kind of creature described unless it was into high board diving. With that in mind, my gaze turned to Altsigh which is about 2.5-2.9 miles from Invermoriston, depending from where you start your measurements.

At Altsigh, we find a bending of the road which is not so much pronounced on today's A82 road (as suggested by Cruickshank). Zooming in gives us this view of the road below and I would suggest the event occurred at the first northernmost bend above the "A" of "Alltsigh" on the map. I say that because the witness stated that the creature became visible on the "outside bend" of the road which suggests a bend pointing towards the loch rather than away from it (as we see over the Altsigh burn).




Actually, this location is very near the spot where the old Half Way House hotel was located which later became a Youth Hostel. It is not visible on this old map nor the later 1921-1930 "Popular" OS map series, so I suspect it was built to take advantage of the later improved road. That would suggest this was a much lonelier road in 1923, though the credibility of the case hardly hinges on this.

With that location in mind, I did a reconnaissance of the area to see what lay beyond the road, mindful that topology may have changed somewhat between 1923, 1933 and today. Below is the road looking south as Alfred would have travelled, just before the now renamed Hostel (just out of sight to the left).




The outside bend you see is where I speculate the older dog leg bend once existed and the creature would have crossed ahead of it. To the right are some houses and I had an interesting conversation with one of the owners at the time concerning frightening events. To the left was the loch and I made my way down to the general view of the shingle beach shown below. It was a short trudge down from the road, perfectly consistent with the kind of quick escape route back to the loch that our favourite cryptid likes.




Looking back to the road from the beach I inspected the rising hillside back to the road. My first impression was that this would be an easy enough incline for a beast to slide down, but it was unclear how scalable it was in the opposite direction. But then again, I have no idea what the elevation of the road was like in 1923 or where the sweet spot for ascending/descending was. That particular answer is now lost in the mists of time.



 
OPINIONS
 
Given the knowns and unknowns, I was quite comfortable with this as a possible location. But let us get back to the varying views on this curious event. First, there is the matter of the greenish colour of the beast. Admittedly, it is a departure from the usual darker shades of the monster, and this led Tim Dinsdale into the speculation that the car's ancient magneto lights as they faded gave the creature a green tint.

That sounds reasonable but I emailed the owner of a Model T Ford enthusiast's website and asked if the colour of a magneto headlight emitted any colour in full or fading luminance. His reply was this:

"The bulb was a typical light bulb of the time. It was bright white at full brilliance but turned a bit yellowier as the engine slowed down. Looking at it, it just dimmed ... a color change was not too evident."
 
That doesn't totally exclude this as an explanation, but for me it is not likely to turn a grey/brown creature into a khaki green one. Looking back at the sightings record, I can find only three other explicitly green skinned events - the Lowrie family (August 1960), Christie (May 1962) and Kennedy (November 1974). So they do happen, but very infrequently. 

How much this colour variation is an issue partly depends on one's bias in the subject. Sceptics want multi-coloured Nessies to bolster their case against a single variant creature. The other extreme is to liken the Loch Ness Monster to a chameleon, which is going to far in the opposite direction. But these are both missing the point.

The vast majority of sightings are dark brown/grey/black and one cannot not always be sure how many grey-blacks are due to shadow rather than skin colour. So the green (and yellow) variants are a very small percentage which hardly swings the case. If 25% were green, 25% brown, 25% black and 25% yellow, that would constitute a bigger problem. These green outliers suggest to me a variant in monster morphology that does not happen very often. 

Meantime, sceptical interpretations are a bit thin on the ground. Steuart Campbell slots this case into the "otter like" category without explaining how an otter can fill the road or appear green. Unfortunately for the sceptics, otters in a heat haze cannot be wheeled out here! One could try and invoke larger creatures such as deer or seals, I leave the defense of such shaky theories to their protagonists, though I don't recall a seal ever being reported on a road by Loch Ness or ever out of the loch (and of course seals are not 25 feet long - unless a very large walrus got into the loch).

Perhaps an admission that this case is not amenable to natural explanations is found in Ulrich Magin's sceptical analysis of pre-1933 cases done for Fortean Studies Volume 7. He suggests that the whole thing was just a joke by Alfred Cruickshank based on the less than compelling observation that the month of the event was April and hence may be an April Fool's joke. A look at the calendar for 1923 shows that none of the Mondays in April fell on the 1st.

CONCLUSION

Otter, seal, hoax or monster? Make up your own mind. If Mr. Cruickshank did want to fabricate a report, you would have thought he would have played safe and gone for the standard grey, long necked beast. Seals and otters are far too small which leaves little room for any other explanation.

Alfred Cruickshank died in 1978 and so I leave the final word to Alfred Cruickshank's grandson who I tracked down to the same town of Buckie and had a phone conversation with a few years back. He acknowledged he knew of the story bit didn't have much to add. But he reminisced with me how his grandad often used to sit him on his knee and tell him the tale of how he once met the Loch Ness Monster on a dark, lonely road.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com






Wednesday 21 March 2018

Entering the Thermal Dimension





As my first visit of the year to Loch Ness approaches, I mentioned my previous plan to use a drone to scout the waters just below the surface of the loch. I have now added a thermal imaging device to the repertoire of scientific devices as the hunt for data on the creature steps up. To be more precise, I will be taking up a Flir TS24-Pro imaging device shown above.

You may have seen devices similar to this in use by the popular series "Finding Bigfoot" and I have always wanted to acquire one for the Nessie hunt.  The device works on the principle of constructing images from heat and not light. This is demonstrated in the two images below which shows an optical image taken at night and the corresponding Flir image built on the heat emitted by the deer and surrounding foliage, etc.




This is in contrast to another data collecting device I use which is the Yukon Ranger Pro night vision binoculars which work on the principle of intensifying the low level of ambient light into a monochrome image. An example of the use of this device can be viewed in this previous article. One advantage the TS24-Pro has over the Yukon is that it has an SD card feature to allow video or still image recording while on the move. The Yukon video stream can only be recorded by attaching its composite video output to a cumbersome device like a laptop running video processing software.
Nevertheless, each device has its own particular domain of use. In the case of the Flir, if I am fortunate enough to record a heat image of the Loch Ness Monster, then that could be used to determine to what degree the animal is endothermic or exothermic by comparing its heat signature to other animals. Mind you, getting any heat image of the beast would be a bonus. Clearly, this is a device that is suited to the night environment where things invisible to the naked eye cannot escape the gaze of the thermal imaging device.

How and where the Flir will be used is still in the planning. I may employ it on the dawn night run alongside the optical dashcam or just use it on beach patrols. One possible problem I envisage is that having gazed at the bright thermal images through the eyepiece, it will take a while for the eye to re-adjust to the surrounding low light levels of the night.

By coincidence, I was recently watching a documentary on the Lake Champlain Monster and noted a couple who had taken the hunt to a small island on the lake with a similar device looking out for Champ on land by night. I can relate to that tactic, firm in the belief that Nessie also has nocturnal habits.

Wish me luck.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com



Wednesday 14 March 2018

Nessletter No.164 Now Published

 
Rip Hepple, veteran Loch Ness Monster expert, has published the latest issue of his long running Loch Ness newsletter, "Nessletter" (dated February 2018). The main focus of his newsletter this issue is the search for Nessie DNA, though the story he tells of the mysterious yellow water of Loch Ness is worth the price of the issue alone!
 
If you wish to find out more, the subscription rates are: £5 (UK) or $10 (USA) for 12 issues which are published intermittently, not monthly. Send your payment and address details to:
 
R.R.Hepple
7 Huntshieldford
St John's Chapel
Weardale
Co Durham
DL13 1RQ
United Kingdom
 
 
I would point out that an archive of Rip's older newsletters can be found here on Google Drive. Rip's newsletter has been running now for nearly forty five years and has been a valuable source of information and analysis throughout those years. I continue to look forward to his wisdom and analysis.
 
 
The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Saturday 10 March 2018

The Monster Hunt Takes on a New Dimension




The hunt for the Loch Ness Monster takes on a new dimension and that dimension is height as I take possession of a DJI Phantom 3 Professional drone. Next month I hope to take this device to the loch and put it through its paces above the loch surface.

Now I say new dimension, but I am not the first to take the hunt to the air. Certainly the honour of using a drone at least goes back to fellow Nessie Hunter, Gordon Holmes, who was testing his drone for Loch Ness two years ago. Gordon tells me that mission did not end well, but the idea itself is sound, and taking his advice onboard, I will press on with my own search this year.

But, of course, the airborne search for Nessie goes back much further than Gordon or myself. Nessie fans will doubtless remember the adventures of Ken Wallis and his autogyro back in 1970 as his services were enlisted by the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau to fly over the loch.




However, the airborne reconnaissance has now been automated with high resolution video feed and various stabilising features which can produce a stream of images superior to anything Ken could have produced. All we need is the Loch Ness Monster to pass just under the surface in full view of the drone with its video camera trained on it.

There are various classes of sighting - the traditional on the water surface scenario, the small subset of monster on land events and the even smaller clutch of encounters underwater. To that we can add the smallest of all - airborne sightings of the creature just below the surface. Indeed, has anyone claimed to have seen the monster just below the water surface from above?

The answer appears to be at most twice. The first comes from Tim Dinsdale's "Loch Ness Monster" where on page 114 we read this: 

... on 7 June 1933 in the newspaper Argus the following statement appeared.

'Sir, having seen in the local press the report of a strange monster in Loch Ness, it might interest you to learn that while flying over that loch last week in the vicinity of Urquhart Castle we beheld in the depths a shape resembling a large alligator, the size of which would be about 25 feet long by four feet wide.'

The second account is found in Constance Whyte's "More Than A Legend" on page 44 where a BBC radio broadcast from 16th October 1954 is recounted:

The witnesses were interviewed for the B.B.C. by Mr Andy Cowan Martin of the Glasgow studios who made personal contribution on the subject of the Monster. This is his story as broadcast.

"Where the strange and the weird are concerned it is a very satisfying thing to meet and have a chat with somebody who has seen what you've seen. But I'd better start at the beginning. It was a day in month of June 'way back in 1939 and I was flying from Kirkwall to Inverness and, just for fun, the pilot said he would take us over Loch Ness and we might see the Monster.

We flew down the loch as far as Fort Augustus and on the way back I actually saw the Monster for about half a minute or so, but by the time I'd yelled to the other people in the 'plane to look where I was pointing and the pilot had brought the 'plane down nearer the surface of the loch the Monster . . . the thing . . . giant eel or whatever it was, had submerged and all that the others could see was a swirl of foam.

Frankly they didn't believe me when I said that for a few seconds I had a clear view of two very prominent sort of humps and a third one that was not so prominent and it looked something like the head of a seal. Ever since then I have got a kick out of reading newspaper stories about other people who've been reported as seeing something like what I saw, but until this week I have never actually met anybody who's seen whatever it is that's been given the name of the Loch Ness Monster."
 
Okay, the second account seems to involve a creature at the surface, but there you have the only two airborne sightings I am aware of. Getting back to the present, preparations will have to be made for this new aspect of my visits to the loch.

Firstly, there are rules regarding the general operation of drones that have to be obeyed pertaining to distance, proximity to others and so on. Secondly, I will have to get practise operating one of these things as it will be over the waters of the loch where operational failure could lead to a watery grave. After all, these things are not waterproof.

Thirdly,  where would be the best part of the loch to fly the drone over? Flying it to the midpoint of the loch may actually violate drone regulations, but I am wondering if near a river mouth may be a good start?

Anyway, as Holmes said to Watson, "The game's afoot!" (sorry, Gordon).


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com





Thursday 1 March 2018

A New Book on the Loch Ness Monster



Coming your way is a new book about the Loch Ness Monster by the author of this blog and entitled "When Monsters Come Ashore". As you may guess from the title, it is the first book on the creature that dedicates itself to a study of a mystery within a mystery - alleged sightings of the monster on land. We have a few dozen of these stories gathered over three centuries and they are the most provocative of all monster accounts.

This aspect of Loch Ness lore has always fascinated me and indeed has prompted debate amongst monster believers as to what it means for their view of the creature. Even the notorious Frank Searle pronounced that all land sightings account were rubbish!

The book draws on material from this blog amassed over these past seven years as well as adding new material written especially for this book. Cases covered and unique to the book are the famous Arthur Grant and Torquil MacLeod incidents and also added is the most recent land account - the Ian Monckton incident (who the author managed to contact last year). You can also expect a few others items, such as the Una MacPherson case. Who is Una MacPherson you may ask? Buy the book and you'll find out!

As stated elsewhere before, one day this blog will cease to exist for whatever reason and this book is the first step in transferring that knowledge to a more permanent, physical form. The original intent was to do it all in one book, but at 600+ articles and counting, it was decided to split the job into at least three books, of which this one constitutes the first. 

Copies can be purchased from the UK at this link and from the USA at this link. As with my previous book, "The Water Horses of Loch Ness", there is no plan to put this in Kindle format for the reasons stated above - moving from the digital to the physical.


 The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com