Friday 9 September 2016

Yet Another Mysterious Picture





No sooner has the discussion about the strange dorsal fin at Loch Ness photo began to subside than another one appears in the Daily Mirror today. This photo appears to show two large objects, each  estimated at 10 metres long, making their way along the loch and was taken the day before our aforementioned fin photo and was in the same area of the loch, opposite Inverfarigaig, where Kate Powell photographed that mysterious dorsal fin.



My first reaction was to check for anything indicative of a dorsal fin, but since the picture was taken at a distance of 400 metres, it is too far to make out such detail. Something barely breaks the surface on the two objects, but who knows what they are indicative of.

The article mentions the possibility of two flippers visible in the picture propelling the object, and one can see two water disturbances either side of the object to the right. However, I cannot ascertain if that is the words of the witness, Ian Campbell, or the editor's words.

Whether this has anything to do with the recent dorsal fin picture is hard to say. But two dolphins? This loch is beginning to get a bit too crowded, so I'll suspend judgement on this picture, let the usual waves, logs and birds explanations have their say and move on.

Original account:

It's the creature that's terrorised the water's of one of the UK's deepest lakes for decades - but now it turns out Loch Ness could actually be hiding TWO monsters.

A new photograph snapped at the Scottish loch has revealed what looks like a duo of swimming animals in its depths side by side. Ian Campbell was on a bicycle ride with his son and a family friend when he spotted two big 'creatures' apparently swimming across the Loch together. The 56-year-old, who says he is not a man 'given to flights of fancy' is convinced that what he saw and pictured from around 400 metres away were both around ten metres in length.

In one of the pictures it appears that whatever was in the water was propelling itself along using its two flippers, one at each side of its body. If what Mr Campbell pictured was a type of hitherto undiscovered creature, then it could mean that the Loch Ness monster has been breeding - or, on the day he saw it, swimming around with an offspring or mate.

Mr Campbell was around five miles south of the village of Drumnadrochit on the western shores of Loch Ness while on a 40-mile bicycle ride between Fort Augustus and Inverness on hill tracks on August 21 with his son Fraser, 13, and family friend Mrs Karen MacPhee, 54, when the two shapes appeared in the water.

Mr Campbell's son also saw the 'creatures' but Mrs MacPhee was cycling some way behind and did not get a good look. Mr Campbell says they watched for around 30 seconds before losing sight of the objects but he managed to take a photograph using the camera on his phone.

He says: "At the time we saw it we had stopped for a rest and to admire the view. It seemed to appear suddenly from nowhere. "I said to my son: 'What is that in the water?' He said to me that it looked like a big animal. "I said 'I think you're right' and grabbed my camera phone to take a picture.

"We watched for around 30 seconds before it disappeared from view and by that time Karen had caught up and she saw it for around five seconds. "We talked about it afterwards obviously and we just had no idea what it could be. I would estimate they were ten metres in length and I took the picture from around 400 metres away.

"I was saying to my son that we had just seen the Loch Ness monster and he was saying 'Yes, right'." Mr Campbell, of Taynuilt, Argyll, who works as an environmental health regulatory officer for Argyll and Bute Council, said he knew the area well. It was a calm day and he had never seen anything like that before.

"I am convinced that what I saw was two creatures,' he said.



The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com



25 comments:

  1. Well there is no shortage of sightings going on in the last few months compared to the last couple of years. Its all good.

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  2. Hard to tell if it's solid or a wave effect, but certainly reminiscent of Gordon Holmes' video. If 'they' are 10m long, that's probably way bigger than any local dolphin, unless it's an orca. I wonder is it possible to find out more about the distances involved, ie. how does one come up with 400m distant?
    I know the loch has weird wave effects, but the angle of view seems a bit high to be getting interference patterns.

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  3. If that's a typical phone camera, and they are 400m distant, I reckon they are more like 15-18m long. It would be possible to check the distance if we knew where the photo was taken, and the model of phone.

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    1. How would you come to that conclusion?

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    2. Step 1 -from the location, estimate the height of the camera above water level.
      Step 2 - knowing the lens focal length, work out its vertical angle of view. For instance if it's a 28mm equivalent lens, the angle between the upper and lower edges of the picture is about 46 degrees.
      Step 3 Measure the distance on the image from the far shore (ideally, from a point on the far shore at the same height as the camera) down to the object. Divide that by the distance from top to bottom of the image and multiply by the angle you got in step 2. Call the resulting angle A. Then the distance from the camera to the object is the camera height above the water, divided by sin (A)

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    3. I suspect you were asking about the 15-18m figure, not the general technique. It's similar. Work out the vertical angle of view of the camera lens, which tells you what the distance from top to bottom corresponds to in degrees. Measure the image. Divide the length of the object, on the image, by the distance from top to bottom of the image, and multiply by the vertical angle of view. Call the result B. Then the length of the object is the distance times sin (B)

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    4. I assume they were cycling on the Great Glen Way? So height estimate should not be difficult.

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    5. Ah. Excellent. Trigonometry forensics at it's finest.

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  4. I think this is a terrific picture, and am definitely seeing fins or flippers on the object on the right. Still re-reading all previous Lochnessmystery articles and, coincidentally, just read the article on multiple creatures and/or sightings...great stuff!

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  5. Its nice to see another photograph and a claimed sighting. Whilst most photos are of obvious wakes or waves this one for me is a maybe. Its a pity we could not get the photograph looked at by people in the know, then we could get a feel of the size or length of the disturbed area.

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  6. This photo looks very similar to the Calley Tulleth photo which was posted on coast to coast on the 19th August 2016 only a week or so before Mr Campbell's that was taken on the 21st August 2016 could be the same creature? Link to coast to coast, copy and paste.....

    http://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/loch-ness-monster-photographed-by-vacationer/

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  7. The Calley Tulleth pic is just a wave pattern of a type quite common on flat calm and bright days on the loch.

    The objects in the main article though are more interesting. Dick Raynor seems to be suggesting kayakers but the don't fit the profile of any kayakers I've seen on the loch. Even far away kayakers tend to be noticeable as such after a bit of time looking at them.

    Not saying it's Nessie but it's an interesting pic

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  8. I agree with you RP it is a very interesting photograph, and maybe the best for a while.I cant see Kayakers in the photo and I think Dickie Raynor is alone in thinking that, the same as he is with the bird of prey in the 'fin' photograph,and the swan in the Hugh Gray shot. I think instead of just saying he is not sure what is in these photo's he feels he has to put a suggestion up to please his band of followers. With this in mind and his argument against the 'fin ' photo actually being in loch ness im really finding it hard to see why anyone takes this guy seriously.

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  9. I'll be honest - I find his swan argument quite compelling for the Gray photo

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    1. I know you have commented on this article, but I link it here again as regards swans and Hugh Gray:

      http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/is-hugh-gray-photograph-swan.html

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    2. Yeah I take your point.

      I like the gray pic but I was never sure what I was supposed to be looking at.

      Dicks swan theorem seemed to me to be pretty well argued.

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    3. I don't think he has argued in any great detail. For example, he hasn't explained how the double expoure plays its part in his theory.

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  10. He seems to be obsessed with birds, even with his own video.

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  11. There is enough detail in the photo that surely a camera expert could put a size to the objects in question. I cant see kayakers myself but it woyld be interesting to see if the size matches.

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    1. I'm not sure you can measure them without a point of reference. You can measure the pixel length, but without an accurate distance it doesn't mean much. Although, having a look at photos of kayaks, I don't see any that fit what I see in the picture.
      What I do see now are patterns of repetition, presumably as the camera tries it's 'best guess' at what's actually there, since we have moved past the camera's resolving power. I was wondering could the 'flippers' actually be the oars of a professional rowing boat? If it was two rowing boats of considerable length, one would imagine that there are two teams of rowers, and people would surely see them. And presumably the photographer would have noticed this too. The camera, because it's approximating, may not be able to resolve all the oars. But then I find the presence of 'flippers' confusing too, because they are clearly at the surface. In fact, the whole thing is as puzzling as ever, but surely someone must know if there are professional rowers present at Loch Ness.

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    2. We know it's a phone camera, and they all (except the new iPhone!) have about the same field of view. It would be easy to estimate the distance and size if we knew the height above water at which the picture was taken. The Mirror article says they were cycling on hill tracks about 5 miles south of Drumnadrochit. If anyone familiar with the area, or more expert than I at reading contour maps, could get an idea of the height from that, I could have a go at doing the mathematics.

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    3. David,

      http://www.greatglenbikes.com/index.php?module=webpage&id=46

      Go five miles south from Drumnadrochit on track, find a spot around there which is 400m from shore as the crow flies ... good luck, but could be perhaps 900ft high.

      Here is a better map to help with scale:

      http://maps.nls.uk/view/74400630

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  12. I haven't seen any rowing teams at the loch. In fact I never seen that kind of team rowing on the loch. In the river Ness I have - it's quite common there.

    I've seen 2 or 3 man kayaks on the loch but those are quite distinctive even at a distance.

    As I said, these objects don't fit the profile of any canoeist or kayaker I've seen on the water.

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  13. Would there not be a wash coming off them if they are canoe's ?

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    1. It's hard to know that a wash would be resolved by the camera at that distance. As I said it's clearly filling in the blanks, as you can see by the repetition in patterns around the objects. It's possible that there may be a wash visible coming from the top object in the form of a very faint line, but this may be nothing or a camera artifact. Or it may even be the wash from a large unknown creature, who would know.....

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