Sunday 28 March 2021

Back to the Surgeon's Photograph




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

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

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

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

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

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

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




WITNESS ACCOUNTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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






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

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

ANOTHER LOOK AT THE PHOTOGRAPH

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

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





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

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

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

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



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



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




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

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

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


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

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

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


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com




66 comments:

  1. GB you should be a detective ;)

    Such a compelling image, part of the beauty is that it's so difficult to decipher exactly what it is. The mind fills in the gaps. The second photo always seemed like a great bit of confirmation - there aren't too many cases where we have more than a single image.

    However, I agree with you that 3 accounts admitting to fraud would confirm a plot.

    Which brings us back to the image as evidence. It's just too small to be a "monster" in my opinion. Particularly when you examine the scale in the uncropped wide shot. And even if it's Nessie, it isn't enough to settle the matter.

    A well executed fraud, probably the image I have poured over more than any other, but a fake none the less.

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    1. I wonder how Dinsdale, Holiday, etc would have reacted to this expose years after their deaths?

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  2. As always, what a great read! Cheers Roland.

    The classic and 'legendary' photo remains beautiful and even if it is a hoax I still appreciate that iconic image.

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    1. Wonder where the hoaxsters got that image to replicate from!was Nessie viewed as being like that before or after their hoax?

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    2. Long necks were being reported in the loch since September 1933, 7 months before.

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    3. Yes, it still remains an emblematic image.

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  3. Isn't it strange that such an enigmatic and mysterious photograph that for many of us in the 1960s was the abiding image of an unknown creature in the loch, should turn out to have such a mundane reality. In fact, for many of us who first became interested in Loch Ness after Dinsdake's film, it was the mysterious almost mythical nature of the surgeon's photo that made the subject so fascinating. Yet eventually it was the almost too good to be true nature of the photo that raised doubts. Although I accept that the photo is not a photo of a living animal in the loch and is a fake, I find some aspects of the now generally accepted hoax theory difficult to believe. The main problem is the second photo. Those claiming to have been part of the hoax seem unaware of the existence of it. As Roland says, it did not become known to the public until Constance Whyte published it in her book and even since then most people are only aware of the more famous image. If those who allegedly perpetuated the hoax had indeed done so, they would have been aware of a second photo but in their varying accounts have never mentioned it.
    So, yes the photo is a hoax but there are still unanswered questions about how it was produced. And what a shame that such an iconic photo that represented so well what many of us wanted the "monster" to be was nothing more than a joke. It may be hard for people not involved in the subject in the 1960s to realise that back then the photo was treated very seriously as genuine evidence.
    Chris Morris

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    1. Could the second photo been the "real" one, as in a live creature?

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    2. The 2nd picture could be the submarine submerging with some degree of success.

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  4. Very interesting article, and a great read. Someone mentioned it as well, you really should be a detective :)

    Does it give you goosebumps, thinking that the area they may ave staged this, is somewhere you've been many times?

    I have said before that im quite open minded on this picture, but, as you say, despite the inconsistencies in their stories, they all say its a hoax, so I guess that is as close as we're ever going to get to knowing the truth.

    regarding the white line, could that simply be a branch above the person with the camera, it seems to trail off 'into' (or in front of - perspective wise, though it does blur) the Loch itself?

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    1. Regarding the white line, I also think it could be a tree branch overhanging the camera. The tip of the branch looks to be in front of the water and the dark line at the top of the photo seems to be the branch in shadow. Right click on the photo and select view image and the magnification can be increased.

      Best wishes to John Alvarado, I also have an eye problem and understand how frustrating it can be.

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    2. I think it is simpler to state it is a feature on the opposite hillside.

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    3. Yes, it does give that beach walk an extra sense of meaning. :)

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    4. Thanks Jack. I'm in cyclop mode having to see the world with my weak eye, which is now my good eye. LOL

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    5. If the wee sub did exist, then, suely it had some metal inner workings. Don't suppose you have a metal detector?

      Supposedly Wetherall only submerged it with his foot, so, perhaps bits of it are still there, though I suspect they'd have been swept out to deeper parts of the loch.

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    6. I do have a metal detector, I may well bring it with me.

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  5. Kyle is right...you're a regular Colombo! Also, get better soon, John Alvorado.

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  6. Good stuff! Reminds me of the finale of a detective show... ;)

    Inspector Watson: "The mystery seemed unsolvable. But then I noticed the thin white line in the upper left hand corner of the photo..."
    (Weatherell, Spurling, and Wilson squirm guiltily in their seats).

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    1. The epilogue to this tale would be to find remnants of the submarine at the site ... a very long shot.

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    2. Long shot indeed!Buried in 87 years of silt, or possibly carried off by currents into the deepest parts of the loch. If there was ever such a contraption, for all intents and practical purposes it's gone forever. Better chance of proving Nessie than producing a sunk toy submarine with head/neck attached after almost a century after the fact.

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    3. The waters would have been fairly shallow were it was played out. But who knows? Wetherell may have lifted it out and threw it into deep waters or took it away for disposal. Or left to the mercy of the waves, it may have washed ashore and scattered by multiple agencies thereafter.

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  7. Compelling reading Roland.Sorry to put a spanner in the works, with the rest of your readers here, but I never believed it was a hoax, and that view has not changed.We are led to believe that a number of individuals involved could stay quite on a hoax for decades,Who were they working for MI6.It is a bit of a long stretch to imagine that, most people can't hold there water.As for the photos, the surgeon's photo, stands on his own, uniqueness, is the Boyd photo a match, No in my opinion.If it was a heart match, for a heart transplant operation, I think I would stick with my own heart. Eoin O Faodhagain.

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    1. You're welcome to your opinion, Eoin. I can only present my thoughts, others can judge.

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    2. As much as I want this picture to be true, I'm still of an open mind, but, I must confess the uncropped image seem's a little bit more 'hoaxy' than the famous one. The sense of scale just doesn't seem quite right.

      That said, given how bitter Wetherell seemingly was, also the fact that Wilson seem's to have been telling all who would listen that it was a hoax at the time, it does seem a bit far fetched that it was only really outed relatively recently.

      You have to ask yourself as well, why would Wilson claim the picture was a hoax at all if it was a real shot. Could he have endured mockery professionally?

      I wonder if he has any descendants, would they know anything of this?

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    3. The picture was outed 36 years later when Egginton wrote to Witchell, possibly earlier if you read between the lines when Wilson wrote to Constance Whyte. Boyd and Martin talked to Wilson's relatives, they took it to be a hoax.

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    4. Another way of looking at it is to consider how viable this creature would be from the Loch Ness Monster perspective. For example, if real this appears to be an air breather. It also has a very small head atop a large bulky body. Due to this ratio it would be incapable of sucking in sufficient air to remain underwater (and undetected) for any more than a few minutes. Basically it would have to come up for air so often that it would be seen on a very regular basis, if fact this looks like a creature that would be predominantly surface dwelling with occasional dives for fish. I once believed the hoax was a hoax but alas I'm no longer of that opinion.

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  8. Re the hoax theory being more plausible as it's supported by claims made by three different persons: two of these (Weatherell and Spurling) were brothers who were in communication with one another, so they can hardly be considered to be independent claimants. As for the third, Eddington, his hoax claim was totally different from that of Weatherell & Spurling, and had been received by him from Wilson, who had made so many different claims to so many different people down through the years, some of his claims alleging that a hoax had indeed occurred, others that a hoax hadn't occurred, that in my view his testimony is entirely unreliable and discredited. So, given these circumstances, I don't agree that the hoax theory is made more plausible by being supported by the claims of three different people, but yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I very much doubt that we will ever be certain of just what did happen re the creation of the Surgeon's Photo.

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    1. My link in the article to the September 1933 multiple eyewitnesses to a long neck sighting, shows how witnesses to the same thing can produce differing drawings and accounts, though the underlying event may be true.

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    2. This is true, but in the case of the Surgeon's Photo, the Weatherell/Spurling claimed hoax and the Egginton claimed hoax (forgive my Eddington typing mistake in my previous comment!) were entirely different stories, not merely variations upon the same story.

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  9. Could you buy toy submarines in 1934?

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  10. It must be a hoax since whales don't have necks. :)

    There's a segment of the neck near the head that angles forward sharply which has always looked unnatural. Maybe an optical illusion, but the story behind it is what actually kills it.

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    1. The second photo still looks like a bird or otter going underwater!

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    2. Bird or otter? Surely they dive head first?

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    3. Maybe its a flipper of something, or a tail?

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  11. Wetherell strikes me as another Frank Searle. He tried to upstage Rines in 1975 and failed. He had ample time to make his "confession" to the LNIB and never did, instead he makes it to a magazine?

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    1. I get the impression Wetherell thought Rines' underwater pics were about to put his in the shade, so may as well come clean.

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  12. Interesting conversation with Lee Frank, LNIB and MIT (Rines, as chief diver) investigator. Talks about the “flipper” photo, Surgeon's photo hoax and Frank Searle

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coEr6W4F5HU

    Bonus Feature

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMBBAAXig3o

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  13. To me, the V-wake is still a sticking point. The ONLY reason for using a toy submarine would be to get the thing moving. Otherwise, it would be simpler to just stick a fake neck on a larger, more stable object capable of sinking to the required depth. Yet there is no V-wake. Also, as Dr. Shuker has pointed out, a toy submarine with a neck attached would be very unstable.

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    1. Do you believe that the photograph is legit then?

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    2. I'll answer that. Yes, the photo is a legitimate hoax. Looks like a plesiosaur, ergo, too good to be true.

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    3. So, by inductive reasoning, as this seems to be the original photo report of a long-necked creature, all other similar reports of long necked creatures are also hoaxes or misidentifications?

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    4. Long neck sightings are part and parcel to the existence of the LNM. The long neck feature is consistent with sightings throughout the history of this mystery. I insist on the premise that without the long neck, there can be no LNM. Take a look at the Johnston series of photos depicting a long slender neck and compare it with the Surgeon's photo. They look very dissimilar, with the Johnston creature having a longer, elongated neck, and that is a major discrepancy. If the Johnston pics are genuine, they are the best evidence, in my opinion.

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    5. Malcolm, as you say there is no V-wake. My take on this is that the submarine-neck device was tested in a garden pond which is a far cry from the turbulent waters of Loch Ness. It is possible the buffeting of incoming waves made it very difficult and it was abandoned. The stabilization issue is speculation, I would not have thought it was beyond human engineering to get such a simple setup stable.

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    6. Olrik, we have a good number of long necked reports before the Wilson photo. It was inspired by them and not the other way round.

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    7. There are both long neck and normal neck, so would that be proof more then one creature being seen as Nessie?

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    8. The odds of a completely unknown creature existing in Loch Ness is about a zillion to one...but you want two or three?...get real!

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    9. JesusFan, what is a normal neck? I don't think Loch Ness is a Jurassic Park. We have a problem identifying one creature, let alone two or three! You and john seem to be on the same page with this multiple creature stuff.

      Riitta, completely unknown? Are you suggesting the LNM is a known creature albeit unidentified as yet?

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    10. Jeez John...who knows what the helps going on!

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    11. Just saying Nessia the big Eel, big Amphibian, adapted seal, and maybe paranormal to boot!

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    12. JesusFan, you talk like someone on drugs! You're all over the place.

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    13. JesusFan: Well just not all at once, you can be forgiven. Pick one, OK LOL

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  14. Whatever the real truth behind the Surgeon's Photo, Karl makes a good point about the double-standards towards anecdotal evidence:

    "...because there is no direct, physical, tangible, unambiguous evidence to confirm its existence, only anecdotal, the LNM is routinely dismissed out of hand by sceptics and critics of cryptozoology...Yet, paradoxically, they expect everyone to believe unquestioningly in a head/neck-bearing toy submarine for which there is no direct, physical, tangible, unambiguous evidence either, only anecdotal once again. To me, this seems logically inconsistent at the very least, if not downright hypocritical".

    An interesting observation.

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    1. Easier to believe in a modified toy sub that a plesiosaur type creature, isn't it? I mean the former definitely exists in some form in the world while the latter still has no concrete evidence...

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    2. He is right, any half baked explanation is leapt upon. But I do not regard this as half baked.

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  15. Been monster hunting on YouTube again and came up with this gem from 1994. I guess it qualifies as vintage. Dick Raynor sounding very much like a believer and Adrian Shine with dark hair and beard. Steve Feltham was three years into his marathon campout. Holy crap, where did the time go!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L16rf7ApYg

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  16. Yes, a good find there John. Great to see a longer clip from Aldie McKay's interview!

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  17. John...what the hells going on, I meant to say...bloody B&B texting!

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    1. LOL Riitta! That's what I thought you meant. Cheers

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  18. Hello Roland,
    looking at the two original uncropped images the white line at the top left shoreline is only visible in one of them. This is a puzzling to me, can you shed any light on this situation.

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    1. The photo missing the white road has a higher contrast and is darker. I conclude this has blacked out lighter features.

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  19. Sorry I'm, as always, so late to the party, but I must question some of your assessments, GB. Seeing as how late I am, I'll keep my questions to your choice of location for the photograph.

    If the idea was to find "an inlet where the tiny ripples would look like full size waves out on the loch", then your suggested location doesn't work. Where is the photographer, and where is the imaginary model, in relation to the site shown in the 1950's postcard? The Wilson photo presents us with a dead straight opposite shore with no obstructions. If I was looking for an inlet with tiny ripples, I'd have to be well in the knook of that inlet. From that position I would get the left hand hook of the inlet or an angled far shore. If I were to go far enough to the right to escape the inlet and still be able to include the "logging road" in my shot I am no longer in a quiet inlet, but out in the open with normal waves for all to see.

    I've not been to Loch Ness, so I'll have to take your word about the wind direction. Here where I live the wind blows from different directions on any given day; sometimes even changing direction during the course of a day. On a big, wide open, lake like Champlain you best know how to sail, as the wind may very well be from a different direction when you return as when you went out.

    Unless the chemist flipped both negatives, I'd say look for that kind of mark on the opposite shore from where Wilson said he took his photo from...

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