Tuesday 26 October 2021

Update on the 1981 Loch Morar Film

 


I will discuss the above image further down, but I just thought I would bring you up to date on the search for the footage taken of possibly one or more large, unknown animals at Loch Morar in the 1980s. The explorer, Sidney Wignall, led the expedition and a portion of the footage appeared on national UK TV before it disappeared from view for four decades. I wrote a blog on what we know of this film three years ago in this article.

After that, things went quiet before two events happened last year which convince me all or part of the footage is within reach, albeit with the usual obstacles. The first was a comment submitted to the aforementioned article from someone who claimed to be in possession of the original film. Naturally, this raised expectations and I got into an email conversation with them. The person said they had not looked at the film for a very long time and it was in a film canister somewhere in their house,. They would undertake a search, but they suspected it was hidden in a pile of canisters and identifying labels would have likely fallen off.

That initial communication came just days into the national coronavirus lockdown. I lost my job within a few months and I suspected my contact was not in a great place either. We all got rather distracted by more important events. I contacted them again in October 2020 but no success in finding it. Yes, I know, it is frustrating. I phoned the person again last week and they had found a box of VHS tapes and were hopeful of finding a taped copy. I await further developments.

Now, I know seasoned readers will sigh and suspect I am being led up the garden path. But I have checked the person's background and I am satisfied that their story is true. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that something will just turn up after forty years of being forgotten about. If they finally find the film, the next issue is copy it to a digital medium. I am prepared to keep on waiting as that does not cost anything and the reward at the end may well be a fantastic piece of cryptid footage. But I can't even say that until I actually see it and assess it. After all, one Nessie expert described it as looking like the silhouette of a plesiosaur and another as looking like a log!

However, in one of those strange coincidences, I was contacted within days of that by another Nessie researcher who had located the news clip of the event. That person wishes to remain anonymous, but I want to thank him for his research in this matter. As it turns out, the Morar film was transmitted on the ITN national news on the 11th November 1981. The collection of ITN News programmes has been catalogued and made available for licensed use through the Getty Images corporation. 

The entry for that news clip is clear enough as it describes the news report as opening with Sidney Wignall standing by his plane, then they're looking at a map, the item then changes to them flying over the loch and then the big moment as the "monster" is shown below in the water. This is then still framed followed by an artist's impression of what it might be. The whole sequence lasts perhaps three minutes, I do not know how much of that is "monster" footage.

Okay, great. I contacted Getty Images asking how I access this video. Firstly, I was told it was still in analogue format and had not been digitized. I guess they do these things on demand. I was then asked for what purposes I wanted it and how much of the news clip I wanted to license. This is where the journey began to go uphill. It was not a free item and there was money to be paid to allow its use. To be precise, £150 per second with a minimum of 10 seconds.

I swallowed hard and realised these people tend to deal with richer film and documentary makers who buy the rights to "rent" these clips for their own productions. However, I was advised that one could purchase a private preview of the item to determine whether I wished to proceed. That only cost £150, so I agreed to that. 

The reply then came back that they could not even release the preview as part of the news item had third party copyright issues. In other words, the portion of the news report that contained Loch Morar film was third party and could not be release without their consent. Monster hunting was proving to be as elusive online as it was by the lochside. Sidney Wignall died some years back, so what does one do next?

After some consideration and communication, it may be the case that the person who has the original film is the copyright holder. So I went back to Getty Images and told them I had found the copyright holder, how do we proceed? To my surprise, they said they were still unable to provide the clip! That is a continuing conversation.

Anyway, the ITN news report would be great, but the real deal is the original film which has the complete sequence. A few seconds on ITN may not provide all the answers. We live in hope, but I move onto the image at the top of the article as I was informed that this may be another aerial image of Mhorag, the Loch Morar Monster. Another researcher, going by the pseudonym of Nunzio Byznez, contacted me some months back saying he had spotted Mhorag in satellite image of the loch. I zoom into the area of interest in the image.



This was the comment Nunzio passed to me:

Well I think I may have accidentally solved the Wignall situation. I recently was searching satellite map from Apple maps of the same area where Wignall was over-flying. When I looked inside of a lagoon of the east coast of Ban Island (an island in north west Morar with other islands), a brownish silhouette appeared. It was in 16 feet of water (4.87m).Shallow water adjacent to deeper water. Its shape was odd. it had a long neck fat body but NO TAIL.

I could see no fins as it was a top down view and the creature may have been using them to stabilize itself in hover motionless stance to ambush passing salmon. The browser allowed me to measure it at 53 feet (16.1 m). Its neck was turned to the left as if it was looking astern.

The missing tail is assumed to be a case of "autotomy" which lizards go through when startled by an attacker. I can only think this may have happened in August 1969 when Duncan McDonell and William Simpson blasted it with their illegal shotgun. They where lory drivers on holiday supposedly fishing at 9PM and not poaching deer with that shotgun. Plesiosaur means "almost lizard". So I guess it dropped its tail when Simpson blasted it in its stern.

I have the photo but you can get it yourself from Apple maps. Roland or GB (I think) has another which is another shot of it from MapQuest. Its a little dark but you can see where it has small humps too. Adrian Shine says he has the 1969 article about Duncan McDonell and William Simpson incident and it says the creature was 60 feet long not 30 feet as some say today. So that makes my 53 feet sans tail believable. Adrian was in a Shiver video with Morar's Superintendent who has his own cellphone video of two of them just like Wignall said.


I admit it has that 1975 Rines/AAS picture look to it with that long neck and bulbous body so what do we make of this intriguing image? It is no photoshop job as you can go and view it yourself on the satellite images provided by the map facilities of Apple and DuckDuckGo. It is located on the southern part of the Eilean Ban island as circled below.



Well, the first thing to do was check other images from map providers. These images do get updated over time, but here is the one I took from google maps. It is a poorer quality image that the other one and there does not appear to be anything occupying the same stretch of water. Is that due to poor resolution of what?


The next image comes from Microsoft Bing and is shown below. Now here we see that there is something similar looking in the same area. A zoom in of that area is included.




This crater-like image with raised edges would look to confirm that the object in view is part of the shallow loch bed between the small islands. I would guess that it is a sandbank and explains why there is no tail. The other argument is that if it was a living creature, one would not expect it to be in the same location taken by another satellite some time later, perhaps months or years. I am not sure how one would check that the two images are definitely separated in time.

Nunzio has the right of reply here if he has something more to say on the matter. But this image does make one think about the Wignall film which was also taken from above. If it was like this image, then some heated debates may ensue. However, I am persuaded better things of it, but the acid test will be the actual viewing of it, something which is proving to be a waiting game.



The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com







60 comments:

  1. Been waiting to hear something on the Wignall film. I think your right about the sand banks.

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  2. Roland, thanks for your continued efforts. Now that there's some idea of what's on the lake bed it can be taken into future consideration. Wignall's footage, taken from low altitude, might be quite extraordinary after all.

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  3. Wow great researching once again we all appreciate your efforts hope you get a swatch of the video keep up your great work much luv 😎🚬🍻

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  4. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/blood-sucking-living-dinosaur-swirling-25303582 did you see this?

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  5. Excellent work yet again Roland, not all heroes wear capes my friend.

    The one thing I seem to remember about descriptions of the Wignall film were that it showed animals plural, rather than just an animal. At the very least we can hope for one clear(ish) image of the animal and the other being the sandbank. However 150 per second for 3 minutes, that's a lot of beans to fork out, though I guess if you can get a viewing of the file first then you could decide whether it was worth paying for some of the footage, then maybe crowdfund it?

    It must show something compelling, 'Prince' Charles was said to be very interested after seeing it too,for whatever that's worth.

    More importantly, have you managed to get another job?

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    Replies
    1. looking at that closeup. looked like a Giant turtle to me!

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    2. JesusFan, Latman is talking about the 1981 footage, not the satellite image.

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    3. Thanks Latman, I started a job back in January, so all good.

      The minimum is 150 for 10s, still £1500 but cannot even get at it ... yet.

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    4. Yes JesusFan, I was indeed talking about the 81 footage and not the sandbank pictured in the article.
      Roland, glad to hear it, these are indeed strange times.

      With any luck you can get access to the footage so that the worst case scenario is at least you can view it then enlighten us all. I hope that the footage isn't just multiple sandbanks, the fact that Rip mentioned movement is promising, unless it was an optical illusion.

      If the footage is indeed worth investing in, I'm sure we would all contribute towards it.

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    5. Just seems that much of the so called proof is in the final analyst "not so much"

      Also, how is it that there are lakes in the region that report nessie like creatures, but some more like large ponds?

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  6. If thats a creature it must be enormous lol

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    1. What could it be then, based upon long neck and no tail?

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    2. A sandbank .. did you read the article?

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  7. If this is really the animal, it seems to conform with Huevelmans & Costello’s proposed body forms for the long-necked sea serpent; with little to no tail.

    However I do agree that it is probably a sandbar. Also it seems odd that these animals could perform such a technique as well.

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  8. I'm looking at the area on Google Earth and there appear to be plenty of similar shapes in the vicinity. The one in the picture above is still there, as far as I can make out, and it's got a sibling just nearby! Clearly just an underwater feature, and one of a number in this part of the loch.

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  9. Very disappointing, but hats off to your continued dedication to the cause. Also, there should be a law regards media of national interest, in the same vein as found treasure.

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  10. Well done! The photo above is probably a sandbar. What Rip Hepple describes from Wignall's film is something else. I quote:
    "The animal was close to the surface and twisting to one side, showing movement as the aircraft passed over."

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  11. I found Roland's analysis far more interesting than this image provided. I have always said that Loch Morar deserves more attention and a closer look but I sadly don't see anything apart from a sandbank which is highlighted more due to the natural lighting around the Loch and islands.

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  12. Watch the whole video if you like, it's actually beautiful but if not then skip to the 2:15 mark and see bottom left. I'm confident that this is nothing more than a sandbank. Have a watch...

    https://youtu.be/XSWE3Hf3N-4

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    1. Another so called proof for loch ness or similar animals bites the dust!

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    2. That's just my opinion and observation in regards to the pictures provided. We can't prove that Nessie and Morag don't exist they same way we are struggling to prove that they do exist.

      (Obviously I do believe in Nessie)

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    3. There is an argument that perhaps Nessie is itinerant, however Morar being cut off would preclude Morag from the same.

      Given that Morar is so deep then hopefully the animals are still there and just out of reach, I still believe there are underwater caves in Ness, so why not in Morar too. If Nessie indeed a visitor and given how clear Morar is, have there been any expeditions with multiple drones or any sonar sweeps? Morag can't go anywhere but Morar after all, unless there are a network of caves that these animals hide in.

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    4. Would the creatures in there and Loch Ness be the same then?

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    5. @TheLatman - I share the same wish in regards to these 'creatures' being alive and well. Both Lochs are massive and you really do need to be in the right place at the right time. The odds are very much against us.

      I'd like to think that both Lochs have caves or possibly even tunnel like formations but to my understanding the lack of limestone can make it difficult to produce caves over the years. I'm no geologist obviously so I'm open to correction.

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    6. @JesusFan - Remember we still don't know what lurks in Loch Ness so your question is hard to answer, however there are similarities in regards to eyewitness accounts, unfortunately that's all we have to go on when searching for the truth.

      If they are the same 'creature' then why inhabit Loch Ness and Loch Morar? The depth in both Lochs may be appealing but again, why?

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  13. Just out of curiosity, is Loch Morar landlocked or not? Hard to tell from maps what's separating it from the sea: spits, sandbars, marshes, locks?

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    1. To my knowledge it's landlocked with several small streams/burns running into the Loch.

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    2. A river feeds into the sea but when I was there I noted there was a dam-like structure there.

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    3. I just now saw some photos on Getty Images that were, I think, of the western part of the loch, and it looks marshy and otherwise impassable for something big and wet.

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  14. Another photo from Ricky Phillips perhaps :)

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  15. Don't know if You've already covered this idea but... Wasn't part of the Wignall film shown on the kid's show Blue Peter on BBC? (Why on earth air it there btw?). I think somewhere on this blog was even stated the exact date.

    Is there any chance BBC keeps old episodes of the show in their archives? If so, are these available to the public?

    Cheers

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    Replies
    1. Yes, that was mentioned. Now we have the ITN date, the BBC archive could be searched, doubtless with the same copyright problem emerging.

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    2. It may at least be easier to secure a personal viewing, since the BBC is a public service and my understanding is their archives are generally made available to researchers.

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  16. If a fundraising effort begins, I would donate $100 USD to Roland being able to access the video.

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  17. Yes there is a dam and small hydro electric plant sited on the river Morar. I think it only generates something like 1 kw of power due to its small dimensions, but a dam it, is all the same. The usual fish ladders etc are there and if I remember correctly the difference in height is only about 16 feet. The dam was built just after the second world war and how the terrain was before this I don't know. Maybe the river to sea access was possible before the dam construction.

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  18. I know I'm a bit late to this party, as usual, but really now people; have you read the article? Many, many, seem to be missing the points...

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    1. @Hopkarma - What point's are we missing?

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    2. @ar line... Can you point me to your story about your encounter. I read it in Inverness and I think they editorialized it too much. Would like your version please.

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    3. @Nunzio Byznez I think Val is following her reporter instincts on this one and perhaps trying to capture the readers attention? The only encounter I experienced was with the Loch itself rather than something mystery....

      I was exploring the shore and the rocks at the base of the main keep/tower of Urquhart Castle. I stupidly ignored my father and ventured out alone, but unknown to me there was a sudden drop into deeper water. My entire body was underwater and within seconds the cold water shock hit me. Very scary experience that's never fully left me.

      My good friend Simon Dawes from LNE will back me up on this one. I was terrified walking out on the floating jetty at Foyers where we used the Hydrophone. It was great but I was scared throughout the test.

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    4. Thanks AR. I knew it was something different. LNM does not have Dolphin emotions. I think if anything she would just watch and say to her partner: "See that's why we need to avoid them..." 🐳😀

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  19. Hi folks! I considered the sandbar theory but that idea fell apart when it didn't show up on other sat browsers. The one I presented to GB did have one fin visible on starboard stern end of object.

    If we can get Steve Feltham down there with a $400 Amazon ROV or ask Mr Viv Defrane (Morar Supervisor) to rent a boat and check for this sandbar. It's only 16 feet of water and clear to the bottom. I'll bet the creature visits here to ambush fish salmon by standing perfectly still. It also could be sleeping there too 😴

    To breath it may surface just it's nostrils like frogs and turtles. A solar powered webcam right there may be the trick needed. I'd donate a few bucks to a donation website like I did for the late Scott Mardis.

    Chris

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  20. If anyone would like Viv Du Frenses contact info then just email me. He does not know me. I'll also send you Amazon's ad regarding the cheap ROV for $499. I've seen it cheaper. GB has my email address I think.

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    1. I'm sorry I butchered Viv's name. He has a thick Highlander brough. And he has a cell phone video of two long objects near the islands.
      If anyone wants the lat/long coordinates of my alleged sandbar let me know .

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    2. Just want to add ... This island I think has an abandoned monastery on the other side. It's near a white sand beach. It seems sand is white there not brownish gray. So I don't feel sandbar nor algae bloom at all .

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    3. Please tell Steve or whomever goes up there. I'd be willing to fund a trail cam to attach to one of those Scott Pines on Eilean Ban. I have a spare one in my stuff or I could order it from Amazon for you. I pretty much mini-financed late Scott Mardis with all sorts of Champ equipment. I hope Sandy donates it or something. He will be sorely missed

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    4. Regarding hydrophones: these creatures appear to be similar. Champ emits a high frequency bio sonar from bird Chirps to 100 khz. That's why sonar above 200 khz will not drive the creatures away from you. They sound just like a Beluga Whale but sometimes croaker fish too.

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    5. Further points re: sandbar theory. It's a sheltered cove, where's the current for building sandbars in 16 ft of water? All sand in the island areas is white. Scott pine dead needles in water appear brown so any white sand would be covered in brown needles. Google has not updated Sat images yet. The 64 meter CNS Airbus satellite needs some recent fly overs. Maybe Elon Musk may put up a paywall live polar satellite like Americas Keyhole and Lacrosse. IMHO The animals hang out there because it's safe. No humans and plenty of fish thinking it's a good hiding place from Morags 🦕😀

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    6. Ok I will concede to something to the right of my still being what appears to be a long pine needle covered sandbar. But my creature image is not a sandbar. Will have that professionally verified soon. Does anyone want to comment? I promise not to be negative about antithetical comments.

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    7. I wouldn't add much to what I have said based on the Microsoft Bing image in the article showing much the same thing. Its a pity as it looks so Rines-like!

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    8. I agree. However, Dr Rines evidence is very credible to me despite what a certain skeptic says. To me my scenario is similar because the animals are so much alike due to being the same species. The turning of the head and neck must be a genetic trait they use to watch fish swimming astern of them. Being an ambush piscivore predator it is a plus to look like a dead log or a sandbar. They never see the strike coming. Reminds me how cephalopods hunt.

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  21. Has anybody read the story of a Morar man claims local farmers and fishermen throw dead fish to Morag(s) in October at around 630 AM? He says it actually surfaces to eat it. I wish someone could film this encounter.
    Chris

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  22. Here's a good idea from youtube. A guy puts a GoPro underwater with rod and reel in Florida. Imagine this at the alleged sandbar at Morar. I'll finance a very cheap one or will donate to a campaign for a rig. Come on Steve Feltham, that's aimed at you brother. I'm one of your fanboys!!! 🦕😀
    https://youtu.be/Sow_l-YC1P4

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  23. I was looking at another satellite viewer called Cesium. I looked at my coordinates and got an interesting surprise. Neither alleged sandbar was visible at all. But you could still see an outline of something laying on the bottom. Remember this clear water is only 16 feet, covered in pine needles, with a white sand sediment bottom. It looked like a spot where a large creature was laying motionless making an impression in the sand and needles. It keeps getting bigger or longer probably due to a small current disturbing the needles. That may explain why the August 2021 image looks real but each successive image looks fuzzier and fuzzier. The newer images are probably latent images of it resting there and leaving an impression like how a couch potato leaves a depression in the couch. I hope that makes sense. It you ask me more questions maybe I can develop more theories.

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