The Corrie Creature

It was a while back that a reader posted a comment on this forum suggesting I look up a sea serpent story he had once read in a book. I eventually did and bought the book he recommended by Michael Prichard entitled "Sporting Angler" published in 1987. The story begins off the Isle of Arran on the west coast of Scotland just off the Bay of Brodick, to which I add an approximate circle on the map below. The story I reproduce verbatim below and the creature sketch above is taken from the same chapter.

I have always been a stickler for trying to make a correct identification of fish that I have caught or seen. This means giving the catch more than just a that I have caught or seen. This means giving the catch more than just a cursory glance. I once asked a well-known sea angler, who was happily  engaged in feathering for mackerel, what colour the species was. I stopped him turning round for a quick peep into the fishbox, and he found the simple task of colour description almost impossible. When I pointed out that he must have caught thousands of that particular fish over the years, he readily agreed that he and probably many other anglers rarely take more than a quick look at their fish.

Sometimes, however, we come across a situation and a rarity that defies adequate explanation; and often the occurrence so varies from the norm that we dismiss it or keep quiet for fear that our sanity will be questioned.  I had an experience, years back, that I have only talked of recently, encouraged by reading of similar experiences by highly regarded writers. I leave it to you, the reader, to make your own decision as to its validity.

I was fishing for haddock, with Mike Shepley, off the Isle of Arran. Our dinghy was drifting on an oily-smooth sea, over 9 fathoms of water, off the Corrie shore, just outside the Bay of Brodick. The evening was beautiful, little cloud cover and a half-light that allowed us to see for miles. Mike and I had caught a few small haddies while we chatted away and enjoyed a simple fishing that was lazy yet productive.  We were suddenly alerted to a noisy splashing ahead of the boat's bow. A glance showed that there was considerable disturbance to the surface about 50 yards farther out in deeper water.

Our immediate thought was of a shoal of mackerel, a breaching basking shark or a bunch of seals, all of them distinct possibilities in the Firth of Clyde, and all subsequently discounted, in the light of our experience, as unlikely. The ruffled water settled back to smoothness and we were both able to see, clearly, what appeared to be a head and a long body break the water's skin. The head was rounded, and then came a gap of a couple of feet, suggesting a neck, before the larger, thicker bulk of the body.

The creature seemed to me to move in a series of undulating motions: not the side to side (horizontal plane) swimming movements of a fish but more the up and down (vertical plane) progress of a mammal, such as a porpoise. I recall that the head was only slightly raised above the apparent level of the body mass. I cannot say that I saw any evidence of fins, either dorsally or otherwise. Overall size is difficult to judge when something is moving away from you, yet I would suggest that it was longer than our boat, making it over 17 feet long.

The observation wasn't a fleeting glimpse; we watched for several minutes. All this time the thing was on the surface and swimming in a straight line toward the Scottish mainland. I have since had many thoughts about this sighting, none of them given any added dimension until reading Gavin Maxwell's account of similar happenings in his book about the shark fishing industry, Harpoon at a Venture, wherein he recounts the experiences of a  number of Hebridean folk and quotes other sightings of creatures not, as yet, explained by science.

Neither Mike Shepley nor I have diluted our opinions as to what we saw. After many years the sighting remains as clear as on that alcohol-free evening in Arran. I have since seen a great many other marine mammals, such as whales and porpoises, but never has there been any similarity in their behaviour to that of the 'Corrie creature'! 

 

So ends Michael's story. He also speaks generally of sea serpent sightings, referring to McEwan's "Sea Serpents, Sailors and Sceptics", which I own but have not read in depth. I include that excerpt at the end of this article. Given the amount of claimed sightings on the west coast of Scotland, it is a study in and of itself and one wonders what the connection is between loch monsters and sea monsters in Scotland. That will form the basis for a future article!

As it happened, I managed to make contact with the other witness that day, Mike Shepley, and asked a few questions about how he saw things. He agrees that they saw something strange and classed it as a "memorable and unique experience". His words to me were:

We differed in the description of what we saw on and sub-surface. We were off Brodick to the north of the bay in a 16 foot clinker built boat/outboard - flat calm at dusk. The fish or mammal was longer than the boat and appeared to have a head of sorts. Undoubtedly one presence - not a colony of sea otters, seals in tandem etc.

I think Mike alluded to a 'humped' entity. My recollection was more of an eel-shaped movement which could have however concealed a substantial sub-surface body. It was not an eel. Nearest I could place it if not some kind of mammal (serpent) was a possible Oar Fish. One used to be displayed in Edinburgh's Chamber Street museum, caught in the Firth of Forth - like a giant blenny some 25-30 feet long.

We did do some research and found reference to sightings of marine serpents in Victorian times and earlier including a reference to Brodick Bay! I took photos and remember Mike (also as a professional photographer) stating I was wasting my time in the low light and virtually mirrored surface. I ran the best part of a film (36 shots) and failed to get a sharp image of anything resembling what we saw.

It disappeared as quietly as it arrived and was moving without apparent concern for our presence other than it may have surfaced to see what we were...

So, a difference in opinion as to what exactly was seen, and if Mike sends me a drawing of what he saw, I will update the article with it. Note also the problem of photography. Do not assume that just because you have a good sight of something, that means it will come out on film.

Further words on Scottish sea serpents:

I would recommend Sea Serpents, Sailors and Sceptics by Graham J. McEwan: Routledge & Kegan Paul as further reading on this fascinating subject. Mr McEwan offers us 41 sightings in British  waters in the last century, along with a fascinating sequence of sightings and descriptions of  world-wide events! Oddly enough, quite a number are in the vicinity of Scotland's islands.

The  following extract from this book gives intriguing information about the long-necked seal, of which he mentions 94 probable sightings. Distinguishing features Long neck Small seal-like head Bulky body, lacking distinct tail Four large flippers Vertical undulations This creature seems to be covered in thick rolls of fat, the appearance varying somewhat to the displacement of this fat, showing one, two or three big humps.

The head is small, resembling that of a dog or seal, and apparently lengthening as the animal grows older. The eyes are small and there are often two small horns mentioned by observers. These horns are possibly horny protuberances and may be an aid to breathing or to prevent bubbles from obscuring the animal's vision as it exhales underwater. The neck is long and flexible. There are two pairs of flippers, sometimes seen through clear water from above, and occasionally when the animal has been seen ashore.

There seems to be no distinct tail, but the hind flippers may resemble a bilobate tail, or, when held together as sometimes seals do, a fish tail. The skin looks smooth when wet and seen from a distance, but closer observation reveals it to be wrinkled and rough, sometimes showing what looks like coarse fur. It is dark on top, sometimes mottled, and lighter underneath. It seems to be between 30 and 70 feet long.

The animal can swim very quickly, attaining speeds of 35 knots, suggesting that it is a predator  which chases fish. It is found all over the world except polar seas, and the correlation between  sightings and climate indicates that it likes warm but not hot regions. This creature seems very likely to be a pinniped. The webbed feet or flippers, the absence of a tail, and in a few sightings its  movement on land-bounding like a sea-lion - point to this conclusion. In addition there is a 



The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Upcoming Lecture on the Loch Ness Monster

 

Just a reminder that I will be speaking at the Scottish UFO and Paranormal Conference in Glasgow next weekend on Saturday 25th June. You may ask what the Loch Ness Monster has to do with UFOs or the Paranormal. If you polled a variety of people interested in mysteries, most may say nothing at all, but a significant minority would link them to these other two paradigms.

In fact, one old time Nessie hunter, Ted Holiday, was sufficiently convinced to attempt a synthesis of UFOs and Nessie in his book, "The Dragon and the Disc" back in the 1970s. I was also of that persuasion back in the 1980s, so its a bit of nostalgia for me as I address the subject of "A Paranormal History of the Loch Ness Monster".

Ted Holiday will obviously feature as will some others to which I will add my own thoughts as well as cases which could be interpreted in a paranormal light. I also reveal some research done many years ago in this field, but which until now has not been published. For some background on this interpretation of the Loch Ness Monster, visit previous blog articles here and here.

Visit the facebook page here or e-mail Alyson Dunlop at spiscotland@gmail.com for furher details.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Frank Searle Items for Sale

I was contacted by Kris from the USA who was looking to sell some Frank Searle items she had accumulated during her time as a pen pal with Frank. The list of items is mentioned in the first photograph on the top left and includes twenty handwritten letters from Frank to her. Also included are various photographs and newsletters. If you wish to make her an offer, contact me at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com and I will give you her email address.

The photo at the top is the "Frank Searle Loch Ness Information Centre" which I visited shortly before its demise. I had not seen a photograph of it before, so thanks for that, Kris.

New Book on Nessie

We are expecting quite a few books on Nessie this year. With titles from Malcolm Robinson, Karl Shuker, Nick Redfern and Paul Harrison, it could be a bumper year. Having said that, I was expecting most of these titles to come out in 2015, but better luck this year! However, from left of field this April comes another book from Patrick J. Gallagher by the title of "Loch Ness: Back Into The Depths".

This title is a follow up to his previous "From Out of the Depths" which republished newspaper stories on the Loch Ness Monster between 1933 and 1934. I reviewed that back in 2015 and found it a useful resource. I own that particular title in paperback but also kindle mainly because I like to have a paper copy to hand (the Internet isn't everything) plus the Kindle edition can be taken anywhere in the palm of your hand and is more searchable than paper.

This time the period covered is from 1935 to 1955 and it is no surprise that the years covered are longer than the first book, mainly because media coverage of the beast dropped through the war years and took time to lift off again (though it never hit the heights of the manic years of 1933-34).

However, I would point out that if you are expecting to see mention made of the famous 1950s photographs of Lachlan Stuart, Peter MacNab and Hugh Cockrell, you will be disappointed. The reason for that is because the papers that ran the exclusives on these stories are not readily available on the Internet. The Sunday Express which ran the Stuart picture is behind a paywall, but I don't think it even goes back to 1951. Indeed, for my own articles on this photo, I had to purchase photocopies from the British Library.

Likewise, the MacNab and Cockrell stories were published by the now defunct Weekly Scotsman and I had to go to the National Library of Scotland to get photocopies. As you can see, not all research can be Internet based.

Again, I note that the stories in the book are available through the Internet (sometimes through a paywall), but I like to see them collated and concentrated into one book for research purposes. You can find out more on the book here (UK) and here (USA).

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Aleister Crowley Lecture

Anyone with an interest in the mystery of Loch Ness will have no doubt heard of Aleister Crowley. There will be a talk next week in Edinburgh on this infamous person (yes, he is even more infamous than Frank Searle). The talk will be at 7:30pm next Tuesday (14th June) at the Beehive Inn, Grassmarket. Further details can be found here.

Doubtless, some of his time spent near Nessie will be covered, though his complete separation from the inscrutable Highlanders more or less guaranteed he would be none the wiser about the Loch Ness Monster until he read it in the London newspapers years later.

Readers may recall that his house at Loch Ness, Boleskine House, suffered serious damage in a fire back in December 2015. Six months on, the fate of the house is unclear since it will require a substantial amount of money to restore it. Will someone step forward to foot the bill (insurance company or Crowley fan) or will most of the house be demolished? The images below were taken more recently and you can see more at this link.

By coincidence, I watched an old film recently, "The Devil Rides Out", which starred Christopher Lee in his favourite role as the Duc de Richleau. Apparently, the author of the book, Dennis Wheatley, based the evil character, Mocata, on Crowley. You learn something every day.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

The Latest "Nessie" Video

Let me just get this one out of the way before moving onto the next thing. It was filmed on the 1st of June by tourist, Tony Bligh, and can be viewed on YouTube (as embedded here). The story can be read here. I agree with Adrian Shine that this is no more than a boat wake.

When a report mentions four or five humps in a row, that normally makes me suspicious. Unless there are reasons to think otherwise, it is probably a boat wake. In fact, this is a phenomenon that has been around since the early days of Nessie. I posted an article from 1934 recently which showed the very same thing from the 1934 Mountain Expedition and I reproduce that picture below.

That theme continued into the heady 1960s with the Jessica Tait photograph which even merited a cover on a Nessie publication of the time (below). The Loch Ness Investigation Bureau advised against this being presented as a photo of the Loch Ness Monster, knowing what it was.

Now, circumstances alter cases. When an eight hump sighting is reported, I would be intially sceptical. For example, Mr. U. W. Goodbody on the 30th December 1933, about two miles east of Fort Augustus. Rupert T. Gould interviewed him for his 1934 book and the sketches below are from that book.

We have our excessively long line of humps, but then something unusual happens, they go off on a turn. Most unlike a boat wake. Well, there is something to think about.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

The other "Serpent Stone" of Loch Ness

I omitted this little episode from the "From the Shoreline" series of last week as it merited a post of its own. I was made aware of this stone a while back by Nessie enthusiast, Doug. He had been over at Loch Ness some time ago and came upon this piece of rock quite by accident by the shores of Loch Ness. Last week, I finally got round to tracking down this stone and taking a look for myself. I took the picture shown below.

The slab of rock you see is over two feet long in length and would be a major effort for one person to lift. On first inspection, it just looked to me as if somebody has scratched a childish, serpentine figure onto the rock, perhaps with another smaller but sharper rock. That was my initial impression when I first saw Doug's own picture and put it down to somebody indulging in a form of Nessie graffiti.

However, on closer inspection, it was not clear to me that this image had been laid down in such a simple manner. I considered how an artist may have abrasively added the image; or maybe it was a fossil? In fact, it looked as if it was part of the rock itself and more crystalline in form than the surrounding rock. A close up of the rock shows that this may be more of a question for those trained in the discipline of geology than art.

It seemed improbable that nature could have laid down a regular form such as this. Indeed, if it had, it most likely was embedded in the rock as the whole rock gave the impression of being split open. So, opinions are invited as to how this serpentine image at Loch Ness came about and whether one can assign any meaning or motivation to it.

As for this being called the "other serpent stone", I will get round to what that means in a future article!

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Article Published in Fortean Times

The latest issue of Fortean Times has some items on the Loch Ness Monster, including an article by myself on the F.C. Adams photograph of 1934. Now, regular readers will recall I wrote on this very subject last year. Well, it is essentially the same article but going out to a wider readership who may not visit this blog much or at all.

Actually, I offered the article to Fortean Times first before I put it on my blog. However, after no reply for ages, I just published here. Then, out of the blue, the editor replied recently saying he would like to publish! I was happy to oblige. The issue is the June edition, number 421. I checked out the paper edition in my local Tesco store today and it looks good.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

From The Shoreliine - Epilogue

I am back in my home town after another hot day at Loch Ness. In fact, when I woke that final Sunday morning, the inside of the test was quite sweltering. Looking back, when I walked along the Foyers beach on Thursday evening, I was alone. Come Saturday night, the camp site was full and the same walk at the same time encountered various groups involved in various activities. 

Some were burning driftwood at beach fires, one was tying up his canoe for the night while another was teaching his young son to fish. The school holidays are still a month away, but the tourist season seems to be well into its swing. One wonders if some people have exchanged the beaches of Tunisia and Egypt for those at Loch Ness? Those around the loch who do and do not believe in the Loch Ness Monster will be rubbing their hands in anticipation of a good season. 

One such person may be Marcus Atkinson, who I caught up with at Fort Augustus. Business was doing well  and they are commissioning a new boat for the season. They run a big cruiser boat as well as some faster rib boats out to the loch. You may recall Marcus recorded a strange sonar reading a while back which hit the headlines. To this day, he says he does not know what it was and despite repeated visits to the same spot, it has never appeared again. However, he had no new Nessie news for me and things seem pretty quiet just now on the monster front. 

One other thing that happened on the final day was the heat haze I saw on the road between Foyers and Dores. Going back to land based sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, a sceptical theory suggests the Spicers saw otters in a heat haze. Now I had the opportunity to assess one. It was visible about one hundred metres ahead of me. I was higher that the heat haze but my dashcam was not on to record it. I reversed and turned the cam on, but the sun had gone behind a cloud and the effect was gone. I will mention that particular phenomenon in a later article.

Meantime, the game camera I had strapped to a tree on early April had taken over 10,000 pictures! This is a new model I am trying, so clearly the configuration needs some tweaking. I decided against leaving a camera at the loch over the tourist months. After all, it will take me that long to get through those images! I will be planning on deploying a lot more cameras around the loch come September.

Finally, I was asked about camping around Loch Ness. I know of at least three camping sites by the loch. There is the one I use at Foyers run by the Forbes. You can read about it here. I like it because it is right beside the loch (you can heat up beans whilst watching the loch), is new and clean and is on the quieter side of the loch (which I prefer).

I have also used the Cumberland's Campsite which is just outside Fort Augustus. The River Tarff runs past it and it is a short walk to Borlum Bay from there. It's a bit further from the loch for me and not on the south side of the loch. I am not sure what else is available in terms of pitching a tent, others may wish to "pitch" in.

In terms of wild camping, I have seen various tents dotted around the lochside. One place I invariably see tents is alongside the River Foyers a couple of miles away from the loch. I have also seen them along the beach at Port Clair and along the Dores-Foyers road. To be frank, a lot of tents could be there, but you just won't see them from the road. My own tent is a six person tent that would not even fit onto the tight shorelines. Wild camping may be a better option for smaller tents.

That's it, back to normal blogging!

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

From the Shoreline (Part 3)

Friday did not begin for me with the chatter of folk or the revving of engines. It began at 2 'clock in the morning as I arose to hunt the monster of Loch Ness by night and then by dawn. The reasoning is clear enough and has been repeated by other monster hunters throughout the decades. The theory is that this creature of the cold, dark deep will be more inclined to break surface if it is also cold and dark. Likewise, researchers speculate that the creature is more likely to put in an appearance around daybreak as that dark recedes and the noise of humans is yet to jar upon the senses of the creature.

That does not make an appearance a foregone conclusion, but hopefully tilts the odds in one's favour. With that in mind, I set up the night vision binoculars on their tripod facing out into the dark gloom of the loch from the shingle of Foyers beach. The composite video feed from the binoculars is fed via usb into a video capture software package which can then record anything of interest to hard disk.

The coverage afforded by this technique would be about 18 square miles to the horizon, though not all of that area is simultaneously covered and objects become less detailed as the horizon is reached. As it happened, I was entertained by two ducks which showed up well on the software, but no monster hoved into view. The picture below shows them, but nothing was visible to the naked eye.

Even though the official sunrise time was given as about 0420, the light levels began to perceptibly rise about 0345 and I decided to do my now traditional dashcam drive up "Monster Alley". To recap for new readers, the Loch Ness Monster has been reported on land since Victorian times. Why it should do that is a matter of debate, but the majority of these reports come from the stretch of shore between Foyers and Dores. Some of these have occurred on the road running past the shore and combining this with the previous arguments about darkness and dawn, I hit the road with my dashcam trained on the road and headlights at full beam.

Capturing a lumbering thirty foot monster on dashcam is not the sole aim of this experiment. I also want to see what else happens on these roads in order to understand the full range of phenomena. Now that includes deer and I finally managed to get some decent video of deer crossing the road in front of me. Unfortunately, uploading video on a campsite wifi is not the fastest facility, so I defer to a screen grab and leave the videos for another day.

In fact, I saw six deer during that one hour run, a lot more than I usually do. One was a bambi, perhaps weeks old, which just stood on the road looking at me and wondering what to do next. I trundled to a halt in a Mexican stand-off kind of way as this little critter defied me to pass. I began to inch towards it and it decided discretion was the better part of valour and bolted across the road. It's mother watched me from the bushes, but decided not to follow at that point!

Evidently, dawn is a good time to spot deer. My reason for these dashcam recordings pertains to the explanation that deer are mistaken for monsters in such instances. I doubt this and will expand on it more in a later article.

Towards 5am, I decided it was light enough to resort to my usual camera and I returned to base and to the mouth of the river Foyers (opposite the island where Tim Dinsdale used to maintain a lonely retreat). From here I maintained a watch until 6am and decided to call it a day. Keeping a focused watch on the loch with little sleep is no fun.

The rest of the day was more of a go-slow due to my rather tired state of mind. A visit was made to Fort Augustus, another to Invermoriston where I took some pictures in regard to a future article on the Hugh Cockrell photograph of 1958.

Finally, I paid my respects at the grave of dear old Alex Campbell, laid to rest in 1983 near Fort Augustus amidst the clamouring voices of those who doubted his integrity. This man's report of the Mackay sighting in May 1933 to the Inverness Courier began a phenomenon which has not stopped to this day, and I for one salute him and defend his honest part in this drama.

And so, farewell. Tomorrow I head back to Edinburgh and will further process what has been learnt, including a large amount of trap camera pictures!

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

From the Shoreline (Part 2)

I awoke to a dull kind of day this morning, stirred by the sound of caravan doors shutting, cars moving on and people on the go. Having been refreshed by coffee and Alpen, the weather began to improve until by mid afternoon, the sun was shining strongly and the occasional breeze gave some relief. It was a good day for Nessie hunting.

The first activity of the day was to take a walk around the shoreline of Foyers. That took us to the old Aluminium works which once employed about 500 people in the village and turned into a vibrant centre of community and commerce for several generations. That has all gone now, apart from some brick buildings and a rather disused playing field with rickety goalposts which must have once staged many an event under the Loch Ness sunshine.

Walking along from there takes one to the Tail Leat which is a river that feeds in the loch. It was here that Ted Holiday watched a dome like object through binoculars from somewhere near Foyers village in 1962. The object submerged vertically leaving a large concentric wave spreading out from where it once occupied. The photo below shows that area from the river looking out to the loch.

After that, it was but a short walk to the place where I visited Frank Searle's caravan exhibition in 1983. It is, of course, gone now, and I was not sure which of two sites it once occupied. Anyway, the photos below shows my favoured site and there is even groove marks there, which I doubt belonged to Searle's caravan; but it was interesting to muse on that theory.

Loch Ness lore suggests that when Searle left in 1984, some local lads decided to tip his caravan into the loch. That seemed an eminently feasible project as there was a nice sloping slip path right beside the caravan site leading right down to a mini pier for a caravan to take a flying take off into those deep, peaty waters. The photos below show that "runway" as well as the murky waters which presumably hold the remains of a caravan out of sight. They have used sonar to detect planes and monster props, but one thinks that no one is in a hurry to refind this particular aspect of Nessie archaeology!

After this, it was off to find the camera I had left on watch by the loch since early April. Having found it safe and sound, unstolen by tourists and ungnawed by Nessies, I plan to check its SD memory card later tonight. Whether I will leave it over June, July and August is debatable as the volume of people walking and canoeing past the spot will increase multiple times, and, yes, I do not trust them all to leave them alone!

After a combined lunch and monster watch, it was off to Dores to see if Steve Feltham was at home. He was not, and so that particular trip was reduced to a walk along Dores beach; which has its fair share of flies (not midges I would add). After that, I took a whim to revisit the site of the famous Lachlan Stuart photograph. A thought had seized my mind as we drove in which the sceptics' star witness, Richard Frere, had claimed that Stuart had shown him the alleged hay bales behind some bushes at the site.

I have already raised doubts about Frere's testimony in other articles, but I always thought this idea of the hay bales being hid behind bushes was questionable. The problem being that I don't think the foliage along this shore is thick enough to hide three or four bales of hay. A sample picture is shown below.

I walked for several hundred metres either side of where I took the path down to the loch. During that time I tried to imagine three bales of hays being hid from sight. Others may have an opinion, but for me, the bushes were too thin for the task and there is not much breadth of bush since there is a high gradient of grassland rising promptly from the pebble beach. And I say this, knowing that journalists from the Express came to investigate the site, as did Constance Whyte and Maurice Burton. No indication of any such objects are mentioned in their writings. For me, this is an indication Frere was wrong.

Anyway, a night investigation will ensue later tonight. I hope I can stay awake.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

From The Shoreline

For a change, I will type my visit to Loch Ness from the shore itself, rather than write it up after I have returned. Well, actually, I am not quite sitting on the pebbled shore watching the wave lap up at my feet. I am rather at the campsite looking out their window onto the loch. 

The camera sits at my side, ready to be called into action, as occasional glances intersperse this communication to you. The loch is calm, the sun is setting on what has been a good day. All it needs is a large, black hump to break the surface as well as the calm of this situation.

The journey was easy enough from Edinburgh as I drove past Highland splendour on the way up the main road to Inverness and then onto the back roads that lead to the small village of Foyers on the south side of the loch.

Turning into the Loch Ness Shores camp site has now become a familiar routine as I greeted the Forbes who run the site. The site looked busy for school term and indeed it transpired that business is on the up. I can see why looking around, I just wonder how much the Loch Ness Monster has to do with people's holiday decisions? As you can see below, a new thing greeted my eyes as I walked around. Perhaps those holiday decisions are more Nessie oriented that I thought.

Having erected the tent and disgorged the contents of the car into the tent, I went for my first look at the loch. Strolling along Foyers beach towards where Hugh Gray took his famous photograph in 1933 was a pleasant stroll. The sun was beginning to dip and causing glare to reflect off the loch surface. Averting my gaze, I noted two canoes making their way up the loch, as you can see in my photograph below. As usual, the camera failed to capture the experience of the human eye and lacked the detail I was taking in with my own two eyes.

I would guess they were about 100 metres away and their entire boat length would be commensurate with the large back of a monster. One wonders how convincing even such a photo would be to the disbelieving world.

It was a good place to reflect upon, for after all, Dinsdale filmed a hump across the very narrow stretch of water I now surveyed. I considered the fact that Tim Dinsdale had only claimed two or three sightings of the monster in nearly 28 years of expeditions and loch surveys. I then thought of Ted Holiday, who claimed four sightings in the space of about 18 years.

Not very good returns on investments, you may suggest. I would agree. The Loch Ness Monster is a beast that rarely surfaces, let alone present itself obligingly to the camera. I had a look at Holiday's book, "The Great Orm of Loch Ness", to compare my preparations with his.

Holiday drove up to Loch Ness for the first time in August 1962 - I was not even born yet. His was a spartan van, floored with a couple of army mattresses, tartan blanket, terylene sleeping bag, provisions, cooking gear, books, fishing rods, and, of course, camera and binoculars.

His van was his hotel room and he parked wherever he thought appropriate on the same side of the loch as I find myself. One of the stops he describes sounds like the beach from where Lachlan Stuart had taken his three humped picture, eleven years before. Whether that was on his mind, I know not.

After coffee, bacon and a bit of fly fishing, he decided to leave darkening Loch Ness to itself. Within days, he had his first sighting of the Loch Ness Monster at about 6am, not half a mile away from where I type. Dinsdale and Holiday had the good fortune to see the creature on their first visits. Some would claim this beginner's luck is too fortunate.

I have had no such luck, though I am not inclined to survey the loch at such lonely times. Perhaps I would be better advantaged if I did. Snapping out of that fifty odd year flashback, there is now laptops and wi-fi to report current events to you.

I will report further tomorrow.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

An Old Nessie Article from 1934

I recently bought this single page online as I thought it captured some of the mood of those crazy days back in 1933 when the world was suddenly swept along in the wake of a strange creature currently being sighted in a Scottish Highland loch that one suspects the majority had never heard of. By the time 1933 and 1934 had rolled on, they certainly knew about Loch Ness and its now legendary monster. I don't know the name of the periodical or when it was published, but its words are as follows. I would suggest that the top photograph is one taken by the Edward Mountain expedition of 1934 and is not of our favourite cryptid, but most likely a pattern of interacting boat wakes as betrayed by the sequence of fading waves panning to the left of the picture.

THE LOCH NESS MONSTER

 

Tourists with field-glasses and telescopes came from all over the country in the summer of 1933, to look for a monster that was said to be swimming in the waters of Loch Ness. Hotels at Inverness filled up with visitors drawn to the best holiday attraction in the Scottish Highlands. Regularly every week came stories that the monster had been seen. Photographs like the one above were taken to prove the existence of a creature which had, said witnesses, two or three humps. Seaside artists gave their impressions of the Loch Ness Monster in the sand (below); it was a music-hall joke, a "silly-season" topic. Bertram Mills offered £20,000 to anybody who could capture it alive and deliver it to his circus - but nobody got the £20,000.

 

Deer Swimming in River near Loch Ness

Filmed recently at Inverness. But if it had been at Loch Ness? Sorry, but those ears (or is it horns?) ain't fooling anyone. Shown at BBC website here.

A Tale of the Sjo-Troll

I had an unexpected surprise when I was recently perusing one of my copies of "More Than a Legend" by Constance Whyte. Once you get to the index, that is normally that, but one of the previous owners had written a curious account in the final blank pages. The front pages of the book had the name of a Mr. Mather of Wigan written on it. It may be that he was the author of the notes.

The story was lifted from the book "Hampton on Pike Fishing" published in 1947. However, when I consulted the book at the National Library of Scotland, it turned out that this story had been further lifted from the first volume of an earlier work entitled "Scandanavian Adventures" by Llewelyn Lloyd, published in 1854. The book is no longer in copyright and can be accessed here. The quote below is taken from that earlier book:

"My brother, Captain Axel Westfeldt, Lieutenant J. Lekander, and the fisherman Modin," writes a friend, on whose word I place every reliance, "were one day fishing with Lang-ref, that is a line of great length, with several hundred hooks attached - of which more presently - in a large lake in Fryksdal, in Wermeland. When they had proceeded a considerable distance from the land, Modin suddenly pulled the boat right round, and in evident alarm commenced rowing with all his might towards the shore. One of the party asked the man what he meant by this strange conduct? 'The Sjo-troll, or water-sprite, is here again,' replied he, at the same time pointing with his finger far to seaward.

Every one in the boat then saw in the distance something greatly resembling the horns of an elk, or a rein-deer, progressing rapidly on the surface of the water. 'Row towards it,' exclaimed Lekander; 'the deuce take me if I don't give the Sjo-troll a shot; I am not afraid of it.' It was with great difficulty, however, that Modin could be prevailed upon once more to alter the course of the boat, and to make for the apparition. But at length the man's fears were partially allayed, and the chase commenced in good earnest. When they had neared the object sufficiently, Lekander, who was standing, gun in hand, in the bow of the boat, fired, and fortunately with deadly effect. On taking possession of the prize, it was found to be a huge pike, to whose back the skeleton of an eagle was attached. This fish, or rather the bones of the bird, had been seen by numbers for several years together, and universally went under the above designation of Sjo-troll.

The later Hampton book suggests that algae would have covered the skeleton, adding to the dramatic effect. They base this on other stories of birds meeting untimely ends when taking on pike. So, not quite a monster and not quite your standard misidentification explanation either. I don't anticipate this one being trotted out to debunk Nessie sightings.

As an aside, Lloyd goes on to discuss the Silurus Glanis, the catfish that was recently the focus of Nessie debates. Regarding its introduction to British waters, he says:

Through the indefatigable exertions of Mr. George D. Berney, of Morton, Norfolk, the silurus was last year introduced into England, and consequently is now included in our Fauna.

So the Wels Catfish was introduced into English waters in 1853. Sadly, no reference to Loch Ness or Scotland is made in this regard.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

The Sceptics Call Time on Nessie (again)

 An article appeared recently on the sceptical blogosphere by Sharon Hill. You can read it here, but suffice to say the summary of it was that the Loch Ness Monster mystery has been solved and why keep looking for a mythical monster when science and logic has laid this to rest? This was followed by the retort that people couldn't give up on monsters because:

"Several of those who have pursued these topics are so invested – monetarily and emotionally – that they can’t be objective and see the reality"

Is that true or is this another of those overstated articles by sceptics that I have read too often over the years? Well, let me first of all state that going by the response of various sceptics since this blog started in 2010, I would not agree that emotion is the monopoly of the "believers". In fact, if insults and pejoratives are the outward expression of an inward emotion, the sceptics take the gold medal every time. 

To put it mildly, the kind of scepticism one comes across is far removed from the Mr. Spock genre where the eyebrow is raised and the word "Fascinating" is uttered before we are told "Captain, the odds of the Loch Ness Monster existing is 132691.2 to 1 against.".

Of course, emotion plays it part and that is to be expected when it comes to people - on both sides of the debate. As to the accusation of being over-invested, perhaps Sharon ought to name names so we can put her assertion to a proper test?

Is the mystery solved? Is Sharon familiar with the critiques of her own and others' critiques? After all, when sceptics dictate suggest that two people who saw a 15 foot, two humped, grey creature from only 20 yards away that was "hideous" and "not a pleasant experience", only saw a common deer, you will forgive me for not taking them seriously.

Or when another sceptic decrees speculates that an experienced angler who claimed to have seen a thirty foot animal at a similar distance, only saw a cormorant; again if this is how sceptics go about "solving" the Loch Ness mystery, may I suggest they are the ones who are over invested in their theories so much they can't be objective!

There are, of course, other such cases I could call upon which leave sceptics floundering like a landed sturgeon or catfish. They could just say everyone is lying, but where is the fun in that? As for the other reasons Sharon gives for why no one could ever have possibly seen a large, unknown creature in Loch Ness:

"Sparse food supplies"? Yes, that has been covered (one sceptic rubbished this, but strangely never came back when I asked him to explain why). 

"Does not breathe air"? Just exactly why does it have to be an air breather, Sharon?

"Doesn't die"? Can you quote me on who exactly says this?

"Doesn't have babies"? I think Sharon is now letting emotion rather than logic drive the keyboard! Again, who is saying this?

"Avoid detection during thorough scans of the water body"? Excuse me while I take this one with a pinch of salt. They only recently found the similar sized Sherlock Holmes prop monster after 45 years. So tell me how these "thorough scans" managed to miss this? Even when interesting sonar scans are produced, the experts have no idea what they are looking at and one leading sceptic even declared that sonar is useless in establishing the presence of large animals in Loch Ness due to its ambiguities.

Which brings us to the main point of the article. Basically, we are being told that Nessie should have been found by now. We are told that science has probed the world of the subatomic and found planets beyond the Solar System. Surely establishing the presence of such an animal in Loch Ness is not rocket science?

Sadly, this is another non-sequitur. The particle smashing Large Hadron Collider project only cost $6.4 billion while the planet finding Kepler telescope was a snip at $600 million. Yes, Sharon, science works when enough money is thrown at it. Remind me how much has been spent on investigating the Loch Ness Monster with state of the art technology?

To assert that a Nessie should have been found by now is, of course, a subjective statement. How was this deduction arrived at? Because someone has found a quark or an exoplanet, they should have found Nessie?

As Mr. Spock would say, "That is illogical, Captain".

 

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

New Picture of Nessie?

Gary Campbell, on his register of Loch Ness Monster sightings publishes a photograph taken on May 1st this year by a tourist. The account runs thusly:

1 May 2016 - a visitor from Texas took pictures of a dark creature just under the surface following the boat she was on. The sighting was at approximately 1330 hours and lasted 30 seconds. She said that she initially thought it was a shadow but then realised that there was nothing behind her that could cause such a reflection.

Now I must admit, I am struggling to see what is in the picture. I can see a shadowy form, but it is too inconclusive to form an opinion. Others may be able to see something I cannot.

By the way, congratulations to Gary Campbell on the 20th anniversary of his sightings register. That milestone is covered in a Daily Record article today. Gary had his own sighting of something like a "mini-whale" with a "black shiny back". Clearly he thought it was no seal (which always seem to turn up at Loch Ness when an explanation is required), and this prompted him to start his register.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Followup on Webcam Photos

Going back to our interesting "head and neck" webcam shots taken by Diana, another reader, Michael sent in a comparison shot of a bird perched on the top of the tree closest to the object. In the light of the suggestion that the picture is just a bird, I show that here with the original picture for comparison. The bird picture is first.

The object is clearly bigger than the bird from an image point of view. Also, the bird is more squat and less pole like than the object which interests us. Where that leads us is largely in the eye of the beholder, but it is extra grist for the mill.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Monster Hunting Season Approaches

The snow is gone (almost) and the sun is beginning to shine that bit longer. Loch Ness begins to beckon and so does its most famous inhabitant. So, to get into monster hunting mode, that means thinking ahead and preparing for some more trips up north; looking out the camping equipment, binoculars, cameras, night vision equipment and so on.

Also, to conform to the sceptics' monster hunter stereotype of somebody who is mentally challenged and socially dysfunctional; perhaps a bit of the wild eyed look, messed up hair and drooling would also be required. Then again, maybe not. As a quiz, can anyone remember where the quote "It's My Monster!" comes from?

I am currently on the lookout for new equipment, but one item remains a staple of the modern monster hunter's diet and that is the game camera. As you can see from the picture above, I have purchased two more and intend to grow that as I plant them along the loch shore. These particular ones are cheaper cameras, mainly because I expect to get through a lot of them! However, I won't be sticking to one make and model because if a fault presents itself in one unit, it will probably present itself in all of them and eventually render the entire batch a rather short term investment.

If you know these devices, you basically strap them around a tree facing the loch, switch them on and walk away. The proximity and infra-red sensors will do the work for you as they wait for something to move within their field of sensitivity. When that happens, they can be configured to take a quick succession of still pictures or video clips of varying duration, frame rate or resolution which are then stored on an SD memory card.

The other consideration is battery life. If you place a camera at the loch and leave it for a number of months, you hope that it will run for most of that time to deliver the best opportunity of photos. Some cameras can work on eight batteries, some up to twelve and the battery type is also influential. Moreover, battery life can be reduced by the number of pictures or video clips taken. I have returned to cameras which have taken thousands of pictures triggered not by monsters, boats or birds, but just the continuous wave action below the camera or the fluttering of branches beside them. This makes the placement of the device of particular importance.

But how effective are these devices in the hunt for the Loch Ness Monster? Let us do the maths on a typical device. Two parameters are important and these are the sensor sight angle and the sensing distance. These typically come out at 100 degrees and 20 metres and this forms an arc of detection on the loch in front of it. Note it is important to place the camera as close to the loch as you can lest the sensing distance is wasted over the land in front of it.

So a bit of arc geometry gives us a maximum coverage of about 350 square metres. This is to be compared to the entire surface area of the loch which is 56,400,000 square metres. So our example camera's coverage of the loch is a mere 0.0006% of the loch surface! In fact, if we planted cameras side by side just outside each others arc of sensitivity along the entire perimeter of the loch, the total coverage of the loch would still only be about 3% of the loch.

To put it another way, if the creature randomly surfaced once a day anywhere on the loch, the odds of it appearing in the arc of a single camera would be about 160,000 to 1 against. Note this does not take into account the shallowness of the loch near the camera. However, if you plant ten cameras around the loch, the odds "only" drop to 16,000 to 1 against! That would mean a wait of 16,000 days or 43 years to be in the zone of that single daily surfacing. A hundred cameras drops it to a mere 4.3 years but maintaining that amount of cameras becomes a team effort.

Clearly, these are example stats since it is not known how many surfacings of the creatures(s) occur only a daily basis or whether they are more inclined to surface near the secluded areas I seek to plant these cameras by. But I hope these cursory statistics demonstrate the size of the task.

So why bother? The motivation is the potential prize. As monster hunters are painfully aware, there are photos that are claimed as proof of the Loch Ness Monster, but next to none can really claim to be close up and detailed. But any large creature that comes within 20 metres of such a camera is going to give us an exceptional picture. Consider the photograph taken below with one such trap camera I recently retrieved from the loch. Look at the object in the centre bottom. Can you see the eye to the left and the open mouth? What could this be?

Well, don't get too excited as it is only a rock, but I wanted you (through the illusion of simulacra) to get an idea of what kind of picture these cameras can get if a large creature surfaces near them. It is, of course, a long shot given the statistics just mentioned, but what has one got to lose? Consider Tim Dinsdale, who spent many hours, days and weeks at Loch Ness for twenty seven years and failed to get the game changing picture or film. Consider Ted Holiday, who spent many hours at the loch between 1962 and 1980, without a single photo to show for it (despite having four sightings). Other monster hunters were luckier, but they got nothing to the standard of our imagined photo above. 

The lesson for me is obvious. I don't intend to spend thousands of hours staring at the loch with camera and binoculars at my side. Call me lazy, but given the failure of previous Nessie men and women, one is just as well strapping these cameras around the loch and heading home to do more productive things (like watch football). That does not mean I discourage others from doing the good old fashioned stuff. Somebody may yet get lucky one day with that technique and produce that convincing footage and I will be as ecstatic as anyone else.

But as you can see from the rain lashed night shot below, these cameras will stand in silent, uncomplaining solitude, immune to boredom, undistracted, watching and waiting for something to pass in front of them that may just change the way people look at this legend. For me, that may take years or it may never happen. One thing is for sure, if you do nothing, then nothing is certainly going to happen.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

More Webcam Photos - Head and Neck?

After the recent offering of webcam photos, I got an email from another webcam user who had some pictures to tell about. Here name is Diana and they are quite an interesting sequence. If one was bold for Nessie, you may think you were looking at a long neck which appears, begins to submerge and is gone in the third picture, all in the space of 27 seconds. The pole like object can be seen just left of centre above the third tree from the left.

A zoom in of the object in its two aspects are shown below. The first image certainly has that pole like quality that is reminiscent of Loch Ness Monster sightings. What it actually is becomes another matter. You may notice the strange looking pixel structure to the bottom right of the second image which likes a square with four smaller squares at each corner. 

What is that? Can this artifact bring a charge of photoshopping or is it just a cursor in an inconvenient spot? Remember those childhood puzzles where you had to find small objects in complex pictures? Feel free to locate this cursor in the first picture (as I did)!

Is it actually in the water? I would say it is.  How big is the object? One foot, three foot, six foot? That is not so easy to determine, but as a comparison photo is shown below of a passing boat as supplied by our previous webcammer, Joaquin. The boat could be about thirty feet long, but note its perceived length is foreshortened due to it being turned towards the camera.

As ever, webcam photos can be frustrating due to the distances involved. As a consequence of this, opinions are again invited. Further information on pole-like Nessie sightings can be found here.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com