Books: "The Story of Loch Ness" by Frank Searle

Frank Searle is well known to Loch Ness researchers and is held in varying degrees of contempt, hatred and sympathy depending on who you talk to. I have already briefly talked of him here but in our occassional series of book reviews we come to his small 16 page work "The Story of Loch Ness" published in 1977.

Frank wrote four books, one which was unpublished and was reviewed by me in the link above but this small work seems to have been privately published and was aimed at a more local level for tourists and other interested individuals. I say privately published because I do not see the work listed at the National Library of Scotland and anything published in the public domain almost inevitably reaches their vaults (finding a copy even in this Internet age is not easy, I will pay £20 to anyone that wishes to part with it). The only reason I could read a copy was due to its availability as an ebook purchase (which you can read about here).

The booklet was published at a time when Nessie interest was at a new high, possibly higher than the 1930s. As a result, many books were published on the Loch Ness Monster aiming to cash in on the heightened public interest. In that regard, Frank Searle's book is no surprise though it has to be said that his other work "Nessie: Seven Years in Search of the Monster" was more aimed at the general paperback market.

Being such a small publication aimed at people new to the subject, one would not expect anything groundbreaking as it runs through various facts about Loch Ness and its famous inhabitant. Once again, Frank's antipathy to large, organised searches is evident as he talks about the failure of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau or any other visiting teams to find any cast iron proof of Nessie. It seems from his statements that surveillance of the loch by the LNIB tailed off in the last couple of years of its existence. Whether this was because of lack of volunteers, equipment or diversion to other activities is not made clear. However, he uses this observation to elevate the role of the single, lone observer but thirty four years on from the booklet, this method of operation has also failed to yield the final, definitive proof. Clearly, something else needs to be thought out here (and, no, it is not to give up!).

Though Frank Searle saw the monster as plesiosaur-like, he veered towards the idea of a creature that did not need to come up for air, but what he thought it was beyond that is not said. One surprising comment he made was that he did not give any credence to land sightings. I am a believer in this behaviour of the creature but Frank Searle was not convinced due to his belief that they did not breath air and would have trouble getting their large bulk onto shore plus overcoming some of the steeper shelves of the loch side. He also cites the lack of tracks, stripped vegetation (does he assume Nessie has herbivorial traits?) and the assumption that it would be so slow as to be easily photographed.

I don't think these are issues if they are thought through more deeply, and I will address these on a more dedicated posting.

But overall it was a good read and worthy of inclusion in any one's Loch Ness Monster library.

An Old Bones Story from the Daily Express

As mentioned previously, I trawled through the archives of the Daily Express a while back and came up with some tidbits which though not solving the mystery, add some mystique and humour to it.

This clipping is from the 27th December 1933 and concerns the finding of some unidentified bones. The story is rounded off with the latest reported Nessie sighting.




New Monster Mystery

200 STRANGE BONES FOUND BESIDE LOCH NESS

Daily Express Special Representative

THE Loch Ness monster, though it has remained as elusive as ever during Christmas, has acquired a family tree and heaps of bony remains. While taking experimental photographs at the loch, Mr. E. Dean, a London photographer, discovered nearly two hundred pieces of bone and teeth, some of which the Inverness Museum authorities are unable to identify as belonging to any known animal.

A number of bones among the remains, according to the museum authorities, are bigger than those of a horse, and include what appears to be a talon or claw-bone larger than is found in any known beast or bird.

Yesterday I saw Mr. Dean with a large box of relics which, at the request of the Inverness Museum, he is taking to the South Kensington Museum today tor examination. Mr. Dean emphasises that he did not go to the loch with the intention or even the hope of finding relics, remains, or footprints.

Yet It was in less than an hour that he made this discovery "I was taking general photographs of the loch," said Mr. Dean "I was in a lonely spot on the way to Fort William, on a piece of beach that has never been uncovered before this year."

"While scraping the beach to make a level stand for my camera I uncovered the first bone. I dug a bit more and found hundreds."

Scottish experts state that the age of the bones is about 150 years, though they are not all from the same animal or creature. There are still hundreds of bones left on the beach, according to Mr. Dean, who says that they run in a line right down the beach and under the waters of the loch.

Here is a new problem for monster authorities. What are these mysterious bones? Are they the remains of the monster's elderly parents or relatives? Are they the remains of a hasty breakfast enjoyed by the monster himself, when a youngster way back in 1780?

Or has the monster, hunted by sightseers, pursued by photographers almost as much as a debutante, given up the unequal struggle and died peacefully in a quiet corner of the loch?

Are these bones. In fact . . . the monster?

Late News: Dr. J. Kirkton, medical officer of Fort Augustus, reports that he saw the monster yesterday.

"It bore the resemblance of a boat, but it proceeded with a leaping motion and threw up a considerable volume of spray," he says. "It appeared to be black and about three feet protruded above the water."

So the bones were taken to the Natural History Museum in London but after that we learn nothing else. Presumably the staff there (which at that time included a certain Maurice Burton) diagnosed something familiar but it would have been nice to know what. I suspect Mr. Burton was familiar with the matter but whether he published on it I cannot say for certain!

More David James Photos

I mentioned recently that Torosay Castle was for sale and that meant an end to the Nessie exhibition there. I have previously posted photographs and comments here and here. So here are the other photographs I took when I visited a couple of years or so ago.

First here are some familiar images from the 1970s Academy of Applied Sciences expeditions. The famous "gargoyle" head can be seen as well as the "plesiosaur" body and the retouched flipper images. I was too young for the 1972 flipper picture but I remember the commotion caused by the 1975 pictures. Although by then a Nessie fan, when I first saw the gargoyle I was struck that this looked nothing like the descriptions that eyewitnesses had afforded to Nessie's head. So, I was always ambivalent about that picture.

In the main room were large number of clippings that David James accumulated over the years and had been put into folders. Here is a selection of some stories which may evoke memories for our readers.

The man in the picture is Sir Peter Scott whose famous painting of two Nessies (also in the clipping) will soon be up for sale.

At one time the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau employed searchlights at night time on Loch Ness in the hope that a nocturnally-inclined Nessie may make more frequent appearances. That is an idea I am sympathetic too but the problem is where to point the searchlight!

The writing above gave a brief opinion of his parliamentary career with a comment about how Loch Ness and the House of Commons could be at odds with each other. A political career or a search for a centuries-old mystery? Well, somebody had to stand up for Nessie in the government! It just so happened that mantle fell upon David James.

I have a quote attributed to David James which sums up the spirit of monster hunting. If anyone can tell me the source of this quote I would appreciate it:

"If any individual or group wants to pursue an independent line of research, all of the information of the bureau is at their disposal ... The Bureau is dedicated to identifying the unusual animal."

So we thank him for his efforts and zeal in pursuit of the mystery of Loch Ness and we finish this short piece appropriately with a fine portrait I saw of the man himself in his stately home.

The Latest Nessie Sighting (August 2011)

Witnesses: Diane Blackmore
Date: 28th August 2011
Location: Near Lochend
Time: 1000

The sighting reports continue this year with an experience recounted to me by Diane Blackmore. She found my blog having returned home from her Scottish holiday and decided to email her story to me.

Following on from the Hargreaves head and neck encounter in June, Diane also spotted Nessie in her famous pose whilst she was travelling from Nairn to Skye on a bus tour. Her encounter is that bit more unique because she saw the creature face on whereas most such sightings strike a side on pose.

To begin her story, she was at the rear of the bus and looking out over the loch on an overcast day but with no particular thoughts about "Nessie Spotting". In her own words, she describes what happened after Loch Ness came into view southbound on the A82 but still a few miles from the Clansman Hotel:

I was looking out the window keeping my gaze on the water when in the distance I saw the typical body and neck and head of Nessie. She appeared to be emerging out of the water as I saw splashing around her. She appeared to be shiny black in the sun. (Though I know it wasn't a sunny day.)

Adding to the detail about movement:

I saw some splashing like the effect of movement gone on before but I didn't note movement.

The bus continued on its journey as she gazed at this intriguing spectacle which was soon out of sight:

It was all over in a few seconds but I know what I saw. It appeared rounded .... would have to be a blow up model if at all ... but it appeared moving and alive.

I do know that it appeared to be a living creature though, not a wave or a log.

I emailed Diane back for further details and to ascertain some more facts about the event. The location of the sighting was right at the top of the loch which is much narrower than the main body of the loch. She also said that the creature was three quarters of the way across the loch from her which would place the distance at about 350m-400m depending on the exact location.

Based on that information and the fact that she stated that the Clansman Hotel was another ten minutes away after the sighting, the map below speculates on the probable position of the creature.

I asked Diane to supply a picture of what she saw and two were sent to me. The first is how she saw it from the distance stated and she estimated it was 1.5m to 2m out of the water.

And the second picture below is her impression of how the creature may have looked closer up. I asked her about facial features:

I can't say for certain that there were eyes though I did suggest them in the drawing. I was given the impression in the short time that there was a face though so I must have seen eyes and a mouth.

As to what it may have been, she was convinced it was a living creature and not something like a wave or log. I further enquired as to whether it could have been a bird she was looking at. The reply was decisive:

As to it being a bird, well I wouldn't want it landing on my roof! It was a bird x 1000!

At a range of 350 metres or more, I suspect she is right. A bird at such a distance is hardly likely to excite an observer.

And so the sighting ended. Being a shy person, she didn't want to shout out and risk an accident with the bus and when she told the other tourists, some suggested she had too much of the distillery samples but a few accepted her testimony (and, no, she was not drunk!). It is to be noted that Diane saw the creature in between shrub like trees - which would partly explain why others were not so quick to see it.

So what did Diane see? Was it the famous denizen of Loch Ness or something more mundane? Naturally, the skeptically minded will say "bird" because of the long neck. In that regard, a big, impressive picture of a bird like a cormorant is normally shown at this point - like the one below.

And the consensus would be, "Oh Yeah, big bird, easy to mistake for monster ..." and so on. But then you produce a picture of a cormorant perched on the old pier at Dores:

This bird is probably about 20 metres away and is, errm, tiny. What would it look like twenty times further away? I am not really sure, because I probably wouldn't even see it! Impressive close up, nothing far away.

Now since this sighting occurred not far from Greta Finlay's famous sighting, someone who is skeptical may suggest it was a deer out for a swim. Well, apart from deer being reddish-brown and not being black and shiny, their heads protrude forwards instead of upwards when swimming.


And swim it must at that place in the loch or it will inconveniently descend to the bottom. And, yes, those give away ears do stick out a bit.

Perhaps it was one of these very rare excursion by seals into the loch? With that long neck, one is doubtful of that.

But this sighting raises a question that is often seen in Loch Ness Monster reports - how does the creature achieve such high buoyancy? By that I mean, how does it raise itself so far out of the water? What we read here is only part of this buoyancy question as the beast is extremely adept at both rising and falling in a vertical manner.

Typical reports would speak of a hump and/or neck rising and falling effortlessly. Sometimes this could be accompanied by a "boiling" effect of the water or no obvious turbulence.

Tim Dinsdale considered this question and put it down to either displacement of water upwards and downwards by flippers, altering its specific gravity (i.e. density) or altering its displacement (i.e. changing its shape in relation to the amount of water it displaced).

Tim was more inclined to the third option. The unknown factor is how much of the creature is below the water in relation to what is above and what is the average density of what is below in comparison to what is above water.

Quite possibly, the creature has a degree of bodily contraction and expansion plus a gas-based buoyancy organ that combine to allow these feats of movement. Proving that requires a live or dead specimen, until then we move in the realms of speculation!

UPDATE: I have been told that the object in question may have been a buoy that floats on the Aldourie side of the top end of the loch. It is green-blue in colour and its dimensions are similar to what was seen. Whether our witness saw the buoy before the creature, I am not sure but you can add this observation into the mixer and form your own opinion. I continue to investigate whether this is indeed a viable explanation in the context of the witness' location and description.

Iconic Nessie Painting for sale

Anyone who has a passing interest in the Loch Ness Monster is bound to recognise this picture below.


It is the famous painting by Sir Peter Scott of "Nessiteras Rhombopteryx" and was created shortly after the media circus over the 1975 Rines pictures. I think he first gave it the quaint title "Courtship in Loch Ness".

This is the actual original painting as I photographed it at Torosay Castle back in 2008. You can read my blog about that visit here. It is now in the possession of Chris James, son of the late David James who was co-founder of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau. Torosay Castle was the home of David James and for some years was also open to the public - hence my visit.

However, the place is now up for sale and that includes this painting. I was in contact with Chris James and he revealed that the plan is for the painting to go up for auction at Christies on January the 22nd next year. You can go to christies.com to view the item when the time approaches for the auction.

Fancy owning a piece of Loch Ness history? Then prepare to bid in a few months time!

The Legacy of Past Nessie Researchers

I was in communication with a fellow Loch Ness Monster enthusiast recently about an aspect of Loch Ness research that barely gets a mention in the general discussion and that is the legacy of past researchers.

We can list the honoured people who dedicated years if not decades in the pursuit of this mystery who are no longer with us. I think primarily of Rupert T. Gould, Constance Whyte, Tim Dinsdale and F. W. Holiday and others. But there will be the lesser known people who gathered material on Loch Ness but never went to print with them. We also have the groups such as the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau which has long disbanded.

Yes, we have the books, newspaper articles and magazine features but what about their private collection of material? We can be sure that not everything of interest made it into their books and we can be sure that items continued to be gathered after their last publications and before their death or disbanding.

I have queried various national library catalogues with no indication that any works were deposited with these publicly accessible organisations. Admittedly, some collections will still be held by the family of the deceased. Some will not be considered significant enough to be put in the vaults of these places while some were sadly destroyed or lost when the estate of the deceased was distributed.

I have hopes that the works of Rupert Gould on the Loch Ness Monster will be hidden amongst his other notable horological items. I suspect these may be in the British Library or some other archive in the London area.

I am optimistic that Tim Dinsdale's works are still with his family and well preserved.

Constance Whyte's works are a mystery as they seem to have been bequeathed to someone but have been subsequently lost. This needs clarification.

F. W. Holiday's works are a mystery too. He died unmarried and without children as far as I know. I have a theory as to where they are now but again this needs clarification.

But the biggest question mark is the whereabouts and accessibility of the materials gathered between 1962 and 1972 by the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau. I suspect some material may be held at the Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit but they need to confirm that. A lot of material may have been distributed to individuals on their closure. The point I want to make is that the LNIB materials ought to be made publicly accessible to all researchers.

If the mission statement of such founder members as David James and Constance Whyte was :

"To study Loch Ness to identify the creature known as the Loch Ness Monster or determine the causes of reports of it."

Then who are the successors of the LNIB and on whom does the mantle now fall? Certainly not any one individual but I would suggest anyone with a serious interest in the subject - be they on the "skeptics" or "believers" side.

Meanwhile, access to private individual collections are a matter for the new owners to consider. Do they let these items of potential importance lie in a dark corner of an attic until they decay or are thrown away? Must a new generation of researchers have this information lost forever or have to go through the exertions of re-discovering old knowledge again?

Finally, I am not addressing the matter of how these materials are made accessible. It is unlikely that much of these items are digitised or ready for email and the web. It may be that one has to physically travel to see such material. It may be a matter of someone volunteering of their time to scan and collate documents. The point of this posting is the matter of being granted access in the first place.

The legacy of the Loch Ness mystery should be made available to those who can take it further. If anyone has such a collection, I ask them to contact me about what they have!

UPDATE:

Subject to confirmation, the state of ownership of various archives is:

LNIB: Loch Ness Centre under supervision of Adrian Shine (have asked for confirmation)

Tim Dinsdale: presumed held by family

Rupert T. Gould: presumed held by family

F. W. Holiday: Some or all of his material was held by Alastair Boyd

Constance Whyte: Held at one time by Nicholas Witchell (rumours of this being lost need to be confirmed/denied by Nicholas himself).

Nessie Simulacra

A reader sent me a link to a photograph he took at Fort Augustus of a Nessie-like tree branch.

Note the wide mouth, grinning teeth and bulbous eyes. Did anyone unwittingly file a report on this pseudo-monster? Not quite because it is still attached to a tree on dry ground. As we have pointed out before, logs and the like can fool some of the people some of the time. I actually thought of another monster when I saw the picture ...

The Secret of the Loch (1934)

Why this did not win the Oscar for Best Film in 1934 I'll never know. Actually, I do know, it's a pretty poor film technically. But in terms of Nessie films, it is a classic.

Cashing in on the Loch Ness Monster craze that started the year before, it began a line of Nessie films which persists to this day and still draw in cinema goers.

I got this film on DVD some years back and enjoyed it purely from a Nessie-phile point of view. The monster at the end seems to very much take its cue from the theories of Rupert T. Gould which is probably no surprise. The London Zoological Society are credited as advisors. As arch-Nessie skeptics, one can only wonder what they said to the film producers.

Anyway, I just found the whole film available on YouTube, so enjoy this piece of Loch Ness Lore and look out for David Lean as the film editor who went on to greater fame with "Lawrence of Arabia".

UPDATE: The link has been removed from YouTube, oh well. It may turn up again!
 

Classic Sightings - Gordon Powell

Date: June 21st 1936
Time: 5:30pm
Location: Urquhart Castle
Witnesses: Reverend Gordon Powell
Type of sighting: Head, neck and two humps in water

Following on from our tale of the monk and the monster, another man of the cloth is behind our latest classic sighting. This sighting is not one that can be found in the standard Nessie text books but it nevertheless has all the qualities that constitute a classic sighting as we shall relate.

In fact, this story may well have remained in a dark corner if it was not for the labours of Paul Cropper. Paul, though he believes there is something unexplained in Loch Ness is primarily a Yowie man. For those who wonder what a Yowie is, go to Paul's website at this link. The following transcript and photographs are under Paul's copyright.

Paul had heard that a man by the name of Gordon Powell in his native Australia had seen Nessie and made arrangements in 2001 to interview him about the sighting. By then, Rev Powell was long retired but the memory of the event was still there for Paul to record.

The Reverend Doctor Gordon Powell himself was born in 1911 and was ordained into the ministry in 1938. It was a scholarship to Glasgow University in 1935 that brought him to Scotland. He went on to a successful ministry in Sydney as well as a popular radio ministry. He died in 2005 aged 94.

Gordon Powell begins with the background to the sighting in 1936:

I was a student at Glasgow University at the time and I was with two other students. We were on a camping trip around Scotland and we’d camped beside Urquhart Castle. And one of the significant things I found in investigating the whole thing was that the local people have a superstition that Nessie brings bad luck and the only way to avoid it is to not talk about seeing it.

I took my wife back in 1960 and hoped that she would see it as I did. And I said to the young man in the Drumnadrochit Hotel, I’ve seen the Loch Ness monster and I was going on to explain I wanted my wife to see it. And he shook, he really trembled all over, he said “don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it”. And he refused to talk about it.

Well, by the extraordinary coincidence there had been a death in a family that morning, we were all theological students and we’d gone to church, and I’d say the service lasted from 11:00am ‘til after 3:00pm. It was a six monthly communion service and half in Gaelic and half in English.

And anyway, we met Mrs MacDonald who was distressed because her brother-in-law had died and she couldn’t get to the house. And the other two chaps offered to drive her there. And they left me alone. I was writing a letter home and I was sitting on the bank and it was a perfect day for the viewing.

The paragraph concerning his wife is a paranthetic about his second visit to Loch Ness in 1960 but I can concur with his statement about local fear of the monster having researched the Water Horse aspects of the creature for my book.

Then the Loch Ness Monster appeared to unsettle his quiet solitude.

The sun was behind me and the water was so calm that in Urquhart Bay it was like glass. And I happened to look up just in time to see a disturbance in this glassy area, and then a head came up like a calf. From that distance I couldn’t see any horns or ears, it was very smooth, the head, and a long neck. And then it looked just the one way and then looked straight towards me, and then it looked at what was ahead. And my theory is it spotted a school of salmon.

It was the salmon season of course, the middle of summer, and it chased something anyway, whether it was salmon or something else, at tremendous speed. And at least three humps came up, possibly a fourth, and there was a lot of spray. It was very much alive. It was very large. It swam very quickly, it bucketed along the surface very quickly and after … well I grabbed my camera and I took a picture after it had gone I suppose perhaps two or three hundred yards, and then it swam on for a similar distance and then dived.

I wrote in the letter a few minutes later that it looked like an enormous eel to me. But then I thought about all the spray that it sent up and I thought well an eel wouldn’t send up a lot of spray, something with flippers might do it. And well that was as I saw it then.

Wondering what he had seen, a subsequent visit to London helped form an opinion:

A week or two later or some … no, it was on the second trip I was in London and I went into the Victoria and Albert Museum and I didn’t know what I was going to see. But I went into one room and I gasped “..there’s Nessie!” It was a skeleton of a plesiosaurus and it had a long neck, a small head, a long tail and a big body with four flippers. And there it was in skeleton form. I don’t know if it was a plesiosaurus but it … some people say it could be. I suddenly thought well this is a … be surviving for about 50 million years.

Helpfully, Gordon drew a picture for Paul of what he had seen which is shown below with the man himself.


The form of the beast seen is very much the classic sighting - long neck, small head and a number of humps following. Paul asked for more details concerning the sighting. Powell said the creature emerged beyond the centre of the bay at over 500 yards and moved nearer until at the point of submerging for good, it was only 200 yards away.

The head and neck were visible mainly at 300 to 400 yards. The neck was estimated as six feet out of the water.

The duration of the sighting was put conservatively at between 30 and 60 seconds.

Gordon also mentioned that he took a photograph of the sighting. Did he capture the head, neck and three humps on film? The answer is "No" in the sense that no such detail is visible on the print but it is reproduced here for completeness. The arrow marked "1" is where the creature first appeared and "2" is where it was at the point of the picture being taken.

Mr. Powell supplied a better picture with further comments attached which we reproduce below.



So ends the story but I add my own research and thoughts at this point. Firstly, a trawl of newspaper archives revealed that this sighting had featured in a 1977 article on churchmen and monsters. The article is from the 7th September edition of the Sydney Morning Herald. The text of his sighting is below which pretty much agrees with what he said to Paul Cropper 24 years later.

The water was calm like a mirror. Suddenly there was a bulge in the bay and this thing shot up; its neck was about six feet long and a foot thick. Its head was smooth, without horns, and reminded me of a calf. The body was dark brown or black. The creature looked around, dived, and swam at great speed towards the castle. There were three or four humps. I grabbed my camera and took a picture which showed the wake. My reactions had been slow because of the shock.

Reverend Powell then quotes Job 41:31 from the Bible concerning Leviathan:

He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.

A fitting Biblical allusion to the power the Loch Ness Monster is said to exert on its surrounding waters.

One final comment by Gordon Powell in his interview with Paul led me down a final avenue of research. It was this comment:

Next day in the newspaper, three other people reported seeing what I saw at the same time in the same place.

Naturally, if one witness corroborates another's story then that lends weight to the overall testimony. Mr. Powell does not state what newspaper he read so some guesswork is involved here. I went to the Inverness Courier microfilm archives at the National Library of Scotland and examined the issues beyond the 21st June 1936.

As it turned out, the next edition of the paper on the Tuesday ran an article in which three reports of Nessie were claimed over that weekend. Two were on the Saturday but one was on the Sunday in which Mr. Powell claimed his sighting. The newspaper relates thusly:

One of the best views of the "Monster" was obtained on Sunday afternoon by Miss H. MacFie, 5 Porterfield Bank, Inverness, and Mr. J. Fraser, Firthview, Auldcastle Road, Inverness. They were cycling along the east side of the loch in the direction of Foyers, when suddenly they saw a large object rise about the middle of the loch and travel in the direction of Urquhart Castle.

Although a considerable distance away, both were certain it was the "Monster", for it created a great disturbance in the water by splashing. They watched its movements for fully four minutes before it ultimately stopped, and seemed gradually to sink below the surface.

It would seem that Mr. Powell's sighting took off from where Mr. Fraser's sighting finished as his creature headed off towards Urquhart Bay. The time of this sighting is merely stated as the afternoon which could place it anywhere between noon and 6pm (depending on how you define "afternoon"). So it is possible the two groups of witnesses were witnessing two parts of one overall Nessie journey.

An effort to resolve this matter further could be made by examining other Highland newspapers for that week since the Courier was not the only paper which took an interest in the Loch Ness Monster. I will update this posting if I find anything of interest.

But we are happy to add this "new" sighting of the Loch Ness Monster which lay hidden from the standard Nessie text books and web sites for years and again we thank Paul Cropper for his diligence in bringing it to our attention.

Spotting the Loch Ness Monster

You have arrived at Loch Ness. Perhaps you have come to admire the grandeur of Highland scenery, go fishing, visit relatives or are passing by on your way to the next town. Whatever your plans, you now have some time to scan the loch and perhaps see its famous resident.

But what are your chances of seeing Nessie? As it turns out, the probability is quite low of the Loch Ness Monster putting in a special appearance for you.

Various personalities associated with the Monster have had varying degrees of success.

Alex Campbell, who worked as a water bailiff for over forty years at Loch Ness claimed something like 17 sightings.

Winifred Cary who had a house overlooking Urquhart Bay claimed 16 sightings over 59 years.

Famous Nessie hunter Tim Dinsdale had a more meagre harvest of two sightings during his 25 years of searching.

Current resident Steve Feltham has watched the loch for nearly 20 years and has had only one instance of what may be a Nessie encounter.

Ted Holiday (who wrote The Great Orm of Loch Ness) claimed four sightings over 6 years.

And then you have the thousands of claimed sightings by people who perhaps visited the loch once for possibly only minutes but just happened to be the lucky "Nessie Lottery" winners.

The aforementioned Ted Holiday even calculated how long he had to watch the loch in order to see the beast arise. Based on his own logged hours and sightings this amounted to 600 hours of surface watching between sightings.

Applying that logic to Alex Campbell would have required him to have watched the loch for 1 hour per working day for 49 years to achieve his 17 sightings.

For Winifred Cary, it works out as 27 minutes per day for 59 years.

But it is not as simple as that for various factors apart from how long affect the seeing of the Loch Ness Monster.

First is the quality of observation as opposed to the quantity. Ted Holiday was an experienced watcher of Loch Ness. He scanned the visible area of the loch for signs of activity. He would use binoculars to focus on areas of interest. He had learned what was normal and could be ignored through over 1000 hours of observation.

Moreover he was focussed on the task at hand with no distractions (although things could get rather boring and the odd tea break and chat helped). Contrast this with the casual observer who glances at the loch, looks across a narrow range, is distracted by things around them, etc.

Then there is the quality of time itself in terms of when one is watching. Some think that the monster is more likely to be seen at dawn whilst other go for quiet dusk hours.

The place itself may be of importance as plotted sightings tend to congregate around spots such as Urquhart Bay. This is somewhat disputed as more people tend to stop there to view the castle, but certainly sightings are not uniformly spread out across the loch.

Then there is the quality of the environment as some think Nessie is quite noise sensitive and hence they go for the secluded watch spots on the southern shore away from noisy boats, cars and tourists.

So if you want the best chance of seeing Nessie, perhaps you need to rise at 5 am, park yourself on a secluded spot on the south side of the loch but with a decent vista and of course spend the whole day there with your sandwiches, binoculars and hopes ...

The Loch Awe Monster

My attention was drawn to a post recently which concerned a modern sighting of the monster of Loch Awe. The original post was by Lindsay Selby and can be found here.

One of the comments was posted by a person named "Sallyumbo" which goes as follows:

Around Easter 2000, my husband and I were driving north past Loch Awe for our first weekend away together. As we drove alongside the loch, I saw to my amazement something that looked to me exactly like pictures I'd seen of the Loch Ness Monster. A long neck and head sticking out of the water at the front, and two humps behind it. It was moving quite swiftly through the water.

I was completely astonished. I had never heard of any monster in Loch Awe. I actually said nothing, thinking that my new fiancee would think I was completely mad if I announced I could "see the Loch Ness Monster" so I just watched in silent wonder. A couple of hours later we stopped for lunch at a pub. There was tourist info available in the form of leaflets there, and one was about Loch Awe.

Imagine my feelings when I read, "Loch Awe is said to be home to a monster like that of Loch Ness". "It does!! I saw it!!" I yelled, beside myself with excitement. Needless to say my fiancee thought I was crazy. But I'm sure I really did see what people call the Monster of Loch Awe.

Now to add to what Lindsay said about a tradition of a creature in Loch Awe, the recent book "The Water Horses of Loch Ness" surveys the historical traditions of strange creatures in Scottish Lochs and though Loch Ness is first by the proverbial mile on the list, Loch Awe comes in a respectable second. So it seems that the folklore of old points back to something in the loch which echoed through to the beginning of this new millenium.

What "Sallyumbo" saw follows in that tradition of creatures. I did a cursory survey of the books I have and found no other modern era sightings of a beast in Loch Awe. Let us hope another sighting occurs soon to seal this monster's return.

Using the information provided by her, we can actually pinpoint the general area of the sighting in the map below.

A view of the loch from that stretch of road can be seen here using Google StreetView (though the witness' exact location as the car moved is not precisely known):

We can make a few further observations about the Loch Awe Monster.

The first is that any creature in Loch Awe has an easier access to the sea than the Loch Ness Monster would. Note the River Awe in the top left of the picture which connects to the sea loch Loch Etive and hence to the open sea. Loch Ness is harder to traverse due to the locks of the Caledonian Canal (though not impossible). So any arguments about not enough food supply are irrelevant if it can swim in and out of the loch (though I do not know the existing fish stocks in Loch Awe).

Secondly, she saw an extraordinary creature in an ordinary loch. So what you may ask? The point is this - critics of the Loch Ness Monster say people see monsters because they want to see monsters. This overstretched theory is always trotted out to allegedly explain how ordinary birds, wakes and deer can turn into extraordinary creatures with just the right psychological impairment applied to witnesses' minds. No doubt some will think "Sallyumbo" merely saw a bird swimming along in the water.

But how does that theory apply to this case? Quite simply, it does not.

Our witness states she had no knowledge of such a creature until after the event happened. No hyped up expectations, no strange things happening to the observational faculties. Likewise, we take the view of people looking at Loch Ness. To make my point via hyperbole, they are not hyperventilating with mad expectation as they approach the loch and do not jump up and down excitedly like three year olds whenever something appears on the loch. I suggest people are sensible and not given to dubious interpretations. They are not stupid ...

I do not doubt people mistake things for the Loch Ness Monster amongst the 10,000+ alleged sightings of the creatures but frankly not enough to explain everything strange that goes on in Loch Ness ... or Loch Awe for that matter.

Previously Unknown Land Sighting of Nessie

Occasionally as I research the subject of the Loch Ness Monster, the odd shiny piece turns up in the dross. I was in the National Library of Scotland recently and was perusing some old Scottish publications in search of new Nessie information.

Amongst other items, I reserved some copies of the Scots Magazine from 1990 for the reason that a land sighting of Nessie from 1932 had been featured in the June issue by a Colonel Fordyce. That particular sighting is already known to cryptozoologists but another one turned up in a later issue. My reasoning for this action being that when the Fordyce article was published it may have elicited a response in the "Letters to the Editor" page at a later date.

And so it was that a letter appeared subsequently in the August issue from the Reverend G. Mackenzie of West Chiltington, West Sussex. He was not the witness to this event, but he recounts how he was an Oxford Undergraduate between 1928 and 1931 and had been invited by his tutor with some other Scots to an evening with the Right Reverend Sir David Hunter Blair. The significance to us is that Sir David (pictured below) was once the Abbot of Fort Augustus Abbey on the shores of Loch Ness. At some point in the conversation, he was asked if he had seen the Loch Ness Monster. His answer was "no" but he said that one of his monks had seen it emerge from the woods and enter the waters of the loch. The Reverend Mackenzie adds no further details other than the description offered by Colonel Fordyce sounded very much the same as what he was told the monk saw. So ends our brief but interesting story.


What can we make of it? Firstly, my list of land sightings adds up to thirty three and this one was not in it. I am not aware of it being in the Loch Ness literature and so it looks like a new story and swells the ranks to thirty four alleged land encounters with Nessie. Rev Mackenzie's address was given in the letter but given the information in it, he would be aged about 100 years now and I suspect he is no longer with us.

Secondly, his letter implies that they were talking about the creature between 1928 and 1931. However, the monster did not become international news until 1933. One might presume an error was made in the date of the meeting, but since this blog believes that the Loch Ness Water Horse was known to locals (and monks) prior to 1933, we have no problem with this. It transpires that David Hunter Blair was abbot of the Abbey between 1912 and 1917 which suggests the event may have happened between those years. However, one cannot be certain of this.

Thirdly, a monk was claimed as the witness. Now this is the type of witness beloved of Nessie books. Someone regarded as honest, upright and not as likely to fabricate an account. For this reason, reports by clergy, policemen and other respected vocations are often held up above other sighting reports. This is quite reasonable as such people have more to lose if caught lying (though this does not preclude the idea that they misidentified an object as Nessie). So we quite like the fact that a monk was the stated witness (and told by another cleric - Sir David Hunter Blair).

Fourthly, we have the brief account itself. The story itself is not unique in its tenor, we have several accounts of large beasts with long necks and bulky bodies waddling/lumbering out of bushes in front of witnesses and then proceeding to disappear into the deep waters of Loch Ness. Where it may differ is in how Rev. Mackenzie says the description sounded "very much the same" as the Fordyce episode which describes an animal with a long neck, small head, humped back but with hair and hooved feet. Which parts of this strange Nessie description tallies with the monk's encounter we cannot tell. They may only agree in the long neck, small head and humped back of general Nessie lore but then again the hairy hide and hooves may have a part. So therein lies a mystery within a mystery.

Looking at a map of the area around Fort Augustus Abbey suggests a likely place for the encounter. The Abbey is at the mouth of the River Tarff (which was discussed in a previous blog). At this point there is a wooded area across the river from the Abbey and this looks the likely spot from which the creature emerged from the trees. Speculating, "x" would mark a possible place of the witness and the circled area is the forest where the creature may have emerged from in his view. Curiously, this proposed place of encounter cannot be more than a few hundred yards north of the land sighting of the beast reported by Margaret Munro in 1936.



But did our astonished monk rather misidentify what he saw? Could he have merely seen a deer or otter enter the water? Now I may be going out on a limb here, but I would have thought that a resident of the shores of Loch Ness would not have a problem knowing a deer or an otter when they saw one. Yet we are asked to believe that witnesses to such events do indeed fail to recognise known animals for something quite frankly astonishingly different. Methinks this is special pleading but then again such people would retort that suggesting the monk saw an extraordinary creature is also special pleading.

Pick your conclusion according to your prejudices, I say.

We would also note that this monk may have seen his creature prior to the media frenzy of 1933. Skeptics of Nessie have this theory that once a person enters the environs of Loch Ness they undergo a temporary metamorphosis which warps their perception of reality and they begin to see monsters where there are none. Once they are somewhere near Inverness, their brains are handed back to them and normal service is resumed. But as for local residents such as monks, had they undergone a permanent disabling of their mental faculties? I would not think so and their testimonies need to be given due weight.

Interestingly, Sir Hunter Blair wrote an article for the Catholic newspaper "Universe" in January 1934 which hints from its title that the monk's experience was not forgotten:

THE ELUSIVE MONSTER OF LOCH NESS - WHY IT MAY BE CAPABLE OF LIVING ON LAND OR IN WATER

Let me say at once that by the above heading I do not intend for a moment to imply that I entertain the slightest doubt as to the real and objective existence of a strange and unknown beast in the profundity of the great loch which I have known intimately for more than half a century. Elusive he is and must be, as long as it remains unpredictable when or where he will make his appearance in the length and breadth of the vast sheet of water which is his habitat. But during the autumn weeks which I spent at Fort Augustus, and still more as a result of correspondence since, I became and remain absolutely convinced, on the testimony of a veritable cloud of credible eyewitnesses, which it would be absurd us well as unreasonable to flout or to ignore, that this weird and mysterious creature does really and truly haunt these deep waters, not as a casual visitor, but as a resident — of how longstanding who can say.

Since the Editor of the 'Universe' asked me to write this short paper, I have thought it well to confirm -the impression, or rather conviction, which I formed a few months ago by communicating with a member of the Fort Augustus community, who enjoys a high and just repute as one intimately acquainted with the habits, language, and folklore of the West Highlands, and also as an antiquarian and archaeologist of high attainments.

I asked for a concise answer to several questions, the first being, has the monster been actually seen by any members of the Benedictine Community? ''Yes," he replies, "by four or five (whom he names) independently and on different occasions; also by several of the employees and workmen attached to the Abbey. Two of the elder boys of the Abbey School, and also a clerical student, had likewise seen it". Two of the most, remarkable witnesses are first, an ex-engineer captain of the Royal Navy resident at Fort Augustus, a man of high ability, training, and experience, who himself saw the animal and who has been for months past collecting and sifting all the evidence on the subject; and, secondly, the owner of Invergarry (the old home of the Macdonnels), who was suddenly converted from entire scepticism by watching (with his daughter) the creature's revolutions and gyrations in the loch for a continuous period of 40 minutes.

It is perfectly obvious, from the letters of my learned correspondent at Fort Augustus, that he brushes aside as puerile and untenable the absurd theories which has been put forward as to this mysterious visitor to, or rather resident in, Loch Ness being either a grampus, a lizard, a conger eel, a sea serpent, an upturned boat, an inflated rubber bag, or a lump of seaweed!

All of which he being a sensible man, dismisses (to use Disraeli's memorable phrase) as merely 'the hare-brained chatterings of irresponsible frivolity.' What my friend maintains, after carefully weighing all the available evidence, and giving much thought to the subject, is, briefly, that this strange amphibian belongs to the far-back, but post-glacial period, when the great chain of lakes, Loch Ness, Loch Lochy, and Loch Oich of Scotland, were still connected with the sea. These denizens of the deep waters have in the course of ages become fresh water, not salt water, amphibians. This particular specimen, having been (according to the generally accepted theory) disturbed by the recent extensive blastings in connection with the road making around Loch Ness, found its way to the surface, and in the continuous sunshine of the past summer, took a fancy to the upper world, which it apparently still retains, though the summer is long over.

My correspondent believes the animal, on all the evidence, to approximate to the type of the Plesiosaurus. Let me record my own belief that it is a true amphibian, capable of living either on land or in water, furnished with lungs as well as gills, with four rudimentary legs or paddles, an extraordinarily flexible neck, broad shoulders, and a strong, broad, flat tail, capable of violently churning up the water round, it. I hazard the conjecture that it belongs to no existing species, but to the Devonian period, oldest but one in the history of the world, and dating back some hundreds of millions of years.

I have little doubt that Hunter Blair's contact at the Abbey was Father Cyril Dieckhoff - enthusiastic researcher of Nessie. The retired Royal navy captain was possibly Captain Donald Munro who also was a monster hunter.

But Mr Hunter Blair believed the creature to be amphibious and quite capable of being at home in water or land. Hence there is no surprise that this mysterious creature was seen lumbering out of a wooded area.

Our final enquiry would be why the Loch Ness Monster is drawn to venture into forest before returning to its aquatic home? Does it seek food on land? There are not many reasons why a brute beast would take to land apart from food, shelter and reproduction. One can speculate endlessly as to which one (or any) may be relevant to this creature.

One may even add the musings of the aforementioned Colonel Fordyce at the top of this article who suggested the monster could even be a land creature hidden in the Moidart Mountains to the east of Loch Ness, which spends its time between hill and loch in uncertain proportions!

Curiouser and curiouser ....

The Other Loch Ness

When you arrive at Loch Ness, just make sure you are on the correct continent. Apparently there is another Loch Ness but this one is in the USA and unlike its famous counterpart, this one is not likely to be familiar to anyone beyond Minneapolis in the state of Minnesota.

Residing to the north of the city beside Lochness Park, the locals evidently could not bring themselves to call an American body of water a "loch" and hence its full title "Lochness Lake". A zoom on Google Maps reveals its environs.

Now they will have to believe you when you say there is a Walmart beside Lochness. Unlike its 26 mile long and 750 feet deep Scottish counterpart, Lochness Lake is a mere 16 feet deep and covers only 14 acres. But apparently the fishing is good with sunfish and pike.

The only mystery is why they called it Lochness Lake? Did a Highland community set up here after the clearances and decide to rename local places after the old homeland? Perhaps they did, but if you turn the loch on its side, another reason may be forthcoming!

Follow Up on the Latest Sonar Contact

Following on from the initial post, I was reading through various email/website/forum talk and the emphasis was very much on the skeptical side of the debate. But that is no surprise since most people do not think there is a large, unidentified creature in Loch Ness and so any story like this is going to lead to "natural" explanations.

Of course, there may be a natural explanation, I would not be so fanatical as to class every story as "monster". Where I diverge is in my view that not all sightings are explained by natural phenomenon.

As it turns out the favoured explanation is a submerged log. It's a theory and it sounds plausible and most people would accept that without any further critical thinking and move on to the next thing. I prefer to persist with some critical thinking.

Aside from the rather important question as to whether a submerged piece of tree debris could produce the strength of such a sonar trace, there are some other things to consider.

One skeptical forum summed it up (link here):

"Page 61 of Radford and Nickell’s Lake Monster Mysteries. Jerry Monk, a British hydrographic surveyor notes that when a piece of wood is immersed in water, over time, it sinks. If there is a thermocline, it is possible for the log to float in mid-water on the denser layer of cold water. Or, the log may sink, decay and form methane, which makes it rise again. The log idea, sinking and rising, degassing and sinking again was used to explain the Mansi sighting on Lake Champlain."

The thermocline is an area below the loch surface where the temperature drops rapidly creating a kind of partition between the upper and lower layers of water. For Loch Ness, it is usually stated to be at a depth of 40 meters but could vary between 30m and 60m depending on the season. Interestingly, the thermocline can be seen on sonar scans as well, which leads to the question as to why it is not visible on this particular scan if it is claimed to be buoying up the supposed piece of tree.

This is an open question since it may be a matter of sonar calibration and sensitivity but it does suggest that the "log" (which is 25 metres below the surface) is well above the thermocline.

Note that the quote mentions that the theoretical log would "float" on the thermocline. However, this target is moving at such a speed that the trace soon disappears off the screen. Can underwater currents achieve this rapidity? Yet another open question which suggests a log would tend to drift rather than speed.

Finally, the quote mentions vertical ascent and descent of a log due to water saturation and then gassification and renewed buoyancy from methane gas decay. Aside from the fact that the object moved horizontally, such a scenario is unlikely at Loch Ness. Decay of organic matter happens at very slow rates at the bottom and indeed tests have shown little gas production to stimulate ascent.

At this point, I have tried to contact the witness for his view on the matter and whether the tree debris he has seen in the past matches this. I suspect the answer would be "No". For me, talking to witnesses is important - unlike too many a number of critics who completely disregard verbal testimony (unless to find inconsistencies to discredit them)!

Another "natural" explanation often put forward are echo effects from sonar beams bouncing off the sides and bottom of the loch. These do produce strange effects such as vertical lines but it is unclear whether they would be capable of producing the trace in question and from the moored, stationary position he was at. Regular users of sonar equipment would be able to recognise such a pattern.

Other causes of unusual patterns are boat wakes. However, this would require a boat to pass fairly close by and again would be recognisable to a regular user (though as with side echoes it is unclear that they could even produce the pattern in question).

The Latest Nessie Sonar Contact

They just keep coming thick and fast these Nessie stories. On the back of two intriguing photographs these past four months and a head-neck sighting, a sonar contact has entered the fray.

This story appeared in the Scottish edition of the Daily Mail for Thursday 15th September 2011. It looks like it did not make the UK website of the Mail, so it is reproduced here for those outside of Scotland.

But first the basics on sonar. I do not claim to be an expert but it is an important tool in the hunt for the Loch Ness Monster. However, like normal photographs and pictures, there are degrees of interpretation, misidentification and, yes, hoaxes.

A sonar contact is a picture made from sound waves instead of light waves. The sonar device sends pulses of sound at various frequencies depending on how deep one wants to go. The reflected echo is processed to form a snapshot of the area within the sound beam.

However, being a continuous series of pulses, the sonar picture is more like a film than photograph and each successive echo builds a trail of images as the targets in the beam move. In fact, one could argue it is more like a picture taken with a very long time exposure.

So if an object is moving it will describe a trail of some shape and thickness. This thickness is not the girth or height of the whole object but whatever returns the strongest echo. This depends not on the size of the animal (for example) but the difference in density between the water and the object. In the case of the fish, the greatest density difference is between the swimbladder and the water since it contain much less dense air (or some other gases). The rest of the fish is closer to the density of water than the swimbladder. In the case of mammals and reptiles, one main area of interest would be the lungs.

The Daily Mail story now follows.

THERE is no sign of the trademark elongated neck, or the signature green humps. But the experts believe this almost unfathomable sonar image could be a breakthrough in the hint for Nessie that began in earnest in 1934.

Surrounded by fish, the ‘blip’ has a girth of about 5ft, though there is no way of estimating its length as it was moving. The image was captured by the quick thinking skipper of a pleasure boat who took a picture of the reading while waiting for his customers at Urquhart Castle, in Inverness-shire. Marcus Atkinson, 42, knows Loch Ness like the back of his hand and spends every day on its waters — but said he had never seen anything like this before.

He added: It's very weird. It was obvious it wasn‘t a shoal of fish and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. This thing is completely different from anything I've seen before.’ Mr Atkinson, of Fort Augustus, Inverness-shire, was idling in the bay when he saw the unusual sonar image. He said: ‘it's one of those moments where you just think, “What on earth is that?" I grabbed my mobile phone and took a picture before it disappeared of the screen. it's all very bizarre.‘ Mr Atkinson's picture shows a cross-section of the loch, with the boat itself at the top right of the picture.

The bright green area on the bottom right of the sonar screen is the bottom of the loch, which rises as the boat gets closer to shore. The small green flashes scattered across the monitor are deepwater fish. But the part of the picture that is exciting interest is the long, thin streak - that looks a little bit like a propeller - between the 20 and 25 metre depth markers. The measurements show it is about 5ft thick - but there is no way of telling how long it is as, if the object was following the boat, it would show up on every ‘blip’ of the sonar.


Expert Nessie hunter Steve Feltham said: ‘This is a sonar contact that defies all explanation — it's a huge object. ‘it’s fascinating, because the camera hasn't an imagination — it just shows what's there.’

So ends the account and I wrap this latest sighting with some comments. The first is that the captions editor makes a howler in comparing the elongated pattern to a sleek, lithe plesiosaur. If they had read the article, they would have gone for a different picture for (as said in the intro) this is a trace built up over a succession of sonar pulses.

The other observation is that the stated 5ft girth is not necessarily the complete height of the object because if it is an animal, it will be the lungs or swimbladder being measured. But then, five feet of lung or bouyancy organs points to one big creature.

I presume the five feet measure is taken by comparing it to the 20-25 metre depth scale in the picture above. Using my trusty ruler, I get an average estimate of 2.5 feet "girth" which is still quite a measurement. I would add that if this was Nessie and we assume a true girth twice as much as my measurement (i.e. giving us five feet) and apply classic Nessie proportions based on numerous eyewitness tesimonies and analysis, then a total tail tip to head length would come out as about 30 to 35 feet - which is a typical Nessie size.

So what was it with a minimum girth of 2.5 feet that was moving at a depth of about 70 feet? No doubt some will have a rational, non-Nessie explanation for this odd signal. Was it some human artefact somehow floating at a great depth? Was it a strange effect of sonar bouncing of the underwater sides of Loch Ness? Or was it the famous and mysterious denizen of Loch Ness?

As for us, this goes into our log of claimed Nessie sightings.

ERRATA: I just remembered "girth" is the measurement around an object as opposed to its thickness. So assuming a circular type girth, a rough girth estimate given a thickness of 5ft would be Pi x 5ft which is roughly 16ft.

Follow up on the Jon Rowe Nessie Photograph

Having initially posted the media's words on the latest Nessie report, I contacted the witness himself for clarification. It is always desirable to do this as newspaper reports may omit something important or misquote. Also, when various people critique the report publicly, the witness' reaction to this can also be educational.

As it happened, some things did have to be corrected. Firstly, the time of the reported sighting was 1230 and not 0830. This may seem a minor point, but since the time of day can often be easily deduced from shadows if a photograph is taken, then doubt is cast upon the witness if the reported time and photograph time are in conflict. In this case, the reported time was wrong.

Secondly and more importantly, the two hump like objects are not all there is to this sighting. In fact, if the witness report is read without reference to the picture, it is evident that Mr. Rowe saw a large, dark object moving just under the surface of the water. The two smaller objects are a sideshow in that respect. To quote from the Daily Mail:

"There was a rainbow so I got my camera out to take a photo and noticed this really large dark shape in the loch with two humps that were barely out of the water."

The dark shape was under the water, the humps (or perhaps bumps) briefly above. In fact, when I saw the photo, I saw this shadowy area centre bottom and asked Mr. Rowe if this was relevant to the sighting. His reply was:

"Yes, the shadow beneath the "humps" details the rest of the mass moving through the water."

I invite readers to look again and note the semi-elliptical shadow at the centre of the bottom of the photograph. In fact, Mr. Rowe described the experience of being near this large object as "very unnerving". This is not a wave shadow as the sun is directly ahead in the picture and the wave just to the right has no such shadow. In fact, on the higher resolution picture that Mr. Rowe provided, it looks as if the waves from the westerly wind are shallower and washing over something rough with contours perpendicular to them.

As for birds and seals, Jon is not convinced for one simple reason, the entire object he saw moving underwater and partially above was much bigger than anything he was accustomed to seeing, in fact 2 or 3 boats in length.

We can only guess as to what kind of animal would form the shadowy shape below, but what about those two small "bumps"? In that sense, we are in the area of speculation and can only guess. However, given the distance from the main shadow, one may speculate that this may be the head region slightly surfacing. Could these "bumps" be horns of some description? We know that witnesses in the past have described horns, though such events are a small proportion of the record and they tend to be stalk like. Zooming in on the objects just deepens the mystery - they certainly are not birds in the act of a bottoms up dive as no tail feathers or legs are visible.

An intriguing photograph which adds to the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster.