And the Winner is ...

The votes are in for the Inverness Courier and William Hill Best Nessie Sighting of 2015 and it goes to Conor McKenna and his sighting of September 15th. He saw what he described as a 15-20ft long object lying in the water which had a wave breaking against it before it disappeared.

A good sighting, though since Mr McKenna was driving, I doubt he could concentrate on the sighting as long as necessary for fuller details. Note the comments about people being reticent about coming forward with their sightings for fear of sarcasm. Such is the repressive atmosphere sceptics have created with their dumbing down of witnesses. We salute those who still come forward with their accounts.



Original link here.

AS a former Gulf War veteran, Conor McKenna often notices things which seem out of the ordinary. His sighting of “something” inexplicable on Loch Ness as he drove along the A82 has now netted him first prize in the annual Best Nessie Sighting contest, sponsored by bookmaker William Hill and decided by Inverness Courier readers in an online vote.

The Inverness lorry driver was one of four contenders in the competition for sightings during 2015. Although his was one of two verbal accounts, while the other two were accompanied by photographs, his encounter was reckoned by voters to be the best.

He wins £1000 cash prize plus a £100 bet to place on the winner of the William Hill Scottish Cup. The other three entrants will receive a £50 bet. Mr McKenna, who previously served with 1st Royal Irish Regiment and saw action in the Gulf War in 2003, was delighted but surprised when told the news.

“It’s not often I am stuck for words but I am this occasion,” said the 32-year-old, who lives with his wife Eilidh and their eight-year-old daughter in Maclennan Crescent, Merkinch. “We have a baby due in April and we are also having to get a new bed for our daughter. We have been scrimping and saving, so this has come just at the right time.”

Mr McKenna, who works for Helmsdale company EM and T Rapson, recalled his encounter on September 15 when he was on one of his regular routes north along the A82. About a mile south of Urquhart Castle he spotted a dark-coloured 15-20ft long object in the water. “It was long enough, whatever it was, to leave a crest,” he recalled. “A wave broke on the left-hand side and I wondered if it was a log or a tree, but then it disappeared.”

As he was driving at the time Mr McKenna was unable to take a photograph. “I don’t really know what it was except it was big enough to make me question myself, and I don’t like that,” he said. “I didn’t discuss it at the time with my wife as she would have thought I was mad. Also, she gets annoyed because I am ex-army and always observing and spotting things which don’t seem quite right. I told two other people who just laughed and asked whether I was driving or sitting in the pub!”

Mr McKenna regularly drives along the A82 but has not spotted anything unusual since. Eventually he registered his sighting with Gary Campbell, who keeps the official register of sightings of the Loch Ness monster. Mr Campbell said of Mr McKenna’s entry: “What it shows is that there is a guy local to the area who drives up and down Loch Ness and sees something different.

“He is willing to stick his neck out and say he saw something but doesn’t know what it was. “I am sure there are lots of people who see things and don’t tell anyone because they are too embarrassed.”

William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams agreed. “People are always nervous about saying they have seen something because they don’t want to be a figure of fun,” he said.

The Peter O'Connor Photograph (Part III)

In the previous article on this famous photograph, we considered a test photograph taken in 2010 which claimed to cast doubt on the stated time of O'Connor's 1960 picture. Aside from doubts that O'Connor actually knew the time with any accuracy, that 2010 photo was shown to have its own problems.

Now moving on, the same article by Dick Raynor also proposed a theory which speculated on how O'Connor allegedly faked his picture. It has been suggested for years that O'Connor had a canoe and the sceptical article tries to leverage that fact to its advantage.

It turns out that the O'Connor family went to Loch Ness in 2010 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the photograph and had brought a folding canoe which Peter O'Connor had apparently used back in May 1960 (by the way, it seems the O'Connor family were no help in offering proof that Peter faked the story or even providing an uncropped photo). Later, Raynor tried to identify the canoe and decided it was a model called the "Tyne Prefect" which is shown below.

From this he suggested that O'Connor had actually used this canoe to reproduce and photograph a fake monster. Enquiring further, he found the owner of a current Tyne Prefect on the Internet and asked him to sent a photo of it in an O'Connoresque position. This is shown below.

Now if we imagine this theory to be a three legged stool, we are now going to remove each leg in turn until this theory has none to stand on. 

LEG NUMBER ONE

The author of the theory had used image overlays in the article to establish the minimal uncropped area of the photo. However, when he comes to this canoe theory, he strangely decides not to do the same procedure. When I did it myself, it became apparent why - the comparison is, at best, unconvincing. The overlay below lines up the top rudder attachment with a point of interest in the photo (as explained below).

Note the canoe is eleven feet long while O'Connor estimated his hump to be upwards of 16 feet or more, so a "shrink to fit" has been done for overlay comparison. So aligning end to end and allowing for part submergence of the canoe gives us this image.

At this point, anyone would say they don't fit and so this is not a particularly good theory. However, Dick Raynor decides not to ditch this theory as a bad idea and does something which should be avoided - he begins to add layers of complexity. In other words, he begins to paper over the cracks.

How does he do that? Using the fact that these kayaks had a canvas skin to contain an unfolded wooden skeleton, he speculates that the canoe was somehow filled out. But that brings us to the problem that rubberised canvas is not very elastic. In fact, just like this theory, it would be stretched beyond the breaking point to achieve the dimensions of the O'Connor object.

I made an enquiry to a canoe forum which was discussing the very subject of restoring these old canoes. I asked how elastic these canvas covers were and got this answer:

These things have some stretch in them, but really very little that you would notice just handling the skin. As you say, just enough to contain the frame. Maybe of the order of a centimetre or two along the full 12ft of the boat. I don't think of them as elastic, but when you press down heavily on the 'scissors' join between front and back of the frame, it levers the bow and stern into the ends of the skin and that lever creates the tension that provides the rocker and ensures a smooth fit to the skin. If you bang on the skin it is tight like a drum.

So, the difference in height between the O'Connor object and our presumed canoe looks too much to overcome. But Dick says, just remove all or part of the wooden skeleton. Nonsense, canvas is not rubber, it will not sufficiently stretch no matter what you take out. That brings us to the problem of the hypothesised stuffing material. Raynor tries to rehabilitate Maurice Burton at this point and talks about the plastic bags, string and stones Burton found. 

Stones are not exactly "found" as they litter the entire beach. The bags found by Burton amounted to no more than a few fragments, hardly enough to stuff an eleven foot canoe. That leaves rocks and pebbles and I do not see them achieving the smooth appearance of the O'Connor object. But that is irrelevant as the canvas won't stretch to accommodate the proposed size. It was sewn together to hold a certain wooden framework.

Conclusion? Remove one leg of the stool.

LEG NUMBER TWO

The theory then points out that the canoe has two points jutting out with which to attach a rudder. You can see them to the left on the canoe picture. Dick Raynor thinks he can see one in the O'Connor photo and points an arrow at it (below).

You know, sceptics often laugh at Nessie believers when they find significance in small, obscure features in a photo. It seems the practise is not limited to their ilk. As it turns out, this is just a water effect, probable a wave breaking behind the object. Why do I think that? Because the second rudder point is not visible in the picture. It should be just below or above the other one and I see nothing.

No layer of extra complexity has yet been added to prop up this "evidence". Conclusion? Knock off that other leg.

LEG NUMBER THREE

Dick rightly points out that this proposed structure has a problem. It will topple over on its own. This leads to another layer of complexity as it is proposed that O'Connor's accomplice, Fred Fulcher, held up the canoe for O'Connor as he took the picture. But this is easily shot down when it is pointed out that Fulcher is not visible in the picture.

So, we have another opportunity to flush this theory down the toilet. But, no, more complexity comes when it is suggested that Peter O'Connor painted Fulcher out of the picture! Layer upon layer of complexity, assumption and speculation is heaped up as this theory threatens to collapse under its own weight. Dick speculates the "blotchiness" of the dark background proves the use of black ink or paint (or whatever).

Now just hold it right there for a second!

I thought the dark background was proof that the photo has been taken in the dead of night. Now we are being told the original background has been painted out with black! Joined up sceptical thinking? I don't think so. There goes the final leg. What do we do with the stool seat?  I guess it would make a good frisbee because it is fit for nothing but chucking away.

A FINAL OBSERVATION

I wonder if Dick Raynor has read Tim Dinsdale's book "Loch Ness Monster"? Perhaps not, but if he consults Dinsdale's first edition on page 164, he will find these words of Peter O'Connor regarding a stretch of water on Loch Ness:

I crossed the same part by two-man canoe and it took approximately six times as long.

But wait a minute, Dick Raynor is using a one-man canoe for this analysis. These words of Peter O'Connor date back to July 1960 when he went back to the loch (if you think you have had a close encounter with the monster, it is no surprise that you are drawn back to the loch so quickly).

But it makes sense, after all, Peter O'Connor and Fred Fulcher formed a two man expedition and so a two-man canoe was a more suitable vessel to take. Did the O'Connor family make a mistake back in 2010 when they brought a one-man canoe? Probably, and I would take the words of O'Connor himself mere months after the event than that of his family 50 years later.

Either way, we can no longer be sure about what canoe was taken to Loch Ness in May 1960, I am not even sure it can be proven he took one at all. Dick Raynor may "sprint" to a new conclusion, but the identity of the two-man canoe is a mystery which further invalidates his theory.

CONCLUSION

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I have seen it elsewhere many a time; you get a hold of a piece of information, you think it could form a theory that enhances your CV and you begin to erect a structure around it ignoring the problems that mount up as you try to prop up that theory. I have no doubt done it myself and no one is immune from it - be they sceptic or believer.

The trouble with these incomplete theories is that they are based on plausible deniability. People will have trouble accepting a large creature exists in Loch Ness. However, they will have no trouble accepting the existence of canoes at Loch Ness. That is how sceptical theories get their leverage as the ingredient to their theories consist of common objects framed in uncommon circumstances.

Most people will accept them as plausible but very few will take the time to critique these theories and find that, though plausible, they are not always probable for reasons stated here and in similar articles elsewhere.

Part four of this series will follow in due course.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Unusual Paintings of the Loch Ness Monster

Here's one that is going on eBay just now. It was painted in the 1970s by Preston artist Nick Tomlinson and its yours for forty quid. Look close enough and you'll see Nessie! When I see a painting like this, I check the database to see if the artist was a witness to the monster and went off to paint their experience. In this case, I found no reference to this artist.

Now that may not be unusual in that regard, but Nessie popping up while the artist is at the loch painting is a scenario I have only two claims for and one was an alleged painting done in the 19th century. The person who made that claim said they had scans to prove it but never sent me them. Whoever it was didn't come good on that, so we move on.

There is one painting I would like to track down and that is one of the Loch Ness Monster that is over eighty years old. It is mentioned in an advertisement from the Dundee Courier of 20th September 1934 and is shown below.

The ad seems to imply that the artist painted a sighting of the creature in progress and this would obviously be of great interest to Nessie cryptozoologists. Where this painting is now is anyone's guess (unless a reader has special information). A first step would be to identify the artist and candidates for that period would be Constance Whyte and Alistair Dallas. However, this does not sound like one of them. Another opportunity for detective work it seems.

But hitting dead ends on Nessie investigation is enough to drive you to drink. So I would likely find this beer mat useful!

And speaking of unusual paintings, Bradford Johnson's ongoing work with Loch Ness paintings can be seen here.


The author can be contacted at lochneskelpie@gmail.com

Animal Behaviour at Loch Ness

The recent talk about giant eels at Loch Ness brought to mind a couple of old clippings I had intended to post.

A SWIMMING WHAT?

The first is taken from the Whitby Gazette dated the 28th September 1906. As I began to read, I was beginning to think we had a 1906 Nessie report on our hands, but read on.

Writing to the Scotsman, a correspondent at Drumnadrochit, says: — Two anglers from the hotel, fishing on Loch Ness, observed something swimming rapidly along the surface and making for the nearest point of the western shore. The surface was quite calm at the time, and the "object" showed a long and pronounced wake behind it. On rowing towards it, and when within a few yards, they were much surprised to see a very lively snake suddenly dart about six inches of head and body erect out of the water.

The creature showed no sign of alarm or desire to escape; but, with bold and menacing aspect, rather turned towards the boat, as if ready for attack. A stroke of the boatman's oar stopped its course, but, soon after being taken into the boat, it showed such energetic and unmistakable signs of reviving that it was promptly bandied overboard. The length, as it lay stretched on board, was estimated at a little over twenty inches: and that it was really an adder was verified by an examination of a preserved adder's skin. 

It is well known that adders take readily to the water, and swim across our mountain streams without hesitation, but to cross Loch Ness, as this creature was obviously attempting to do, is quite a different matter, for, at this point, near Urquhart Castle. the shortest distance across is a mile and half-a-furlong. When first seen, the adder was about a hundred yards from the western shore.

Not quite a Nessie, and people don't tend to mistake 20 inch animals for 20 foot animals. As it turned out, a video had appeared on the BBC news website showing this type of behaviour. The only mystery for me was the implication that this snake was close to finishing a one mile swim. Is that possible? I don't know.

However, one feature of this story caught my attention in relation to the giant eel theory. It was the statement:

... they were much surprised to see a very lively snake suddenly dart about six inches of head and body erect out of the water.

I assumed that a serpent like creature in water would find such a task difficult, but this does not seem to be the case.  Showing six inches out of twenty of its overall length scales up to a classic six foot neck out of a twenty foot body, except in the case of a giant eel, it is not a "proper" neck.

Does the scaling up in terms of maintaining positive buoyancy stack up? Does the difference between eel and adder physiology preclude even a twenty inch eel doing this? Of course, adders have lungs and eels have swimbladders. Which gives the greater positive buoyancy? That eels can achieve positive buoyancy is a given since they can get from their usual benthic dwelling to the surface and even onto land.

A cursory look around Google Images showed nothing of an eel raised in the erect fashion of our adder story. This has always been an argument against giant eel. That long, thin neck with its supine ability described by witnesses at Loch Ness goes counter to the thick set nature of the eel.

PIKE HUNTING

Moving onto another inhabitant of Loch Ness, this was printed in the 3rd January 1857 edition of the Warder and Dublin Weekly Mail, having been lifted from the Inverness Advertiser.

VORACITY OF THE PIKE.—The voracity of this fish is well known to all persons anywise acquainted with fresh water fishing. A most remarkable instance of it occurred lately near the western extremity of Loch Ness, where a brood of young ducks, thirteen in number, were gobbled up in a single day. In the same locality a few young turkeys went to the lake-side to drink, but immediately on their arrival at the water's edge, two or three of their number were snapped under water by this most incorrigible destroyer.— Inverness Advertiser.

This clipping also came to mind when someone on the Internet shot off a caricature of my idea that the Loch Ness creatures could predate land creatures. It seems that another denizen of the loch has already learnt this trick and put it to good use. After all, what pike could resist a meal of duck or turkey?

Of course, we assume they were pike and not more mysterious residents of the loch ... My idea of larger creatures doing the same to creatures bigger than ducks or turkeys does not seem so far fetched after all.

Vote for the Best Nessie Sighting of 2015.

The Inverness Courier is now running their annual vote on the best Nessie sighting of 2015. This is run in conjunction with Gary Campbell's register of sightings website, which you can view here. If you click on this link to the Courier's review of the 2015 reports, you can then follow another link to their main news page and scroll to the bottom where the voting buttons should be on the right. Voting closes at the end of Sunday.

Perhaps you can tell from the photo below where my vote went, but I am not going to tell you what is and is not a genuine Nessie sighting (unlike some Popes of scepticism who don't recognise the phrase "in my opinion"). Use your own powers of judgement and make your choice.

Interview on the Loch Ness Monster

I had the pleasure of talking with Alyson Dunlop who runs the ADX-Files chat show yesterday and she has posted that 2 hour chat about Nessie today. Check it out at this link.

The Peter O' Connor Photograph (Part II)

Moving on from the first part of this series on the Peter O'Connor photograph, we now consider some further objections to this picture. In the previous article, the claimed findings by Maurice Burton to a hoax on the beach were at best found to have more natural explanations and at worst were twisting the data.

However, Burton raised further objections which sceptics have continued to promote 55 years on, but, as far as I can tell, have not been subjected to the same level of scrutiny as Peter O'Connor. Firstly, I will give you some background to the event by way of a site visit I did back in 2014.

Now, Peter O'Connor had stated that the photo was taken at his campsite one mile north of Foyers. Measuring one mile north of Foyers will not take you where you think you want to be. One mile due north of Foyers actually takes you to the opposite shore near the village of Grotaig. So the assumption is that O'Connor meant one mile north east up the shoreline. That takes you roughly to the spot on this map below.

To get to this area, I would normally just walk along the shoreline from the nearest appropriate parking spot on the Foyers to Dores road. However, the road is a long way from the loch here (see map) plus the Foyers Power Station is in the way of a shoreline approach. An attempted approach from the village of Inverfairgaig was considered, but in the end I went for the direct route.

I measured a parallel mile along the road which took us to Aleister Crowley's old stomping ground at Boleskine House. When we parked there, you would hardly think it was there, being blocked from view by dense, high foliage. They certainly like their privacy there. So, from here, a descent down to the lochside in as straight a line as possible would take you to about a mile from Foyers.

This involved cutting through the Boleskine graveyard and onto an open field. Caution was required here as we had to plough through various high ferns which are a known habitation of ticks, which carry the debilitating Lyme's Disease. Full length clothing and checking for insects after each field was mandatory.

Hopping over a fence increased the descent into more wooded territory until we came out on the service road for the Power Station. The shoreline was now in sight as we vaulted another fence into a fairly high gradient descent down more forest. A slip here after rain could see you toboggan on your backside all the way down to the loch (or into a tree)!

THE SITE

Finally, the loch broke out into view as you can see from the photograph below. The second photograph below that shows the steep wooded hillside we had just descended. The scene itself was unremarkable in terms of other shorelines we had trudged at Loch Ness. The usual shingle was underfoot with the occasional tree breaking forth from the stones. To the right the shoreline receded towards a headland while to the left, shingle gave way to grass as the power station came into view.

 

 

But where exactly had O'Connor pitched his tent? Even if his one mile estimate was only out 10% either side, it could be 160 metres either side of me (assuming I was actually one mile along the shoreline from Foyers (wherever the centre point of Foyers was deemed to be). However, on returning back to Edinburgh, I reread O' Connor's letter to Tim Dinsdale in which he said:

the tent was built so a view of the loch could be obtained in any direction, i.e. no walls except cliff ...

I saw nothing which resembled a cliff (if one understands by that a near vertical wall of rock), but I suspect I did not cover a large enough segment of the shoreline and he could have been referring to the high gradient hill behind. Walking on, I came across an old boathouse where I imagined Burton and his team had disembarked from the local man's boat to investigate the scene of the "crime".

The first exercise was to see what a photograph of the loch would look like if I crouched to the waist level in water that O' Connor had reported. Being the intrepid investigator that I am, I decided to stay as dry as possible and crouch at the shoreline to the same height. The picture is shown below, but it is of guidance use only since the O' Connor picture shows no background and I am not certain of the field of view in his photo compared to mine. A real comparison picture would use as close to the same make and model as O'Connor at the same time of day and year (with preferably the same weather conditions).

 

A survey of the immediate area did not take long to show up evidence of human activity. Like Burton, I found pieces of  plastic sacking, string and a stone circle. Evidently, this is an area which is frequently used for wild camping. Of course, any trace of O'Connor's campsite was long gone.

The site of this campfire was just beyond the boathouse on a slightly raised grass area in comparison to the shingle beach. If I had to choose a spot where O'Connor had pitched his bivouac, this would be a candidate. However, my reason for that is purely based on the hunch that campers would rather sleep on grass than shingle. I also say this having no idea whether there was any grass at this spot in 1960 as Burton only talks about sandy, pebbly beach in his letters and book.

Also, this area was right beside the boathouse and Burton makes no mention of any boathouse in any books or letters that I have examined. But it is possible that the boat house was built post-1960 as I do not see it in on pre-1960 ordnance survey maps (e.g. map above), but I do see it labelled on a recent map I purchased.

FURTHER OBJECTIONS

Lest I be accused of writing articles that some deem too long, I will begin to examine further objections to the authenticity of this photograph here and continue this into a third part of the series. Going back to Burton's book, he raises this objection regarding the photograph's authenticity on page 82: 

It was said to be half-light at 6 to 6:30am on 27 May, yet the sun rises at 4:30am on 27 May in that area. An hour later, even with a cloudy sky, these is sufficient light for photography at short range. 

A photographic test performed by Adrian Shine on the same day in 2010 at a point opposite Urquhart Castle using the same camera produced this photo at 0600. Clearly there is a distinct difference in the light levels between this and the O'Connor photograph.

So should I go "Ho Hum!" and go silent on this matter? No, let us explore this a bit further. The deduction critics make from this is that O'Connor lied about the time of the photograph for reasons that must have been deceptive. Therefore, the photograph (to quote Roy Mackal) is unacceptable as evidence. But, logically, there is not one but four conclusions that can be made about the time stated by O'Connor.

First, that he stated the correct time and it is the photograph that is being wrongly interpreted.

Second, he was misquoted concerning the time of the photograph, hence the discrepancy.

Third, he stated the time knowing it was not the correct time.

Fourthly, he stated the time believing it was the correct time.

I will come back to the first option later. The second option is credible as I have seen it happen before in other cases where journalists get sloppy about what they regard as the minor details of a case such as date, time, location, distance, etc. They may be minor to them, but they are important to Loch Ness researchers.

One case that springs to mind was the recent Jon Rowe photo where the Inverness Courier got the time wrong by about four hours. However, I do not think this is applicable here as Tim Dinsdale quotes a letter from O'Connor stating a time between 0600 and 0630. Other sources close to the time also give this time window.

The third option is the sceptics' position and it is a speculation which involves wilful deception on O'Connor's part. This naturally leads to an important question, why would he lie about the time? If the picture was taken about two hours earlier, why not just state that time? What is the problem with doing that? After all, surely O'Connor knew what the light levels were like at that time of day having camped there for days previously? Why make yourself a bigger target for the critics on publishing the photo?

The only reason offered is so that O'Connor and his accomplice could deflect from the scenario of setting up the hoax in complete darkness with no one around to see them. But why would that cause O'Connor to lie about the time? Why can't you set up a hoax at 0400 and still state the event as happening at 0400?

The rather insipid reply comes - so that he would not be charged with setting up a hoax in the dead of night. But surely he would be opening himself to a worse criticism by stating a time between 0600 and 0630? It seems you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If the claimed motive for the claimed deception is weak, then so must be the deception. There is no point in stating a crime without a motive. I await a better reply from the critics of this photo regarding this supposed motive.

The final option suggests O'Connor made an honest mistake in his estimate of the time. Actually, there is more evidence for this option than the previous one. Note again O'Connor's words to Dinsdale:

Between 0600-0630 hours I left the camp .. and went N.E. for 100 yards ...

So what, you may ask? The problem is this suggests he did not know the time when he left his tent. In Dinsdale's book, O'Connor had two other sightings recounted. These were low grade sightings both seen at nearly a mile off. Regarding the first on May 24th 1960, he states:

Saw creature from 1605-1615 hours...

I think you would agree O'Connor is quite accurate in his times here. The second sighting took place on the 3rd July 1960 and is stated to have occurred at 1000; again no uncertainty or resorting to time ranges.

So why the uncertainty about times concerning the photograph? If he was the consummate liar of the sceptics, why not just state a precise time as with the other cases (indeed, as an alleged liar, why not jazz up those low grade sightings while he was at it)?

If O'Connor's critics feel at liberty to speculate on his motives and actions, then I think I have the right to do so as well. It is clear to me that O'Connor did not attempt to estimate the time of the sighting until after the event. If he had checked his watch when he first got out of the tent, he had a time reference for all that followed. More likely, he just got out of his tent without bothering to check the time.

Once the high tension and excitement of the event had got a grip on him, I doubt noting the time was high up on his list. The longer he put it off, the bigger the chance he had of getting it wrong. Of course, this is all speculation, just exactly as the sceptics' arguments on this point are. Choose your bias and make your choice.

SUNRISES

However, putting theories about times aside, there is another factor in all of this that has not yet been taken into account. Adrian Shine's photograph was taken in the area of Whitefield; Peter O'Connor's was taken in the area of Boleskine. Why is that significant, you may ask? The answer is that it is likely that at between 0600 and 0630, the sun had not yet risen on Peter O'Connor due to the higher terrain behind him. 

If, as I did, you actually visit the site of the photograph, the problem becomes clear. There is a large rising gradient from the shore to the B852 road. You actually cannot see or hear the road from the shore as it is hundreds of metres away and high up. At Adrian Shine's test location, the road is very close and there is no overhanging hill behind.

Let's do some calculations here. Using the average time of 0615 on the 27th May 1960, the direction (azimuth) and height (elevation) of the sun can be calculated. We get the pictures below with the sun's elevation at 10.18 degrees. The yellow line shows the azimuth of the sun at 66 degrees from north.

Consulting an ordnance survey map, we can estimate the various contours of the land along the azimuth and calculate whether they obscure the sun or not. For example, there is a 210m contour near the summit of Tom Na Garbhachd, about 1300m along the azimuth from the O'Connor site, but (typically of more distant peaks), this yields an angle of incidence of about 9.2 degrees, low enough to let the sun peek over its summit at an elevation of 10.18 degrees (and taking into account the sun's angular diameter of half a degree).

That situation changes when we consider the angle of incidence at the roadside near Boleskine House. According to the map, the road is about 93m above sea level. Since Loch Ness is 16m above sea level, we need to deduct this from the height to get 77m above the loch. The distance along the azimuth from road to shore is 375m to which we apply a simple trigonometrical formula to get the angle of the roadside hill as 11.6 degrees, or 1.4 degrees higher than the sun.

Obviously, if a hill is obscuring the sun, then a shadow will be cast. Since the elevation of the sun at 0615 was 10.18 degrees, that shadow length can be calculated via some more trigonometry. This gives a shadow length of 428 metres. Subtracting that part of the shadow that is within land (375m), gives us a shadow over the loch where Peter O'Connor was of 53 metres.

However, we can do better than that. A closer look at the map reveals a high contour further down the hill of 70m (according to sheet 416 of the OS Explorer Map series). That summit can be seen on the map below, marked with a star symbol.

Measuring along the line of azimuth takes it just past the peak at 0615 with a distance of 200m from peak to shoreline. However, the sun would have been just behind this 70m summit not long before. Applying the triangles again gives us an angle of incidence of 15.1 degrees, or nearly 4 degrees higher than the sun's elevation and a shadow length of 300m. Subtracting the 200m of hillside from the total shadow length gives a shadow on the loch of 100m.

If the hill angle was 15.1 degrees, the sun would not rise on Peter O'Connor until about 7am. Maurice Burton implied O'Connor was a liar when he said he took the photograph in "half light". From these calculations, it appears that O'Connor was indeed in half light courtesy of a hill behind him obscuring the sun and casting a shadow 100 metres beyond his position.


Gentle reader, if Peter O'Connor was truthful about this matter, what else was he truthful about?

This raises questions about the usefulness of Adrian Shine's site further north. That study said test photos were taken to determine light levels, but it is clear that these pictures are useless in making a determination of light levels are they were not in 100m shadow. Another trigonometrical look at the contours along the azimuth at the Whitefield site gives a clear line of sight to the sun and no hill obscuration (for the mathematically minded, these were sightings taken at height/distance/angle triplets of 244m/2100m/6.6, 92m/1500m/3.5, 448m/2600m/9.7).

Furthermore, the increase in darkness makes the role of a flashbulb more important, but no flashbulb was employed in the Shine experiment. In consideration of these facts, the photos taken at Whitefield cannot be considered as evidence in this matter.

REMOTE HILLSIDES

But leaving these matters aside for the moment, what about the dark background of the photograph? Surely some detail should have been visible of the opposite side? First of all, the photograph is undoubtedly cropped. In fact, just about every monster picture that appears in newspapers are cropped so that the object of interest fills as much of the print image as possible. The Surgeon's Photograph is a prime example as you can see below (indeed, some publications zoom in even more than this).

Applying the same criteria, we can see how the picture editor would have chopped out the sky to leave just darker hillside, as shown by the following overlay. As guidance, I use the photo I took at the site kneeling down to O'Connor's stated height when he took his picture. The ratio of sizes is consistent with those of the Surgeon's Photo.

Considering the dark background further, we have another photograph taken of the Loch Ness Monster that enjoyed similar circumstances to that of Peter O'Connor. I am referring to the Lachlan Stuart photograph. Both claimed to have been taken around 6:30am and sunrise for both occurred about the same time (0443 for the Stuart photo).

 

Looking at the photo we also see a rather dark, featureless hillside. Zooming into the hillside on the left gives us this picture below. I think you would agree there is not much to pick out (by the way, someone on facebook is going to auto-disagree with the use of this picture, I'll address that in the comment section - if they regurgitate).

Two further points are worthy of consideration, though they can be neither proved or disproved by sceptic and non-sceptic alike. Firstly, did the picture editor alter the brightness on the picture, thus making the background darker? This has certainly been done on other monster pictures and no one denies this to be the case. None other than Sir Peter Scott conceded this may have been done to this picture. However, without the original, uncropped, unedited photo, nobody can say either way.

Secondly, the weather conditions at the time of the O'Connor photo are not stated. One possibility is that a haar rolled down Loch Ness from the sea. Their effect can be very obscuring as these two pictures from 2014 show. Again, nobody knows whether such a fog was present or absent on that May morning in 1960.

TIM DINSDALE

It is a well known fact that Tim Dinsdale was a keen supporter of the O'Connor photograph when he first published his book "Loch Ness Monster" back in 1961. However, according to Steuart Campbell:

Dinsdale, who at first accepted O'Connor's story and published it, removed it from subsequent editions of his book after Mackal and Witchell had expressed doubts. In fact Mackal has rejected it as evidence.

This has been taken as evidence that even the leading monster hunter of the time had given up on O'Connor. However, this is simply not true. Fifteen years later, in Dinsdale's 1976 edition of "The Leviathans" he writes concerning a sea creature account:

... the description of it puts me in mind of the dome-shaped back of the LNM which (despite objections from the critics) was photographed at close range by flashlight in May of 1960 by a Mr. Peter O'Connor ...

Clearly, Tim was sticking to his guns and saw no obstacle in the argument concerning light levels. As a postscript, Henry Bauer, in his "The Enigma of Loch Ness", adds this footnote:

Dinsdale has told me that his subsequent omission of the photo resulted from O'Connor's attitude; upset by public criticism and ridicule of charges of fakery, O'Connor wanted to be left in peace. Dinsdale remains inclined to believe that the photo could really be of a Nessie.

Bauer's book was published one year before Dinsdale's death. It appears he was an advocate of this photo right to the end. So, what did Dinsdale have to say about light level objections? I quote from his book:

This is a reasonable question, but there is a perfectly simple answer to it, and it is vital that it should be understood. As every photographer knows, the human eye and a camera are not the same thing at all, and a scene that may appear fairly bright to the eye can be as black as pitch to the film in a camera, if the settings are wrong.

Correct film exposure is dependent primarily on three things—shutter speed, lens aperture, and film emulsion speed. If the aperture is too small for a given light intensity, the film will appear under exposed, or black. Now, Peter O'Connor's small and inexpensive camera was set at an absurdly small aperture, f.14, for the limited intensity of light one could expect at this time of year at 6.30 a.m.

I know this is so because I took dozens of light meter readings at about the same time in the morning a few weeks before the event, on the shore of Loch Ness; in conditions which, to my own eye, seemed bright enough, and I know that for the combination of film and shutter speed at his camera, an aperture of f.14 was completely inadequate; and that the film would, in consequence, be grossly under exposed.

I took some pictures myself in 'perfect visibility' at about this time at f.2.8 which is a far larger aperture—and the results are barely discernible. The reason why the human eye is so deceiving in terms of judging actual light intensity, is because it is such a marvellous automatic mechanism. The iris of the eye opens wide when light is poor giving the maximum light to reach the retina. The result is that the observer remains unconscious of even large degrees of changing light intensity—whereas the camera aperture is fixed at whatever setting is chosen. And if this is too small the film gets too little light and the image appears dark or black.

The second important thing about the picture is that Peter O'Connor used a flash bulb on his first successful picture of the Monster, and not on the second. In the first the Monster is highlighted, but the background remains black because it is out of range of the flash; and in the second the whole picture is a failure: completely black. This is all quite straightforward. People who have taken flashlight pictures out of doors in bad will recognize the black or underexposed background at once. It is inevitable, and explains the peculiar 'middle of the night' appearance. 

The Brownie Flash 20 camera I possess actually does not allow such fine tuning of the lens aperture and shutter speed. It has three settings - EV 13, 14 and 15. Dinsdale was confusing this 14 with an f/14. However, at a shutter speed of 1/50s and a film speed of 200, we're talking about f/18 using an EV calculator.

I would liked to have seen Dinsdale produce examples of these poor light pictures, but I guess publishers like to focus on the more sensational pictures. I agree with his assessment in this regard, it is now a matter of reproducing the conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

The main thrust of this article concerns the lighting in this photograph. A test picture taken in 2010 suggests a problem in the time O'Connor deceptively or unwittingly gave. Further calculations suggest this test picture has its own problems to address.

If O'Connor did indeed take his photo in the half-light of shadow, then the flashbulb becomes a factor in the investigation. And if the flashbulb becomes a factor, then the object which reflected its light back into the camera becomes a factor too. Neither of these were used in the 2010 test picture and the test is thus invalid.

The solution is to go to the actual site and take a series of photos with flashbulbs and a suitable object in the water. It would also be necessary to find the correct time that best reproduces the O'Connor photograph. The only unknown would be the weather conditions at the time. That is what has to be done. As you can see from the above picture, I have the same camera as O'Connor, along with original flashbulbs and film (whether they still work is another matter). What I do not have is a suitable object to reflect back the flashbulb light with an albedo similar to O'Connor's monster.

It is now a matter of going to Loch Ness and getting the job done properly.

The next instalment of this series focuses on some other less important objections and theories concerning the picture, including the strange case of the O'Connor canoe.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com