The Surgeon's Photo and Long Necks

A recent item on eBay got me interested again in the history of long necked sightings. It was an old postcard shown above featuring an artist's rendition of the monster rephotographed against the familiar backdrop of Urquhart Castle. Now, monster postcards are part and parcel of the commercial and cultural side of the phenomenon. I have many in my collection of postcards but this one may have the distinction of being the first monster postcard or certainly one of the first. 

The reverse side shows it was used and posted on the 12th January 1934, though it appears to have been posted in another part of Scotland in Edinburgh. A lot of these postcards are not postmarked and so the date of their invention can be uncertain, but certainly this is the oldest one I remember and may be dated to at least late 1933 - mere months into the new media sensation of the Loch Ness Monster.

Here is a zoom in on how the artist perceived how the head may look like though one must be wary that such artists may introduce some of their own exaggerated cartoon effects rather than this being a sincere attempt to reproduce what eyewitnesses were seeing. The eyes are certainly an invention as such things are rarely described and one wonders if the artist had the plesiosaur in mind as he drew it?

Now if you read the sceptical literature, you may get the impression that the Surgeon's Photograph was the archetypal and original pose of the long necked monster which others used as some kind of template. This may be presented as some kind of logical discourse, but it is certainly also used psychologically. The reason for this is that if you can link the perception of the monster as a long necked creature to a now discredited photograph, you have instilled the seed of doubt into the minds of those you seek to recruit to your side.

But this photograph was published at least three months after the postcard so there is no need for it as the basis that the newly reported creature had a long neck and it is rather surplus to requirements. A look at the contemporary newspaper reports confirms the already established facts. I will give five examples to prove this.

First and most famously is George Spicer's land encounter with the beast which was reported by the Inverness Courier on the 4th August 1933, in which he describes a long neck. I could include the sketch normally associated with the Spicers published by Gould, but this sketch would only muddy the waters as it was not published until June 1934, months after this postcard.

The Courier then related the experience of Commander Meiklem on the 8th August in which he describes the monster as like a black horse.

We then have the account from the Inverness Courier dated the 3rd October 1933, which relates another land sighting from 20 years previously by William MacGruer and other kids which describes a camel like long neck and small head.

Evidently the idea of a long neck was gaining currency as the national newspaper, The Scotsman, now joined the fray and on the 16th October 1933 published a general article theorizing that the creature was "resembling in form the prehistoric plesiosaurus".

Finally, the Scotsman sent a reporter up north to talk to eyewitnesses and got them to produce or guide sketches of what they had seen. Those sketches are shown below as they appeared in the newspaper for the 15 November 1933. Clearly, the concept of the creature possessing a long neck was well established by the end of 1933 and it was no surprise that our artist drew on these accounts to draw how he or she saw monster.

So it was not the case that the Surgeon's Photograph set the trend. It was the other way around. The trend was already set and it was this that influenced the future forgers of this infamous picture. And if you're wondering how the postcard bid on eBay, it went for the sum of 57 pounds, well above the usual couple of quid for most monster postcards.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Nessie eyewitness recounts her experience

Over on Steve Feltham's facebook page he alerts us to an item from BBC Radio Scotland's "Out of Doors". The person interviewed is Iona Moir who was one of a carload of people who witnessed the monster in its multi-humped and long necked aspect back in October 1936. This was a repeat of an interview with Iona from 2017 when she would have been about 90 years old and must have been about 10 years old when this event happened.

This is a story well known to Loch Ness Monster enthusiasts as the Marjory Moir sighting and the sketch above is taken from Tim Dinsdale's 1961 book "Loch Ness Monster". Iona was Marjory's daughter and the youngest in the number of five eyewitnesses. Her mother can be seen in the picture below being interviewed for the BBC's 1958 documentary, "Legend of the Loch".

Back in 2014, a granddaughter of Marjory had contacted me with the transcript of a tape conversation her grandmother had made back in the 1980s before she died. You can follow that aspect of this sighting here. I also covered this classic sighting in general back in this 2011 article. You can listen to the interview with Iona here for the next 26 days and it starts about 18 minutes in.

For those who cannot access the BBC podcast, I have recorded the segment to this link.

I recorded this audio interview with my mobile phone, so anyone that cannot link to the BBC interview, let me know. The one point I would make from this interview is Iona's speculation whether that monster was the only monster and once it died, that was it. The teams of investigators who turned up in the 1960s and 1970s were too late in her opinion.

I note Harry Finlay made a similar remark when we talked about his 1952 encounter. I can assure them that what they saw were likely different creatures and there were and are more tales to tell of the Monsters of Loch Ness.

POSTSCRIPT: I am sure there was a video on YouTube somewhere of Iona Moir being interviewed. If anyone can track that down, let me know.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Tim Dinsdale's Binoculars get repaired

A member of my family told me to watch the BBC programme, "The Repair Shop", for a Nessie item and I was not disappointed when I watched the catchup on the BBC's iPlayer. Normally I have my tivo box set up to record anything to do with the Loch Ness Monster, but this one had slipped through the net.

It was series 6 and episode 4 televised on the 8th April 2020 and it had none other than Tim Dinsdale's famous binoculars brought in for repair by one of his sons, Simon (below). Why are they famous? It is because they were the binoculars used by him on that fateful day in April 1960 to check what he was looking at out in the loch before he proceeded to record his famed film which is now a major part of Loch Ness Monster lore.

The pictures in this article are of the actual item which were snapped straight off the screen with my mobile phone camera for your enjoyment and edification. They are a pair of Carl Heinrich 7x18 binoculars and they were a bit the worse for wear. Simon had brought them in as one of the focus wheels had begun to spin and he wanted to take them up to the loch for the 60th anniversary of the taking of his father's film which is now only two weeks away (23rd April).

As you can see from the picture above, the item was in two parts because Tim had unscrewed it to allow Simon to use it as a discreet device during his surveillance operations as a police officer. They were also lacking the usual rubber eyecaps and one of the glass prisms used to invert the image the right way up had a chip in it. 

However, our expert repairer found a new prism and the item was delivered back to a delighted Simon ready for that trip up to the loch sixty years on from that fateful day. Of course, it has to be pointed out that the country is now in a coronavirus lockdown, but I hope Simon can get up there as soon as he can.

So it was a great piece of Nessie history to watch and if you have access to the BBC iPlayer, you can still watch for a number of days before it is removed. The link is here and it is available for one month. Note there are other repair jobs in this episode, but it is a general good watch if you are into antiques.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Another Nessie Land Hearing (as opposed to Sighting)

As a follow up to the story of Arthur Kopit and the walrus like noises he heard in 1962, we have a similar story to tell here and this seems as good a time as any to recount it. It is from a letter written to the Inverness Courier dated 11th November 1975. It is from an L. B. Croston after the Courier had published an account of the better known Lipinski land sighting some weeks before. 

LOCH NESS MONSTER 

Avoch. Ross-shire IV 98AT

Sir. — The contribution on the sandbank stranding report of the Loch Ness Monster (October 14th), was most interesting. Some years ago, before returning to Scotland I was checking essays of matriculation students in England. One of the subjects was "An exceptional holiday." A teenager, from the middle of Lancashire, I was afterwards able to find out, wrote a vivid account of a personal experience in the same area: so vivid I discounted it both on its "imaginative perception" and on the fact that most sightings were in the Lewiston - Dores - Foyers triangle. The writer mentioned how in the middle of the night the two boys were awakened by a terrific commotion outside their tent, near the abbey at Fort Augustus, on the loch side, and the drenching sound which fell upon their ears. They did not move until daylight when they found the motor cycle knocked over, their tent nearly awash and the shrubbery hard by beaten down and broken. It was quite evident from their experience that the Monster had indeed paid a visit — Yours etc., L. B. CROSTON. 

Thus ends the short account to add to the roster of land reports. Like Arthur Copit, the emphasis on the story is no so much what was seen as what was heard. Our unknown teenager had effectively filled in a sighting report by way of an essay for his tutor to mark. Where that interesting essay is now, is anyone's guess and all we have is a brief summary by his teacher attempting to remember the event years later.

The disconcerting story could have happened in the 1960s or even further back in the 1950s, who knows? I would like to think the teenager is still alive and with us, albeit now perhaps a pensioner. But all we have are a few sentences, and what can we make of them?

One may be inclined to think the hapless teenagers had merely experienced a stormy night at the loch as incoming waves battered bushes, tent and motor bike. The mention of drenching and a tent awash may suggest this and since they did not venture outside, they cannot be ever sure a large creature was roaming around their tent late at night.

On the other hand, you would think they would know the difference between a stormy night and a disruption which put them into that unsettled state. Indeed, it is unclear whether any of the noises described could be classed as vocalisations rather than noises produced by collisions between one object and another?

I fancy this account happened on the beach at Borlum Bay which is just on the other side of the River Tarff from the Abbey. Needless to say, Mr. Croston's remark about the "Lewiston-Dores-Foyers triangle" is a bit simplistic as the Abbey area has had its fair share of reports over the years. But as to what exactly happened that night decades ago, we need more than this.

A search of the genealogical records reveals Mr. Croston to be Leslie Banks Croston who died in the Black Isle in 1980 aged 71. From another search he turns out to be Major Leslie Croston from St. Helens, Lancashire and confirmed by this 1972 Aberdeen Press and Journal picture of him.

He also owned the Norscot Marina Restaurant in Avoch. The reference to a Lancashire student suggests he previously taught somewhere in that area, perhaps in a military school, but that is more speculative. If the school could be identified, then one would then look for an "alma mater" website or forum and ask who remembered Leslie Croston. Well, that may require a bit more work, perhaps others can help out here? And with that I will leave it there.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

The Story of Arthur Kopit's Land Sighting

I have been looking into some less familiar reports of the Loch Ness Monster on land and this led me to this blog for today which raises the profile of one such case involving an unexpected figure. I had been aware of the case of Arthur Kopit for some eight years, but a recent Internet search has given enough information to tell you more.

The source for the story was a letter Arthur wrote to the New York Times which was printed on the 1st August 1976. The newspaper had been running various features on the loch, the monster and its followers awaiting the result of Robert Rines' AAS expedition. On the heels of the success of the 1975 underwater pictures, the Times signed a contract with the Academy ensuring first refusal on all findings.

As it turned out, the AAS returned empty handed, presumably once they positioned their camera and sonar rigs properly. But that is another story. Meantime, the events of 1975 prompted people to come forward with their stories and so we come to Arthur Kopit and we reproduce the text of his letter which turned up on the Internet and is below.

Oh monster, poor monster

One night in August 1962, I was in the vicinity of Urquhart Castle, on the shore of Loch Ness. I had no idea at the time that this area was the site of the most frequent Loch Ness “monster” sightings. It was perhaps 11, and there was a full moon shining toward us across the loch.

When I parked my car outside the castle gate, at least 100 yards from the loch, I was able to hear a very loud sound. I did not have to strain to make the noise out; indeed, I, and the girl I was with, heard it as soon as we left our car. And as we approached the castle, it quickly became clear that the sound was emanating from a spot beyond the castle - that is to say, the water.

It was a halting sort of sound; uneven breath; a kind of gasping. It made me think of an asthmatic walrus (not that I have ever met one), or some such amphibious creature that could breathe on land but with effort only. A large creature, surely, to expel such a volume of air. The thing was obviously eating a lot. Munch munch munch. Snap snap snap. By the time we reached the castle we had no doubt about what was happening: A large amphibious creature of some sort was feeding on a bush or tree.

At the castle (as I recall) the ground rose so that one could walk from the grass or dirt directly onto the parapet. As we walked up said parapet we realized (she, apparently, to her delight; I to my consternation) that “the thing” was directly beyond the parapet on a small beach or spit of land.

It did not sound like a cow or sheep or dog; it sounded like an aquatic/land creature, Also, the loch is extremely cold; nothing sensible (like dogs or cows) would swim in it by choice. From where I stood, I could see there was no apparent way for a land creature to walk around the castle and get to this spot; it was guarded from land approach by the castle walls.

Well, all I had to do was poke my head over the ledge beside the parapet and I would have seen what it was. However, it occurred to me that whatever it was would also see what I was. Perhaps Nessie was a predator. “You go first,” I whispered to the girl I was with, and she pointed to me. Whereupon I devised a plan: to find a large rock, drop it over the side and (no, not knock it out) drive the creature toward the water, whereupon we would be able to glimpse the thing in retreat. Safely.

However, I made a bit more noise than necessary and the creature departed into the water. The girl I was with claimed she saw a long tubular creature slide into the water. That is her report. I did not see it. I believe I saw a V‐shaped wake in the water by the edge of the beach, but then I may have wanted to see the wake and will not swear I truly saw the wake, as I swear to everything else I report.

Subsequent to this event, it has seemed to me that I came upon, by accident, a favorite feeding spot of “the creature.” Possibly my information may help you in obtaining clear photographs and irrefutable evidence of the thing's existence.

I hope you will not take my slight jocular tone as a sign of a hoax. I really have better things to do than make up this tale. It is just that I have told the story so often to friends - like Jack and Carol Gelber - who have smiled very skeptically, that I suppose I have developed a kind of joking tone in the telling.

This is a grand adventure. Wish I were with you.

ARTHUR Kopit

Middletown, Conn.

Now this is not a story that made it into the classic literature, since Arthur only put it into print in 1976, but it appears again in a letter printed in the September 1999 issue of the Fortean Times. This letter was written by researcher, Ulrich Magin, in response to a previous Nessie article. However, in the letter, the name of Arthur Copit was the name associated in the literature with this event, which led to some fruitless online searching.

But the original letter names him as Arthur Kopit and a google search soon revealed this was the same famed American playwright. His picture below is taken from his Wikipedia page. In fact, the letter title "Oh monster, poor monster" is derived from one of his best known plays, "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad".

Arthur is now aged 82 and so I began a search to make contact with him. This was finally achieved with the help of his daughter who was glad to make my acquaintance and told me how her Dad's Nessie story was a "classic" within the family and "it really sounds like he did encounter her". Evidently, like so many eyewitnesses, Arthur still stands by his story.

She gave me his phone number but I was told that he was in relatively poor health but would be willing to talk. But given that and the current circumstances worldwide, I was more inclined to take a rain check on that and contact Arthur later to get his story and also ask about his female friend who actually saw the creature. But let us move on with what we have.

Now what can we say about the story itself, these fifty eight years on? In August at that latitude, the sun would have set by then, but we are told there was a full moon which places the event around the 14th August which places sunset more precisely at 9pm. But it is a full moon which provides a reasonable degree of illumination. But unlike the well lit castle at the top of the article, I doubt there were any spotlights around and the modern visitor centre was nowhere to be seen.

Having said that, Arthur did not see the creature as the idea of popping your head over the wall did not come across as a great idea to him. I can wholly sympathize with that view. If you heard loud animal noises beyond a wall and it began to dawn on you that the stories of 40 foot creatures may be true, would you stick your head above the proverbial parapet? 

The tactic to disturb the beast and then catch a view of it retreating sounds eminently reasonable, but the monster's classic aversion to noise was not known to Arthur and it was off before its appointed time. However, his female friend is stated as seeing "a long tubular creature slide into the water". That could be interpreted in two ways. She may have seen the long neck of the creature swimming away or it could have been a more extended view of the body. There is no way of knowing more as things stand.

STRANGE SOUNDS

But what Arthur lost in the visual was made up for in the auricular. What are we to make of sounds like asthmatic walruses and munching and snapping noises? Reports of noises associated with the Loch Ness Monster are rare indeed, so we should pay some attention to them when they do come along. The first thing to be said is that the sound was associated with something large. It was heard from 100 yards away and that was with the castle between them acting as a sound buffer.

Naturally seals or some other larger pinniped may be suggested by those more sceptical of a monster and the description of it being akin to a walrus noise may lend credence to that idea. If you want to know what a walrus sounds like, there is a link here. I guess Arthur had looked into some aquatic calls as part of his own attempt to understand what he had encountered and this composite idea of a walrus halting or struggling for breath was the best he came to.

But it is not clear whether this halting breath was due to it being out of water or indulging in these crunching and munching noises. It seems unlikely that the monster would draw much if any nutrition from bushes and trees so one wonders if it was just gnawing at them for some dental purpose? A look at the foliage below the castle in a more recent photograph suggests that even if Arthur looked over the wall, he may not have seen anything for dense foliage until the creature was further out in the water.

But this does make me think that monster hunters on their forages around the loch should pay more attention to trees on the shoreline which have suffered damage - especially higher up. It's a bit of a long shot, but who knows? Any such find should involve a search for any material that is not part of the tree and I wish Arthur had gone back the next day in sunlight to check out what had been left behind!

This episode also bring into focus the competing theories of indigenous water breather and itinerant air breather. Could such a noise be made by something that draws its oxygen from gills or similar organs? The answer seems to be "no" unless there is something other than lungs involved here. The only answer there is the strange ability of the creature to rise and sink vertically using some highly efficient buoyancy mechanism which may involve gas intake and discharge. We have some reports where this sinking and rising involves a foaming action around the waterline of the object. Could this be gas discharge as the object descends? How would that discharge sound out of the water?

I know, just a piece of idle speculation, but as I have said before, a lung breathing animal will not be long unseen and unheard in the loch. The only explanation for that scenario is the horned air tubes that have been postulated for our favourite beastie and as perhaps demonstrated in our previous article which brought you Harry Finlay's horned monstrosity.

I am not so convinced by that, but I know others are. But if it was an air breather, why did it sound as if it was struggling to breath? It sounded like this was a creature that was not accustomed to being out of the water on a regular basis like seals and the extra weight on its lungs due to being wholly or partially on land was actually a burden on its oxygen intake process.

THE EXACT SPOT

Now some are trying to figure out where Arthur was standing when he was at the "parapet". I called upon my extensive collection of postcards and include this one which is a better view of the castle grounds. People can refer to this and others in considering the literal lie of the land. Arthur mentioned

"At the castle (as I recall) the ground rose so that one could walk from the grass or dirt directly onto the parapet. As we walked up said parapet ..."

In the postcard image, there is a small hill rise in the foreground to the castle and a wall along it to the left. It may have been this wall he clambered onto as a first guess. Another possibility are the walls on the far right concerning which I add a second image to show their relatively lower height on the centre right.

So thus ends Arthur Kopit's fascinating account and it may raise more questions than it answers, but isn't that the way with a lot of Nessie stories?


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Harry Finlay recounts his 1952 Monster Sighting

The picture a couple of paragraphs below is enough to let Nessie fans know that this post is about the 1952 close encounter between the Loch Ness Monster and two individuals - Greta Finlay and her son Harry. As recounted last year, I tracked down Harry to his home in Perth, Scotland and phoned him up for a chat on that day on the 20th August 1952.

However, some people said I should get Harry in front of a camera and record the account straight from the man himself. That task was done yesterday, having arranged a date and time with Harry, we met up at his house for the first time. Though I guess Harry would be somewhere near 80 years old, he looked a fit and sprightly eighty to me.

Of course, we chatted about the event amongst other things and Harry is one of that small band of people I call a "knower" rather than a "believer". When you see the Loch Ness Monster from a range of twenty to thirty feet, it is no longer a case of believing but knowing what you saw. Having said that, you can see the creature close up but still have no idea what you are looking at.

Mammal, reptile, amphibian, fish or something else? Harry couldn't give a definitive answer to that one and, apart from those who tell us more than they actually know, I would be in the same camp. Does it exist? Yes. What is it? I still don't know.

It was also good to finally get to see a picture of his mother, Greta, who passed away back in the 1990s. The picture below shows here with her husband, who took the initiative and reported the story to the local newspapers. I snapped this with my mobile phone, so the result doesn't quite do them justice.

I asked Harry to roughly sketch what he saw that day for me which is shown below, though one would not really expect the drawing to diverge that much given such a monstrosity is going to brand itself onto one's memory to some degree. It is more a composite picture as the creature was first seen approaching Harry from the right, then glided past them, finally submerging with its rearward parts closest to them.

Harry's estimates of particular dimensions were added by him and if we add in the two water gaps between neck and humps we get near the 15 feet estimate of his mother given to Constance Whyte. Add in the presumed present but obscured tail and we get a creature in excess of 20 feet.

Having sketched the beast, I showed him the original from my copy of Constance Whyte's "More Than a Legend" with which I snapped a picture of him at the top of this article. But what you will hear from Harry was how he was a split second away from taking one of the best pictures of the monster ever but his Mum grabbed the camera from him, thinking he was fumbling! The Loch Ness Hoodoo strike again!

Enjoy this clip on a classic monster sighting from the very eyewitness himself.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

New book on Sea Serpents

Malcolm Smith has emailed me to tell me he has just published his book entitled "Australian Sea Serpents". I haven't seen the book yet but the promotion on Amazon runs thus:

Sea serpents! So you thought they were mythical beasts, figments of the imagination of medieval cartographers to fill in the corners of their maps! Think again. Sea serpents have been reliably reported all over the world right up to the present day. And some of the most remarkable have been those which have visited Australian shores.

A government diver was brought quickly to the surface when he encountered a fierce eel-like monster nine metres long.

Multiple witnesses on shore at Newcastle watched a battle between a sea serpent and a whale.

Swimmers at Cronulla were amazed when the long neck of a sea serpent rose out of the water just outside the sea wall.

In one year alone, eleven sea serpents appeared off the east coast

Now Malcolm Smith, a qualified zoologist, and author of "Bunyips and Bigfoots", has thoroughly searched the archives, and provided a definitive study of this mystery. More than half the cases are new, having never been discovered by earlier researchers. After a careful analysis, removing those reasonably suspected of being hoaxes, as well as those representing known species, several score of unexplained sightings remain. At the end of this book, all but the most sceptical of reader will be convinced that our coasts are being visited by large marine species still unknown to science.

The book can be purchased here and is also available in Kindle format.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com