Review of eDNA Documentary

On the heels of the recent eDNA results announced at Loch Ness came a documentary on Sunday covering the whole undertaking as well as the mandatory history of Nessie and her detractors and proponents. The name of the program was "The Loch Ness Monster: New Evidence".

Like a movie, the cast of Neil Gemmell, Eric Verspoor, Charles Paxton, Gordon Holmes, Val Moffatt, Loren Coleman and Steve Feltham (below) is introduced. Others will follow but the groupings are there to see with scientists, sceptics and believers with eyewitnesses in the middle somewhere. Will any of them offer a reasonable explanation as to what these people saw?

Neil Gemmell will feature throughout the documentary measuring rope lengths, surveying the scene and collecting water samples. The results will come at the end of the hour and a half program where we judge if it merits the subtitle "new evidence".

Four hypotheses are considered, two hundred and fifty water samples were taken and eighty five years of Nessie history is covered as a tale familiar to many who read this blog is once again recounted. Not surprisingly, the story begins with Marmaduke Wetherell, his fake Hippo tracks and the controversial Surgeon's Photograph. It seems every Nessie program must feature that photograph and being the most iconic image of the mystery, this is no surprise.

Everyone denounces it as a hoax except Loren Coleman (below) who puts a defence for the "hoax is a hoax" theory. Some. but not all, of that theory's points are raised, including the matter of when plastic wood was around. I covered that topic some seven years ago. The only curious matter for me was why Alistair Boyd was not on doing this as he was the man most responsible for exposing this fraud?

Having introduced the monster in an albeit negative way, the subject of cryptozoology was explained by Loren and we saw Steve Feltham as such a researcher at the loch recounting his only sighting to date. That happened in his first year, which encouraged him into thinking it was only a matter of time before the next sighting. Twenty eight years on, Steve has seen nothing more to this day as the loch refuses to yield up any more to him. Monster hunters throughout the years will know that feeling well.

Being slightly out of step, the documentary realigns to the beginning of the modern story with the Aldie Mackay sighting reported on May 2nd 1933. Adrian Shine (above) took us through this seminal event and makes an error by first stating that Aldie saw some ducks fighting. This is not true, she told Rupert Gould she initially thought it was two ducks fighting only to dismiss it. However, Adrian did state they saw a "humped body" or to be more precise a two humped body (from Gould). It was not televised what Adrian though they saw and to be fair to the producer, a lot of potential sceptic negativity seems to have ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. Indeed, this mystery should appeal to a broad audience, not just those dedicated to its destruction.

We were told the construction of a new road in the 1930s opened the loch up to new sightseers. It did indeed, though it has to be pointed out it was not a new road but an existing road which was upgraded. However, it was near the old southern road that the first photograph was taken and finally -  finally - a documentary showed the best version of the Hugh Gray attributed to a Mr. Heron-Allen. Mind you, did anyone consulted see fit to mention the eel like head in the picture? Either that or the producer saw fit not to mention it. But given how the rest of the program panned out, I doubt that.  But for all you fans, here it is once again, grinning back at you. Is it the face of a giant eel? I couldn't possibly comment.

It was time to speak to some people who had claimed to have seen the old beast, and, after all, it is the likes of them that are the lifeblood of the mystery. We were regaled by tales from Val Moffatt, Karen and Gordon Taylor, and Richard White. We would also hear later from a Mamie McDairmaid. Val had featured on some documentaries before (e.g. Jeremy Wade's "River Monsters") and Richard White took some well known photos back in 1997 (below).

I don't think most of the witnesses were given much time to say anything at all, so here is Richard's account from the Nova PBS documentary from years back:

Right, I'm driving along the Loch side, glancing out of the window. You can see the rock formation, I was just down on the road there, it just rises. I saw this boiling in the water. I thought, "No, it can't be anything," and I carried on a wee bit. Then I looked again, and I saw three black humps. I mean, you know, there's the chance, I've seen something in the water. But what is it?

So I'm gobsmacked, I'm looking out the window, I just didn't know what it was. Then the people came behind me, and they obviously wanted me to move. But I didn't want to lose sight of this thing. So I just pulled over to the side, grabbed my camera, and I thought I was being very cool and very nonchalant and took two or three photos. In fact, as I say, I had taken nine or ten, without realizing, I just punched the button. It was just a pity it was a small camera.

NOVA: Did anybody else see anything?

WHITE: Yeah, the other two people who were there—I was just so excited I didn't get their name and address or anything—they saw it exactly the same as me. Because the wee wifey, who would have been a lady in her fifties, on holiday, she was Scottish, she said to me, "I've not been in the bar this morning!" And her husband said, "Ach, it's an eel! It's an eel!" And I said, "There's no eels that big!" And he said, "Ach, it's otters!" And I said, "You don't get otters swimming out like that!"

I saw what I saw, and I'm not going to be dissuaded. It wasn't just an imagination. I'm a sane guy, and I've got no ax to grind. As I say I sell pet food! What use to me is the Loch Ness monster? Unless I can invent a food called, I don't know, Monster Munchies perhaps?

Back to the documentary under review and we moved nearly 30 years into the 1960s beginning with Tim Dinsdale's famous film. Little was said about the classic photos apart from the Surgeon's photo. We had flashes of the Lee, Stuart, MacNab and Gray pictures with no mention of the Cockrell or O'Connor pictures. On the other hand they were not really dismissed either, mainly fulfilling the role of eye candy for the viewers.

Naturally during this period the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau was discussed along with Dan Taylor's mini submarine (which Loren said collided with Nessie - cough!) and the arrival of a young fame seeking Adrian Shine. His statement that this "should have been the end of it" after the failed attempts of the LNIB, Robert Rines and others ushered us into the 1980s and the Loch Ness Project's experiments with sonar culminating in Operation Deepscan in 1987.

The three sonar contacts that were not there when revisited were mentioned which led into a discussion on seals which come into the loch every few years. Since it is unlikely a seal was in the loch plus the fact that they spend about 20% of their time at the surface allied with the fact that a whole fleet of cruisers were on the loch for the operation suggests this is not a persuasive theory.

At which point the documentary took a left turn down a dark alley and by that I mean paranormal theories about the monster. This led us into talk about wormholes, a hollow earth entry point, a spaceship lying at the bottom of the loch, Saint Columba's supernatural control of the beast and the demon raiser, Aleister Crowley. Another attempt was made to link him with the mystery, though he left the loch about 100 years ago. I take the view he had nothing to do with it because we have people claiming they saw strange creatures in the loch before Crowley was born.

It was then onto the home straight and back to modern times as we revisited Gordon Holmes' 2007 video of a strange object in the loch. Neil Gemmell reviewed the video with Gordon and admitted to a "torpedo shaped" object moving through the water. It seems he wasn't accepting the strange theories about wind devils some have come up with to get rid of this troublesome video. Giant eels were mentioned in regard to this video and I knew where this was leading to!

Before the program got into the final results, Charles Paxton (above) was brought in to talk about his statistical analysis of monster sightings. This is a project he started quite a while back and hopes to publish. What he said on the documentary was brief and not given to critique and we shall wait for that to come out before saying anything else (I have seen his draft paper and have my own draft reply).

Finally it was on to the eDNA result and they occupied about seven minutes of the entire documentary! If you didn't know already, there was no reptile, sturgeon or catfish DNA detected. There was, of course, eel DNA found and so the best one could conclude was that giant eels could not be excluded (or proven). This would appear to be the "new evidence".

In conclusion, Neil Gemmell admitted the experiments could not guarantee 100% coverage of the loch and guesswork always enters into the areas which have not been examined. Adrian Shine added that eyewitnesses were honest and accurate - but I think he and I have different ideas about the meaning of the word "accurate", but I will cover that in another article.

The program ended by pointing out that there had been more than two dozen sightings of the monster since Professor Gemmell had been to the loch and there was the matter of  about 25% of the sampled DNA being unidentifiable.  It seems between these two sets of data, the monster will continue to have quite a bit of wriggle room, I will cover than in another article summing up things for me.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com








 

A Couple of Clippings from 1933

Cryptid researcher, Paul Cropper, sent me a couple of PDFs from the Dundee Courier from the early days of the Loch Ness Monster in 1933.

The first is dated 23rd May 1933 and this one of the earliest clippings on the subject. As a comparison, the Aldie Mackay story which kick started the Loch Ness Monster story appeared three weeks earlier on the 2nd May in the Inverness Courier.

The text reads:

LOCH NESS MYSTERY "MONSTER" - Once again a sea monster is reported to have been seen on Loch Ness, near lnverfarigaig, where the water reaches a depth of 700 feet. Mr Shaw, of Whitefield, Inverfarigaig, who previously disbelieved that there was a monster, saw it a few days ago, and, calling his son and a friend. they watched it for about ten minutes through a telescope. Photo shows Mr Shaw and his friends, who are keeping a regular look-out in the hope of seeing it again.

The Mister Shaw in question was Alexander Shaw, who was interviewed by Rupert T. Gould for his 1934 book, "The Loch Ness Monster and Others". The relevant testimony is on page 40 and is reproduced below (click on the images to enlarge).

I note that Mr. Shaw is stated to have lived in a house about 150 feet above the loch at Whitefield. I wonder if this is the same house that would later be occupied by Lachlan Stuart, who took his famous monster picture in 1951?

The second clipping is dated 27th December 1933 and concerns the discovery of a pile of bones which has been covered here before. The picture belows add some more facts, though the conclusion is still the same that these bones did not belong to a Loch Ness Monster.

LOCH NESS DISCOVERY - A quantity of bones and teeth of an animal long dead have been found near Urquhart Castle, on Loch Ness-side, by Mr A. O. M'Laren. After consultation with Mr H. E. Peters, curator of Inverness Museum, who expressed the view that the bones do not resemble those of any domestic animal, the bones have been sent to South Kensington Museum for identification. Mr E. Fraser. the custodian of Urquhart Castle, is seen examining the heap of bones.

These bones would have been sent to South Kensington Museum around the same time as the infamous casts of tracks found by Marmaduke Wetherell. Unlike the tracks, nothing more is heard of these bones.

The Monster Hunters

This is a general post linking to other postings on people involved in the great hunt for the Loch Ness Monster. As time progresses more people and articles will be linked here.

What is a Loch Ness Monster Hunter? In the eyes of the general public, he or she is an eccentric but mainly harmless person who is searching for an unlikely beast called Nessie and (hopefully) some definitive proof for it that forever silences their detractors.

But in truth they follow in the lineage of Saint George pursuing his dragon or the wealthy Victorian stag hunters who went after the local guide's oft-mentioned and feared water horse.

Some spends weeks if not months at the loch trying to fulfill that mission statement - See Nessie and Prove Nessie. A few even set up permanently by the lochside as they took a diversion from the Rat Race to scan the loch full time amongst the lapping waves, tweeting birds and howling gales. The majority, constrained by family and job commitments, make it to the loch whenever they can over a lifetime to indulge in this most unusual of hobbies.

Others exiled in far flung continents join the new band of e-Hunters as they carefully watch the various webcams trained on Loch Ness for that stirring of the waters or that slightly inexplicable black blob that makes a fleeting appearance on their screen.

Finally, when not at the loch, they continue their pursuit of the monster as it is found on the Internet, newspapers, books and any other resource that is reasonably to hand. Such are the Monster Hunters from days of old to the present day.

Another group which merits mentions are what may be called the Loch Ness Hunters. I drop the word "Monster" because their main motive is not per se the pursuit of a large, unidentified and exotic creature in the loch, but rather adding to the store of knowledge about the loch and its surrounding area. Clearly, gaining a better picture of the creature's ecosystem could be called an indirect pursuit of the Loch Ness Monster as the ecology of the loch tends to put constraints on the beast's identity (unless you believe it has resources beyond the local ecosystem such as in tunnels out of Loch Ness or it is a paranormal phenomenon).

Some combine these hunts with Summer holidays as they drag along willing or unwilling wives and children to the loch with them. Others plow a lonely furrow and disappear down a stream or hedge only to appear again at sunset to fill their stomachs and pint glasses as they contemplate the day's general lack of success.

Although such people tend to work alone, they will occasionally band together in an attempt to maximise resources. We saw that particularly in the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau of the 1960s and the Rines expeditions of the 1970s as people known and unknown lent of their talents to further these escapades.

In that light, should the Monster Hunter be deemed a "professional" or an "amateur"? In my opinion, there is no such thing as a professional monster hunter. They are very rarely paid for their efforts and there is certainly no accreditation at any institution of learning that will confer any kind of qualification. People may bring their own levels of expertise into the hunt such as photography, sonar, biology and local knowledge but as a whole a Monster Hunter is a Monster Hunter whatever else may lie beneath their exterior.

It's a labour of love and to a degree an obsession. Those that see the creature are hooked for life. Some who do not see it quickly enough for their own liking fall away never to be heard from again. For the rest of us, it is a matter of "keeping the faith" in a world that demands the creature be dumped dead at their feet before they consider its existence.

Click through the links below and consider the human side of the Loch Ness Monster phenomenon.

General - the legacy of past monster hunters

General - various monster hunters interviewed plus pics

Some Photographs - here

Tim Dinsdale - here,  here and here

Ted Holiday - here, here and here.

Alex Campbell - here, here and here.

Roy Mackal - here

Rupert T. Gould - here

Steve Feltham - here, here, here and here

Dr. Denys Tucker - here

Frank Searle - here and here and here and here.

William H. Lane - here

Marmaduke Wetherell - here

Joe Zarzynski - here

David James - here, here, here and here

Richard Carter - here and here

Adrian Shine and others - here

Maurice Burton - here

James Aloysius Carruth - here

Captain Donald Munro - here

Blog author's own trips and stories - here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

Some Nessie Paintings

Some paintings related to the Loch Ness Monster came to my attention recently, so I thought I would post them here.

First up was an item I noticed on eBay by artist Andy Walker entitled "The Last of the Leviathans". This was Andy's description of his reptilian rendition of the Loch Ness Monster:

 

I painted this image to mark the 80th anniversary this year of the beginning of the modern era of sightings of the infamous occupant(s) of Loch Ness. Hugh Gray's photograph of the creature he saw swimming in the loch in November 1933 set the world's media alight with talk of the LOCH NESS MONSTER. My own interest in the creature(s) began in early childhood thanks to stories told to me by my great aunt and uncle who swore they saw a large animal swimming in the loch whilst they were on a touring holiday of Scotland. My main aim was to portray the most commonly observed characteristics of the creature reported by the many eye witnesses over the years!

I asked him for any further details he had on his great aunt's sighting, but he had nothing more to add. You can find more of Andy's artwork here.

Our next artist is regular reader, Bradford Johnson. He continues to work on his portfolio of Marmaduke Wetherell and has added some ideas from that classic Nessie film, "The Secret of the Loch". You can find more of Bradford's work here. 

Finally, one of the more unusual Loch Ness Monster paintings from the Italian magazine Domenica del Corriere of the 19th December 1954. This magazine has produced various cryptozoological pictures over the years. Anyone care to classify this creature? It looks like a crustacean to me!

Nessie FAQ

Realising that people of varying familiarity with the Loch Ness Monster visit this blog, I thought it appropriate to put up a page of frequently asked questions concerning Nessie. For some, most of these facts and figures may be well known but to others such as kids who may wish to write a school essay on Nessie or anyone else who wants the straight facts for any article, this Loch Ness Monster FAQ can help them.

 Now when I say "facts" or "evidence" there is clearly going to be disagreement on what constitutes evidence for the Loch Ness Monster. Indeed, most will regard any evidence as falling short whilst others such as myself will be found closer to the other end of the spectrum. The point of this page is not to sit in judgement but rather state what has historically been regarded as evidence.

Also facts can lack unanimity. This is perhaps best shown in the total number of claimed Nessie sightings. Some claim as many as 10,000 whilst others drop to the hundreds depending on their "filtering" processes. I have no doubt in my mind that the number of sightings are in the thousands but most never make it into the public domain.

The sources for the data come from a variety of places and the data may change as new information comes to light. This is a work in progress!

Q. How did the Loch Ness Monster story begin?

A. There had been stories of strange things in Loch Ness going back centuries, but the "Loch Ness Monster" as we know it began in 1933 as a series of reports of monsters received increasing attention from local, national and international media organisations.The first report came on May 2nd by a Mrs. Mackay and was followed in August by a sensational sighting of the creature on land by a Mr. and Mrs. Spicer. The first photograph by Hugh Gray followed in November and monster fever reached its highest pitch in April 1934 when the famous Surgeon's Photograph was published.

By the end of 1934, there had been over three hundred claims of monster sightings and the Loch Ness Monster was now firmly established as an international mystery. The press loved a monster story, especially during those years of economic depression, and so a large dinosaur-like creature turning up at a remote highland loch was a godsend for them. The debate around that time revolved around not only the reports but what the creature could be and what steps should be taken to solve this mystery.

Theories from the fantastical to the more mundane abounded while plans to trap the creature ranged from large, baited hooks to huge steel cages. Plans were afoot to set up long term observation platforms with cine cameras and send divers down to explore the murky and intimidating depths. The creature even merited mention in the British parliament as questions were asked as to the protection the law afforded to a creature as yet unidentified.

Expeditions of varying seriousness and complexity were organised as people proactively sought to obtain conclusive evidence, not only of the creature's existence, but also it's identity. However, given the loch's wide range and the creature's apparent shyness, nothing that would convince the likes of the Natural History Museum was ever forthcoming. It seemed there was no need to consult protection laws while Nessie successfully eluded all insipid attempts at capture and by 1935 the story began to slow down and almost disappear as the country moved onto a war footing.


Q. Was there any monster legends before the Loch Ness Monster became news?

A. Like a lot of other lochs in Scotland, Loch Ness was feared as the abode of a Water Horse. This creature would capture people by pretending to be an ordinary horse ready for use by the wayside. On mounting the beast, the victim would be stuck to the monster which would then race into Loch Ness to feast upon its drowned victim. There are a lot of reference to this unworldly beast in old Victorian books and it is also sometimes referred to as a Kelpie or the more benign Water Bull. Loch Ness is the most often mentioned home of a Water Horse in old Highland literature, exceeding other lochs such as lochs Lomond, Morar, Tay and Awe.


Q. What about Saint Columba and the Monster?

A. Adamnan's "Life of Saint Columba" mentions the saint invoking the name of God to drive away a "water beast" that had killed one man and threatened to take another in the River Ness. The account was written in the 8th century but the event probably took place in the middle of the 6th century. The incident perhaps took place at the Bona Narrows just north of Loch Ness though other tales of Columba tell of further encounters with the beast in Loch Ness itself.

Some say the tale is fabricated or speaks of a bear or walrus. The story itself does not identify the animal though it is reasonable that the story presents it as an aquatic-based animal and not something demonic like the Water Horse.


Q. How many times has the Monster been seen?

A. In terms of reports starting in 1933 that appears in books, magazines and newspapers, the total runs to about one thousand seven hundred (1,700). Doubtless, there are others which have gone unreported. This would average out at about twenty sightings a year, but the actual numbers per year can vary enormously from over a hundred to none. Indeed, it seems that the number of reported sightings has been on a continuous slide since the 1970s with various explanations being offered as to why. Is Nessie dead or do less witnesses come forward now?

Undoubtedly, a proportion of these reports fall into the hoax or misidentification category. It is generally agreed that witnesses are sincere in what they claim to see and so hoaxes form only a small part of the overall number. As to how many of the remaining reports are monster or misidentification depends on who you ask!

There are also reports of the monster before 1933, most of which were revealed by witnesses coming forward after 1933. These come to about seventy in all since the St. Columba story.


Q. What is usually described?

A. The majority of reports describe a large humped like object in the loch. Sometimes the object has two or three or more humps which can change shape. Perhaps a fifth will describe a long neck seen with the humps or on its own. More rarely a long tail and flippers or webbed feet are described. The object can be described as moving in the water and producing a noticeable wake. Sometimes it simply sinks vertically back into the loch.

The skin is usually described as dark in colour and can be smooth or rough in appearance. Horns are mentioned in very rare circumstances as are small eyes and mouth. Finer details of the creature are not usually expected since it is normally seen hundreds of metres away (unless the witness has binoculars or telescope).


Q. Has the creature been seen out of the water?

A. Yes it has, but on even rarer occasions than water reports; about 29 times in the last 81 years. There are about 55 water based sightings for every land based sighting. The last claimed report was in 2009 and most were in the 1930s. What witnesses describe is in keeping with water based reports, though there are some exceptions which are weird to say the least.


Q. What is the evidence for the Loch Ness Monster?

A. There is a large volume of eyewitness testimony as well as a range of films, photographs and sonar readings. However, the quality of the evidence is disputed. It is said that the testimonies are unreliable and untrustworthy while the photographs and films are deemed inconclusive or hoaxes. Sonar readings are disputed as being illusions created by sound reflections and refractions as well as lacking resolution.

To some extent the evidence is in the eye of the beholder as personal bias and prejudice enters the assessment on both sides. Because a number of sightings, photos, films and sonar have been found to be erroneous, there is always a small chance that someone has lied or misperceived. However, this should not be used as a reason for wholesale rejection of all evidence. One bad report does not invalidate 100 others. Each has to be assessed on it own merits and that is where the debate begins and continues to this day.

Ultimately, zoological experts will require a piece of the creature, dead or alive. It may be that even close up shots of the creature in this digital age will be disputed, so in the tradition of the Wild West, it is a case of "Wanted, Nessie: Dead or Alive".


Q. Where can I get the latest sightings of the Loch Ness Monster?

A. There are various outlets. Online newspapers will carry stories as will this blog from time to time. Gary Campbell's sightings website is also recommended (link). For the latest news on any aspects of Nessie, you could always set up a Google News alert to your mail inbox when news items appear on the Web.

Q. Why has no carcass of the monster been found?

A. The nature of the loch does not allow for carcasses to rise and drift ashore. Anything that dies will sink to the bottom aided by the loch's sheer high sides. Once the body is hundreds of feet below, the cold waters of the loch arrest the decomposition process, allowing scavangers to strip the carcass. This also defeats the buildup of gases in body chambers and the remains will not achieve buoyancy and float to the surface. The high water pressure at the bottom of the loch will also compress any decomposition gases, which again defeats buoyancy. If the monster has a skeleton, it will eventually be buried in silt or even dissolve in the water's slightly acidic environment if they are cartiliginous.


Q. Is there enough food in Loch Ness to feed the monster?

A. That again depends who you ask and how you frame the question. If by that you mean a herd of 50 plesiosaurs then the answer is "No". But if you specify a different kind of monster and lower the presumed population, the answer moves towards "Yes". Various attempts have been made to estimate the biomass of Loch Ness (excluding monsters) by sonar counting fish or extrapolating mathematically from samples of various animals from various points in the food chain. The only exact thing known is that no one knows exactly how much biomass is in Loch Ness. 

 

The best estimate for fish in the top layer of the water column is up to 24 tonnes but this does not account for fish along the sides, near the surface and closer to the bottom. This would include migratory salmon, trout and bottom feeding eels. These will increase the total number multiple times (my own estimate is over 160 tonnes). 

 

The other factor is Nessie dietary requirements. One estimate suggests the Loch Ness biomass can sustain a monster population one-tenth in mass which could range from 2.4 to 16 tonnes. But there are other ratios depending on the type of creature which allows a small population of monsters. The answer is not as clear cut as some make out.

 

But some Nessie believers do accept there is not enough food and these people tend to believe in a monster that is of paranormal origin or is a regular visitor to the loch which feeds in the oceans. More information can be had at this link.

 

 

Q. Will the Loch Ness Monster mystery ever be solved?

A. This again depends on who you ask. Some feel that the mystery was solved in the 1980s when people such as Adrian Shine synthesised a theory based on various misidentifications of known and not so well known natural phenomena plus the additions of hoax explanations and the occasional visit to the loch by Atlantic Sturgeon. Others think this theory is too simplistic and makes unwarranted assumptions about the observational abilities of the eyewitnesses. The manner in which photographic evidence is handled is also seen as too dismissive by those on the monster side of the debate. The accusation that something should have been found by now is also levelled, though without a convincing explanation as to why this should be the case. 

EVIDENCE

Note it is not being claimed here that all these are proof of the monster. Some are not but some will be. Also, there are a number of lesser known photos which I don't about which briefly "surfaced" in the 1980s and 1990s in one particular newspaper only to disappear from view.

Total number of known sightings: about 1800

Total number of land sightings: 35

Total number of sightings before Nessie "Era": about 70

Total number of photographs: about 30

Total number of films: about 30

Total number of sonar contacts: over 20

KEY DATES

Earliest account of Monster: 565AD by Adamnan (link)
First newspaper report of a "huge fish" in Loch Ness: Inverness Courier 8th October 1868

First "modern" sighting: 14th April 1933 by Aldie Mackay (reported 2nd May) (link)
Land sighting by Spicers on 22nd July 1933 which made international news
First photograph by Hugh Gray: 12 November 1933 at Foyers
Marmaduke Wetherell investigation for Daily Mail: November 1933 to January 1934
First organised expedition by Sir Edward Mountain: July-August 1934
The Surgeon's Photograph published April 21st 1934 by the Daily Mail
Rupert Gould publishes "The Loch Ness Monster and Others" in June 1934
Loch Ness Monster news goes into hibernation during war years
Lachlan Stuart photograph of three humps taken in July 14th 1951
Peter MacNab takes a picture of the monster swimming by Castle Urquhart on July 1955.
Constance Whyte publishes "More Than A Legend" in 1957.
Tim Dinsdale takes his famous monster film in April 1960.
The Loch Ness Phenomenon Investigation Bureau is founded in 1962 spending 10 years on the hunt
The Academy of Applied Sciences expeditions take their famous flipper photo on 8th August 1972.
They repeat the feat with the gargoyle and body pictures in 1975.
Operation Deepscan sweeps the loch with a line of boats in October 1987 with three unidentified sonar hits.
Nicholas Witchell fronts Project Urquhart in 1993.
April 1994: Surgeon's Photo exposed as hoax by Alistair Boyd and David Martin.

STATISTICS

Best year for sightings: Five on the 24th July 1934 (link)

Best month for sightings: August (about 20%)

Worst month for sightings: January (about 3%)

Best day of month for sightings: 27th (5% average is 3%)

Worst day of month for sightings: 31st (1.5% but only 7 months have that day)

Best time of day for sightings: 3pm-4pm (10%)

Worst time of day for sightings: 3am-4am (0.5%)

THE MONSTER

There are a multiplicity of candidates which attempt to identify what the Loch Ness Monster is. Though some may be drawn from known animals, be they existing or extinct, some kind of modification was required to fit the Nessie identikit. Here is a selection of them. Note that questions about the lifecycle of the monster very much depend on which (if any) of these creatures best describes the monster.

Plesiosaur or Elasmosaurus

Tullimonstrum Gregarium

Giant eel

Long Necked Seal

Paranormal Entity

 Basiliosaurus






 Embolomeri Amphibian

Atlantic Sturgeon

Misidentification of common phenomena

Monster Statistics

Average Length: 20-25 feet

Maximum Length: up to 60 feet

Minimum Length: A few feet!
Humps: Generally up to three, 3 to 10 feet in length and up to several feet high.

Neck: Typically 5 to 6 feet which tapers to about one foot where it joins body. Can be described as pillar or pole like.
Head: Sometimes described as small or even a continuation of the neck.

MONSTER HUNTERS AND SCEPTICS

The Loch Ness Monster has had its supporters and detractors throughout the decades. From the earliest days in 1933, when investigator Rupert Gould turned up at the loch to interview eyewitnesses through to today when a plethora of all types can be found with a simple Google search, finding an opinion on the monster is not difficult to find. Here we categorise some past and present names according to for, against or just simply in it for the publicity. The decades they were/are active in these roles is an estimate in some cases.

The Monster Men

Rupert Gould (1930s - 40s) Wrote first book on Nessie in 1934, "The Loch Ness Monster and Others"

Alex Campbell (1930s - 70s) Water Bailiff at Loch Ness who claimed 17 sightings.

Constance Whyte (1930s - 70s) Wrote influential book "More Than a Legend" in 1957.

Tim Dinsdale (1960s - 80s) Took most famous footage of beast in 1960 and wrote five books.

David James (1960s - 70s) Lead founder of Loch Ness Investigation Bureau

F. W. Holiday (1960s - 70s) Author of three books on or relating to Nessie.

Robert Rines (1970s - 2000s) Led the famous underwater searches in the 1970s.

Nicholas Witchell (1960s - 90s) Wrote the book "The Loch Ness Story".
Steve Feltham (1990s - today) Longest serving monster hunter living by the loch since 1992.

The Sceptics

Tony Harmsworth (80s - today) Former curator of the Official Loch Ness Exhibition

Adrian Shine (80s - today) Leader of Loch Ness Project and curator of Loch Ness Centre
Dick Raynor (80s - today) Loch Ness Researcher and author of various articles.
Maurice Burton (1960s - 90s) Author of "The Elusive Monster" and first major sceptic.
Steuart Campbell (1980s-today) Author of  "The Loch Ness Monster - The Evidence" and various articles
Ronald Binns (1980s) - Author of "The Loch Ness Mystery - Solved"

The Dubious Men

Marmaduke Wetherell (1930s) Lead conspirator in the Surgeon's Photo fake.
Frank Searle (1960s - 80s) Faker of many a Nessie photograph.
Anthony "Doc" Shiels (1970s-80s) Faker of various Nessie and Sea Serpent photos.
George Edwards (1980s-today) Loch Ness cruise boat operator ans self confessed hoaxer.

Noted Eyewitnesses

Aldie Mackay (1933)

George Spicer (1933)

Hugh Gray (1933)

Kenneth Wilson (1934)

Alex Campbell (various years)

Tim Dinsdale (1960)

Greta Finlay (1952)

Marjory Moir (1936)
James McLean (1937)

Noted Photos

Hugh Gray (1933)

Kenneth Wilson (1934)

F. C. Adams (1934)

Lachlan Stuart (1951)

Peter MacNab (1955)

Peter O' Connor (1960)

Jennfier Bruce (1982)

Anthony Shiels (1977)
James Gray (2001)
Roy Johnston (2002)

Noted Films

Malcolm Irvine (1933 and 1936)

G. E. Taylor (1938)

Tim Dinsdale (1960)

Peter Smith: (1977)

Gordon Holmes (2007)

Dick Raynor (1967)

Total number of books on monster: Sixty Three (and counting!)

Loch Ness Facts

Maximum Depth: 227 metres

Average Depth: 132 metres

Temperature:

Max Length: 36.2 kilometres

Max Width: 2.7 kilometres
Height above sea level: 17 metres
Volume: 7.5 cubic kilometres

Rivers: Oich, Moriston, Tarff, Foyers, Coilte, Enrick, Ness (outflow)

Towns (population estimates in parentheses): Fort Augustus (646), Invermoriston (264), Drumnadrochit (1020), Abriachan (120), Dores (109), Foyers (276), Inverfarigaig (74)

Total Loch Ness human population Estimate: over 2,500.

Total Loch Ness monsters population Estimate: ???

Any ideas or comments, send me an email to lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Some Thoughts on The Surgeon's Photograph

Another cryptozoological blogger, Dale Drinnon, has put up a post recently on the Surgeon's Photograph which can be found here. As readers may know, this photograph was exposed as a hoax by Alastair Boyd and David Martin in their expose book some twenty years ago as a model neck attached to a toy submarine.

Though most accept this (including myself), others continue to raise questions about the book's theory. Loch Ness researchers such as Henry Bauer and Richard Carter have questioned the theory and Dale is the latest to offer his thoughts and claims that the model would be unstable if fashioned in such a way.

Now I admit that I have my own questions against the theory, but accept that the pros for the case significantly outweigh the cons. But let us look first at Dale's claim that the model would simply tilt over. The picture below (not from the Boyd and Martin book) is a suggestion as to how the model may have looked.

The first thing to note is that the neck is made from a substance called "plastic wood". It was initially suggested that such a substance did not exist in 1934 but this advert from page 103 of the March 1928  "Popular Science" shows it was around and popular as a DIY substance. Looking at the page, it reminds me of the modern "Polyfilla" as an aid for filling in cracks and holes but I am sure it had properties which also made it useful as a modelling substance. In fact, the advert below states that it was useful on model boats "for moulding figure-heads".

Dale describes the head-neck construct as "solid wood" but this is where things get confused. If it was a solid mass then I too would wonder whether the model could remain stable. My own take is that the model was more likely to be hollow in some fashion. In other words, a head-neck was moulded from a handful of this substance which we are told in the above advert "handles like putty" before it "hardens into wood".

But if the model is hollowed too much then (assuming it is a watertight attachment) buoyancy becomes an issue and the submarine would not be able to drag the head-neck underwater. It seems that some trial and error would be involved in finding the right density and the lead ballast strip mentioned in the picture would have been part of the solution.

Was this actually achievable? The problem is no one to my knowledge has tried to reproduce the original construct of plastic wood neck and toy submarine. In fact, modern reconstructions use modern technology in the form of very lightweight Styrofoam to float the object but clearly would not be able to mimic the submerging toy submarine.

However, I don't think such a modern model was intended to mimic such a scenario but rather used to reproduce the original "as you see it" photograph. Could a more 1930s reconstruction act as Christian Spurling said? Nobody knows for sure as I am not aware of any such experiment. I doubt plastic wood is available today but a substitute of similar properties should not be difficult to source. Finding a metallic submarine that submerges underwater may be more difficult. Until then, the door of doubt is left slightly open.

Others have raised questions such as why Wetherell did not expose the Daily Mail after publication and extract his revenge. 

The other open question is the mysterious second photograph. The head in that picture is clearly different to the famous first pose. I speculated whether the hoaxer may have remoulded the head into a "diving position" but since our advert says it hardens into wood on setting, that does not seem possible without snapping off the head. It is pointed out that the wave patterns on the surface are very different to the one in the first picture. This is conceded, but it is also conceivable that a sudden gust of wind can rewrite the surface of the water. The argument peters out to the conclusion that it was just another hoax picture.

Who knows, but to this day I have seen no satisfactory explanation of how this second picture came to be and the expose book offers no clues. The arguments are more to disassociate from the first photograph and then ignore it. It seems we have a mystery within a mystery.

Now I am not suggesting the first picture is a fake but somehow the second is genuine. That would be silly. But there is a "crack" in our knowledge here that need some "plastic wood" to fill it in. It is a given that Alastair Boyd would have asked Spurling about the second photograph. The absence of quotes from Spurling on this subject suggests he knew nothing about it (In Spurling's defence, this suggests he is being truthful about the first picture. After all, if you are going to lie about the first photo, you will keep on lying about the second one.).

So what is the story behind this second photograph? Comments are welcome!

Tricks of the Sceptics

This blog has been running now for eight years and published over 600 items in that time. During that period I would like to think I have gotten a good handle on the debating tactics of that class of Nessie naysayers commonly known as "sceptics". Quite likely you will hear them before you see them as they loudly go forth proclaiming the inerrancy of their ways and the perfections of their thoughts.

Like a crowd of wannabe Spocks they practise the raising of the right eyebrow and the parting of the fingers, but they have no desire that your monster theories will live long and prosper. I long ago grew used to this logical posturing and the shallowness of much of their argumentation. Today I would like to present to you some of the tactics they use in the pursuit of doing whatever it takes to rid themselves and the world of these meddlesome monsters.

  

1. Eyewitness accounts useless ... unless they support pet theories

You've heard it many a time from sceptics, eyewitnesses are poor "recording devices". Not only do the fail to perceive what they are seeing at the time, but are pathetic at recalling the details later on. Well, that is unless what they describe supports your agenda, in which case the clouds of poor memory suddenly depart. The perception of the eyewitnesses becomes lucid and their descriptions are now as sharp as a tack.

This duplicity came to my attention when the matter of the sturgeon came to the fore. Instead of the usual rejection of certain eyewitness reports, a number of reports were deemed accurate to support the sturgeon theory; namely K.MacDonald(1932), J.McLeod(c.1900s), and M.MacDonald(1993). Go to this link and search for "sturgeon". Adrian Shine admitted that "anyone, of course, can assemble sighting reports to support a pet theory", so why bother with this? All that being said, I take this as a positive as the sceptics are admitting witnesses can accurately describe what they are seeing. 

2. Devise unfalsifiable theories

The obvious one being "If it is not a misidentification, then it is a hoax" allied with "If it is not a hoax, then it is a misidentification". A piece of circular reasoning specifically devised to exclude genuine monster reports.

3. Cherry picking accepted theories

In other words, promote only those theories which advance your agenda. This even includes parts of theories such as the false memory theory but ignoring the inconvenient theory that dramatic events stay longer in the memory.

4. Devise explanations to explain reports without testing

 A common tactic wherein sceptics put forward seemingly plausible explanations as to how a witness was wrong, but they never actually test if it is a viable explanation in the field. Of course, not every theory can be tested, but the sceptics are quite happy with that arrangement.

5. A lazy over reliance on the "least fantastical" approach to theorising

This is the "improbable" versus "impossible" theories and is a straw man argument. You construct an albeit unlikely scenario but use common everyday objects to soften the implausibility. This is then propped up against a monster theory and the audience is deceptively asked "which one looks more likely to you?". An example would be, "What is more likely to you? A line of otters in a heat haze or a plesiosaur crossing the road?". The correct answer from a neutral or sceptical audience should be "The first, but both look unlikely, so we are no further forward."

6. Objectification of subjective data

Sceptics often berate believers for going over monster pictures with a fine toothcomb for minor details that are at best inconclusive and at worst wishful thinking. However, sceptics are guilty of this when we are assuredly told that there are wires present in the Surgeon's photograph, a canoe's rudder point in the O'Connor photograph and a forward wake in the MacNab photograph. Like the believers they put down, they are merely seeing what their confirmation bias wishes them to see!

7. Inconsistency in accepting eyewitness testimony that suits their agenda

Eyewitnesses to monster sightings are categorised as inadequate (unless it involves sturgeons) but people who come forward to offer juicy information to debunk sightings are star witnesses who cannot possibly be wrong. In this list we include Richard Frere who claimed to have information to debunk the Lachlan Stuart photograph and likewise Alec Menzies on Arthur Grant. One is not inclined to judge whether these people lied or misinterpreted an event, but the sceptics make no attempt to assess the weight of their testimonies. 


8. Ad Hominem tactics 

A somewhat baser form of tactic which gets personal. For instance, I heard one sceptic state that eyewitness testimonies from anyone at Fort Augustus Abbey should be discounted in the light of the recent child abuse scandal there. Not much logic there I am afraid. Also, we are told to discount Arthur Grant's testimony because known faker Marmaduke Wetherell visited the site while he was at Loch Ness. The old "guilt by association" tactic. Finally, the monks get it in the neck again when some of their eyewitness testimonies should be discarded because "they like their whisky". Yeah, sure.

9. Overuse of tentative or false theories

Be it discredited theories such as vegetable mats, earthquakes or uncatchable sturgeon, some theories just seem to go on well past their sell by dates. But f they deflect attention away from inconvenient monsters, what's not to like?

10. Mistakes in use of eyewitness reports

The classic here was Ronald Binns' conflation of the Margaret Munro and Torquil MacLeod land sightings. The intended or unintended synthesis of these two accounts resulted in inconsistencies which Binns then exploited to discredit the MacLeod account. I am not making this up, folks! 


11. The psychological use of hyperbolic language 

Or to use an old phrase, "Argument weak here, shout louder!". Do you want your faltering arguments to carry more weight with your audience? Simple, just attach such words as "damning", "amazing" or "very telling" to arguments which are nothing of the sort. This one comes straight out of the politician's playbook.

12. Deflection

You may have noticed when debating a sceptic that the topic under discussion actually has nothing to do with the original question. This is called deflection and usually involves the sceptic going off as a tangent so long as the direction is away from the original awkward question. Another tactic taken from the politician's playbook.

13. The "holistic" approach

A tactic whereby a clutch of minor arguments are made against a case, which though each one in and of itself would not be important enough,  the sum of the parts is meant to give the impression that it is greater than the whole. This tactic has been used by Maurice Burton on the O'Connor picture and another on the Roy Johnston pictures.


So there you have it. No doubt Mr. Spock would have replied "Fascinating!". The next time a sceptic beams down and starts pontificating to you on the matter of lake cryptids, get out this list and check how many of these tricks they are trying to pull off. Perhaps we should start an annual award for the worst offender. We could call it the Cryptozoological BS Award, where of course BS stands for Bogus Spocks.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

The Pseudo Art of Nessie Science

Now seems a good time to look further at the scientific method as it is applied to the Loch Ness Monster in the light of a recent news item.

Readers may recall the furore last year over a popular cryptozoological series called "Finding Bigfoot". The format of the show was pretty much in keeping with the TV hunt shows such as MonsterQuest and Destination Truth. However, the producers of the show were exposed as being economical with the truth and using shots which were made to look like mysterious events but which in fact were known to have ordinary interpretations by the very hunters involved in the program making. The Bigfoot people themselves complained about this at the time (for example, see link).

That this seemed to be a common format for at best filling in "gaps" and at worst distorting the whole show was even exposed at the respected British Broadcasting Corporation and their acclaimed series "Frozen Planet". It transpired that a shot of a mother bear with her cubs in a den which was shown interspersed with Arctic scenes was actually filmed in a Dutch zoo with snow added for good effect. The truth of this matter was only revealed in an obscure section of the BBC website, anyone watching the show would have been fooled into thinking it happened in the wild frozen north (story here).

The question therefore to ask of modern documentaries is not if this warping and dumbing-down happens but how much it happens. In that light, I wish to address the 2005 "Loch Ness Investigated" documentary made for the National Geographic and which I think also came under the "Naked Science" series (correct me if I am wrong). The documentary itself was viewable on YouTube at this link but that is now gone. For now you will just have to trust me on what I say!

The documentary is one of those "cool science" programs where we are shown how science and logic have all the answers and now watch us dismantle the Loch Ness Monster. Anyone watching the program will indeed get that impression, but as somebody who has studied the Nessie phenomenon for decades I was not impressed and wondered how much of the aforementioned reality-distortion technique was being applied to this program.

Before I begin, this is a commentary on the production of the program and not the Loch Ness experts that were brought in to state their case. It is possible they had no say in the final editing process, so they are largely left alone here. 

The program begins with the usual introductions to the Loch Ness Monster and before long the traditional plesiosaur is wheeled in (as an aside, Robert Badger who we featured in a recent classic sighting, makes an appearance). It's acknowledged that people in general think this is what Nessie would be if she did exist but the producers of the show indulge in a straw man argument by implying this is the only possible exotic explanation for Nessie. Once they dispose of this animal as a viable theory, the program fails to consider any other hypothesis apart from the sceptical one and gives the impression there is no more to be said.

The first main howler is when they state there is only 24 tonnes of fish in the loch to feed on. This is in fact a false statement. The 24 tonnes is taken from a study done by Loch Ness expert Adrian Shine. But a closer look at his original study reveals that this estimate was only referring to the fish swimming in the open waters near the top of the water column. It did not include the salmon, trout and eels which inhabit the sides and bottoms of the loch because these areas were not accessible to the sonar devices used in the study. If these were included, it would not be an overstatement to say the numbers could be trebled. More mistakes were made in regard to this food stock issue such as the predicted predator biomass but for further info see this link.

THE CLASSIC PHOTOGRAPHS

Having made that mistake, one did not exactly grow in confidence, but I watched on as they moved onto the sceptical arguments about the various pieces of Nessie evidence. Three of the classic images were first addressed. The Surgeon's Photo, the MacNab Photo and the Dinsdale film.

In regards to the Surgeon's photo, David Martin, the co-author of the book which exposed the hoax, was interviewed. The story was told of Marmaduke Wetherell and the fake tracks he created with a hippo's taxidermy foot and the subsequent desire for revenge as the Daily Mail newspaper dumped him for this tomfoolery. He set up a fake photo using a model head and neck on a toy submarine and the Daily Mail swallowed the bait as it published the picture and the rest is history. 

The story seems fine enough and this hoax will always be brought out first as "Exhibit A" by the prosecution. However, note this is not evidence against there being a creature in Loch Ness. I have no reason to think the confessor of the deed, Christian Spurling, was a liar. However, the producers did not address some failed predictions based on this story. The first is that there is a second photograph of the head submerging. The story does not predict this and this remains a bit of a mystery. More importantly, the story is wholly predicated on Wetherell's desire to get back at the Daily Mail for firing him.

He executed the first part perfectly in palming the pictures of to them but it is an unanswered question as to why he did not follow thru to expose the fake to the world and to the Mail's great embarrassment. In fact, the exact opposite happened as the Mail's new picture went on to be the icon of the Loch Ness Monster for the next sixty years (the other quibble I have with the toy submarine theory is that when the hoax is staged for TV, very lightweight styrofoam is used as the base for the fake head-neck. Hasn't anyone tried the actual metal submarine?)!

Next up for analysis was the famous Tim Dinsdale film. The whole thesis here revolved around the fact that Tim Dinsdale failed to recognise a boat for what it was and naively thought it was a brown backed monster. The main proof given for this is the idea that certain intermittent blobs seen behind the main body as it travelled parallel to the opposite shore were in fact images of a helmsman. By sequencing some frames from the film, it was claimed that this "helmsman" object was indeed part of the film.

A stereoscopic examination of some "helmsman" images were also presented as proof that the suggested helmsman was indeed part of the object.

Is that an end of the Dinsdale film then? Not quite, for the producers do not mention one thing and that is the quality of the data that was examined. Testing of theories can only be as good as the data available. The documentary itself shows about eight seconds of the object travelling parallel to the opposite shore. When one compares a still from their excerpt of the film with a similar still from the 1973 Disney Documentary, "Man, Mysteries and Myths", the problem with the data quality becomes obvious.

In the field of science, the ability to reproduce another researcher's results is key. If it can't be reproduced, doubt is cast upon the theory's validity. So, I can take this clip from the National Geographic documentary and attempt the image stacking that was shown. I may or may not be successful in reproducing what is claimed to be there but it is worth doing (and thanks to Adrian Shine for his help in this regard). So, does the poor quality of data hinder a proper assessment? Does the inferior data with its higher noise to signal ratio introduce artifacts that are not there in the original? The ultimate answer is to repeat the experiment with the original film (or something close to it) and its complete far shore sequence. So I have to suspend judgement on this aspect of the program until I see how far I get with the image stacking process.

The final photograph assessed was the one taken by Peter MacNab in 1955. The producers presented the case that it was simply the wake of a boat. To that end, the documentary homed in on a PC screen with the MacNab photograph overlaid with lines which were said to be converging boat wakes and the contention was that the "monster" lay along one of those lines. However, a further look at the photo shows that such a line simply does not exist. Take a look at the "monster" and see if you can see any boat wake ahead of it along the presumed line of travel. There is nothing there and so this particular line of reasoning should be seriously questioned.

 
The second photograph is my own taken near where Peter MacNab stood in 1955. Should I presume the other wakes in the upper part of the picture should be associated with the foreground cruiser once it disappears from view? No, and neither should they be in the MacNab photo.

The second problem as regards the MacNab picture involved the TV crew filming up close the wake of a boat and trying to make this look like the MacNab object. It was an abject failure and unworthy of critical thinking. The wake was filmed almost at eye level and much closer than the MacNab photograph (since this is the best way to see them). But from MacNab's position hundreds of yards away at an elevated position, no one would be fooled.

However, this appears to be another case of the producer cutting corners in presenting their argument because I suspect the person they consulted on this photograph would also disagree with their abbreviated conclusion. Last time I looked he further required some touching up of the photograph to "enhance" the two humps. To see what a real boat wake looks like, we have the 1969 Jessie Tait photo below and reversed to point in the same direction as the MacNab photo. Note that compared to the MacNab picture, the "humps" are of a different size, shape and spacing and that the wake continues beyond the front "hump".

My own analysis of the MacNab picture can be found here.

THE ART OF DECEPTION

Having "disposed" of all the classic Nessie pictures, the thoughts of the production crew turned to what they thought explained all sightings. The argument mainly lay in a series of witness deception theories which we now consider in turn.

SEICHES

At this point we were treated to a scientific explanation of what seiches were and how these underwater currents can make objects move in a contrary fashion to the prevailing wind. It was then suggested that such currents can fool people into thinking they are watching an inanimate object become a "live" object.

Now we readily admit that such a thing is possible, but a seiche on its own cannot fool anyone. A piece of footage was produced which was described as "rare" which perhaps indicates the infrequency of these events. However, it was quite clear that the object being moved was a log. That means other factors are required to complete a complex scenario such as obscuration by distance or time (i.e. too far away or too short in duration). In other words, seiche, log, time, distance makes for a less likely scenario. To that end, the probability of the person being deceived is not primarily down to the seiche but it is in inverse proportion to the distance to the object and the time available to view it.

MIRAGES

More scientific talk came but now about temperature inversions between the loch surface and the air distorting familiar objects into unfamiliar objects. However, unlike the seiche footage, nothing was offered by way of proof that such conditions produce Nessie-like objects. One wonders if these proposed events are so rare as to be of no relevance to the discussion. I appeal here for any such footage else we'll consign talk about Nessie-like mirages to the merely theoretical (and I mean Nessie-like mirages and not general large scale pictures of distorted mountains and forests). I would note in general that I too often see theories proposed to explain how witnesses misinterpret events but little in the way of field testing these theories.

I WANT TO SEE NESSIE! 

But the most contentious slot for me was the psychological theory about people seeing Nessie in ordinary objects because they are somehow pre-conditioned for this before they arrive. A psychologist was brought in to conduct an experiment in which an ordinary pole was made to bob up and down in the loch water as tourists stood on the shore taking in the view. The people were then asked what they saw. It was an exercise in the difference between what is there and what is perceived. However, the tourists were not playing ball and no one said they thought it was the head and neck of a Loch Ness Monster. We were treated to such non-committal descriptions as:

• "I think I saw Nessie's kids toys" (?)
• "Some kind of underwater machine"
• "It looks like Nessie's breathing pipe"

The best candidate for this less than convincing experiment was a young lad who thought it was Nessie but changed his mind when he had a closer look and decided it was a log. The producers triumphantly showed the boy's boat-like picture (everyone else drew a pole), but it was clear it was a picture drawn from his first impression rather than what he saw on a continued look.

It was evident that no one was really deceived by this and the experiment to me was a failure (unless only kids ever report seeing Nessie). Even creative editing would not have rescued this experiment and an excuse was made that one in ten would make a misidentification. Based on this episode, we are not convinced of that unsubstantiated statement.

For some reason, they then took the pole to a body of water at Stirling University and reran the experiment. What was the point of this I asked myself? No one was going to scream it was the "Stirling University Monster", in fact, it appears they got the same results as at Loch Ness!

THE UBIQUITOUS LOG

Logs seemed to feature a lot and as a final experiment a piece of tree was chosen "at random" to be used. Pretty good choice for a Nessie-like log, I thought, considering it was random. It was set off afloat and filmed and ... it looked pretty much like a log. Curiously, no mention of experiments with tourists was mentioned. Perhaps they had learnt the lessons of the other experiment?

ENTER THE STURGEON

Yet despite all this debunking of Nessie reports, one sighting was allowed to "live". It was a report from 1932 by a Miss MacDonald who said she saw a crocodile like creature in the River Ness. The reason it was allowed to live was because it was seen to support the theory that some sightings could be down to a large sturgeon. Now I am not sure why the program needed a sturgeon. Was it to instill a feeling that perhaps all these sightings are not adequately explained by logs, waves and wishful thinking? Or was it down to a desire to keep the mystery alive but in a more scientific context? Whatever the reason, the sturgeon theory was presented as an explanation for some sightings.

Now, we are quite sure the evidence for sturgeons is irrefutable, but the evidence for sturgeons in Loch Ness is no better than the evidence for an unknown species in Loch Ness. We have no carcass, films, photographs or sonar which allow a final classification of either of these critters. Sure, there have been sturgeons caught in the Moray Firth but nothing inland. It seems as if the scientific rigour of proof applied to an unknown species is not being applied to a known species. Again, it seems we are asked to equate something which is plausible to the realms of probable.

But I don't mind the sturgeon theory being proposed. It is a viable theory after all but if any sceptic asks where the exotic species carcass is, I will simply tell them it is in the same place as the sturgeon carcass (though Adrian Shine informs me that cartiliginious bones decay quicker than other bones).

EARTHQUAKES

What on earth have earthquakes got to do with Loch Ness Monsters sightings you may ask? As it turns out, seismic activity can disturb waters in unusual ways, but is this enough to explain any Nessie sightings?

One got the impression the bottom of the barrel was being scraped here but it did introduce an unusual element to this documentary - someone was brought in to present an alternative view on this theory. If only they had been more even handed with the other theories presented. The dissenting geologist said that earthquakes were not frequent or strong enough in the Great Glen to make such an explanation useful.

It was then stated in the program that the last time an earthquake had such a noticeable effect on Loch Ness was the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Well, actually, this was another inaccuracy in the program. There has been at least one more recently documented story about unusual earthquake-induced effects upon Loch Ness. I'll leave it as an exercise to the documentary makers to find out where it is.

CONCLUSIONS

  

I was tempted to entitle this article "The Art of Pseudo Nessie Science" but to be fair, the producers were going about in a largely scientific way, it's just that it was not done very convincingly. It may convince those who are not familiar with the subject, but that is as far as it went. Hence I suggest there was a bit more of the "art" and less of the "science" in the final copy. One of the contributors to this documentary once described this blog as "justifiable as art" but not science. If this National Geographic documentary is the last word on "science" at Loch Ness, then for now I'll gladly stick to the "art" that goes on at this website!

National Geographic has released a new documentary on the Loch ness Monster under their "The Truth Behind ..." series. Once I see this, I will post a review. Hopefully it is an improvement on this 2005 version.