Saturday 6 January 2018

Colin Wilson and a Long Neck Sighting




I contacted the late Colin Wilson some years back with two questions over a period of time. It was 2011 and he was not well after a spinal operation and so I was glad to get any answer from him. Colin had a friendship with Nessie hunter, F. W. Holiday that went back to at least the early 70s as the two men shared a common interest in both the Loch Ness Monster and the paranormal.

After Holiday died in 1979, Wilson posthumously published his work, "The Goblin Universe" which Holiday had withheld under the conviction that the recent 1975 underwater Nessie photographs had swung the nature of the beast from the ghost like back to the more familiar biological. As a result, Holiday sent a more anodyne manuscript to Wilson on the general subject of lake monsters. That document has never seen the light of day.

My two questions were simple enough. What happened to that unpublished manuscript and who inherited all of Holiday's archives and research? The first question was never answered and Colin said he had no idea what happened to Holiday's research (though he implied it may have been with Holiday's mother, who was also now deceased).

Oh well, perhaps one day. In the meantime, Colin published an excerpt of a letter from a Dennis Stacy of San Antonio, Texas regarding a sighting he had back in 1972. This was published in "The Mammoth Encyclopedia of the Unsolved" on page 487, which I reproduce below.

In 1972 I went to the Loch with the express purpose of looking for Nessie. The idea was to camp along the shoreline for about two weeks and see what was to be seen. I had a very distinct feeling of confidence that if I went to the Loch I would see Nessie. I met some students on vacation from Oxford and stayed with them just above Drumnadrochit.

Every day I would take my camera down to the shoreline and have a good look around. Except for the day it was cold and drizzly and all of us went for a walk in the pinewoods there. A girl student and myself soon wandered off on our own from the others and made it down to the lochside. While we had been under the pines, the sky cleared remarkably and the wind died down. By the time we reached the loch, it was completely still and mirror-like. About three quarters of a mile across the loch, nearly under Crowley/Page’s Boleskine, was Nessie, showing about six feet of neck and head above the water. We had jumped up on the little low rock wall skirting the road.

We both saw it at the same time and nearly caused each other to tumble over the side by grabbing the other’s shoulders and pointing and saying, Look! Do you see what I see? And my camera, a 35mm, was miles away. My companion, however, had a little small, cheap camera, and the presence of mind to take a shot. All that was visible in the picture was a white wake, about a hundred feet in length, left by Nessie (or whatever), and which showed up clearly against the dark reflection of the trees on the other side in the water. Nessie herself? The head was definitely angular, as described. Some say like a horse, with the very pronounced wedge-shape. In my own experience, I liken it to the shape of a rattlesnake’s head, a square snout running back in a flare to the jaws. The length of neck out of the water, including the head, was five or six feet.

The impression it gave, in the sense that spiders and snakes seem to exude their own peculiar aura, was one not so much of danger as power. I mean it was really cutting a wake through the water, raising a little wavelet on either side of the neck. At times the head was lowered down and forward, and would sweep a small angle from side to side, as if feeding, by lowering the bottom part of the jaw just into the water. But it was really too far away to be absolutely certain of this last manoeuvre; the head, however, could be very plainly seen swinging from side to side. It was swimming thusly when we first saw it and after no more than a minute, simply sank lower and lower in the water, much in the same way a person comes down from a round of water-skiing, or a submarine submerges. (Letter to the author, 20 Sept 1980.)

Colin Wilson had actually published this story to demonstrate the prevalent idea of the "Loch Ness Hoodoo" where the monster is more likely to appear before you if you had left your camera at home. Wilson likens this to Nessie's "Jungian game of Hide and Seek".

The lesson I would take is to treat your camera like an American Express card - don't leave home without it. Nevertheless, it is disappointing that we don't have the picture taken by the simpler camera for examination. However, at an estimated distance of 1200 metres, one should not expect any game changers.

Sceptics will naturally suggest the witnesses merely saw a bird like a cormorant swimming along. I don't think the witnesses were that naive and stupid, but neither would I resist unto blood over this one since it was so far away. However, the sighting was not on my database and so I bring it forward to add its own little thread to the online tapestry of Loch Ness lore.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com





Sunday 31 December 2017

Nessie Review of 2017

The leading headline from this year past concerning our favourite monster came towards the end of the year as it was loudly proclaimed by the mainstream media that this was a record year for sightings in the 21st century with a total of nine claimed views of the monster. To quote the summary from Gary Campbell's sightings website:

28th April - A Ms Cairney from Dunbartonshire was at the loch with three of her friends when they saw a 20m long series of waves move at about 5mph along the surface 500m out. It came out of nowhere and then disappeared the same way - they have confirmed that there was no boat traffic in the area. The sighting took place at 3pm from a layby on the A82 road between Drumnadrochit and Inverness.

1st May - Ms Johnson from Manchester was at Urquhart Bay taking pictures at dusk when she spotted  a dark shape in the water, higher than the waves.

12th June - Paula from Canada took a five minute video from the Loch Ness webcam at 11.20am. It shows an unknown object moving slowly down the middle of the loch towards Fort Augustus. This was similar to the further recoding she took on 26th June, above.

22nd June - Mr Jackson and his wife, visiting from Australia snapped something in the loch four miles south of Urquhart Castle at 5.18pm in the afternoon. The sighting lasted about five minutes - this is what they saw.

26th June - Paula from Canada took a video from the Loch Ness Webcam at 7pm. It shows an unknown object moving slowly north on the loch near Urquhart Castle.

22nd August - Mr Stuparich and three friends were out walking from the Dores Inn to Tor Point. As they came to the shore on the point all four  saw something huge in the water. They said it was an unusual shape - it arched out of the water then turned and went down underwater. The sighting took place at 3.41pm and lasted about 10 seconds.

29th September - Diana Turner from the USA was watching the Nessie on the Net webcam in the afternoon when she spotted a strange wake movement on the water. The sighting lasted about two minutes and other than the boat in the distance, she saw no other traffic on the loch. She snapped a picture of the wake.

2nd October - Mrs Stewart from Oldham was on honeymoon when she saw something moving in the water from the pier at Fort Augustus at 4pm. The creature disappeared when a boat came out from the canal to the loch. She managed to take a picture.

2nd November - Dr Knight and her son from the north of England pictured what appears to be a fin or similar at 11.25 am from a cruise boat on the loch. They didn't realise that they'd snapped anything until they were going through their holiday pictures.

Now when you present a list of eyewitness testimonies to a diverse group of people, you are not going to get anything like unanimity on how many were actual sightings. The sceptics will reject all of them and the most gullible believer will take them all. The more thoughtful advocates of the creatures will take the middle road.

You will note of these nine accounts, three were by people a long way from the loch using the Nessie on the Net webcam. This is a popular feature allowing many to indulge in a bit of armchair Nessie hunting. They have produced some interesting images over the years which this blog has covered. The problem is the camera is also a long way from the loch meaning anything of Nessie proportions will be no more than a blob on the screen.

The sighting by Hayley Johnson on the 1st May has been covered here too with some debate as to what she had photographed. In her own words:

I had stayed in a backpackers’ hotel and on my last night decided to go for a walk through the woods and ended up on the banks of the loch. It was lovely and at dusk. Then about half a mile away I saw this dark shape sticking up – like a neck. I thought at first it was a tree, but it was very strange. I took a picture. It was there for a couple of seconds, but when I looked back it was gone. I was shocked.




It was claimed she had simply photographed one of the various logs that are washed into the bay from the rivers. One such log was proposed which I photographed on my visit to the loch the following month. I rejected that theory as the log looked nothing like the object in the picture, but I also did something that sceptics never do - I listened to what the witness said about the object. That is, she said the object disappeared and logs don't do that.




What may be of more interest was this picture taken a week later of an evident Nessie model floating in the same area. But was this curious object even there a week before when Ms. Johnson walked along the bay and did it have any connection? I will come back to this item later, but the jury is out on Hayley's photo for me personally.




To that sightings list I could add the interesting experience of a local Foyers man on the 5th February which I covered here, though this only involved a water disturbance. Nothing was seen except a strange effusion of bubbles breaking the surface as it went in the direction of some jumping fish.

The picture taken by Rebecca Stewart on the 2nd October generated further interest as it had the look of a dorsal finned creature. It gained some traction, but in my own investigation of the picture, I contacted Marcus Atkinson of Cruise Loch Ness whose boats pass that way and the solution was soon at hand as a log, this time very appropriately shaped, had been taken by one of the crew. Problem solved.




Another curious picture was then one taken by Peter Jackson on the 22nd June shows another curiously shaped object making its way up the centre of the loch, some four miles south of Urquhart Castle. I wrote up on this at this article.

Retired engineer Mr Jackson, 64, and former lawyer Ms Weare, 60, said they were stunned by what was only the second claimed sighting of the monster this year. Ms Wearne said: 'I really was just stunned and I thought, "what is it?" It was pretty big even from 150 yards or more offshore. I didn't know what to think.
 
We took photos and showed them to people at a B&B and (then) on a cruise. Skipper for the Loch Ness Project, Ali Matheson, said he had not seen anything like it. It seemed to be moving fast but in the direction of the current. We just figured if he's worked on here for years and not seen anything like it, then it must be something.




Theories about swimmers and boats were dismissed, though the ubiquitous tree debris reared its ugly head again. The object looks static over the two pictures shown above and so one must tend to an inanimate interpretation, but the sceptical vigilantes who were quick to post pictures of logs after Hayley Johnson's story, were notable by their absence for this one. No one seems to have produced a natural picture of this object.

What was rather worrying was that the object was estimated to be 150 yards offshore and yet we have a poor quality image. Yet another epic fail on the much vaunted smartphone front, proving there is no substitute for quality, professional, telephoto zoom photography - unless the monster is close enough to see the whites of your fear laden eyes; and who is going to hang around for that photo-op? One thing seems certain for 2018, and that is a supply of interesting and usually inconclusive images to evoke further discussion and debate. 

But there was one instance where images obtained looked of a decent quality as a video emerged in early May of an apparent long necked creature swanning past a cruiser boat. It all looked good until that model Nessie picture shown above turned up and seemed to be in the line of travel of our static necked "Nessie". Further investigation led to the conclusion that another Nessie documentary was in the offing.




But in the pursuit of science at Loch Ness, news came in April of a New Zealand professor's attempt to find evidence of trace DNA of the monster, or eDNA as it is called. Professor Neil Gemmell had been to the loch, consulted a few people and headed back to Otago with the intent of crowd funding a major eDNA analysis of Loch Ness which promised to offer a complete DNA profile of the loch's residents.

Things turned decidedly shaky though when it turned out he needed £100,000 to pursue his research and since then it has all gone a bit quiet (though admittedly it always goes quiet during the winter months). Meanwhile, it seems another scientist has been quietly gathering water samples from Loch Morar for his own eDNA experiments. Perhaps 2018 will bring news of Mhorag rather than Nessie on this front.

The year 2016 had been a good year for Nessie books with four being published. However, 2017 seemed to only have one Nessie dedicated book and that of questionable quality, being the latest offering from arch-sceptic, Ronald Binns. Yes, I confess I had to pay for a copy back in August, but I still have not got round to reading it as it constantly slips down the priority queue. I will attempt to right that once my own second book on the Loch Ness Monster comes out in late January 2018.

Having said that, 2017 was somewhat counter balanced by Andrew McGrath's "Beasts of Britain" whose cryptozoological overview of the UK did contain a chapter on the Loch Ness Monster.

In terms of visits to the loch, I was at the loch in June and September. What is still uncertain to me was the huge splash that I saw in mid loch off Foyers on the first day there in September. Was it the Loch Ness Monster? There is no way of knowing, and it remains inconclusive to this day. The usual experiments and watches were conducted with no game changing results. Unlike webcams that sweep across square miles, the narrowly focused trap cameras I have in place will hopefully yield more accurate results, albeit more exceedingly rare and devoid of blobs!

What will 2018 produce in terms of experiments? The tech market now offers mini-ROVs, thermal cameras and HD ready drones. Which one would you employ first in your search of the loch? Here's to an cryptozoologically rewarding 2018 and I wish readers a prosperous and fulfilling year ahead.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com



Sunday 24 December 2017

Constance Whyte's other book on the Loch Ness Monster

Nessie researchers will be aware of Constance Whyte's seminal book on the monster entitled "More Than A Legend" published in 1957 which went on to become a classic and influenced many a monster hunter in the 1960s such as Tim Dinsdale and even Frank Searle. But before this she had written an anonymous article for the now defunct King's College Hospital Gazette (Spring 1950; vol. 29, no. 1) which she eventually made into a booklet simply entitled "The Loch Ness Monster" published in 1950.

That this article had some influence amongst Loch Ness notables is illustrated by this statement from Richard Fitter, one of the co-founders of the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau:

At this point I must interject a personal note. My own interest in Nessie was first aroused by reading a pamphlet entitled The Loch Ness Monster, written anonymously by Dr. Constance Whyte and reprinted from the King's College Hospital Gazette of 1950 (Anon., 1950).

Copies of this booklet are excessively rare and the only time I recall seeing it for sale was on eBay a few years back when it went for about £250. However, I managed to find a copy held by the National Library of Scotland and scanned the book for my own research. But now I think it is only appropriate  that others get to see this work for the simple reason that it is unlikely that this work is going to be ever republished and finding a copy for reading is going to be limited to a very small number of libraries.

So enjoy the read as one of Nessie's most famous advocates sharpens her pen. I would also point out that this copy would appear to be a personal copy of Constance Whyte as on page 13 it has a margin annotation with her signature which just adds to the weight of this work. I would also note that Constance Whyte wrote another article for the Gazette just prior to her more famous book being published in 1957. If I can get a copy of that, I will post it in due time.

I thank King's College Hospital Archives for giving permission to reproduce the article.

A Merry Christmas to all readers!


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com
















Tuesday 19 December 2017

Alarms and Diversions





James Thurber was a noted author and playwright from the first half of last century who, amongst other noted works, was the author of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". In the 1964 edition of his anthology, "Alarms and Diversions", he devotes one chapter to the Loch Ness Monster entitled "There's Something Out There!". 

This was after what he calls a two year search for the monster, which certainly involved a trip to Loch Ness and trawling through the Daily Mail archives, though what else he got up to in that time is not certain. Thurber devotes 15 pages to the monster as he recounts his own experiences and gives us a potted history of the creature and its pursuers for your interest from page 60 onwards.

Thurber's book is typical of many books out there, which though not a book devoted to the subject, will divert from the normal news and events of their world to talk about the monster. I have a few in mind, perhaps I will get round to putting them out there.

 I have a PDF copy of the book which can be accessed here.

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com


Monday 4 December 2017

200 Years of the Inverness Courier and the Loch Ness Monster



 As I was driving to work this morning, BBC Radio Scotland ran a short feature on the 200th anniversary of the Highland newspaper, the Inverness Courier. Not surprisingly, one particular storyline was uppermost and that was their local monster. Nessie.

As a bonus, they ran a short interview with the Courier's Fort Augustus correspondent, Alex Campbell from 1958. He was retelling the story of how he submitted the first story of the monster back in May 1933. However, the association of the Courier with the Loch Ness Monster goes a long way back.

The first mention I find in the Inverness Courier of strange creatures in Loch Ness comes from the 16th October 1833 where the obituary of a well known soothsayer, Willox the Warlock from Tomintoul is covered. Willox (or Gregor MacGregor) was famed for advising clients on magical solutions to their problems via the use of a supernaturally endowed bridle which he alleged a brave ancestor claimed from the Loch Ness Kelpie with a blow of his sword.




The Courier refers again to the dreaded monsters of Loch Ness in the first case of a Loch Ness Monster misidentification from 1st July 1852 when two ponies swimming across the loch raised some superstitious consternation amongst the locals.




A more relevant reference from the 8th October 1868 talks of the first monster hoax when fishermen dumped a dolphin carcass in the loch. Talk of the "huge fish" that was seen to surface occasionally in the loch were prompted by this discovery. I talk more of this curious incident here.




Even up to the start of the Nessie era (1933-present), strange stories would still surface, such as this letter published on the 29th August 1930 which recounts the curious experience of several anglers (later identified by Rupert Gould as Ian Milne and others).




However, the story that started it all was published on the 2nd May 1933 when Aldie Mackay's encounter with a two humped creature was written up. Alex Campbell was later panned by some sceptics for the way he wrote this. As it turned out, it was not him but their histrionics that was a strange spectacle (see here).




And so the Courier moved in lockstep with the monster as its varied appearances made their way into the newspaper for decades to come. As an example, from 13th August 1971 is the unique account of how diver Robert Badger had a close encounter with a creature underwater as he went for a swim.





And so the list goes on and today the monster stories have gone online for millions across the world to engage in the latest stories from the loch. Many have been the hours when I have poured over the pages of the Inverness Courier looking for new information that advances the cause of the Loch Ness Monster; be it in paper, microfilm or online digital form. So, I for one am grateful for their contribution to the mystery and hope for many years more of them reporting on their most famous inhabitant.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com





Thursday 30 November 2017

You Can't Keep A Good Monster Down



It's Saint Andrew's Day in Scotland today and Google have acknowledged this with a montage on a Scottish theme. It came as no surprise that the Loch Ness Monster put in an appearance in this representation of the nation. It was probably unintentional on Google's part, but I note the monster lies halfway between a known animal, the stag and a mythical one, the unicorn.

Symbolically, that is where Nessie lies in the great debate concerning its existence. Some regard it as real as the deer whilst others regard it as mythical as Scotland's national animal, the unicorn. And there I suspect it will continue to lie for years to come!


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Monday 27 November 2017

A Scottish Sea Serpent from 1635




I picked up this interesting article from the Aberdeen Press and Journal, dated 20th December 1933. The Loch Ness Monster was rising in media coverage, doubtless bolstered by the recent publication of the first photograph of it - the Hugh Gray photo. I quote the relevant portion here:

DURING those daily discussions and reports as to the Loch Ness Monster, readers of old John Spalding's "History of the Troubles" may have recalled that Aberdeen three hundred years ago had a visit from a monster of the deep.

Spalding, whose name and book give title and character to the work of the three Spalding Clubs which have in succession had their headquarters in Aberdeen, was Commissary Clerk in the city. The records he left in the " Troubles" are the day-by-day notes he took of contemporary events during the twenty-two years of the Covenanting and Civil War struggles,. 1624-45.

Spalding writes in the character of a loyal churchman and royalist, to whom the events of the time represented the wicked rebellion of a froward people in the rest of Scotland, with Aberdeen in the main loyal and suffering for its loyalty to the old ways. His disapproval of the tendencies of the time causes him to regard all unusual occurrences as "tokens" of still worse things to follow.

Under date " Anno 1635" he writes :- 

"In the month of June there was seen in the river of Don a monster having a head like a great mastiff dog, and hand, arms, and paps like a man, and the paps seemed to be white: it had hair on the head, and its hinder parts was seen sometimes above the water, which seemed clubbish, short-legged, and short-footed, with a tail.

This monster was seen body-like swimming above and beneath the bridge, without any fear. The town's people of both Aberdeens, came out in great multitudes to see this monster: some threw stones, some shot guns and pistols, and the salmon fishers rowed cables with nets to catch it, but all in vain. It never sinked nor feared, but would duck under water, snorting and bullering, terrible to the hearers.

It remained two days and was seen no more; but it appears this monster came for no good token to noble Aberdeen, for sore was the same oppressed with great troubles that fell in the land."

The monster is not, as it would be now, a natural curiosity, a problem in  marine zoology, but a "lusus naturae", a freak not to be placed in any category of fishes or animals, but a creature without ancestry and destined to be without progeny. In short, a "token" having a supernatural warning significance. 


As to what this creature may have been is a matter of conjecture and doubtless varied opinions. Dolphins and the occasional stranded whale would have presumably been familiar animals to those on the east coast of Scotland, though the non-flipper like description of the limbs does suggest it belonged to another species.

Perhaps a walrus, you say, or the now extinct Steller's sea cow or perhaps the legendary sea serpent, a creature distinct from those classified to date by science? The mention of bellowing does suggest an air breather though. Describing the head as being like that of a mastiff dog begs the question as to what a 17th century Mastiff dog looked like. This engraving from the 16th century gives some idea as to how the head of this creature was perceived.





Furthermore, the white underside is a feature sometimes spoken of by witnesses to the Loch Ness Monster, though this creature does not seem to come across as Loch Ness Monster like as it there is no mention of a long neck. Comments as to this creature's possible identity are invited.

One aspect that does dovetail with the Loch Ness Monster, or should I say the Loch Ness Water Horse, was the attitude that the appearance of such unidentifiable creatures were a bad omen or "a token having a supernatural warning significance". As has been discussed on this blog before, appearances of the Water Horse that inhabited Loch Ness were often events that were hushed up or rarely spoken of lest this tempted a bad outcome.

Certainly, such an attitude was a subtext to the initial reports of the monster in 1933 as older folk spoke of the supernatural aspects of the entity once held in dread by locals. These attitudes probably peaked at some point prior to the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century and was certainly noted in the literature of the time as on the way out by the end of that century.

By 1933, it would appear only the older locals would have remembered these traditions. Refer to the Cameron-MacGruer land sighting of 1919 where the children "had been warned not to go near the loch by our grandparents as there were these wild horses in the loch". The story of the Loch Ness Monster has now moved from the supernatural to the biological ... or has it?



The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com