Monday 6 June 2022

Interesting selection of Cryptozoological items


Just a quick note to refer readers to a long listing of dozens of Loch Ness Monster books and other cryptozoological items on eBay just now by seller roman10818. I don't think I have seen quite a good collection coming under auction from just one seller in my years of watching eBay. The listings include books from Gould and Oudemans in the 1930s right up to the present day and they can be found here.

Now I admit I own practically all of the Nessie items but I have been scouring the book landscape for decades. One item I did not own was an original copy of Frank Searle's unpublished "Loch Ness Investigation: What Really Happened", presumably posted out by Searle. I only have a photocopy given to me by one of Frank's supporters back in the 1980s. 


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com






Wednesday 1 June 2022

Arthur Grant meets a Wall of Scepticism

 


I have to say that Arthur Grant is one of my favourite accounts of the Loch Ness Monster. A giant creature lurching across a lonely road under a full moon before a befuddled motor cyclist? What's not to like? Of course, the dramatic story line makes some think it is just that - a made up story. I cover this account in my book, When Monsters Come Ashore, and will no more than quickly reproduce some words from the time to bring you up to speed. The event happened in the early hours of the 5th January 1934.

"It was," said Mr. Grant, "a bright moonlight night after rain had fallen. When almost forty yards away under the shadow of the hills, a short distance from the part of the reconstructed Glasgow-Inverness road near Abriachan, I observed what appeared to be a large black object on the opposite side of the road. I was almost on it when it turned what I thought was a small head on a long neck, and the creature, apparently taking fright, made two great bounds  across the road and plunged into the loch.

"I had a splendid view of the object; in fact, I almost struck it with my motor cycle. It had a long neck with an eel-like head and large oval-shaped eyes, just on the top of the small head. The body was very hefty, and I distinctly saw two front flippers. There were other two flippers, which seemed to be webbed behind, and there was a tail, which I estimate would be from five to six feet long. The curious thing about the tail was that it did not, so far as I could see, come to a point, but was rounded off. The total length of the animal would be from 15 to 20 feet.

"Knowing something about natural history, I can say that I have never seen anything in my life like the animal I saw. It looked like a hybrid. 

"I jumped off my cycle," said Mr. Grant, "but the animal with great speed had rushed into the loch, splashing the surface violently and making away."




Having written the chapter on this event, it is never wise to close the book as things always turn up for further discussion and insight. For example, news of a three toed cast found back then came to light after I wrote the book (see link). Today, the focus is on addressing another attempt to discredit this account by sceptics. In this case, pictures of the then newly developed Glasgow to Inverness have been posted with what is claimed to be an important feature - walls. One is shown at the top and another below and they were part of the completed construction of the new road running for miles.


If you wonder what walls have to do with this case, then the implication is that if there was a wall in front of the alleged Nessie, it would not have got over it. Ergo, Grant lied and the sceptics can remove another famous case from their hit list (though I suspect they think they have done that already). Now by my estimate, these walls could be up to two or three feet high as they seem to vary. It is not clear if there was a consistent height depending on the situation or risk at that point by the shoreline. One can still see them today in various states, some missing stones or covered in vegetation and so on.

The first question to ask is whether our creature could hurdle such an obstacle? That depends entirely on what kind of species the animal is and so we could go off in different directions speculating on our own favoured beast. Could a mammal such as a long necked version of a seal get over such a wall? I would say yes going by this video clip of a much smaller seal negotiating an imposing rock of similar height to the walls by Loch Ness. One would think a larger pinniped would have less trouble getting over.

Could a plesiosaur negotiate it? Now you're asking a question. Are you talking about the ones preserved in the fossil record or the evolved one popular in the 1970s? When a plesiosaur is proposed to have evolved, there is no end to the adaptive qualities one may add to achieve ones ends. Well, I see no reason why it couldn't, but I am not being authoritative on that matter. And so we may go through the list of candidates.

But one may cut through this and say if the creature managed to get out of the loch, get on to the road and over it then surely it can retrace its route in reverse with similar skill? One can see the logic there, though another may retort that it may have disembarked at an easier point further away. Such is the cut and thrust when information is lacking. But another observation may come to our aid. As explained in my book, the location of the Arthur Grant encounter is almost certainly along the stretch of road now occupied by the Clansman Hotel. The Google image below shows the hotel and note the green Nessie statue to the left conveniently reminding us of the event nearly ninety years before.



A look around shows a lack of walls such as this shot where the only visible wall bridges over a stream. Obviously, the metal barriers are a modern addition. The second image is looking the opposite direction towards the south and you can see the entrance to the pier where various vessels such as the Jacobite tourist cruisers pick up passengers. One would surmise that a brick wall is less likely to be found at a pier as it would hinder access for vehicles and if a boat had to be towed onto land.




A look at contemporary ordnance survey maps may help us here. The first is the one inch per mile (1:63360) "Popular" edition published from 1921-1930. You can see the pier clearly marked and note that the red road is delineated by either solid black line or dotted black line. According to the symbols of the time, the solid line with a red road indicates a main route between towns but if it changes to dotted line then it is an unfenced boundary. The road goes from solid to dotted as the pier approaches and for a distance after before going solid again. We can take it that this means any wall disappears to accommodate access to the pier. This stretch of unfenced boundary is where I think Grant encountered his monster.



However, this map was published in 1929 and Grant himself refers to the reconstructed road in the account above five years later. Did that result in a wall being constructed near the pier? A look at another map from 1940 says not. It is a military map at at scale of 1:25000 and the broken/unbroken lines follow much the same pattern. So no wall along the shore and I think we can dispose of this sceptical objection.





Of course, other objections to the Arthur Grant land sighting have been made over the years. The arrival of Marmaduke Wetherell at the scene gave sceptics the opportunity to play the guilt by association card. However, an expedition led by Mr. A. F. Hay, a Fellow of the Zoological Society of Scotland, visited the site and their report was published by the Scotsman newspaper. They had examined the road and beach and proposed a walrus was the best candidate. Curiously, they did not mention anything about walls getting in the way and I have no reason to doubt this was because there was no wall there.


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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com






Monday 2 May 2022

A Recent Video Examined

 


A few days back came the latest video published by the Daily Mail of a wake filmed by an anonymous couple from above Urquhart Castle at about 6am on the 25th April. Below is the relevant text from that article:

The woman had woken up just after 6am on Monday and decided to take some photographs as the loch was so still that its surface was like glass. But after spotting something large moving in the water, she began filming on her iPhone and could be heard saying ‘What on Earth is that?’ as her husband joined her to watch what was unfolding. The couple filmed for two minutes and 37 seconds from 6.21am as the mysterious creature – they estimated it to be between 20 and 30 feet in length – swam beneath the water and gave them tantalising glimpses as it broke the surface.

It appeared to have at least one fin or limb, which paddled under the water ‘like an oar’. The woman also took several still pictures from the vantage point of their holiday cottage set on the hillside opposite Urquhart Castle, around a quarter of a mile from the loch. She added: ‘I really don’t know what it was in the water. It was something large. I don’t think it really equates on the video quite how large it was. ‘We don’t know what the creature was. It was propelling itself with something. It wasn’t how a fish would do it.

‘You could see it much clearer than it’s come out in the photos. The lumps or humps or whatever they are kept disappearing under the water, but it was still pushing forward under the water. ‘You could see something under the water, then it rushed forward and turned round. From what we could gauge, it was between 20 and 30 feet long. There was nothing else on the loch, no boats, nothing.’

The shot below with the castle in the foreground gives some context. Now when I read the headline that it was a double hump film and the best footage for twenty years, I thought I have to see this. But as they say, the trailer is often better than the film and I was disappointed with what I saw. In fact, I struggled to see much detail in the mobile camera clip. We are told they were high on a hillside about a quarter of a mile away from the loch.



And therein lies the problem, they were in a comparable position to the controversial webcam clips that have regaled newspapers in recent years. Though admittedly, the resolution of this is a bit better. I believe this is a 640x360 resolution (at 25 frames per second) and it looks like the webcam is 480x360 and so the couple's video has about 33% more information. This is not much compared to the webcam, though I suspect the original iPhone video would be higher, perhaps 720p. If so, an investigation is incomplete without seeing this original file.

Now the image at the top of the article is taken from the Daily Record presumably was a highly zoomed in frame from the video. I say that because we also learn that some photographs were taken by the lady and I suspect they may provide more detail than the video. At this point, I do not have access to these and again the investigation may be incomplete without them. However, if this is an enlargement of a photograph, then perhaps they are not that useful.

But what we see in the top image is interesting in that the two dots are behind the bow of the wave which is being generated by something else. In fact, there appears to be nothing at the head of the wave. Clearly there has to be something there and the conclusion is that whatever it may be is lost in the pixellation.

We have the video and there are photos, but we must not discount the naked eye testimony as others are wont to do. The eyewitness said what they saw with the eye was superior to what was recorded and that I can agree with. The human delivers something which no camera can. In that context, some details come out:

It appeared to have at least one fin or limb, which paddled under the water ‘like an oar’. ... The lumps or humps or whatever they are kept disappearing under the water, but it was still pushing forward under the water. ‘You could see something under the water, then it rushed forward and turned round.

Nevertheless, they were still a quarter of a mile away or about 400 metres. This is not a great distance - unless a thirty foot creature wholly breaks the surface with a double hump and long neck display and goes on a swim for a good few minutes. But certainly, going by the video alone, nobody could conclusively identify what is in the sequence - unless somebody comes forward and confesses they had a vessel or something in that area at that time. However, the lack of detail in the video should not be taken as a reason to discount the naked eye testimony.


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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com



Tuesday 19 April 2022

The Usse of North England



 

Here is a clipping from the Cleveland Standard dated May 5th 1934. The news of a monster in Loch Ness brought out various interesting stories from the end of 1933 onward as some newspapers vied for attention bringing up stories about their own local monsters both past and present. This one goes right back to the 17th century for one of oldest tales that I have come across. Here is the text of the article:

Just an Usse!

I have just come across something which will make the Loch Ness Monster wish he had never seeen the light of publicity. It is an Usse. There is recorded in an old 17th Century volume I was looking at the other day an account of a queer monster stated to have been found at Coatham back in 1615. The entry reads:

October 28. Being Satterday, 1616. In Teasmouth, besides Cotham, in the Countie of Yorke, came ther to land a mightie ffish, the length whereof was 19 yards. The bodye in compass 20 yards. Betwixt the eyes four yards with 32 teeth as big as one's arme, long 9 inches. In coloure like the blewe sky. Skynn without skaylis with haire like the seale. The same (as some may yt having seen such fish) is an Usse. Sir Henry Bellansys having the title and right to all sea wrecks and pisces regale from Runswick to Yarme, sold the cyle and parmasetye to one John Whyte, of Cotham, for £120.

And now we know!


The town of Coatham is located near the modern city of Middlesbrough and the creature appears to have been stranded at Teasmouth or in or near the estuary or mouth of the River Tees. The location is shown below in two maps.







One can certainly imagine big fish stories coming from the East of England bordering the North Sea. But what of this strange beast called an "usse" by this narrator from over four hundred years past? So we have a beast almost sixty feet long, which excludes a lot of candidates right away. The "compass" of twenty yards we presume to be the circumference, in which case if it was a circular body would equate to a diameter of 6.4 yards or nineteen feet across. So the length to diameter ratio perhaps was three to one indicating a bulbous body.

However, no mention is made of our typical long tail or neck associated with the Loch Ness Monster. In fact, perhaps in the manner of a catfish, we have a great gash of a mouth four yards long dominating the front of the beast, which was not far off our suggested body diameter of six yards. Add to this the teeth each of nine inches and we have a formidable beast. With blue skin like that of a seal, what could it have been?

The fact that this was deemed a rare find is shown in the fact it was sold for £120, which is over £30,000 in today's money. This suggests this was something that didn't arrive on those shores very often. In fact, a clue lies in the word "parmasetye" which equates to our modern word "parmacetti" which I am told "is the pearly white, waxy, translucent solid, obtained from the oil in the head of the sperm whale: used chiefly in cosmetics and candles, and as an emollient."

What the other material named "cyle" is I am not sure, but we seem to be in the realm of toothed whales such as the sperm whale, whose teeth indeed can reach up to nine inches as a maximum and sixty feet is easily achievable as a length. They can also be blue-grey in colour. So perhaps not such a competitor to Nessie as first suggested.

As for that old English word "usse", that is the mystery to me. The word "whale" was already in use at that time. In fact, the King James Bible, published at that time uses the word "whale" when referring to some large sea creatures. So why didn't they just refer to it as a whale? Perhaps it was a local dialect used by people from that region? Suggestions are invited in the comments.





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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com






Tuesday 12 April 2022

Day Trip to Loch Ness

 


It was a quick trip to the loch this Sunday as I got up at 0630 in Edinburgh and arrived at the village of Inverfarigaig by about 1030. Surprisingly, I was greeted by patches of snow around the outer lying villages, though the loch seemed pretty clear. I also had to dodge an unusual number of cyclists until I realised the Loch Ness Etape cycle race was coming soon and there was plenty of practise runs going on.

The day basically consisted of watches from four areas. The first was near the Wall which is less than a mile on from Inverfarigaig at a parking spot where I sometimes like to watch the loch from. The loch surface was pretty calm as the sun occasionally broke out from the clouds but it stayed dry. From there it was a drive of a few miles to the second spot at Whitefield and the beach where Lachlan Stuart took his famous three hump photograph in 1951.

I walked for a long distance south crunching through myriads of pebbles keeping an eye on the loch but also the low lying branches that sprouted towards the loch. There was what looked like a big black water tank lying on the beach. Did it come from the road or from the loch? It was a bit hard to say either way, I suspected it was fly tipped from the road and rolled down the short hill. Either way, it is a shame that rubbish is too often encountered on the beaches.

Driving onto to the outskirts of the northernmost village of Dores, I disembarked again with camera and binoculars for a walk along the southern side of the beach, heading back the way I had come from towards the salmon farm. Everything was setup for photographing an appearance, but the old girl would not oblige. By the way, here are some tales from the salmon farm, as told by Ally MacLeod on Steve Feltham's Facebook page, here and here.

The salmon farm has had some monster stories over the years. It was not long after this blog started that I covered the interesting picture taken by Jon Rowe (link). The annotated picture below shows the two "protuberances" to the left, the shadowy water and my impression of the back. All speculation of course, but they certainly were not two birds bottoms up. Some suggest this place should be crowded by Nessies trying to get at all those salmon. The only problem with that is the fish are impossible to nab but I always fancied this was a good spot for CCTV or a webcam.




It was then onto Dores and I grabbed the camera and binoculars again and went for a walk along the southern part of the beach. I went down almost as far as the salmon farm but nothing showed despite the ideal conditions for a surfacing. With that I drove on and parked by the Dores Inn and walked along the top part of the beach as far as Tor Point. The forest there has been landscaped to allow tourists and locals to walk along a nice path around the point and onto Aldourie. It was a pleasant walk with various points from where you can go straight to the shoreline. I stopped at one such place and conducted a final watch opposite a point close to Lochend (picture below).



A white cruiser made its way along the opposite shore and the background hills gave the odd impression of being made of two parts with a split down the middle. It was near this walk that a local gave me an account of their sighting with a friend back in August 2018 (link) and one of the sketches is below. I chatted with them but they wished anonymity, which makes me wonder how many sightings are like this because of the reception they may get from sceptics?



As an aside, I had trouble finding the above 2018 report and had to look through the annual reviews which I have now updated up to 2021 and are useful as a kind of index for events since 2012 (link). On the way back, I checked in with fellow monster hunter, Steve Feltham, who was working  on his models. We chatted through the issues of the day such as webcams, the salmon farm and other recent events. I have to agree with Steve that the webcam is done once the paddle boarders came forward as some alleged "mysterious" objects.

I would just say to anyone using this under powered webcam to do some "calibration" and present clips or images of what you identify as known objects be they boats or otherwise. With those provided, they can be compared against what is claimed as "unknown". But to this day, no one down below has corroborated any of these images, so case closed for me. However, we hope for better, shinier, whizzier webcams for all those budding remote hunters to move over to. Just don't expect the same number of mystery hits, people.

With that it was back on the road south and the expectation that I will be back up next month for an extended visit. Good luck to all who endeavour to capture images of that elusive monster in the months ahead.


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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com




Tuesday 5 April 2022

Upcoming Nessie Podcast



I have been invited to speak on the Truth Proof live stream podcast with Paul Sinclair. This will go out live on Thursday 7th April at 7pm GMT followed by a Q&A session as people chip in with their comments and questions for me. Feel free to tune in and make your own contributions. The discussion is expected to be wide ranging across various Loch Ness Monster topics, but will be partly listener driven. Perhaps we will get to hear of some previously unheard of Nessie sightings?

Go this link on YouTube where the livestream will take place in two days. See you there!


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com


 

Sunday 3 April 2022

"The Most Amazing Pictures Ever Seen"

 


Well, so went the headline from the Scottish Daily Record of  the 1st November 1972. It concerned a series of photographs taken by Frank Searle which lit up interest in the Loch Ness Monster at that time. I do think things had been rather quiet at the loch up to that point in time. The Loch Ness Investigation had just wound up and who would take up the mantle? However, the Rines Flipper picture had just been published and this kind of photo had not been taken since, well, Frank Searle's previous photograph a year or so before. Mind you, Nicholas Witchell in his "The Loch Ness Story", was to opine a year or so later that the Flipper photo had been upstaged:

And yet, in spite of this, they received surprisingly little coverage when they were released in America by the Academy of Applied Science in November 1972. For some reason they were virtually ignored by the media; perhaps because the announcement coincided with the release of a set of highly ambiguous surface photographs which were splashed across the front page of a popular daily newspaper. They, not unnaturally, made no lasting impression since their source is highly suspect but they did obscure the media's attention and resulted in no more than cursory references to the underwater material.

I think I know what photographs he was talking about, don't you? Now this could become a rather short article if we just do the normal thing and declare it a fake, quickly conjure up something vaguely resembling an explanation of how he did it and move on to something more interesting. But I don't think I have seen a detailed analysis of his photos. Besides, whatever the outcome, this post is perhaps directed at someone other than Frank Searle, which I shall explain at the end. So for now let us treat it like a normal sighting report and take it from there. First we have the account from the Daily Record:

The loch was calm in the cool evening air. Then, suddenly, there was a tremendous splash and Nessie reared out of the water. At least, that's how monster hunter Frank Searle tells it - and he's got pictures to back it up. Last night at his lonely camp on the shores of Loch Ness, I talked to Frank about the pictures which are sure to start a "is it or isn't" controversy.

"Look" he said "I've known all along there was a monster in the loch. I've even got pictures four times before - but - this time they're the best yet."

More than three years ago Frank quit his London job and moved to Loch Ness to become a full-time monster watcher.

"I spend up to 19 hours a day" he said "either out in my boat or just watching the loch." 

Ten days ago he was out in his boat, when it suddenly happened. 

"The loch was very calm" he said "It was a beautiful evening. Then suddenly there was this tremendous splash and the monster appeared. I grabbed my camera and banged off four shots. I could hardly believe it. I know I had the monster's head, neck and one or two humps. It set up a huge set of ripples and then moved forward out of them."

Frank went on "The wake started from the body, and I got the impression there were big flippers near where the neck and body met. After about 20 seconds, the monster dived. Then, about two minutes later, it reappeared on the other side - it had obviously passed right under my boat. It didn't raise its head or neck this time, but I got another six shots in the half-minute it stayed in sight."

He described Nessie as "blackish and rough with one or two humps showing. It seemed to have a bump or bumps about its forehead."

Five years later, Frank Searle adds further details of this story in his autobiographical book, "Nessie - Seven years in search of the Monster". The incident happened on the 21st October and I reproduce the text from page 38-41:

Gradually things quietened down. I continued the search. Of all the newspapers who'd interviewed me, only one, the Daily Record sent a contribution to my funds. With that money I bought a much larger tent and a second-hand outboard engine. Local enthusiasts were visiting me at regular intervals to find out if anything else was happening. They were also directing visitors to me who asked about Loch Ness in local pubs, shops, guest-houses etc. On August 11th at 9 p.m. I had a long-distance sighting near Tor Point. Too far off for a picture, but seven motorists parked on a lay-by on the opposite side of the Loch saw both the creature and my boat heading towards it.

Summer gave way to autumn, the days shortened. On October 19th, an Australian school-teacher came to Inverness. She had a month's holiday and had come up to get information about the Loch Ness Monster for a school project when she returned home. She stayed the night at a guest house whose owner knew of me. When she started asking about Loch Ness she was told, "Go out and see the man in the tent." So next morning, this attractive twenty-three-year-old Aussie arrived at my site. She saw my picture, newspaper cuttings etc. I told her all I knew about Loch Ness and she was fascinated. Then she simply said: "I've got a month's holiday. Can I stay with you?" Well! What man turns down offers like that?

And anyway, she made good coffee. So she went and collected her gear and moved in. Next morning, when I would normally have taken the boat out at first light, it was pouring with rain and the visibility was terrible. So we stayed in. It was almost 2 p.m. before the weather improved and off we went, away up the Loch towards Foyers. The water was fairly calm but nothing showed. Around 6 p.m., the sun dipped behind the hills and the light began to fade. We were then near Urquhart Bay. I said: "Well, that's it for today. We'll head back for some food," and turned for home.

And suddenly, there it was! Some six hundred yards to one side of the boat, head and neck out of the water in front of a large hump. I got four pictures and then the thing slid below the surface with hardly a ripple. I swung the boat round in a big circle, camera at the ready. Nothing, until the circle was almost complete, then there, on the other side of the boat was a big black hump and in front of it a small hump which was probably the top of the head. I got two more pictures, turned the boat towards it. The beast turned away, set up a large wake, then disappeared. By now, the light was really bad. I cruised around for a few more minutes. Nothing showed. I turned towards my site. And only then did I realised that I hadn't heard a word from my guest. 

She was sitting there absolutely shaking from head to foot. Her little Instamatic camera still lay on the seat. I had to shout at her before she even looked at me. We got in, I pulled the boat up. She just walked up to the tent without a word. When I'd tied up the boat and followed her, she was sitting there still shaking. All she could say was, "I did see it, Frank, didn't I?" Over and over again. Next morning we sent the film off. I knew I'd got something this time. When the pictures came back we were delighted. The bad light had killed any chance of detail at that distance but the shape was clear and I'd got good background. One picture showed the creature's mouth wide open.

I remembered the newspapers that hadn't sent me a small contribution after the last sighting, then for-got them, and gave an exclusive to the Daily Record and its sister paper in England, the Daily Mirror. The result was sensational. The Record gave its entire front page to the best picture with huge headlines, "The Most Amazing Pictures Ever Taken". And more inside! Other newspapers, magazines, television, came to interview me. One T.V. interviewer asked my companion how she'd come to be there. She explained how she'd been sent to see me, how she'd been fascinated with the information and had asked if she could stay. "Frank said 'Can you make good coffee, darling?' " she laughed. "I said yes I could, and he said, 'Well, come in and put the kettle on.' 

That became a big joke over the years. Girls would come along and tell me they could make good coffee. Well, I suppose there are "perks" to every job. And I wasn't complaining. The teacher stayed on for the rest of her holiday but we had no further sightings. I guess that would have been too much to ask for. One thing that this sighting really proved was the fact that it's pure luck. There's little one can do to improve the chance of a sighting. I'd been on the Loch over three years and had only got two indistinct pictures. My guest had been in Scotland about forty-eight hours and had actually been out on the water for less than five hours. I didn't get another sighting for six months so if she'd come to Scotland twenty-four hours later, she could have stayed for six months and seen nothing. She's back in Australia now, but I'm sure she'll never forget those few minutes on Loch Ness on October 21st, 1972.

I have managed to find all of the six photographs Searle claimed to have taken on that day. He took four snaps of a long necked object with a hump, then circled his boat, whereupon he says, it surfaced on the other side and he took the final two shots (or six according to the newspaper report).They are shown below in what I think is chronological order, although the print quality varies. Photo one is the most reprinted and the best quality of the first four. Numbers two and four are courtesy of Henry Bauer who took them on cine film when he visited Frank Searle's exhibition hut, where they were on display. The final two come from Searle's book.








Let's check out a few things first. Frank said he had headed south from his base at Balachladaich towards Foyers and by 6pm he was near Urquhart Bay when it was getting dark. On October 27th, the sun sets about 1745 which is consistent with that statement. The hills in the background are also place the photographer near Urquhart Bay. Where exactly is less easy to ascertain. Using "Google Boat" or Google's aquatic version of Street View at Loch Ness, the map and view below gives one possible spot with the arrow suggesting it may have been further to the centre of the loch.




This correlates reasonably well with this wider shot below of the best known picture of this sequence. It was more difficult to line up the opposite shore as we basically have just a dip between two hills and that occurs everywhere. One could try and match up terrain features against modern images but with fifty years having passed, fields and forests can change beyond recognition. So where this was taken is an open question and for now we just assume it is the opposite side looking to near Whitefield. 



What one can say is that the hills on the Urquhart Bay side look darker than the ones on the opposite side. This is done by comparing various versions of photographs of the two sides, since the same scene can have a different contrast in another picture, we need to look at them in the round. This being the case, this observation is also consistent with the reported time as the sun would be setting behind the Urquhart Bay hills, moving them into silhouette. Meantime, the sunlight would still be illuminating the hills on the opposite side.

So, we could say with some confidence that Frank Searle was where he claimed to be at the stated time. Now we move onto the object itself. As you can see from the first four pictures, there is a large hump followed by a smaller hump and then a long neck and a head with an apparently open mouth. The other curious feature is a smaller third hump which appears from the second picture on the left and then appears to adjoin itself to the main body. Frank says nothing about this third hump despite its anomalous behaviour marking it out for attention. We will revisit this later.

The charge is then made that the alleged head and neck do not budge an inch during the sequence of four pictures suggesting they are inanimate. Now it is clear they do not move in any significant way but even the slightest movement would negate the word "inanimate". One way to achieve that would be to overlay the four pictures shown and look for subtle differences. The overlay below is of the first and fourth pictures and demonstrates the analytical problem. The first image is good but the rest are poorly reproduced, making subtle comparisons problematic. There may be a change in head-neck position below, but it could also be due to problems in aligning the images due to blurriness.



We then have the two pictures from the other side of the boat which shows a main hump and a smaller hump - claimed to be the head by Frank Searle. The object then seems to move as indicated by the wake being generated. The main observation here is that the main hump of the last two pictures does not look like the main hump of the first four pictures. The last one is semi-circular in form while the first looks like a semi-circle with a smaller semi-circle on top. Once again, Frank doesn't make a comment on this. In fact, he generally does not go into any detailed analysis on his photographs.

What I have seen is that nobody denies that the object photographed is actually there. One could argue the object is overlaid into the original print and rephotographed. However, that would seem to be unlikely as one can observe reflections on the surface of the water from the main hump in the first photograph as well as in the area of the alleged head and neck. So we will proceed on that assumption as did Steuart Campbell when he analyzed this photograph for the Winter 1982-83 issue of the Sceptical Enquirer magazine (volume 7 issue 2).

The article was entitled, "The 'Monster' Tree-Trunk of Loch Ness", and it was clear where Steuart was heading with this. He had been prepared to give Searle the benefit of the doubt back in the 1970s and that perhaps one or two of his pictures were genuine, but not this one. Eight years after the pictures were taken, Steuart made contact with James Menzies, who owned Temple Pier and lived there. Mr. Menzies made his view of the photo clear: 

During our first conversation, in 1980, I asked Menzies about Searle and his photographs. He said that he had seen a large branch or a tree trunk drift into Urquhart Bay from the River Enrick on the day Searle took these pictures. When, in July 1981, I showed Menzies the first photograph taken by Searle (Figure 1), he identified it as a picture of the tree trunk he had seen in 1972. In his book, Searle admitted that there had been heavy rain earlier that day; it would not be surprising, therefore, if some portion of a tree had been washed down the flooded river.

The rest of the article mainly runs along those lines, with an extra analysis by a Charles Cazeau who suggests the lack of water disturbance around the object is again indicative of a dead tree trunk. He also claims the object is "slowly rotating", a claim that I cannot verify from the images I have. Steuart also points out that Searle had by then stopped a photograph agency from selling prints of the six pictures. Why he did this was not initially clear to me. 

Accusations that Searle contrived various pictures as logs and branches is a common enough charge. Others suggest he used specially prepared models or he simply overlaid cut outs onto empty scenes - as with his infamous brontosaurus picture. But going back to the tree theory, I must admit, whatever one may think about Frank Searle, that does not look like a tree trunk to me. But Andrew Menzies said he saw a log like it on the same day, right? There are a couple of things that could make me doubt this. Going back to Steuart's conversation with Menzies, 

Mr. Menzies said in 1980 he saw a large branch in the bay on the day of the Searle pictures. How did he know it was on the day of the pictures? The only source I know of was the Daily Record article (and its sister newspaper, the Mirror) which gave the date when it printed eleven days later. So I assume he saw the article, in which case, why did Steuart have to show him the photo on the second visit to confirm it? After all, the picture was on the front page. The fact this was happening nearly nine years after the event does not make me confident of perfect recall about what a tree branch looked like in 1972. I say that because Nessie sceptics would have no problem querying eyewitness recall after such a long time. However, they also have no problem accepting testimony against eyewitnesses without any similar querying.

But that seemed to be the least problem. I go back to that strange hump object moving from left to right. So how exactly does a tree trunk or branch account for that? It cannot as one would deduce if it was part of the trunk, it would stay in the same position relative to the rest of the trunk. Moreover, if this hump like part of the tree were to emerge from the water, i.e., bob up, I would expect an opposite and equal reaction as something bobs down, such as the alleged neck. As it happens, nothing else moves in any direction.

A look around at other sceptical views had Ronald Binns coming to the same conclusion, that it was a tree trunk and he even claimed to spot a branch sticking out of the second hump. I have had a good look at the best images I have but cannot see such an item. As a side note, Andrew Menzies is mentioned in another story from Loch Ness lore and that is the land sighting by Arthur Grant in 1934. Menzies claimed he overheard Grant admitting to hoaxing the story. I examine that claim in my book on land sightings - but back to Frank Searle. So, have we managed to soften your attitude to Frankie boy a bit? Let us now rewind and go back to pictures one and three shown below.




I now direct your attention to photograph three with some lines drawn in to highlight some waves.




If one carefully compares these outlined waves with those in the first photograph, it becomes evident they are present in both and therefore they have come from the same original negative. The reason the alleged head and neck are static is not because it is an inanimate object like a log but because it is the same picture. Perhaps the tree theory is right after all, but that may not matter at all. But what about that wandering third hump?

In perusing the available data, I found a less cropped version of the fifth shot taken from the other side of the boat. I found it in Barrie Robertson's "Loch Ness and the Great Glen" which I would guess was published around 1973. This shows a third hump that had been cropped out of the corresponding photograph at the top of this article. 



The next book to be consulted was Frank Searle's "Around Loch Ness" published later in 1977. The same photograph was found and is reproduced below.



You may have noticed that there is something missing. The rightmost hump is gone, so perhaps this is a different picture? Unfortunately not, as an another examination of the water patterns around the humps conclusively shows it is again the same photograph. The only question is whether the hump was removed from the original image or was added to the original image? Since it is easier to overlay an image than delete part of an original, it was surely added to unoccupied water.

And therein lies the mystery of the migrating third hump in the second to fourth photos. It was likewise an acetate overlay or similar added three times. In fact, the clue to this is the fact that the other two humps and head-neck cast some form of reflection on the water, whereas our moving hump presents a clean straight line with the water surface (see image below). Now we know why Frank stopped copies of these photos going out when the expose of him began, researchers would have obtained quality copies and found them to be wanting. 



The only open question is what constitutes the main objects in the first four and last two pictures. Is it a strange looking tree trunk, a model or something else? As stated, they are not the same shape and one could invoke the famous shifting humps of the monster, but we are not at the level of confidence in these pictures to proceed anywhere near such speculations. The pictures have been doctored and because of this we need to back off and proceed no further. Nevertheless, it still doesn't look like a tree trunk to me, but who knows? If the original picture was of a monster, he destroyed any trust in it by overlaying it with fakery.

Which brings me to the final part and perhaps the main reason for this article. In all of this drama, we almost forgot about the young lady who Searle tells us was on the boat. It was another of his Girl Fridays who was great at making coffee. I would think making great coffee was a euphemism for something else. Did Frank like his coffee granulated or percolated? Best not to ask.

You may think that this woman was as fictional as Frank's photographs, but apparently not. In Frank's unpublished work, "Loch Ness Investigation - What Really Happened" she is named as Carole Kennard, an Australian school teacher aged twenty three at the time. Frank goes over the Urquhart Bay incident again but alleges that three members of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau came with a request to borrow the negatives:




Quite how Frank drops from six to three snaps is unclear, but he then alleges that they came back with a bottle of whisky, an offer to go on an American lecture tour and £250 to buy the negatives. That would be about £3500 in today's money. Now how much of this is true, false or exaggerated is also unclear. I can quite believe the Bureau would have taken an interest in the pictures in order to examine them in the same manner as this article. In the light of what has been uncovered here, it is no surprise Searle refused to hand them over! I can't quite conceive how the Bureau could profit from them and we have already quoted LNI member, Nicholas Witchell, casting doubt upon them soon after. Gone were the days when, according to Ronald Binns, the LNI described Searle as a fellow operative in the Dores area. Nevertheless, I do think there was some kind of meeting at his base with these three people.

But going back to the main point, Carole Kennard was also mentioned as being interviewed by TV when these photos went public. Where is that video clip? If she exists and is still alive, she would be aged about 72 now and there are various Carole Kennards out there. So we have a missing piece of the jigsaw, a claimed co-witness. Or perhaps she is just a figment of Frank Searle's imagination? There may be an archived newsreel of her talking about this sighting, but that may prove to be a long and fruitless hunt. Is she still alive, is she still in Australia, does she often google for "Frank Searle" and "Carole Kennard" together? The next time she does it, she will find this article.

While I am on the matter of finding Frank Searle's girlfriends, I also mention a Miss Lynda Tate, a student from Yorkshire, whom Searle claimed co-witnessed another photograph he took on July 9th 1974. Let us see where these matters take us.


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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com