A Visit to the new Loch Ness Centre Exhibition

 

A week or so ago, I made it up to Drumnadrochit to visit the new exhibition which is now under the management of Continuum Attractions and has undergone extensive changes over the first half of this year. It was time to see how the Loch Ness Monster story has been re-created by them over forty years since the first incarnation of this opened under the guidance of Tony Harmsworth. That first one was very much along the lines of the plesiosaur theory and everything was just about evidence while the subsequent exhibition was more along the lines of "no monster here" and everything was no longer evidence.

The exhibition moved from one extreme to another and so the question now was where the new one lay between these other two. Now I have to say here that I would not consider myself a suitable reviewer of exhibitions such as this. That is not because I am being paid to hype it or because I am related to anyone in the company. Rather, having imbibed a lot of the monster story over the decades, one can get a bit pernickety about things others would consider minor matters.

Moreover, the exhibition was not specially designed for me or any other monster believer or indeed for any sceptic. It is an exhibition designed for the average person, who, though not stupid, has little knowledge of the subject and may want to know more. Therefore, the job of any such exhibition is to present the subject in such a way that does not deceive or try and lead a person down one path to a fixed conclusion. In that light, I offer my thoughts and observations.

I turned up on the Friday and found that there had been a power cut and so had to wait for perhaps ten minutes while this was sorted out and everything was brought back up to speed. I went in and at this point I will confess I got in on a free ticket from Continuum Attractions. That was no big deal as I had helped them out on a few minor things and that was a fair exchange. I would say there was about five of us going into the exhibition. This was a week before the schools in Scotland closed for the Summer holidays and so I wanted to be there before the tourists began to arrive en masse over the next few months.

The first room we entered was a kind of ante-room before the main event. There were various famous and purported photographs of the Loch Ness Monster hanging on the wall along with sketches and a picture of the most famous man of all, Tim Dinsdale. On the wall beside these pictures was a quote from myself taken from one of my books. Don't worry, that was the first and last time you would hear about me in the exhibition! A nice touch above the pictures were four numbers hanging on hooks - implying they were subject to change. They were the numbers 1, 4, 4 and 5. Or to be more precise, one thousand, four hundred and forty five sightings and counting ... 

That would be the number taken from Gary Campbell's Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register. So all a good start I thought. Throughout the ensuing exhibits, the "classic" photographs, though not explicitly presented as evidence of the Loch Ness Monster, were neither subject to some of the unfalsifiable and withering arguments you get from sceptics. Well, one or two were but I move on.

Adrian Shine, the curator of the previous exhibition, would feature more than anyone else in the presentations. So he was there in the ante-room in a kind of "live" framed picture. I wasn't sure whether that implied an imbalance in views. On the one hand, he was there as an expert on the hydrology, limnology and history of the loch. On the other hand, he was also there as a sceptic regarding there being any large exotic creature in Loch Ness. Where one began and the other ended was not always clear to me.

Alongside Adrian's animated portrait were two interesting items from the lore of the great story - a copy of the Drumbuie Stone and Marmaduke Wetherell's hippo ashtray. One of them was accompanied by a text asking if this could be linked to the monster - a recurring theme as I ventured on into the first video room. There were eight rooms in all, taking me fifty minutes to go through. The first was an introductory video of the natural history of the loch from ancient geological times. 

I studiously stood and watched this, though a man and his two kids just took a glance at it and hastily moved on. Why pay good money but then rush through? Maybe the power cut delay had messed up his itinerary or something. The video was an entertaining walk through volcanic times using video graphics up to a present day clip and set the scene for the mystery.

I next walked into the Myths and Legends room and was greeted by the voice of David Tennant, famous for his portrayal of Doctor Who and apparently a Nessie fan. He provided the voice over and it was natural that this room was the next subject to greet us. It had that kind of ethereal feel to it which captured well the nether-world of kelpies and water horses.

By this time, I was wondering if the room dimensions were exactly the same as the prior exhibition. It looked like it, but the refurbishment was more important than whether rooms had been combined or split up. It was next onto the room of Nessie's origins as a multi-screen display took us through the early 1930s and the beginnings of the modern monster. This was in a dramatised form using actors representing such people as Aldie Mackay and Alex Campbell in the setting of an old style pub.

Alongside that was a screen displaying people, photos and sketches linked to the mystery as shown below. Here the old classic photos were again on display and in general they were neither praised nor pilloried, which I guess was the best I could hope for. One or two were questioned and I do not recall seeing the O'Connor, Shiels or Cockrell photos.

It was interesting to see actors who were non-white depicting eyewitnesses. I guess this was to fulfill diversity quotas but it made me think whether there had been any such eyewitness over the last ninety years. I could not think of a single one and although back in the 1930s that would have been no surprise, nobody over the last few decades came to mind. Of course, most of the time the ethnicity of the person involved is never stated. They are there out there somewhere, but who was the most famous one? I am sure someone will let me know.

The next room was a high vaulted space bathed in green light which conveyed the depths of the loch and the exploration of it. Well, it is actually more tea-like but green is perhaps more calming. The effects made one think they were standing at the bottom of the loch looking up as a large screen took us through the various underwater searches over the years. The effects were good with the odd mysterious shadow flitting past but I did not agree with the sceptical assessment of the 1975 "body" picture taken by the AAS. Well, I did say this exhibition wasn't crafted with a small cadre of Nessie hunters in mind!

The next room was what I would describe as the previous exhibition compressed into one room. This was the domain of Adrian Shine as he appeared on a large video screen in front of the John Murray boat giving us his perspective on the decades of the hunt, what animals may or may not be Nessie, the other usual suspects which fool observers and where do we go from here? Now I do not mean that Nessie scepticism was confined to this room only, it was not, but this was the room to go to for that genre of opinion. As I said, this was going to be an exhibition that would attempt to balance these two opposing poles. Did it achieve that? I will give my take on that at the end.

Nevertheless, it was a well presented video, and yes, people are fooled by everyday phenomenon, and so that had to be said, it just depends how you say it. As the tour drew to a close, it was into the penultimate room which was a kind of reprise of what had gone before as final arguments were made. There was a display of items highlighting curious explanations of monsters but the main focus was the video wall and at this point we finally got to meet some Nessie believers in the form of Steve Feltham and Alan McKenna who were stating their case to me. No worries, chaps, I am all in.

With all that done and dusted it was time to place your vote. What did I think? Plesiosaur? Big fish? Hoax? Boats? Logs or what? Make your choice and press one or more of those nine buttons. That was quite fun and my vote was added to produce a video wall display of all cumulative results. And the winner was ... well, you just got to love the voting public.

I took snapshots of the running totals and may come back at the end of the Summer to see how the voting has progressed. The final room may or may not have been a room, perhaps more of an exit hall. But it had preserved something that was for me a favourite part of the previous exhibition and that was the video testimonies of some well known sightings, straight from the witnesses themselves. 

This is something any enquiring mind should listen to and so I was glad to see it still there and a bit more modern looking. However, it was hard to hear the audio as there was some music playing over it in the same area. In the last exhibition, there was a set of headphones one could plug in to the display and hear it clearly. But it appeared there was no headphone facility, perhaps this was some health and safety rule about sharing a headphone. Anyway, I told the staff nearby about the issue and hopefully it will be sorted soon.

Overall, it was a big improvement on the previous exhibition in terms of presentation, entertainment and seeking a balance between belief and scepticism. However, what was actually presented as potential evidence for the Loch Ness Monster was small, the sonar hit of October 2020 taken from a Cruise Loch Ness boat got some attention at the end. As stated earlier, it was good to see some classic images presented uncritically, but no more than that. I wondered where some other classic images were, such as the Dinsdale film? Or more modern ones from the last twenty years.

Perhaps there was copyright and licensing issues tied to some of those? You can't just put on display images owned by others when you are charging a fee to see them. Such is the commercial world of the Loch Ness Monster. On the other hand, sceptical images of logs and wakes are pretty much free. So how did I rate the exhibition for balance between scepticism and belief in the creature?

I assigned a mark to each of the eight rooms out of 100, so 60:40 would be 60% pro-Nessie and 40% anti-Nessie for want of better phrases and each room was given equal weight. I added them up and got a balance of 55:45 in favour of Nessie. So I could say that the exhibition had achieved a balance with a tilt towards Scotland's most famous creature. Others of course, may come up with different numbers, but go yourself and form your own opinion as to how the mystery of the loch has been newly presented to us in Drumnadrochit.

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The author can also be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

First Photograph of 2023

 

A tourist from France presents us with the first claimed Nessie photograph of the year as the Daily Telegraph relates from the 16th June:

A tourist visiting Loch Ness has claimed to have seen a 65ft-long dark shape moving just beneath the surface of the water for several minutes. Etienne Camel, a pharmacist from Lyon and his wife Eliane were taking holiday photos from the west side of the loch near Invermoriston when they made the latest sighting of the long-reputed “monster”.

He said: “It was quite strange. I am a man of science so I never believed that the Loch Ness monster is a prehistoric animal. But when I was taking a picture I saw this long, long shadow. I called my wife over and we saw the shadow move. I thought maybe it was a cloud, but there was none, or a boat, but none was near or reefs. There were small waves, like something was moving. It was 15-20m long and was about 150m away. It was quite strange and then it disappeared."

He added: “We could not tell if it was an animal, but something was moving under the water. I have never seen such [things] in lakes – and we have many where we live – before.”

Now the kind of photographs I like show something solid and animate on the surface, but disturbances of the water surface still need an examination. Since there is nothing visible on the water, you can't really argue for it being anything unusual unless the water is being disturbed in unexpected ways which brings us to the various natural explanations suggested in these situations.

Differentials in water turbulence left by boat wakes, windrows, catspaws and wind slicks all figure and sometimes groups of small animals, though this picture is detailed enough to exclude birds. I don't know how windy it was that day, but Loch Ness effectively acts as a wind tunnel channeling the general south-westerly wind up it and magnifying wind flows across the large surface area. That can lead to inconsistencies in the dynamics of the wind distribution.

In other words, localised and large areas can experience more or less turbulence than their surrounding waters and give the appearance of something underneath disturbing the surface or perhaps looking darker is seen at a longer distance. The fact that they will stay for a long time and be bigger than any monster (the witness said it was up to 60 feet long) is normally the give away features.

It was said to move, but alterations in wind flow can give that effect too. So, an interesting image which can be banked in the catalogue of things to look out for. These kind of pictures have been published on this blog over the years. This link tells the tale of another such image taken by Ken Ross in October 2012. 

That one was estimated to be about 200 feet long. We even have some videos as shown below. The first was taken in April 2010 at Urquhart Bay.

The second was taken in the same area later in August 2010 by some Italian tourists.

Now all these do not need the same explanation and indeed perhaps amongst all these there is one caused by a large object under the surface. It has to be said however, that Nessie must be some kind of buoyancy expert if she can consistently disturb the water surface without ever breaking it and exposing a neck, back or tail. Until that happens, at best file these pictures as inconclusive.

One final thought did occur to me. Take Etienne Camel's picture, zoom it out, put it at a much further distance to flatten it, image it on a low resolution webcam rather than a camera and you will likely end up with something like the picture below. They won't explain all of Eoin's pictures - some, but not all.

But keep looking, keep snapping and who knows? Get back to us when y'all get something like this.

... or this ...

... or this. And if you believe that no good, clear pictures of the Loch Ness Monster have been obtained in the last ninety years, then you simply do not believe in the Loch Ness Monster!

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The author can also be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

New Loch Ness Monster Exhibition Opens Tomorrow

 

The day is upon us and it is tomorrow (Saturday 10th June) when the new exhibition opens to the public. Those with a stake in the mystery have already made statements. Adrian Shine, the curator of the previous exhibition and a consultant for this new re-presentation says it is "imaginative, creative, entertaining and accessible". When asked why he did not include the word "definitive", he said:

Stories like this are seldom definitive. But it has moved on. We don’t like to let go of our myths, but we modify them in the light of information we get. We can hold on to the myth and still be reasonable and that’s the fun.

Adrian re-affirmed his sceptical position on the BBC News yesterday, though emphasizing it was not a cynical scepticism. Monster Hunter, Steve Feltham, has also played his part in the production process and has already seen the finished product. He was a lot more positive about the monster as opposed to the myth:

If I were only to be allowed one single word to describe the new Loch Ness Centre exhibition it would be, "Sexy". Continuum have managed to bring the mystery to life in so many impressive ways. They have put back the mystery, the romance, the possibility and the humour, in such an engaging way. Honestly when I stepped out of the last room into the gift shop I just wanted to get back to the waters edge and get on with the hunt. The hunt is on, the game is afoot.

I was invited to a preview myself this Friday, but, alas, other commitments stop me from going up to the loch this weekend. I will have to find a date real soon and get up north to see this promising new development in the Loch Ness Monster story. I will have to avoid the pictures that people will doubtless post on various websites and the multitude of comments for good or ill that may prejudice one's expectations. 

But for starters, the picture at the top is an exhibition animation of St Columba's encounter with a "water beast" somewhere along the river or loch (the Latin text is ambiguous). I covered this story in a previous article. The text by Adamnan doesn't describe what the creature looked like, but the popular plesiosaur-like animal is used here. And therein lies the creative aspects of an exhibition where myth and monster can be allowed to meet without canceling each other out. In the 19th century, the demonic water horse was the explanatory wrapper put around what people were claiming to see. The following century, it was the plesiosaur wrapper. Such are the added accretions of ancient and modern folklore.

People like Adrian will say today that if you remove either wrapper, you will find nothing but empty space inside. To extend the metaphor a bit further, I would contend you can't wrap up nothing - it would just collapse. Whatever that "something" is lying under the various layers added by men over the centuries, it is solid enough and I hope the new Loch Ness Centre Exhibition attempts to take a peek at what lies under the artificial layers.

Comments can be made at the Loch Ness Mystery Blog Facebook group.

The author can also be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

Artificial Intelligence and the Loch Ness Monster

There has been some chat on Nessie forums recently about AI and how it may affect the search for the Loch Ness Monster. I wish to address two points of view on this nascent technology. First is the matter of image creation applications which have this so called artificially intelligent attribute. The image above is one such example that recently surfaced on Internet forums. It is expected that such candidates deceptively submitted as proof of the monster will make it harder to distinguish real untampered images from these fakes.

Now, ever since the 1930s, researchers have had to contend with deceptive images from Loch Ness, though image manipulation did not arrive until much later on. Theories on what is actually in a given image can abound, even to the point of people being dogmatic even though a photograph is far from being the objective alternative to a subjective eyewitness testimony that some think it is.

AI generated images are not quite the quantum leap they are made out to be in terms of quality. Such images have been created by skilled people for a long time. The difference now is that the image creation program needs a lot less skill from the user and the program becomes the artist itself. The user is now more  the client who specifies the subject of the image, the style of it, background and uploads of previous images that are to be blended in and so on. The bar to entry will now be lower and that means  more such images appearing on the Internet.

Looking around at current AI generated images of the Loch Ness Monster, the vast majority look cartoonish, scaly dinosaur-like, dragon-like, stylized or not photo-realistic such as the one below. The backgrounds can also bear little resemblance to Loch Ness but the objective is to have some fun and be creative with your favourite subjects. The one at the top of this article looks more like an attempt to be realistic.

stock.adobe.com/images/ai-generated-digital-art-of-loch-ness-monster/543168438

The image is not difficult to question as there are one too many quirky features to it but if someone did try and pass off a similar type of image as a genuine incident, it would have to pass through the normal stages of investigation. Researchers approach this from different angles. Some visually examine the picture for departures from the reality of the actual location, date and time. The object of interest is of course scrutinized for incongruities and similarities to everyday phenomena.

Another approach is to use Google to search for similar images available on the Internet and it is possible one may come across the original photograph minus the "monster" and other special effects. Google has its own image search facility or one can manually look for it. In fact, Google will soon release an enhanced version of their image search tool to help identify fake images generated by AI or people (article here).

Google going forward will tag the metadata of any image created with their own AI tools as an AI-generated image and others providers are expected to follow suit. The problem is some may not. Metadata, or information about the image, has been a factor in image analysis for some time. Digital camera metadata will record information about date of creation, image format and camera settings to aid assessment.

By way of example, here are two screenshots of another water horse based on a picture I took with my Samsung smartphone. They are of one of the Kelpie statues near Falkirk, Scotland. The first is copied straight from the phone onto my laptop and has the same metadata as the image in the phone's memory. The second image has been altered by adding the words "this image has been altered" to the top left.

This results in differences in the image specifics. The file and original dates are different as are the file sizes, number of colours, etc. In all cases, the original image must be examined but that is not a given. We have had a couple of instances in recent years where hoaxers were less than helpful in producing a bona fide original image. I think of Ricky "random log" Phillips and Steve "catfish" Challice. As regards the image at the top of the page, a look at its metadata revealed no EXIF data on camera parameters as one would expect from a digital camera image.

 

That may not be an issue as such data can be lost during a conversion process such as JPEG to GIF. But if you push further and they do not produce the original, the picture should be rejected. So the tools are there and also improving but that will not stop people producing these images if it means they get their five minutes of fame on the mainstream media websites. You may conclusively prove the image is a fraud to those who are listening, but too many media outlets want the clickbait to draw in viewers, be it a genuine image or not. Twas ever thus.

ASKING THE QUESTIONS

The other more positive aspect of AI I tested in regard to the Loch Ness Monster is ChatGPT, an artificially intelligent chatbot developed by the tech company OpenAI which went online last November. ChatGPT interacts with users in a conversational style but can do other tasks such as write music, business reports and summarize texts. Users can rate the responses and offer feedback thus feeding into the program's learning in the manner of any human who improves as they interact with others. I began by asking it the obvious question - what is the Loch Ness Monster? The initial response was:

The Loch Ness Monster, also known as "Nessie," is a legendary creature said to inhabit Loch Ness, a large freshwater lake in the Scottish Highlands. According to popular belief, Nessie is a large, long-necked aquatic reptile or dinosaur-like creature that has eluded capture and scientific study for decades.

The first recorded sighting of Nessie dates back to 565 AD when Saint Columba is said to have encountered a "water beast" in the River Ness. However, the modern legend of Nessie began in 1933 when a local newspaper reported the sighting of a large creature in Loch Ness. Since then, there have been many reported sightings, photographs, and videos of Nessie, although most of them have been proven to be hoaxes or misidentifications of other objects or animals.

Despite the lack of concrete evidence, the legend of the Loch Ness Monster remains a popular subject of folklore and a significant tourist attraction in Scotland.

That answer is fair enough for a few sentences. One may hesitate to call it AI if it was just scraping the Internet for texts to stitch together. Well, that is a bit simplistic as it has done something quite difficult as it extracts the priority facts required out of many possible source texts, summarize them, put them in order and render it readable to a human. ChatGPT was basically doing the same job as a human journalist would do to create a couple of paragraphs to sum up the mystery. It may have even done it better than some humans. There is the option to ask the same question again and ChatGPT attempted a more refined answer:

The Loch Ness Monster, also known as "Nessie," is a legendary creature said to inhabit Loch Ness, a large freshwater loch in the Scottish Highlands. According to popular belief, Nessie is a large aquatic animal that resembles a plesiosaur, a type of prehistoric reptile that lived during the dinosaur era. The first reports of a creature in Loch Ness date back to the 6th century, but it was not until the 1930s that the modern legend of Nessie began to take shape, fueled by a series of alleged sightings and photographs.

Despite numerous expeditions and scientific studies, there is no concrete evidence that the Loch Ness Monster actually exists. Many scientists believe that the reported sightings are likely misidentifications of known animals, such as seals or large fish, or simply hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. Nevertheless, the legend of Nessie continues to capture the imagination of people around the world, and the search for evidence of the creature remains a popular pastime and subject of speculation.

Now that is all well and good, but I wanted to exercise its creative "thinking" a bit more. I asked what equipment is used to hunt the Loch Ness Monster?

As far as I know, there is no specific equipment designed to hunt the Loch Ness Monster, as it is widely believed to be a mythical creature and its existence has not been scientifically proven. However, there have been numerous attempts to find evidence of the creature's existence using various methods, such as sonar imaging, underwater cameras, and even submarines. Some people have also claimed to have captured photographs or videos of the creature using standard cameras or smartphones. However, the authenticity of these sightings and evidence has been widely debated and remains inconclusive.

The "as far as I know" indeed suggests a lack of accuracy as equipment has been designed for hunting the monster, such as the AAS underwater sonar/camera rigs. However, I did not ask for such examples, only for any general equipment used. So we get sonar, underwater cameras, submarines and cameras which is not an exhaustive list. There is no mention of binoculars, drones, hydrophones, bait and so on. I asked for a refined answer:

There is no equipment specifically designed for hunting the Loch Ness Monster, as its existence has not been scientifically proven. However, some people have attempted to search for the creature using various tools, such as:

Sonar equipment: Some researchers have used sonar to scan the depths of Loch Ness in search of any large, unidentified objects.

Underwater cameras: Underwater cameras have been used to capture images and videos of the underwater environment in Loch Ness, but no definitive evidence of the monster has been captured.

Submarines and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs): These devices can explore the depths of Loch Ness without putting humans in danger, and may be able to capture high-quality images and videos of any potential creatures in the water.

Bait and lures: Some people have attempted to lure the Loch Ness Monster to the surface by using food or other bait.

It's worth noting that despite decades of searching and numerous expeditions, no conclusive evidence of the Loch Ness Monster's existence has been found.

So, I don't think anything was added here apart from bait and lures. Again, it insists no specialist equipment exists, which is not what I asked and again it feels the need to be an Artificial Sceptic by telling me no equipment has found anything. I stopped there and wanted to try another approach to test its creativity more. That was to ask it for suggestions about new ways to hunt for the Loch Ness Monster. Now searching the Internet for that kind of answer would prove to be more challenging. I asked it to suggest new ways of hunting the Loch Ness Monster:

As an AI language model, I do not support or encourage any activities that could potentially harm the environment or any living beings. However, I can suggest some non-invasive ways to search for the Loch Ness Monster:

Conduct an aerial survey: Using drones or helicopters equipped with high-definition cameras, scientists and researchers can conduct an aerial survey of the loch to look for any unusual activity on the surface of the water.

Use sonar technology: Advanced sonar equipment can be used to map the loch's underwater terrain and to detect any large, moving objects.

Deploy underwater cameras: Placing underwater cameras at various depths in the loch can help capture any evidence of the creature's existence.

Conduct environmental DNA analysis: Researchers can collect water samples from different locations in the loch and analyze them for traces of DNA from any unknown species.

Set up a network of acoustic sensors: Placing a network of acoustic sensors in the loch can help detect any unusual sounds or vocalizations that could potentially be coming from the creature.

It's worth noting that despite numerous reported sightings over the years, there is currently no scientific evidence that proves the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. Any search for the creature should be conducted with the utmost respect for the environment and its inhabitants.

Okay, that was very eco-friendly with its concern for Nessie, but all these things have been done, although they could be done in new ways. The network of acoustic sensors has not really been done at Loch Ness. So maybe something there from ChatGPT. I then suspected I was not framing the question properly by using that word "hunting" which was not taken in it metaphorical sense by ChatGPT. I replaced it with "searching":

The search for the Loch Ness Monster has been ongoing for decades, but so far, no conclusive evidence has been found. However, here are some new ways to potentially search for the Loch Ness Monster:

Underwater Drones: Using advanced underwater drones with high-resolution cameras and sonar systems, researchers can search the depths of the Loch Ness with greater accuracy and detail than ever before. This technology could potentially uncover new evidence of the creature's existence.

DNA Analysis: Researchers could use DNA analysis to search for any traces of genetic material left behind by the Loch Ness Monster. This could involve taking water samples from the Loch Ness and using advanced genetic sequencing technology to look for any unique genetic markers that could be associated with the creature.

Satellite Imagery: Satellite imagery could be used to search for any unusual patterns or movements in the Loch Ness. Advanced satellite imaging technology could potentially detect any disturbances in the water caused by the creature.

Night Vision Cameras: Night vision cameras could be used to capture images of the Loch Ness Monster at night, when it is believed to be most active. These cameras could be set up around the Loch Ness to monitor any unusual activity.

Augmented Reality: Augmented reality technology could be used to create virtual simulations of the Loch Ness and its surrounding areas, allowing researchers to explore the Loch Ness in a virtual environment and potentially uncover new clues about the creature's existence.

While these methods may not guarantee the discovery of the Loch Ness Monster, they do represent new and innovative ways to search for this elusive creature.

Again, most have been thought of before, but admittedly some such as underwater drones and night vision cameras have been barely used. The augmented reality proposal sounds intriguing, though I am not sure there is enough data to achieve it? Perhaps that is one for the future. I asked for a regenerated response which added one more new option of crowdsourcing:

Crowdsourcing: With the widespread use of social media, it is possible to mobilize a large number of people to search the loch and share their findings online, increasing the likelihood of detecting any unusual activity.

That sounds very much like the multiple webcams recently installed at the loch and watched by many around the world, including a certain Eoin. So, nothing there totally surprising apart from augmented reality. Perhaps that is because we have been racking our human brains for decades, lol. But then again, ChatGPT only got into the subject days ago I suspect. As to other possibilities missed out by ChatGPT but thought of by us humans we have thermal night drones, tethered drones and radar sweeps of the loch surface. You heard it from Homo Sapiens here first!

So the Loch Ness equivalent of SkyNet has gone live. Disruptive technology always stirs things up. You split the atom and end up with 10 megaton bombs or nuclear power stations. You decode DNA and end up with gene therapy or leaks from virology labs. Let us see where this leads us.

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The author can also be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

sss

1933 - King Kong and the Loch Ness Monster

This year marks the 90th anniversary of two famous monsters. The first was King Kong when that great ape appeared in his first film, released in America to critical acclaim on March 2nd 1933 in New York. Two months later, the first media report of many concerning a strange creature in a Highland loch was published by the Inverness Courier on May 2nd under the title of "Strange Spectacle at Loch Ness". After those debut days, the two monsters followed parallel paths into 1933 as more reports to intrigue the public came in from the loch about the newly named Loch Ness Monster, while anticipation of the King Kong film coming to Britain fueled excitement about monsters real or imagined.

King Kong would have its premiere at the Coliseum Cinema in London on Easter Monday, April 17th as seen in the contemporary advert below, which was around the time that Aldie Mackay, the eyewitness to the "strange spectacle" in Loch Ness, had her encounter. In scenes unfamiliar to modern cinema goers, a report from the Daily Herald the next day said that thousands gathered at Charing Cross trying to get in to see the film with police being called in to control the crowd. Those who were successful had to stand in queues hundreds of yards long wrapping round the block. By the end of the day, 15,000 were the first to see this literal blockbuster.

Such was the impression that the film had on the general public that a question has been raised in the ninety years since as to whether these two monsters did follow parallel paths or did their paths cross and influence each other in some way? To that end, it has been speculated in recent times that the prehistoric monsters depicted in the King Kong film had a subliminal effect on the eyewitness accounts that came out of Loch Ness in the months after the release of the film in the United Kingdom.

While the film was preparing to go on general UK release in the Autumn of 1933, the Loch Ness Monster story ramped up with a sensational story from the Inverness Courier of August 4th concerning the monster out of the loch on dry land crossing a road in front of two witnesses in their car. The couple were the Spicers from London and their account became one of the lead stories of the coming worldwide media interest. This interest was to be sparked by one national newspaper, The Scotsman, sending a team up to investigate local claims and publishing it to a wider audience in September.

King Kong and Nessie now had everyone's attention. And this is where King Kong first enters the Nessie domain. Lt. Cdr. Rupert T. Gould interviewed the Spicers for his book, "The Loch Ness Monster and Others" published later in June 1934. During his meeting with George Spicer, the film came up in the conversation:

While discussing his experience, I happened to refer to the diplodocus-like dinosaur in King Kong: a film which, I discovered, we had both seen. He told me that the creature he saw much resembled this, except that in his case no legs were visible, while the neck was much longer and more flexible.

It is not clear when George Spicer saw the film. Was it before or after his experience at Loch Ness in July 1933? The film had been screening in London for three months before the Spicers' encounter at Loch Ness which sounds like plenty of time to see it. But then again, maybe monster films were not his thing until he saw something monstrous up north? Nobody knows for sure, but after this no author made any mention of King Kong and the Loch Ness Monster that I could find for fifty years.

That came in 1983 with Ronald Binns' sceptical work, "The Loch Ness Mystery Solved". In his concluding argument that people need monsters and will therefore see them, he refers to the exchange between Spicer and Gould and conjectures that:

It is probably no coincidence that the Loch Ness Monster was discovered at the very moment that King Kong, the masterpiece of the genre, was released across Scotland in 1933.

This "pioneering argument" (as Binns self-describes it) was not developed further and speculation about any connection between the two monsters disappears again for another thirty years. That came with the publication of another sceptical book entitled "Abominable Science" by Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero in 2013. This book was a general diatribe against cryptozoology with a large chapter on the Loch Ness Monster. I reviewed it at the time here.

Binns' initial thoughts were taken and developed by the authors who suggest that the scene in King Kong with the diplodocus-like dinosaur mentioned by Gould was transposed by George Spicer onto his story. It was not clear what was meant by this, did George Spicer take that scene and totally fabricate a similar incident at Loch Ness or did what he saw at Loch Ness go through some kind of mental diplodocus filter? So questions were left unanswered, as well as the involvement of Spicer's wife, the co-witness and as mentioned above whether one or both of them had even seen the film by that time?

A couple of years later, researcher Charles Paxton had an article published in the January 2015 edition of Fortean Times entitled "Nessie, Daughter of Kong?" in which he took a different view to the King Kong and Nessie connection. He argued that King Kong being a major influence on the Loch Ness Monster was too simplistic and failed to address various factors at play, such as a strange creature in the loch being reported at least as far back as 1930 and the issue of the film not reaching Inverness until October of 1933. However, he did not dismiss the idea of some degree of cultural influence.

This article led to a couple of letters being published in the March 2015 edition from an Ulrich Magin and a Martyn Jackson. The first focused more on the account from 1930 but also mentioned the potential influence of water horse and sea serpent necks beyond the dinosaurs of King Kong. The letter from Mr. Jackson changes tack and goes back to 1925 and the release of the silent movie, "The Lost World" which was another dinosaur movie featuring stop motion technology and was seen as the forerunner of the King Kong film. In particular he refers to another diplodocus-type creature which runs amok in London. Did this film released eight years before King Kong have any influence in the matter?

The debate then comes full circle in 2023 as the Fortean Times published another article by the aforementioned Ulrich Magin to mark the 90th anniversary of Nessie. This was a sceptical article and the focus was again on the Spicer land sighting with the statement that he may have been influenced by the movie. That more or less sums up the debate on the connection between the King Kong movie and early sightings of the Loch Ness Monster in 1933.

With all that history behind us, now seemed a good time to review all this with a fresh look. That required new information and so I turned to the British Newspaper Archive to harvest data on what the media were reporting on the two monsters back in 1933 and 1934. It has over 67 million pages of British newspapers digitised and online since the 1700s and is the most complete archive available. It will not have every newspaper for every year, but the amount of pages available should give us a representative view of what journalists were writing on certain subjects back then.

Firstly, all references to the phrase "King Kong", "Loch Ness Monster" and "Loch Ness" were collected for the years 1933 to 1939. The phrase "Loch Ness" was chosen as not all references to the monster used the phrase "Loch Ness Monster". When plotted on a chart, the two phrases had pretty much the same shape and so I will stick to matches for "Loch Ness Monster" although references to "Loch Ness" were almost 50% greater. The chart of newspaper hits for "King Kong" and "Loch Ness Monster" is shown below. The Loch Ness Monster line is the darker one.

Looking at King Kong first, the line rises into May 1933 as the film finally arrives in London and the reviews and chatter begins. There is then a dip awaiting the later nationwide release and then by the end of September, we have a peak in King Kong interest as most parts of the country would have seen the film (though Inverness did not see it until October). Another peak happens in November as the sequel film "Son of Kong" came out at the end of the year to stir further interest. That film was a flop and depicted a lot smaller ape. After that King Kong fever effectively ends and it drops rapidly into a flatter pattern.

For the Loch Ness Monster, things started quietly as news of a monster stayed with the local newspapers in early 1933. It was when The Scotsman took up the story in September that it began to acquire UK interest and launched like a rocket to peak in January 1934 with various key events being reported such as the Wetherell expedition, the first photograph from Hugh Gray and the Arthur Grant land account. Then the reporting likewise dropped off with a small peak in the summer of 1934.

What can be gleaned about any potential relationship here? The King Kong phenomenon had peaked in September with its peak in cinema goers, but the Loch Ness Monster peaked four months later and for its own different reasons. King Kong had peaked just as the Loch Ness Monster was taking off. Both had gathered a similar number of hits up to their respective peaks, but the Nessie one was more of a spike hitting a peak twice as high as anything for King Kong.

As to actual content, most of the King Kong matches would be cinema adverts, reviews and local talk about the film. There would be an overspill into the mainstream where columnists would use the phrase in different ways and the beast would "appear" at local events such as carnivals. The Loch Ness Monster was different as it focused on eyewitness accounts, theories as to what it was, what the experts thought about it and what people were going to do about it. To that can be added the humorous articles, letters and the use of the phrase in a more generic way as well as how it fed into the local cultures in a similar way to King Kong.

How correlated are the two data sets as in how closely do they relate to each other? By using the Excel correlation function, a numerical value can be assigned to this question. This is a number which lies between -1 and +1 and the closer it is to +1, the more positively correlated they are. A value closer to zero indicates there is no correlation between the two and a value tending to -1 indicates they are oppositely correlated (i.e. one rises as the other falls and vice versa). For the two years of 1933 and 1934, taking in the significant highs and lows of the two beasts, the correlation came out at +0.19 which would be regarded as a weak correlation. 

That does not mean that the two phenomena went their own ways throughout those years, it is more suggestive of a degree of influence but not a strong one. The next set may give us a better indication of how one may have influenced the other and that is the number of times both phenomena were mentioned in the same article  Since the accuracy of the newspaper archive search facility gave matches for both on the same page but not necessarily the same article, each hit had to be examined and judged accordingly. 

The search was run from January 1933 to October 1935, which by then both were out of the "mania" phase. The total number of hits for articles mentioning both the King Kong and the Loch Ness Monster was a mere forty three. The total number of newspaper occurrences of King Kong or the Loch Ness Monster on their own or together was 8999 in the same period. That means the media linked the two, for whatever reasons, about 0.5% of the time. In terms of hits for the two just being on the same page, the best total was 73 or 0.8% of the total. The chart below shows the hits for both as a dotted line. Since the number is so small compared to the overall total, it is numbered on the right hand side.

However, the dotted line hits a maximum of just over 1% of the total in January 1934 as Nessie media articles hit a peak. So, the dual mention phenomenon is more linked to coverage of the Loch Ness Monster than coverage of the King Kong movie, which would make sense. But it looks like a very small number compared to what it is covering, so that does not look like an indicator of the King Kong movie influencing the Loch Ness Monster phenomenon. This is further seen in what these dual hits actually talk about, which is tabulated into general categories below.

1. The idea of unclassified or extinct animals surviving - 3
2. Loch Ness Monster compared to diplodocus in King Kong film - 2
3. Humorous references to both (metaphors, poems, story) - 9
4. Appearances in public events (fancy dress, pantomime, carnivals) - 10
5. Nessie themed films compared to King Kong film (Movietone, Secret of the Loch, Irvine film) - 8
6. King Kong a better story than Loch Ness Monster - 2
7. Publicity for King Kong film mentioning Loch Ness Monster - 4

Most of the references are of a trivial nature and do not address the question of how dinosaurs in the King Kong film could have influenced eyewitnesses to objects in Loch Ness. In fact, there was no reference in any of the above to an eyewitness describing what they saw as looking like something from the King Kong movie. The most important references are the two which state that the Loch Ness Monster resembles the diplodocus in the Kong movie. One is explicit and the other is implicit when it only says you can see Nessie in the film, but there is only one scene that fits that statement.

That is two quotes from nearly nine thousand newspaper pieces over two years, not exactly a ringing endorsement of what is called a "pioneering argument". That argument is rather indirectly inferred from the coincidental appearances of the two monsters in 1933 and not anything that could be called direct evidence. This is further demonstrated when the newspaper pieces which mention both the Loch Ness Monster and King Kong are charted against the actual eyewitness reports from 1933 to 1934 as shown below (Nessie reports are the orange line).

The Loch Ness Monster reports just kept coming in long after any media stories linking the two was finished and peaked in July 1934. The correlation for these two data sets is 0.31 which is borderline weak to moderate, or in other words, not strong or compelling in any way. One can only go so far with these statistics, but they present a more quantitative approach to the subject than psychological theories which are notorious for being untestable.

But going back to the history of this King Kong debate, there was one quantitative analysis offered in defense of the theory and that was proposed in "Abominable Science". The claim was that the object described by the Spicers bears a more than passing resemblance to our not so friendly brontosaurus/diplodocus/ataposaur/etc from King Kong. I reproduce below two pictures relevant to that theory.

Now "Abominable Science" claims four similarities between George Spicer's sketch and their snapshot from the brontosaurus scene:

1. Both had a long neck.
2. Both had no feet visible.
3. Both had tail curved round side of body.
4. Both had victim in mouth.

Now if you watch the complete scene from the film (YouTube), that scenario is not so convincing. Depending on what frame you pick, you could only have two of the list true - long neck and something in mouth. What was claimed as a lamb or some other small animal in the mouth of the Loch Ness Monster by George Spicer equates to our unfortunate crew member in the Kong film. I don't think I have seen a meaner man munching brontosaurus. So much for giant cows with long necks.

So perhaps not the most unbiased choice of the "Abominable Science" authors. If they can do that, well, I choose a still which bears only a slight resemblance to the Spicer sketch. So, the case has not been made and I see no evidence that seeing dinosaurs like the one below from the King Kong movie can make people looking at floating logs or birds in Loch Ness turn them into prehistoric creatures. 

That there may have been cultural influences between the two monsters cannot be denied, people did make connections, but it is a big leap to conceive how this alters peoples' perceptions looking across a loch. Indeed, no serious scientific paper to this day has been published on the subject with convincing experimentation and reasoning.

Finally, I move onto "The Lost World" references. Actually, I watched this silent movie for the first time when I was researching this article. It was available to rent on Amazon Prime and I took some photos. It was a good watch considering its age, although obviously dated in more ways than one. Professor Challenger's captured brontosaurus also features in that movie and does some serious damage to London as the designers of Tower Bridge failed to take into account the weight of a brontosaurus on it and it drops into the Thames. The scene ends with a very Loch Ness Monster like scene but again, the links between this and the later Loch Ness Monster are even more tenuous.

After all that, what can one say but here's to another ninety years of Nessie.

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The author can also be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

sss

Now ninety years on we might say the special effects are primitive compared to today while we look over the latest Nessie photograph with no idea what that old critter is. Ninety years from now, I wonder what they will think of our CGI King Kongs? I don't know, but the latest Nessie pictures will be something we can't quite conceive and they still won't know what that old critter is.