Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness Monster (Oil painting) by Heikenwaelder Hugo

The Loch Ness Monster, like Champ of Lake Champlain or Ogopogo of Lake Okanagan, is a purported lake creature believed by some to inhabit Scotland's Loch Ness, the most voluminous freshwater lake in Great Britian. Since reported sightings in the early 20th century, Loch Ness has become world reknowned for its mysterious lake monster. Local Scottish highlanders, and many people around the world, have affectionately referred to the animal by the feminine name of Nessie.

Most scientists and other experts find current evidence supporting the creature's existence unpersuasive, and regard the occasional sightings as hoaxes or misidentification of known creatures or natural phenomena. However, belief in the legend persists around the world, with the most popular theory posing that the creature is actually a plesiosaur.

Description

Over the years, the many sightings of Nessie have produced a rather uniform description of the creature. It is said to have a long, slender neck, that attaches a flat, rectangle like head to a rounded body that possess four large flippers. Some report Nessie to have a long, slender tail while others insist it is shorter and thicker. One of the most prominent features attributed to Nessie are the eyes, large and situated on either side of the head. The color and length of the creature seems to be a point of contention, possibly due to the fact that the Loch is dark and murky, sunlight not easily pentrating through the peat moss concentrated in the water. Reports have Nessie appearing grey or a dark tan, from the size of an elephant to as large as a whale.

Origin

The Scotish Highlands have always held a long standing tradition of mystery and belief in the supernatural. Loch Ness itself is believed to be the site of some long lost Druid power. The Pagans pf pre-Roman Britian also believed in a type of creature they called kelpies, water spirits that would appear to children in the forms of horses or bulls, enticing them into the water where they would drown the children The first suggestive reference of a creature that correlates to the modern day conception of Nessie comes from the 7th century writer Adamnan, in the Life of St. Columba A passage from this work describes how in 565 Columba saved the life of a Pict, who was being supposedly attacked by a lake monster. However, since these kind of works often embellished the truth and incoporated supernatural elements for use as symbolism, this work must only suggests how far back belief in the history belief in a lake moster goes. Whether or not the creature does in fact exist, it is difficult to accurately pinpoint when belief in Nessie began, but such is the characteristic of mysterious creatures, like Bigfoot or the Yeti. Beyond the debate or real or imaginary, creatures like Nessie appear to inpsire people on a imaginative, even sub-conscious level, tapping into that part of humanity that connects with the supernatural and unknown.

Sightings and Evidence

There have been so many reported sightings of the Loch Ness Monster that is almost impossible to cataloge all in one article. However, there are several that are distinctive and worth noting, especially the earlier reports that led to Nessie's world wide celebrity. The first reported sighting of Nessie during modern times was in 1880, by a driver named Duncan McDonald, who had an alleged underwater encounter with a creature that left him shaken But it was not until a string of sightings in the 1930s that brought Loch Ness world attention. On July 22, 1933, Mr. George Spicer and his wife saw 'a most extraordinary form of animal' cross the road in front of their car. They described the creature as having a large body (about 4 feet high and 25 feet long), and long, narrow neck, slightly thicker than an elephant's trunk and as long as the 10-12 foot width of the road; the neck had a number of undulations in it. They saw no limbs because of a dip in the road obscuring the animal's lower portion. It lurched across the road towards the loch some 20 yards away, leaving only a trail of broken undergrowth in its wake. Then on June 17 of the same year, there were three reported sightings in one day. Edna MacInnes and David Mackay reportedly saw a monster that had a long neck and was brownish in color. They watched it for a few moments from the shore before it dipped below the surface and did re-emerge. However, later that evening the creature was seen again, first by by James MacIntosh and his son, and then by by Lorraine Davidson. All three claimed to have first notcied the wake Nessie left in the water, which was distinctive since there were no boats on the Loch at the time and the water was calm.

On 5 January 1934 a motorcyclist called Arthur Grant claimed to have nearly hit the creature while approaching Abriachan on the northeastern shore, at about 1 am on a moonlit night. Grant saw a small head attached to a long neck; the creature saw him and crossed the road back into the loch. Grant dismounted and followed it to the loch, but only saw ripples where it had entered. In another 1934 sighting, a young maidservant named Margaret Munro supposedly observed the creature for about 20 minutes. It was about 6:30 am on 5 June, when se spotted it on shore from about 200 yards. She described it as having elephantlike skin, a long neck, a small head and two short forelegs or flippers. The sighting ended when the creature reentered the water.. In 1938 Mr GE Taylor, a South African tourist, filmed something in the loch for three minutes on 16mm colour film, however the footage has never been released

In December 1954 the first of many ambiguous sonar contacts attributed to Nessie was reported. The fishing boat Rival III, on a routine run, observed sonar readings of a large object keeping pace with the boat at a depth of 480 feet. It was detected travelling for half a mile in this manner, before contact was lost .

The 'Surgeon's Photo

File:Lochnessmonster.jpg

The "Surgeon's Photo" of the Loch Ness Monster. This image, although cropped and enlarged from the original negative, has been cited by some as evidence of Nessie's existence.

One of the most iconic images of Nessie is known as the 'Surgeon's Photograph' which many consider to be good evidence of the monster, though doubts about the photograph's authenticity have been expressed. The photographer, a gynecologist named Robert Kenneth Wilson, photographed an animal in the water he could not identify (never claiming it was Nessie), but did sell it to the Daily Mail newspaper whose printing of the photograph caused a sensational reaction among its reader. However, it was later determined that the photograph was cropped (as is shown to the left) seeming to make the monster seem larger than it actually is in the original uncropped shot, which shows the other end of the loch and the monster in the centre, relative in size to the average bird . In 1994, Chris Spurling allegedly confessed on his deathbed that the photograph was a hoax. Spurling was the son-in-law of Marmaduke Wetherell, a big game hunter who was deceived into searching for the storied Loch Ness monster based on evidence which turned out to be a children's prank. Wetherell was publicly ridiculed in the Daily Mail, the journal which employed him. Spurling claimed that to get revenge, Marmaduke Wetherell committed the hoax, with the help of Chris Spurling (a sculpture specialist), his son Ian Marmaduke, who bought the material for the fake Nessie, and Maurice Chambers (an insurance agent), who would call to ask surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson to display the pictures. However, Spurling's "confession" is held in doubt because of the involvement of several people not connected to Wilson.. Citical analaysis of the photography generally deem it a fake, but it has lived on as a popular symbol of Nessie in the public's eye.

Investigations

In 1969 Andrew Carroll, field researcher for the New York Aquarium in New York City, proposed a mobile sonar scan operation at Loch Ness. The project was funded by the Griffis foundation (named for Nixon Griffis, then a director of the aquarium). This was the tail-end (and most successful portion) of the LNPIB's 1969 effort involving submersibles with biopsy harpoons. The trawling scan, in Carroll's research launch Rangitea, took place in October. One sweep of the loch made contact with a strong, animate echo for nearly three minutes just north of Foyers. The identity of the animal remains a mystery. Later analysis determined that the intensity of the returning echo was twice as great as that expected from a 10 foot pilot whale. Calculations placed the animal's length at 20 feet.

During the so-called "Big Expedition" of 1970, Roy Mackal, a biologist who taught for 20 years at the University of Chicago, devised a system of hydrophones (underwater microphones) and deployed them at intervals throughout the loch. In early August a hydrophone assembly was lowered into Urquhart Bay and anchored in 700 feet of water. Two hydrophones were secured at depths of 300 and 600 feet. After two nights of recording, the tape (sealed inside a 55 gallon steel drum along with the system's other sensitive components) was retrieved and played before an excited LNPIB. "Bird-like chirps" had been recorded, and the intensity of the chirps on the deep hydrophone suggested they had been produced at greater depth. In October "knocks" and "clicks" were recorded by another hydrophone in Urquhart Bay, indicative of echolocation. These sounds were followed by a "turbulent swishing" suggestive of the tail locomotion of a large aquatic animal. The knocks, clicks and resultant swishing were believed to be the sounds of an animal echolocating prey before moving in for the kill. The noises stopped whenever craft passed along the surface of the loch near the hydrophone — and resumed once the craft reached a safe distance. In previous experiments, it was observed that call intensities were greatest at depths less than 100 feet. Members of the LNPIB decided to attempt communication with the animals producing the calls by playing back previously recorded calls into the water and listening via hydrophone for results, which varied greatly. At times the calling patterns or intensities changed, but sometimes there was no change at all. Mackal noted that there was no similarity between the recordings and the hundreds of known sounds produced by aquatic animals. "More specifically," he said, "competent authorities state that none of the known forms of life in the loch has the anatomical capabilities of producing such calls."

Professor DG Tucker, chairman of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, England, volunteered his services as a sonar developer and expert at Loch Ness in 1968. The gesture was part of a larger effort helmed by the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau (LNPIB) from 1967-1968 and involved collaboration between volunteers and professionals in various fields. Tucker had chosen Ness as the test site for a prototype sonar transducer with a maximum range of 800 meters. The device was fixed underwater at Temple Pier in Urquhart Bay and directed towards the opposite shore, effectively drawing an acoustic 'net' across the width of Ness through which no moving object could pass undetected. During the two-week trial in August, multiple animate targets six meters (20 ft) in length were identified ascending from and diving to the loch bottom. Analysis of diving profiles ruled out air-breathers because the targets never surfaced or moved shallower than midwater.

The underwater photos were reportedly obtained by painstakingly sonaring the loch depths for unusual underwater activity. A submersible camera with an affixed, high-powered light (necessary for penetrating Loch Ness' notorious murk) was deployed to record images below the surface. Several of the photographs, despite their obviously murky quality, did indeed seem to show an animal resembling a plesiosaur in various positions and lightings. One photograph appeared to show the head, neck and upper torso of a plesiosaur . (Close examination would show a specific head shape and even an eye). Another photo seemed to depict a "gargoyle head," which was later found to be a tree stump during Operation Deepscan.

A few closeups of what is to be the creature's supposed diamond-shaped fin were taken in different positions, as though the creature were moving. But the "flipper photograph" has been highly retouched from the original image. The Museum of Hoaxes shows the original unenhanced photo. Charlie Wyckoff claimed that someone retouched the photo to superimpose the flipper, and that the original enhancement showed a much smaller flipper. No one is exactly sure how the original came to be enhanced in this way.

In 1993 Discovery Communications began to research the ecology of the loch. The study did not focus entirely on the monster, but on the loch's nematodes (of which a new species was discovered) and fish. Expecting to find a small fish population, the researchers caught twenty fish in one catch, increasing previous estimates of the loch's fish population about ninefold.

Using sonar, the team encountered a rare kind of underwater disturbance due to stored energy (eg, from a wind) causing an imbalance between the loch's warmer and colder layers. While reviewing printouts of the event the next day, they found what appeared to be three sonar contacts, each followed by a powerful wake. These events were later shown on a program called Loch Ness Discovered, in conjunction with analyses and enhancements of the 1960 Dinsdale Film, the Surgeon's Photo, and the Rines Flipper Photo.

In 2001, the Academy of Applied Science, known for Robert Rines' photographs, videoed a powerful V-shaped wake traversing the still water on a calm day . They also found what looked like a decaying carcass of an animal.

Cryptozoology

File:Plesiosaur1916.jpg

Plesiosaurs, by Heinrich Harder, 1916.

The most common eyewitness description of Nessie, is that of a plesiosaur, a long-necked aquatic reptile that became extinct during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. Supporters of the plesiosaur theory cite the survival of a fish called the coelacanth, which supposedly went extinct along with the plesiosaur but was rediscovered off the coast of Madagascar in 1938.

On the other hand, mainstream science does offer plausible reasons why such an animal could not exist in Loch Ness. Apart from its apparent extinction, the plesiosaur was probably a cold-blooded reptile requiring warm tropical waters, while the average temperature of Loch Ness is only about 5.5°C (42°F). Even if the plesiosaurs were warm-blooded (like dinosaurs), they would require a food supply beyond that of Loch Ness to maintain the level of activity necessary for warm-blooded animals.

Moreover, there is no substantive evidence in the bone structure of fossilized plesiosaurs that indicate sonar capability (similar to that possessed by dolphins and whales). Such a system would be necessary in the loch, as visibility is limited to less than 15 feet due to a high peat concentration in the loch. Consequently, sunlight does not deeply penetrate the water, limiting the amount of photosynthetic algae, thereby reducing the number of plankton and fish in the food chain. Fossil evidence indicates plesiosaurs were sight hunters, it is unlikely that the loch's peat-stained water would allow such animals to hunt the limited food supply at sufficient levels.

In October 2006, Leslie Noè of the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge pointed out that, "The osteology of the neck makes it absolutely certain that the plesiosaur could not lift its head up swan-like out of the water," precluding the possibility that Nessie is a plesiosaur.

Author Peter Costello, in his book In Search of Lake Monsters (1975), posed the theory that Nessie and other reputed lake monsters were actually an unknown species of long-necked seal. This theory is supported by several sightings of the monster on land, during which the creature supposedly waddled into the loch upon being startled, in the manner of seals and sea lions. However, all known species of seals are highly visible on land during daylight hours to sunbathe ^{[citation needed]}, something that Nessie was never known to do.

Some have theorized that "Nessie" could actually be a large eel. One species of eel in the loch would be the Anguilla eel, which is not nearly long enough to fit Nessie's description, since it averages a mere half-meter in length. There are those who believe that an eel might have grossly enlarged in order to eat the bigger fish, or that a larger eel species inhabits the loch. But an eel could not protrude swanlike from the water as described in various sightings. .

Some theorists attribute the monster sightings to large pike (Esox lucius) , sturgeon , dolphins, dogs (as in "The Spray Photograph"), otters, birds, and large molluscs (such as a large cephalopod or nematode). Roy Chapman Andrews, a prominent paleontological authority on cetaceans, quickly pronounced the "Surgeon's Photo" to be nothing more than an orca fin.

In a 1982 series of articles for New Scientist, Dr Maurice Burton proposed that sightings of Nessie and similar creatures could actually be fermenting logs of Scots pine logs rising to the surface of the loch's cold waters. Initially, a rotting log could not release gases caused by decay, due to high levels of resin sealing in the gas. Eventually, the gas pressure would rupture a resin seal at one end of the log, propelling it through the water — and sometimes to the surface. Burton claimed that the shape of tree logs with their attendant branch stumps closely resemble various descriptions of the monster.

Four Scottish lochs are very deep, including Morar, Ness and Lomond. But not all lochs have monster legends; the lochs with pinewoods on their shores have the legends, but Loch Lomond — the one with no pinewoods — does not. Gaseous emissions and surfactants resulting from the decay of the logs can cause the foamy wake reported in some sightings. Indeed, beached pine logs showing evidence of deep-water fermentation have been found. On the other hand, there are believers who assert that some lakes do have reports of monsters, despite an absence of pinewoods. (A notable example would be the Irish lough monsters). .

“The Loch Ness Saga,” by Dr. Maurice Burton, New Scientist, June 24, 1982, p. 872; July 1, 1982, pp. 41-42; July 8, 1982, pp. 112-113.

Loch Ness

Loch Ness, due to its long, straight shape, is subject to some unusual occurrences affecting its surface. A seiche is a large, regular oscillation of a lake, caused by a water reverting to its natural level after being blown to one end of the lake. The impetus from this reversion continues to the lake's windward end and then reverts back. In Loch Ness, the process occurs every 31.5 minutes .

Boat wakes can also produce strange effects in the loch. As a wake spreads and divides from a boat passing the centre of the loch, it hits both sides almost simultaneously and deflects back to meet again in the middle. The movements interact to produce standing waves that are much larger than the original wake, and can have a humped appearance. By the time this occurs, the boat has passed and the unusual waves are all that can be seen.

However, there are wake sightings which appear to contradict the theory, as there are wakes that occur when the loch is dead calm with no boat nearby. A bartender named David Munro claims to have witnessed a wake which he believed to be a creature zigzagging, diving and reappearing. (There were 26 other witnesses from a nearby car park). ). Some sightings describe the onset of a V-shaped wake, as if there were something underwater . Moreover, many wake sightings describe something not conforming to the shape of a boat.

Hoaxes

The Loch Ness monster phenomenon has seen several attempts to hoax the public, some of which were very successful. Other hoaxes were revealed rather quickly by the perpetrators, or exposed after diligent research. A few examples are mentioned below.

In the 1930s, a big game hunter named Marmaduke Wetherell went to Loch Ness to look for the Loch Ness Monster. he claimed to have found some footprints but when the footprints were sent to scientists for analysis, they turned out to be hippopotamus footprints. A prankster had used a petrified hippopotamus foot umbrella stand to make the footprints. [2] In 2004, a documentary team for Channel 5 (primarily consisting of special effects experts from movies) deliberately tried to make people believe there was something in the loch. They constructed an elaborate animatronic model. Despite setbacks, it was a success, and numerous sightings were reported on the day, in the very places they conducted the hoaxes.

In 2005 two students claimed to have found a huge tooth embedded in the body of a deer on the loch shore. They publicised the find widely, even setting up a website, but expert analysis soon revealed that the "tooth" was the antler of a muntjac.

Pop Culture

The Loch Ness Monster is a recurrent figure in modern literature, television movies and games. There are times when Nessie appears to represent Scotland the way the Eiffel Tower symbolises France. The common jibe that the monster legend helps the local tourist industry seems to be borne out in relevant websites (such as the "monster-oriented" site, nessie.co.uk, sponsored by a local hotel). But the defensive slogan "There's more to Inverness than Nessie" on one or two other Scottish websites might indicate that the legend is deemed a limitation in some Scottish quarters.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Binns, Ronald, The Loch Ness Mystery Solved, Great Britain, Star Books, 1984, ISBN 0-352-31487-7
• Sjögren, Bengt, Berömda vidunder, Settern, 1980, ISBN 91-7586-023-6

External links

• The Legend Of Nessie
• Loch Ness Project Research edited by Adrian Shine
• Information from the Global Lake Monster Database
• List of Nessie sightings
• BBC 'proves' Nessie does not exist
• Loch Ness Discovery Centre, Edinburgh
• Smithsonian Institution
• Skepdic
• Museum of Hoaxes
• Nessie & Loch Ness links
• The Beast of Loch Ness
• Estimates of the amount of fish in Loch Ness
• One reference on the last ice age
• nessie.co.uk on the last ice age & the loch
• "A plesiosaur could not lift its head up, swan-like, out of the water."

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