Story of the Loch Ness Monster

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What about the pump nozzle? Well, what about it? I take a pump nozzle with me when I camp at Loch Ness every year. However, it is not used for any sinister purpose. I use it to inflate the airbeds we sleep on! They had inflatable camp beds in 1960 which were pretty much similar to what we have today. Again, there is nothing sinister here which does not have a simpler, more innocent explanation. These sightings, like too many that are accepted into the 'official' record, are absolute junk. It gives this whole endeavour a bad name. It begs the question, who's in charge here, and what criteria do they apply to 'accept' a sighting? I was trained in science and research and know what is needed, although some people just have it, and some don't. This 'register' is not good, to put it mildly.

I was within 25 yards of the creature when the photograph was taken, I am not sure if the light or my voice frightened it—one or both did. I am not fully satisfied that it was the same creature as seen on Wednesday May 24th, as it was smaller and a different colour. I think both skins were wet or at least damp - one on Friday certainly was. I do not know why I was frightened of it as it reminded me of a docile swan - perhaps it was the power it had at its disposal and the fact it was an unknown quantity. Burton, M., 1961. The Elusive Monster: An Analysis of the Evidence from Loch Ness. London: Rupert Hart-Davis. Bauer, H. H. 2002. The case of the Loch Ness “monster”: the scientific evidence. Journal of Scientific Exploration 16, 225-246. They didn't give me an answer, thwy gave me their opinion. I said I would hold it for an upcoming article and include/critique it, but if you're so impatient, I'll quote it here.What is not confusing is the fact that this newsreel was filmed only two or three months after Tim Dinsdale shot his hump film. One could argue this is the earliest footage of a young looking Tim Dinsdale and is an important part of the record of the Loch Ness hunt (I think he was forty years old). So the report does not point to the object being the monster but nothing more exciting than a local fishing boat. Dinsdale, T., 1975. Project Water Horse: True Story of the Monster Quest at Loch Ness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. In Tim's book he gives us lengths of 50ft, 20ft to 30ft and then a time of 4 minutes. None of these can be correct unless the film has been cut which leaves us to ask what has been cut from the film.50ft of 16mm cine film runs for 83 seconds. I have never seen more than 60 seconds of this film. The same can be said for his 20ft to 30ft of film, this would give a maximum of 50 seconds of film time and the 4 minutes of film is just impossible.

Klein, M., and Finkelstein, C., 1976. Sonar serendipity in Loch Ness. Technology Review, 79(2), 44–57. Later, Burton was to be found unreliable again in stating the facts when he was again asked about the Taylor film. To quote one Loch Ness researcher:

That is certainly true, but for some scoftic to come on here and tell me I believe Burton is some kind of benchmark for current sceptics evidences the subconcious twisting of arguments that births in the darker recesses of the human mind. Young, J. M., Jones, R. I., and Bailey-Watts, A. E. Verhandlungen, der Internationalen Vereinigung fur Theoratischen und Angevand. Another seems to think its a bit unfair since Burton is dead. I guess they should lay off Tim Dinsdale then? Unfortunately, closing ranks does nothing for critical thinking and that problem continues today when you see sceptical forums which are more dedicated to bashing " believers" than critiquing the barmiest of arguments that lightweight sceptics post. Self regulation appears not to work in these instances.

As per your invitation not to wait for the second part of this article (“The Sightings Problem” post of 15/10/15), please see below.This was not a hoax. The history of Loch Ness Monster imagery involves a vast quantity of wishful thinking and over-keen desperation, much of it driven by people who already believe in the monster, and want others to be convinced by the evidence too, such as it is. And that’s what happened here. The whole ‘Nessie Flipper’ saga is often described or characterised as ‘a hoax’. But that’s not really what it was. For starters, the key players here – those in the LNIB and AAS – honestly believed that Nessie was real (which is a faulty and naïve starting point, but we all make mistakes). When they got those sonar and photographic records in August 1972, I believe that they honestly thought they’d gathered valuable and compelling evidence. Add in some ‘eye of faith’, a fair bit of desperation that surely some good must come of all this time, equipment, money and people-power, and those concerned managed to convince themselves that they’d succeeded in recording images of flippers in the two relevant photos. Photographic enhancement seemed to boost this conclusion, but the visuals still weren’t impressive enough for those already critical or dismissive of the Loch Ness Monster, so the best course of action (as determined by an unknown perpetrator or perpetrators) was to enhance the ‘flippers’ physically, on the printed photos. Again, I don’t think this was done maliciously or to fool anyone but, rather, to convince them, the thinking being “now YOU can see the flippers too, right?”. Peoples opinions began to change and credibility of the possible existence of the monster grew as the Daily Mirror printed a story on the film on 13th June 1960. The BBC also broadcast the film the very same day using 35mm film which enhanced picture detail and contrast.