Sunday, 5 January 2025

The Rise of the AI Generated Nessie Book

 


In my review of 2024 a few days back, I mentioned only one book of note that was published that year and that was Adrian Shine's book on Sea Serpents. However, I had also ordered two books published towards the end of the year which I wanted to take a closer look at.

In fact, if one looks at the 2024 titles on Amazon, I estimated that 20 books had been published that related to the Loch Ness Monster. I would say that these sub-divided into three categories. The first is the majority market aimed at children which I reckoned was 9 titles. Then there was the second category of fiction aimed at a wider audience which came in at 6 titles. That left 5 titles which would be described as non-fiction as they aimed to talk about the monster itself and the places and persons associated with it.

The two titles reviewed here are by Gary Ogden and Thomas Shelton. The other three were skipped mainly due to cost, but also a feeling based on the first two that I would be wasting my money on them. If you are interested in them, the authors are Bezaire, Jensen and Summers. I maintain a list of Nessie books which can be found at this link, the question was whether these would make it onto that list?


LEGENDS OF LOCH NESS

Let me look first at "Legends of Loch Ness" by Thomas Shelton. It is a small sized paperback of 120 pages with no pictures whose Amazon description says:

Journey into the heart of Scotland's most enduring mystery with Legends of Loch Ness: Folklore and the Monster that Captivates. Author Thomas Shelton masterfully unravels the stories, myths, and scientific pursuits that have surrounded the Loch Ness Monster for centuries. From ancient Celtic tales of water spirits to modern-day sonar expeditions, this captivating exploration delves into how Nessie has become a global phenomenon, symbolizing humanity's fascination with the unknown.

Shelton combines historical records, eyewitness accounts, and cultural analysis to paint a vivid picture of how the legend has evolved over time. Whether you're a skeptic or a true believer, this book invites you to explore the intersection of myth, mystery, and science in one of the world's most enigmatic natural landscapes.

Perfect for folklore enthusiasts, cryptid hunters, and those curious about the stories that shape our world, Legends of Loch Ness reveals why the legend of Nessie continues to inspire and intrigue us all.

Reading through this book was a bit of a strange experience as it did not feel like a book I would normally look at on this subject. For starters, despite mentioning eyewitness reports, films, photographs, people and organisations, it was very light on naming any of them. In fact, with one exception which I shall come back to later, only three people were mentioned. These were St. Columba and the first tale of a monster, Neil Gemmell with his recent eDNA survey and Kenneth Wilson of the famous Surgeon's Photograph.

In terms of any discussion on an eyewitness event, only the Surgeon's Photograph got any extended text which was all focused on how it was a hoax. As the book moved in and out of the subjects of cryptozoology, scepticism, folklore, culture, ecology and tourism, there was a lot of general statements and little of the specific. Indeed, as one read through the twelve chapters, there was a good deal of repetition - as if each chapter was written by separate individuals without any cross-referencing to other chapters. 

There was a lot of talk about conservation and ecology around the loch with the claim that even guided tours were now beginning to emphasise this subject more to paying tourists. I can't say I have been aware of such a ramp up. In that light, we read that the Loch Ness Centre exhibition is focused on such matters with ecology and science. This was sounding more like the previously curated exhibition than the current one!

This is where the book began to state things which were simply not true. For example, it mentioned that the locals celebrate the culture of the monster with the annual "Loch Ness Monster Festival". I have no idea what this festival is!

It then surveys the various documentaries made on the subject and mentions one called "The Loch Ness Monster: A 50-year Mystery" which allegedly informs us of "modern scientific exploration" and also the inevitable Surgeon's Photo hoax. However the title clearly implies it was made 50 years after the Nessie phenomenon began in 1933, in other words 1983! I doubt a 41-year old documentary will bring us up to date with modern scientific exploration and the Surgeon's Photo would not be exposed as a hoax until ten years after this alleged documentary was made.

The fabrications continued with a reference to another documentary entitled "Nessie: The Environmental Impact". I am aware of no such documentary and I doubt any such production would be made as it looks like a surefire loss making project. The confusion was exacerbated when the late great racer John Cobb, who was killed at Loch Ness in 1952, was referred to as an artist when discussing Loch Ness culture!

Furthermore, I am still trying to understand what the book means by the interplays between ecology and folklore? The errors continue down to minor levels when the book states that the loch attracts millions of visitors each year. The press releases I see from tourist agencies puts the annual maximum at about half a million.

I did mention one eyewitness report that is mentioned on page 106 of the book. This allegedly involved a fisherman by the name of Alastair D. McNab in 1975 when a "long, serpentine" Nessie surfaced near his boat. We are told this was such a "life-altering moment" for Gray that he became a noted researcher and advocate for the monster. Let me say that there was no such person or sighting!

The format and errors in the book could only lead me to one conclusion. This was a book whose text was largely generated by an Artificial Intelligence program such as ChatGPT but had not been properly fact checked afterwards by a human. The repetitive nature of each chapter suggested each one was the result of a separate chat session with the AI program. 

As for the blatant untruths, one can only put these down to the textual equivalent of AI art programs that draw hands with six fingers or people with three legs. In other words, these technologies are still developing and not at the accuracy and finesse to make them indistinguishable from an exclusively human production.

Is the human author actually called Thomas Shelton? There are two long dead authors called Thomas Shelton. One was a famed stenographer who died around 1650. The other was a contemporary who translated Cervantes' "Don Quixote" into English.  One can only describe this Nessie book as quixotic and I note Shelton has also published a short work on the Cadborosaurus under the same publisher "Revitalized Occult and Strange".


THE TIMELESS MYSTERY OF LOCH NESS

With all this in mind, I approached the second book by a Gary Ogden with some caution. The title is "Nessie: The Timeless Mystery of Loch Ness" and is shorter than the former book, though this is reflected in the price. The Amazon page does feature a photograph of the author who is listed as having over a dozen titles to his name, so perhaps this book was more human than the other?

This book does come with pictures, but every one looks AI-generated. There are no pictures of a historical or contemporary nature displaying the history of the mystery. However, I am glad to say that this book looks a lot more homo sapiens. Given the 64 pages of text and its lowish word count per page, it is not going to go into great detail and is very much an introductory text that I later found out was aimed at a more teenage audience.

Nevertheless, the text flows much better in this book, though it contains errors of varying degrees, such as the claim that there were further medieval references to the monster after St Columba. Sadly, no further references to the monster between the 5th and 15th centuries are known. 

Ogden's handling of the Spicer land sighting has some errors. He says it occurred on the north side A82 road whereas it actually happened on the quieter southern side road. He further states the creature appeared as they rounded a bend. It actually came into view as the Spicers were on a straight stretch of road. Apart from that, he is right in stating that this was the event that propelled the monster from a local to national and international sensation.

The author continues to take us through the later decades as the familiar names of Dinsdale, the LNIPB, Robert Rines and Operation Deepscan are mentioned. However, I was somewhat disappointed that not much was said beyond the Spicers about specific eyewitness reports. Not surprisingly, the hoax of the Surgeon's Photograph got its usual large section.

As would be expected, chapters on the various theories about the creature and the culture surrounding it are discussed. That was where my knowledge failed me when it was stated that Genesis and Taylor Swift had mentioned Nessie in their lyrics. Perhaps someone could enlighten me on that. The author's explanation of how the creature and the national identity of Scotland are intertwined is interesting but debatable. How much does the mythos of Nessie reflect the national psyche? 

The main problem with this book is chapters 10 and 11 which are both titled "The Future of Nessie: Will the Legend endure?". This is because they are practically the same text with the same sub-headings but worded in a different manner. One of these chapters is redundant, making 10% of the book redundant. How could such a basic error in proof reading be made? Was it because AI tools were used and were not up to the job? I don't believe a freelance author would allow this to pass on a human inspection.

It was a pity, because the book as an introduction to a younger audience stood up fairly well, which brings me to a time almost fifty years ago.


THE GOOD OLD DAYS

In terms of publications on the Loch Ness Monster for a younger audience, Tim Dinsdale's "The Story of the Loch Ness Monster" remains the archetypal book. It was first published in 1973 and had at least one other run in 1974. How do you compare two types of books from two different generations? They have their pros and cons, but the current world of self-publishing suffers from the lack of resources that Tim enjoyed. The errors highlighted today would not have got past a professional publishing house like Target.



Likewise, the cover shows that publishers could call upon talented artists to render eye candy covers that still remain with us to this day. Can the same be said of the plethora of AI-generated images today? Dinsdale's book is multiple times bigger and came with its glossy photo sections and a lot of sketches inserted between paragraphs. Likewise, it was not shy to get into the material that matters as he recounted various eyewitness reports, photos and films as well as the people who pursued the creature.

Of course, the book is fifty years out of date. We now know about the Surgeon's Photo (although Dinsdale did not devote multiple pages to it like modern authors do), we know about the problems with other items of claimed evidence but what more do you expect from a sceptic-dominated field? Books today would be updated concerning sonar, webcams, drones, digital imagery and psychology. However, these are all a means to an end rather than an end in themselves. The main engine has always been the corpus of eyewitness testimonies and will remain so.

So by all means find a well written modern book for today's youth, but I suggest you also give them Dinsdale's book for balance.


WHAT ABOUT AI?

But today, AI-based tools present a problem. Maybe it's just my Facebook feed, but the flood of AI generated images now makes me doubt a lot of the pictures I see - and I am referring to such things as normal wildlife images, not ones allegedly of Nessie! The vast majority of AI Nessie images come straight out of the Dragon category and make no attempt (yet) to look like a convincing tourist snap or video. 

The main factors driving the AI industry are profit-driven and that means creating tools which replace humans from the entry-level job up. In that they are succeeding to the point where they will almost match everything people do. The publication errors mentioned here will eventually be ironed out. What will come last is genuine artificial but creative thinking rather than just vast number of texts scraped from the Internet and stitched together in a legible manner.

Back in the 1970s, we also had a lot of publications which in some way mimic these modern books. They were called "boilerplate" books which referred to their unoriginality or cliched texts. By that we mean they tended to be written by authors who had no real experience of the given subject and just regurgitated that which had been said by those in the field. The ultimate motive was to cash in on a hot subject where almost any kind of book would generate worthwhile revenues,

The blocker to such books into the 1980s and onwards was a lack of interest by publishers in a no longer hot topic. The advent of self-publishing changed that and the boilerplate book was back, albeit with little chance of making the same kind of money as fifty years earlier. The ease of publishing now allied with an artificially intelligent companion to speed up the generation of words is a potent mix that leads to books which largely have nothing of substance.

So why produce them? The answer may well lie in the economy of scale. Self-publishing and AI gives the human author the scope to push out many more books across a wide range of topics they have little expertise in. Why try to produce and sell a book for £20 when you can produce 20 smaller ones which sell for £1? Even if the text is not 100% AI-generated, the AI tools at the author's disposal can still produce a lot of raw material for final assembly and editing.

So, if you were not aware already, tread a bit more warily in the world of modern cryptozoological literature. Check the reviews, check the author's pedigree and solicit the opinions of others on the usual well-known discussion forums. But the best approach is to give truthful reviews, be they positive or negative so that the author will respond accordingly.


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

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com






Tuesday, 31 December 2024

Nessie Review of 2024



With the year just about to end, it is time to look back on what happened at Loch Ness in 2024. Beginning in a backwards fashion, there were recent headlines that this was one of the lowest years for sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. One headline said, "Mystery as Loch Ness Monster sightings tumble" with Gary Campbell's sightings website registering just three encounters, but two of these were sonar-related and the other was a traditional in situ surface report.

That one solitary encounter was claimed by a Canadian couple on April 4th according to this newspaper story:

The Loch Ness Monster has reportedly been sighted for the first time in 2024, with a family claiming to have caught "compelling new evidence" of the elusive creature.

The Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register has endorsed Parry and Hannah Malm's claim after they snapped a photo showing an unidentified presence near Urquhart Castle, a known hotspot for Nessie enthusiasts. The Malms, along with their children, were visiting the loch for the first time when they encountered the mysterious figure.

Parry recounted the moment, saying: "Shannon spotted the black head of an animal bobbing up and down. I was a total sceptic before but now I think there must be something there."

The couple took this photograph which I admit has a certain familiarity about it. Looking back in time, various pictures have been taken from the waters near the castle of small solitary objects. I think of the Locke family in 2018, Matt Coughlan in 2020, Jeremy Chudley in 2019 and so on. Some of these pictures did not make it into Gary's register, perhaps recognising there is some permanent feature there such as a pipe or something, though that does not automatically invalidate anything seen in that area.


Whatever the image shows, a single snap is not really sufficient to make a judgment on this object. The two sonar images show a recent shift in highlighting such image types. I covered the one taken by Shuan Sloggie on the 27th September which picked up an unusual contact from the Spirit of Loch Ness cruise boat (image at top of article). The article is here, but in summary I said that it wouldn't do to brush off such contacts as interference from other boats without further enquiry.

The problem being that critics do not produce comparison images from Loch Ness vessels of what sonar interference really looks like on a screen, be it a passing boat or reflections from the sides of the loch. I do not recall seeing such interference images when I was on board watching the screens. I think the software on such sonar imaging devices eliminates such patterns, though I cannot be sure of that entirely,

So I regard that image as a genuine mystery. The owners said the data had been sent to the manufacturers for further analysis, but three months on, I am not aware of anything coming out of that but another sonar hit was made by the Deepscan boat owned by the Loch Ness Centre on October 3rd as shown below.



I asked Alan McKenna who heads up research for the Loch Ness Centre some questions about the incident. Those present included Adrian Shine and a team of researchers from Aberdeen University who were watching the scan unfold. Adrian was heard to say it "was an odd contact" but concluded it was either a natural phenomenon or the result of sonar interference.

Alan thought (as I did) that it looked like gas escaping from the loch bed resulting in silt being thrown up. Now, Loch Ness is not known for its prodigious gas production due to the relative lack of decaying organic matter falling to the bottom. Nevertheless, areas such as Urquhart Bay and the waters near Fort Augustus have been noted as having higher gas production. 

But we don't know for sure what it was as there is a lack of a "back-catalogue" of previous sonar contacts known to show such things. Someone may say the contact shows this or that, but how do they prove it without a prior database? Admittedly, some things are not easy to reproduce, such as a gas eruption 220 metres below, but there are other scenarios that can be reproduced.

The other related incident for Deepscan was four days later when a seal was spotted and photographed from the boat. The Loch Ness Centre website states that it may be the same seal seen in recent months which is of course of interest when evaluating claimed sightings of the monster and for other reasons.



One such reason is whether any locals or tourists reported or photographed this seal, whether they mistook it for the monster or not. The answer appears to be that they did not on all scores! However, you may ask about the aforementioned photograph taken six months before in April by the Malms? I do not think a seal would be allowed to stay in the loch for such a long period as it would be seen as a danger to protected salmon stocks.

But if an animal of this size regularly surfacing for air is hard to spot from the shore, what about other larger animals? This seal was drifting around with the castle in the background without anyone over there apparently seeing it. Perhaps spotting a six foot long hump from 200 metres plus is not so easy to the casual observer as one may presume. Unfortunately, no sonar recording was made of the seal for the "back catalogue", if indeed it would have been within range.

But there was an interesting video highlighted by the Loch Ness Centre taken by six-year old Harland from the viewpoint promontory at Fort Augustus. The video can be viewed here on YouTube and shows at first a circular commotion looking north up the loch but then the camera pans to a pole like object sticking out of the water just off what appears to be the jetty by the Boathouse Restaurant as shown below.



The boy is heard to ask his Mum what the object is. The video is a bit shaky and so there is some uncertainty about this. A comparison video clip from YouTube shows a pan around the area from the Fort Augustus promontory viewpoint and a still here shows the jetty where I think this object was in the centre of the image.



Based on the two people to the right in this frame, I would estimate the height of this object as at least two feet out of the water. It is from that jetty that Gregory Brusey had his famous pole-like neck sighting in 1971. It is noted that Gary Campbell's website did not list this boy's video for whatever reason. Were they not convinced by some aspect of the footage?

The other items excluded from that website are webcam images. This is mainly down to Eoin's various submissions to the online media which most Nessie watchers regard as spurious. However, I take the view that each should be assessed on its own merits and I covered some of his images made up to July of this year which are discussed here. The images certainly do not compare to the classic images from the past and so again one can only continue to encourage webcam watchers worldwide to keep watching.

At the end of May, the Loch Ness Centre ran their second "Quest" surface watch weekend and despite the first one being both a weather washout and a media frenzy, this was to me now an annual fixture. This time round, I met more new people and hopefully we will all team up again in 2025. I wrote a report on my viewpoint of the 2024 Quest at this link. It was great to meet up with Ashley from the USA and Dave from not so distant Birmingham and it was a pleasure with Alan McKenna to accompany them around the loch on the big hunt for Nessie.

In particular, those night-time forays were fun about the loch and I remain convinced this is a time when the loch's most famous denizen is more prone to surface and head towards the shore. Alan remained resolute in his determination not to indulge in any night-time swimming ...

Finally, in October, Adrian Shine published his first big book entitled "A Natural History of Sea Serpents". Though not directly dealing with the Loch Ness Monster, the mystery's influence can be seen in the book as what Adrian had applied to Loch Ness was now applied to the oceans. In other words, it was the same general principle that seafarers were misidentifying what they saw. However, the specific theories as to what Adrian thought they actually saw would differ, i.e., they were not likely to be misidentifying a swan or a log in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

But as various media outlets publicized his book, naturally he was asked about that other sea serpent in Loch Ness. One quote has him saying:

“Of course, there are long-necked creatures on Loch Ness — we call them swans,” Adrian Shine, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and founder of the Loch Ness Project, told Pen News.

“Boat wakes are probably the number one cause of monster sightings, and waterbirds are the long-necked ones,” the Scotsman declared. “And in calm conditions, you can lose your ability to judge distance, and if you can’t judge distance, you can’t judge size.”

I don't think Adrian is a "Scotsman", so there we have one case of misidentification. In fact, on the subject of boat wakes, a concerted effort is being made by Alan McKenna of the LNE to capture some convincing footage of the purely water phenomenon of a standing wave. As he explained in one article, the constructive interference that manufactures these more pronounced waves can be observed at the confluence of rivers and the loch, but seeing one out on the open loch is a harder matter.

So, are unusual waves and birds enough to explain the majority of eyewitness reports? Adrian certainly thinks so. Alan may be less so convinced. With only one lightweight report being reported on Gary Campbell's website, one may wonder not so much where Nessie has gone, but where have the waves and birds gone? After all, aren't people still "gullible" enough to be taken in by these things? The waves and birds have not changed, so why only one report for 2024? We should be expecting a healthy number of duped observers every year - if the sceptical theory is right.

The graph below shows the number of in situ surface sightings recorded on the Sightings Register since 1986 and it is a pretty uneven pattern with the number ranging from 1 to 16 over a year. So the low of this year past is nothing unusual as we had similar lows in 1995, 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2013. Does the Sceptical Theory of the Loch Ness Monster predict such a pattern? No, it doesn't because no one made that prediction. Of course, a prediction can be retro-fitted onto it based on past data, but then it wouldn't be a prediction.



At the same time, no one expects it to flatline at some level either. But from the sceptical point of view, are reports fluctuating wildly from 1 to 16 consistent with their theory? In fact, is one report from one person out of the hundreds of thousands who were looking at the loch in 2024 a reasonable number at all?

I will look further into that in an upcoming article for 2025. But the investigation goes on and hopes are high that as the Loch Ness Centre and its collaboration with LNE continues, new data will be forthcoming. As for myself, the watching and research also continues. Good luck to all monster hunters in 2025 and a Happy New Year to all readers.


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

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com





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Wednesday, 4 December 2024

No, Dr Burton!

 


I suspect most of us were not around in May 1962. Back then, Tim Dinsdale had taken his famous film, the Loch Ness Investigation Phenomena Bureau was ramping up and the story of the Loch Ness Monster was being taken up anew by the Press. Two books had been published by then from both sides of the debate. Those were Dinsdale's "Loch Ness Monster" and Maurice Burton's "The Elusive Monster".

Burton was a believer in a large unknown creature in the loch right up to the late 1950s, but turned about the time of Dinsdale's film and produced this first sceptical work on the subject. In fact, Burton became a bit of a bogeyman to Nessie people across that decade as he regularly wrote against any notion of plesiosaurs or anything else exotic in the loch.

Alex Campbell was no different in that regard. Alex was a bit of a spokesman for the creature throughout that time, though he rarely wrote on the subject and confined his talking to encouraging other monster hunters, writing for the local Inverness Courier and giving interviews to the media when they turned up at the loch (which was no surprise as he was always at the loch while other well-known hunters tended to only be there for weeks at a time).

After Burton's book came out, Campbell wrote an article for The Scots Magazine in May 1962 carrying the same title as this short blog posting. The scans I took of the image are below for readers to look over and I will only add a few comments after the passage of 62 years. Campbell devotes some words to Burton's theory about decaying vegetables mats propelled by gases of putrefaction.

Alex has certainly been vindicated to this day in his opposition to this theory as even sceptics have disowned this theory which sounds fine when expressed in words but is found wanting in the real world of verification. Likewise, Burton's idea of large otters at the loch receives short shrift from Campbell.

Alex recounts sightings from the 19th century from people he knew and trusted, demonstrating this was more than a product of 1930s hysteria. Indeed, these accounts made their way into Loch Ness literature for a perpetual preservation of Victorian Nessies. You will doubtless see comments after this article where some discount Campbell as a lying Nessie promoter. You can safely ignore them, mainly because they can produce no evidence to back up their opinions.

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

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com










Thursday, 7 November 2024

Nessie in the 19th Century

 


When Rupert T. Gould wrote his book on the Loch Ness Monster in 1934, he came across quite a few people who said they had seen it decades before all the fuss that was then swirling around the loch. Further anecdotes from the first half of the 20th century had people also recalling what their older relations or associates told them about the creature in the loch going back longer. 

I come across these little stories now and again and this one above was the latest I found which is from the Sunday Express for 9th February 1959. This one goes back to about 1820 when King George IV was monarch of Britain and Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo only five years before. They are short on detail not surprisingly but they all coalesce towards a common point and an older phenomenon than what some would have you believe.

The format is familiar concerning a dangerous beast residing in the loch which was capable of coming ashore and taking out one or two unwary kids. Other tales add a supernatural element concerning water horses masquerading as saddled horses ready to capture weary travellers. Such tales are said to have their origins in child safety around bodies of water and certainly there is an element of that in the evolution of such tales. However, since the legend of the saddled shape-shifter was more applicable to adults (how does a five year kid mount a horse?), it had a wider scope symbolizing the fear many had of something which did not stay well out of their way in the deeps, but would worryingly enter the domain of humans on land.

The author of this letter, Angus Maitland, sent a similar letter to the same newspaper sixteen years later as monster fever rose weeks before the Rines underwater photographs. It is shown below, but only adds minor details and is consistent with his previous letter, though it adds more detail to his mother's age.



Actually, 1820 is about as far back as these types of letters go, which is not surprising if we are assuming someone who was already old by the 1930s recalling the oral traditions of their grandparents. After this, there are a couple of tales from the 1700s, one from the 1600s before a huge leap of 1000 years back to St. Columba! I wonder what the monster was up to for an entire millennium?


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

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com



Saturday, 26 October 2024

The Latest Sonar Contact (September 2024)

 


Almost four years to the day, the Loch Ness Cruises company published another sonar image of interest at the beginning of this month. The actual incident was on Sunday 22nd September. This is the account as described by the Daily Telegraph on the 4th October (original link):

I found Loch Ness monster on ship’s sonar, claims captain

Large object spotted by underwater technology reignites speculation about mythical prehistoric creature

A captain has claimed he found the Loch Ness monster using the sonar system on his boat. Shaun Sloggie, 30, was preparing his Spirit of Loch Ness pleasure boat to sail last month when a large object was spotted on the vessel’s underwater sensors. The outline, which was detected nearly 100 metres beneath the surface of the Highland loch, bears an eerie resemblance to a plesiosaur, which many have speculated could be the reptile group the fabled Loch Ness Monster belongs to. The footage has reignited speculation that Nessie, the creature alleged to inhabit the large body of water near Inverness, might really exist.

“I said: ‘What the hell is that?’” recalled Mr Sloggie of the sighting on Sept 22. “It was bigger than anything else I’ve ever seen. We’ve seen all sorts of fish that shouldn’t be here, but this? This was different. You should have felt the chills on the boat.”

Speaking to the Daily Mail, he added: “I’ve worked here for nine years and never seen anything like it. And sonar doesn’t lie, the boat hasn’t been on five whisky distillery tours before going out on the loch, it’s just doing its job.”

Mr Sloggie, who works for Cruise Loch Ness, said the object remained visible for two to three minutes and that he and maritime pilot Liam McKenzie, 29, were able to take a screenshot before it disappeared from the dashboard. He said it appeared in different colours, which are thought to indicate pockets of air and heat signatures which would suggest the object was alive. A previous sonar image captured on Loch Ness in 2020 was said to be the most “compelling” evidence yet of the existence of Nessie.

Mr Sloggie said the previous image was believed to show a creature “eight to 10 metres [26 to 32ft] long and one metre [3ft] wide” but speculated that the new object was “a lot bigger than that”.

The image was captured while the boat was close to the mouth of the loch, which Mr Sloggie said was the ideal location for a large predator to catch salmon and other fish going in and out.

“There are fish in the loch that shouldn’t be here. There are prehistoric creatures living in the loch and unknown codes of DNA, so there is room for mystery. This could change the angle of science on the loch. But how do you find out what it is? I’ve always known there’s something there. What it is, is a mystery. But it definitely springs open people’s imaginations. It’s not just about tourism, there’s real science in studying the loch.”

The shape of the sonar contact certainly stirred the imagination as some saw the shape of the classic plesiosaur in the picture. Indeed, who would not admit to seeing the long neck to the right, progressing to a bulky body with indications of flippers below and finally what looks like a short tail to the far left?



As to size, Mr. Sloggie offered an estimate bigger than “eight to 10 metres", which was the estimated length of the object in the prior sonar contact of 2020. He was later interviewed on TalkTV where he revealed that the sonar data had been sent off to the equipment manufacturers for expert analysis. We await the result of that investigation, but some were not content with waiting for the experts. Over at the Loch Ness Exploration Facebook page, we have this comment:



In fact, Dick has been busy on this topic trying to explain it away. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion and it seems not a few on these forums await Dick's verdict when such events arise. He latches onto some words Sloggie made in the Daily Express version of events (link) where it is said that the strange image "flashed up on the sonar on September 22 this year as they prepared for the arrival of another vessel."

Dick then concluded that reflections from the sonar device on the other vessel led to interference on Mr. Sloggie's sonar device and a compromised display image. So is it a matter of case closed, move on and no need for the manufacturers to get involved? Not quite, because Dick has not completed the enquiry in a scientific manner. He proposed a theory, but he did not test the value of that theory.

Since he does not seem willing to complete the scientific process himself, I will do it for him. Firstly, it has to be asked how close the other vessel was when the sonar image was seen? The answer is we do not know - based on the text quoted. Another image from the Daily Mail article shows what appears to be a GPS location image of the vessel Mr. Sloggie was on.



Given that the sonar depth of the object was given as about 300 feet, that is a depth consistent with bathymetric readings for that area of the loch. Why would his boat be waiting for the arrival of another boat from there? The likely explanation is that the narrowness of the canal into Fort Augustus meant another boat was ahead of them going into the canal. 

The next question is how close do two vessels have to be to one another to produce meaningful interference? Does Dick know the answer to that question? I would guess pretty close given the size of the sonar cone beams. An important side question might be the minimum distance the authorities require between boats to avoid the possibility of a collision.

Moreover, interference requires that the two transducers have to be operating at the same frequency. The transducers are configured to tune into a narrow frequency band and looking at the bottom left of the sonar image, the boat was set to 200KHz. Note also the text "B260/M260" beside it which indicates the possibility of two transducers, one attached under the hull and the other on the inside of the hull. That may mean there are two beams of different widths complementing one another, but I do not have enough information to be sure of that.

So, the matter is far from closed on whether another vessel disrupted the sonar input and I am unclear as to whether the vessel used CHIRP multi-frequency sonar. In fact, interference seems unlikely consulting the words of others on the Internet. One website said this on proximity of other vessels:

When two or more echo sounders are operating in close proximity and at the same or similar frequency, it is possible for each to receive false returns from the others transducer. In such cases the operator will see noise and clutter, false returns, dotted lines, multiple bottoms or other video anomalies on the screen. This is most common in and around marinas or harbors where there may be multiple fish finders operating at the same frequencies.

This is accompanied by a drawing of such a display:


Does the Sloggie image show such patterns of interference? I would say it does not and that would make sense to me. After all, why would the intersection of two large beams result in changes to only a small area of the display and not affect any other part of it? The object of interest occupies less than 1% of the entire water column on view, surely we should be seeing more than that.

But herein lies a problem. For decades, such sonar images have been dismissed along the lines of corrupted sonar signals. We get words such as reflection, refraction and interference bandied about, but that implies such people have conducted calibrated tests to produce these images so as to use them when assessing future images.

In fact, the remit of the Loch Ness Exploration run by my colleague Alan McKenna is to record instances of common objects and effects producing hydrophone signatures which can be used to evaluate future recordings. I would suggest this extends to sonar. But why re-invent the wheel? Go to Adrian Shine and Dick Raynor to get their sonar data library on images known to have been produced by such sonar effects.

Now as for that tantalizing plesiosaur shape of the image, Dick further says:




The horizontal axis is indeed scaled to time, but it is not true to say that it provides no information on form or shape. I was wondering if the cruise boat had Raymarine's 3D visualization tool installed and ever use it? This is from Raymarine's Facebook page:



The lower 2D image may initially look like a jumble, but it is actually not far from what it actually was when reconstructed in 3D. Of course, it helped that the wreck was stationary on the sea bed. We do not know whether the object from Loch Ness was moving or just suspended in the lower depths. So, I await what Raymarine have to say about this and it would be great if some kind of 3-D rendering was possible.


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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com





    

Monday, 21 October 2024

Nicholas Witchell and the Natural History Museum

 


Anyone with an interest in the Loch Ness Monster will know that 1975 was a pretty manic year. Much has been written since about those murky underwater pictures taken by Robert Rines and his AAS team back then and the furore they caused. The Times newspaper recently published an article on Nicholas Witchell's exuberant part in that media frenzy. The article is shown below.




What we learn in this article is how Nicholas Witchell laid upon the experts at the Natural History Museum the duty to classify the creature and take the necessary steps to back up the government in protecting it. Leaked excerpts from his then forthcoming book led to the doors of the museum being assailed by the media for more news.

Witchell later apologised to them for his over-enthusiasm. Years later he made the leap from enthusiast par excellence to complete unbeliever when he replied with the words "Absolutely not." to the question as to whether he believed there were unknown animals in Loch Ness. He then replies in a paradoxical way by saying he was still puzzled as to what those "many decent people" had seen. Can you believe there are no unknown animals in the loch yet not offer an explanation as to what they saw?

Adrian Shine is quoted and he is in less doubt than Witchell and even warned him of his doubts concerning the pictures. They only showed silt clouds and a tree stump and this was "blindingly obvious" to boot. We can agree with Adrian over the "gargoyle head" and the tree stump found, but it is a non-sequitur to conclude the rest are therefore misidentification.



The above picture still stands in my opinion. Was it a tree stump or a cloud of silt? I don't think so. Was it a pattern of debris on the loch bed? So where is the rest of the loch bed when it is more logical to conclude it is out there in the water which surrounds it? Attempts will then be made to say it is smaller than one may presume. Those calculations were done at the time and concluded it was no small object.

This for me means that nearly fifty years on, this segment of the Loch Ness mystery is not over until the sceptics offer more than simplistic explanations.


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The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com


 




Tuesday, 1 October 2024

Bumping Into Nessie?


Stories of alleged collisions with the Loch Ness Monster are a rare class of report indeed and normally involve the larger vessels that have traversed the loch over the decades. But like the proverbial bus, you wait a long time for one to turn up and suddenly two arrive. Given this unusual rarity (whether it was Nessie or not), I am noting them down in the "incident log" or should I say incident blog? First up is Duncan Roberts as printed in the Daily Record dated 18th September 2024 (link here).

A swimmer in Scotland has claimed he felt something brush up against him in Loch Ness. Duncan Roberts, 39, from Australia was bracing the icy waters of the iconic Scottish loch for a charity challenge. The daredevil was swimming to the deepest part of Loch Ness when the chilling encounter occurred. He commented:

"The depth and the darkness of that water plays tricks with your mind. There is some weird energy at play in that water. And during my swim I experienced a bump half way across. It was something big. The water is pitch black and I had my eyes closed a lot of the time as the depth and darkness terrified me so I didn't see anything. I just felt it, a big thud in the chest."

Speaking to What's The Jam, Roberts added: 

"I think anyone who swims in the deep part of the loch is lying if they say they haven't thought about the monster. I was focused on getting across as quickly as possible so the hit was a shock. I was already nervous enough before the swim. If I knew something was going to bump into me halfway across I would definitely have been having second thoughts."

Roberts is one of only five people in the world to have skateboarded 870 miles around Iceland. However, he stated that the swim across the fabled Scottish loch was far tougher. He said: 

"It was one of the toughest things I've ever done mentally. I live in Australia and surf all the time often with Great White Sharks. I was way more scared of getting in the Loch Ness water. It was one of the toughest things I've ever done mentally. I flew all the way from Australia so it would've been tough to back out. The loch is beautiful but definitely has a vibe about it that makes you freeze at the thought of swimming in it. Not to mention that it is roughly six to 10C.

It also has the sensation of pulling you under a little. I think because it is fresh water and so deep. It is very different to salt water. I was hoping to not have an encounter. The deep dark water alone is scary enough, let alone worrying about what else might lurk below. There were definitely moments of awe and beauty as I caught glimpses of the length of the loch while I took breaths during the swim. But I wanted to get to the other side at Urquhart. Swimming into the castle shores was pretty magical."

However, the swim was only half the challenge. Roberts then got out of the loch and donned a kilt. The daredevil proceeded to climb Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain. Once at the summit, he played the bagpipes and climbed back down all in one day.

Then we move onto the second "collision" but this time involving two canoes. This is taken from the Daily Star dated 24th September 2024 (link here).

A father and son duo claim they were attacked by the infamous 'Nessie' while canoeing on Loch Ness. Geoff Potts, an experienced guide, and his son Chris were each paddling in their own canoes when they were both struck from below. The sudden impact almost caused Chris to lose grip of his paddle. Geoff, 53, and Chris, 24, are no strangers to the famous loch, having canoed there numerous times, but this time was different. Geoff shared:

"I guide canoe trips on the Great Glen. I've done around 40 or so in the last few years. A few weeks ago while I was out with my son Chris something bumped my canoe hard from below. And when I mentioned it to Chris he said he hit something with his paddle which nearly took it out of his hand. I didn't see anything. I just felt a big thump against the bottom of my boat. In nearly 40 Great Glen crossings I've never experienced it. Chris saw nothing too but he also hit something hard with his paddle which nearly made him drop it. I've completed around 40 crossings since 2021 including the first recorded non stop solo crossing that I'm aware of in an open canoe."

He added that the impact felt different from hitting a log.

"Loch Ness has an impressive presence about it - I mean it's huge, As I've completed it so many times it was confusing to get a thud which sounded dull. I have hit logs before but this was not like hitting wood at all. You immediately wonder what it was. But the water is so dark you can only see down a foot or so."

Looking at Duncan Roberts first, I was not certain what swimming route he took, although it looks like he started at Dores and swam diagonally down loch to Urquhart Castle for a swim of about five and a half miles. Using Google maps to draw a line to his finishing point at Urquhart Castle allows us to mark the rough halfway mark where he says he collided with the object.



Duncan talked about the uncertainty of swimming in a loch with a reputed monster in it. He certainly made me think of the old phrase "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know". Where the devils he knew where the great white sharks he has swum near and the unknown one was lurking in Loch Ness. Whatever he may have been hit by, a primal psychology can kick in which leads to a surge of emotion and perhaps confusion.

But for some reason he doesn't actually tell us how he reacted or what went through his mind. What if the next bump proved to be more violent? Dare he look down into the water to see what the object was? The closest we get is that if he had known this would happen, he would have had second thoughts. 

Looking at the map, that right turn at the halfway point is a third of a mile swim to shore as opposed to the remaining 2.5 to 3 miles to the castle. If you have received a worrying shunt, does your more primal self not scream to take the shortcut or by sheer effort of the will you plough on, telling yourself it was just a tree log and that no one has ever been killed by such a beast? If I thought something huge had put in a first hit, I would be doing a rapid right angle turn towards the nearest shore!

So what could have hit him? He merely says it was "a big thud in the chest", but pronounced enough for him to say "it was something big". Nothing was seen and perhaps he didn't want to look down into the inky depths. It would have been useful to know if this was a short, sharp collision or more prolonged, like something rasping along your mid rift. It sounds more like a sudden event to me, as if something came up vertically from below and then receded back down.

Was the "big thud" bigger than a thud from a pike, ferox trout, log or seal? A thud can be as much a product of speed as mass, but again how extended was the "thud"? It was unlikely a seal was in Loch Ness and if it was a log, I would have thought it more likely that he would have collided with it head first? If there had been heavy rainfall a day or two before then there could be a fair bit of debris floating in the loch, though generally nothing one could call "big".

I think I need to ask Duncan some more questions and I noticed he was posting on Facebook and he himself is not excluding larger fish as an explanation. But I move onto the canoeists. This is certainly on the face of it a more interesting story as we have two experienced canoeists who have some credentials as regards familiarity with the paths along the loch surface. One gets the impression they had gone over this route before and certainly no experienced canoeist is going to go into shallows where a barely submerged rock is going to hit them and cause some serious damage.

The sequence of events looks like it collided with Geoff's canoe first and then his son hit the object with his paddle just as Geoff was asking Chris about it. I have taken a few pictures of canoeists with my trap cameras and they tend to travel in a line, one in front of the other which would suggest to me that the object was moving in the opposite direction to the canoes, hitting Geoff's at the front first. Whatever the story, it was lacking in detail and so I contacted Geoff and/or Chris Potts on their commercial adventures website with more questions. The answer I got back from someone saying they were Chris Potts was:

This never happened…. I’m still wondering why on earth my photo is in the newspaper!!

Okay ... so I noticed that Geoff was already on social media telling his story on Alan McKenna's Loch Ness Exploration Facebook group. He stated this happened two weeks before his posting on the 14th September, placing it on about the 1st September. He joined the group on June 21st 2024 and further commented on the 26th that "My money is on a large freshwater sturgeon". So is he saying his canoe collided with a sturgeon? Just in case anyone didn't know, there are no sturgeons in Loch Ness.

Duncan Roberts had joined the group on the 10th September, three days before he posted. This leads to a few questions. What held up Duncan for four months from publicizing this story? Geoff had been on the group since June 21st without a word as far as I can see, then has his alleged encounter on the 1st September, but says nothing on the group until yet another rare collision story coincidentally turns up 12 days later from Duncan? I welcome any corrections to the timeline as I see it.

Does telling potential canoe trip customers that you might collide with Nessie a negative or a positive for bookings? Maybe it is time to move on from these accounts for other reasons. If it was one of the creatures, then such collisions stories are, as said already, rarer than rare. Other accounts I have gathered over the years are boat collisions from 1978 and 1943 which I detailed in this article. The curious thing is that the owner of the 1978 boat was called Stephen Roberts, surely not related to our swimmer, Duncan Roberts? I also covered an article from 1969 regarding the Vickers Pisces submarine being jolted by unidentified objects (link here).

There is also Alex Campbell's story about how he was out in his rowing boat when something suddenly heaved up his vessel from the water below and then settled back down again. You then have speculations about other boating accidents being caused by the monster with no one at the time suggesting anything other than normal but tragic circumstances.

That is four stories from the past eighty years prior to these two recent accounts. There may be other stories out there and one must point out that none of these accounts mention seeing the cause of their collision apart from the 1943 story from Lt Commander Francis Russell Flint. So that gives a huge gap in such accounts since 1978.

Animals in general do not go out of their way to crash into other objects, it tends to reduce their health points, so to speak. But animals do collide with boats as has been seen on various phone videos of whales breaching and dropping onto nearby vessels and so on. They also collide when they deliberately attack prey or competitors.

Under what circumstance would a Loch Ness Monster crash into something or somebody? Maybe that dark peat stained water is too opaque at times? Or maybe the given creature was sick and disoriented? Or perhaps it just wasn't paying attention and was distracted by a tasty passing salmon? Since 1978, they seem to have managed to avoid hitting anything, even a Nessie won't win an argument with a Jacobite Cruise Boat.

If Duncan or Geoff wish to make further comments, they can join the conversation at the link below.


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

The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com