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The Loch Ness Monster

That's a really important point. The loch simply doesn't have a sustainable food source for even a small colony of large creatures. In nature almost all environments have a range of creatures of varying sizes - what you never see is a single large creature alone in its environment with no adequate food source.
 
Paul Barton said:
The loch simply doesn't have a sustainable food source for even a small colony of large creatures.
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This is exactly why I made the point that if it exists, it must be some sort of visitor.
I remember a piece of fiction that stated "the loch is connected to the North Sea by the Devil's Punchbowl.' I don't know if this exists, or was a piece of fiction to help the story along. Could this be how they come and go?
The loch would make a good site for juveniles as yes there isn't much food, but that also means practically no predation. I do agree though that there is no way a community could exist here, you would need at least 30 viable adults to sustain a decent gene pool.
 
and wheres all the dino poo as well? surely somthing as big as an elephant floating around in a loch would leave elephant sized poo's floating around in the water


cas
 
The anwers...

1. There's a saying 'loch Ness dosn't give up it's dead'. That's
because the water in Loch Ness is so cold body's wont float to the surface.

2. It is believed that nessie excretes a kind of oily substance in the same way seals do. This has been backed up by a report of
an 'oily black slick' being seen on the surface of Loch Ness.

3. There is enough food in Loch Ness to support a family of large aquatic animals. Deep down in Loch Ness there is a population of char and higher up there is a healthy poulation of Trout and Salmon. You can also find Pike in Loch Ness. Loch Ness also acts as a trap for eels which come in to migrate resulting in a thriving population.

4. Nessie isn't a visitor. Loch Ness is above sea level meaning that any tunnel to the sea would be pretty stupid... The only way it would work would be if the tunnel was so narrow the rivers would be able to replace the lost water. It is very hard to imagine a large creature swimming down a narrow tunnel. It is equally hard to imagine nessie making the tunnels and then locating the sea. The idea of nessie leaving through the river ness or through a canel is equally unlikely.

5. There doesn't need to be as many as 30 of creatures. 15 would be a sensible guess. I think that only the largest ones or the adults come to the surface. So most of these creatures would be smaller than is thought. Because of this I believe that Loch Ness is big enough to contain these creatures.
 
Re: The anwers...

AlGore said:
4. Nessie isn't a visitor. Loch Ness is above sea level meaning that any tunnel to the sea would be pretty stupid... The only way it would work would be if the tunnel was so narrow the rivers would be able to replace the lost water. It is very hard to imagine a large creature swimming down a narrow tunnel. It is equally hard to imagine nessie making the tunnels and then locating the sea. The idea of nessie leaving through the river ness or through a canel is equally unlikely.
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What about the sightings of Nessie going across land into the loch?

How far would it have to travel across land to reach the sea?
 
It's a good few miles. A person would only take a couple of hours or so to walk from inverness to Dores (wee village where loch ness kind of starts) but a four flippered entity would take a while. Not really feasible for any marine animal.
p.s. Dores is great with a fantastic wee pub. Many an evening in sixth year was spent there by myself and occasionally the drummer from Led Zepp would pop in from Boleskine house.
 
Fake.

I myself am quite convinced that there are a group of plesiosaurs in the loch. I am not sure how they got there (well.... QUITE sure, anyway), but I know they are. That said, however, the alleged nessie head and neck shot at hand is quite fake. As has already been mentioned on this board by someone, the suspicious lack of ripples is most certainly another nail in this photo's coffin. Moreover, the image seems to be composed of both a drawing or a multi-copied photograph of what appears to be a saurapod, not a plesiosaur; I am sure that somewhere out there, there is an illstrated dinosaur book of some sort containing that image.
However, the background, as well as most of the lake itself, are real.
Anyway, plesiosaurs do not have thick necks as purported in this hoax. They have necks that are a bit more slender. The same is true of the head.
And what would a plesiosaur (more precisely, an elasmosaurus) be doing with its head and neck out of the water, with its mouth gaping wide? Sun basking?
Honestly, even when I was a little child I perceived this hoax to be more of a drawing or a painting than a photograph.
 
Interesting that you say that you know there to be a family of plesiosaurs in Loch Ness. What has convinced you to such a dramatic extent? I would sincerely like to know, as I find it very interesting that you believe this so completely.

As for the 1977 Doc Shiels photos, according to the article in FT29, then president of the RPS, Dr Vernon G. W. Harrison wrote in a letter about his study of the photo -

"A... possibility is that the photograph is... a reduction of an imaginative painting executed by a competent artist. To produce a sufficiently deceptive painting would require skill and a detailed knowledge of the effects of light reflected from, and transmitted through, rippled water..."

This fits in with what you say about the background and water being 'real', while 'Nessie' itself is a copied illustration. Not being knowledgable about the techniques involved in making such a composite image (and making it look so good) with the technology available in 1977, I can't say how feasible this actually is, but I would guess that it would have been possible.

And what would a plesiosaur (more precisely, an elasmosaurus) be doing with its head and neck out of the water, with its mouth gaping wide?
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Why, posing for it's photograph to be taken, of course!

Say cheese...
 
There's also a second Doc Shiels photo of Nessie, where the neck's at a slightly different angle, but otherwise, the lack of movement etc, along with the fact that there's nothing in the background to scale it against, gives me serious doubts.

The only place I've seen the second photo was in the Bords' Alien Animals , a very poor quality print. Apparently the original negative mysteriously vanished from a sealed package sent through the post. This was used in the book to illustrate the high incidence of photographic mishaps that seem to befall people who get snaps of mysterious beasties.

Just dug out Modern Mysteries Of Britain, And there's a very similar looking head & neck shot on page 163, supposedly taken six years after the Shiels photos by a lady cyclist. That's about as much information as is given though.

Doc Shiels had an interesting theory that the Loch Ness Monster is actually a sort of fat squid thing, and what we all assume to be the neck and head is actually its breathing tube poking above the suface:madeyes:
 
Yes, the second photo is reproduced in the FT29 article as well. The only copy that survived was a high-contrast print, so the print in Alien Animals is as good as it gets.

In the second photo, it looks more as though the neck has actually changed in shape, rather than moved in angle. But one thing that strikes me as odd about the second photo is the 'gap' at the back of the neck where it meets the surface of the water. There may be some way of explaining this away, but it just doesn't look right to me. Perhaps it is a diver with a glove puppet after all!
;)
 
Absolutely definately a FAKE.... a friend of mine saw the model made and the pic was taken in falmouth harbour and left in the camera till Loch Ness........

The Loch Ness museaum... i made a small (2ft) model of a stuffed Sturgeion with tartan coat for someone up there..(thinks name may be Martin?)... i wonder if its in the museaum?.anyone seen it?
 
I'd definitely recommend taking a trip on the "Nessie Hunter" on Loch Ness. The boat steering bloke: George something...says he has had 16 sightings of something, some of which he has photographed. I won't go into his theories now, but it was jolly interesting.
 
Nessie-Where you at???

hey guys,
have any of you heard of any recent news from the loch of ness? it seems as though nessie has taken a bit of an extended vacation. i heard that some dudes where filming under water to see if they would catch something valuable on video. does anyone have any info on the progress of this filming? or any info of any recent nessie news???
thanx,
ZERO:hmph:
 
I'd heard that there was a new exploration going on, I tried to look on the live webcam on AOL but couldn't get it to connect. Does anyone know if they found anything?
 
I'm just waiting for the message from David Icke that she's been eaten by reptiliods
 
the aol web cam did connect for me- problem was it connected at 2am and yep you guessed it it was dark (i didnt think things through lol) so i didnt see anything

cas
 
This is the sad thing about possible isolated communities of cryptids - They might die out before we discover them :eek:

it's been estimated that sauropods could live about 100 years [http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/anatomy/Age.shtml] so, even considering the smaller size and therefore probabable shorter span of a plesiosaur, the twentieth century nessie may have been the last!
 
Ah but Jack, me laddie, you're forgeting that Nessie may in fact be a zooform phenomena rather than a real cryptid, a ghost of a dinosaur or even the result of a time slip! And if this is the case what makes the psychic conditions right to spy the elusive Nessie?

Back to the flesh and blood hypothesis, I read somewhere that the state of the Loch now is so bad that there's no way a large predator could survive in there. But it is thought that there may be several underwater channels in the Loch that connect it to other bodies of water, so the beast may have migrated elsewhere.
 
I've posted this on another thread but I'll do it again if you don't mind.

Boat man on the Nessie Hunter on Loch Ness told me he's had 16 sightings of 'something'. (Some photographed) He reckons that Sturgeon are migrating through the loch. I dunno, could be.

As for black humps in the water, I can totally understand people seeing these. The water in the loch is as black as......a black thing, and every wave on the loch looks like a black hump.
 
Anyone know anything about comparisons between Nessie and the Kelpie? (Scottish faerie "water horse").
 
Is Nessie just a big catfish ?

What are the chances of Nessie just being a big ol' catfish ? I have often pondered the Nessie phenomenon, with regards to evidence etc and feel the long-necked theory has to be disregarded. Most sightings describe the upturned boat..could this be the occasional surfacing of a catfish ? Such an animal could live in such an inhospitable environment feeding off the bottom and avoiding sonar detection. The only other theory is that of a giant eel. I have never believed that a monster exists in Loch Ness but would like to be proven wrong.
What do you think ?
 
There has been alot of theorys suggesting that nessie could be a sturgeon, elephant squid, conga eel or even a whale. You never know if could even be a combination of many of the above. According to most eye witness acounts they see a large hump in the water that sits for a short while then dissapears, so if this is nessie it could be about 1000 different animals.

The only thing that i can add tho about the possibiltys of nessie being a fish is that a fish's spine bends side to side (just like the way you see a shark swim) and amphibians, mammals and reptiles spines bend in a up and down fashion (just like a whale dolphin or human), and alot of eye witnesses have said that they see the back and spine curvature of the creature as it surfaces then curves into the water. this gives me the impression that the creature isnt in fact a fish but either a reptile amphibian or more likely some sort of mammal.
 
Nessie on 60 Minutes II in US

Bob Rines was on 60 Minutes II last night. They found this THING laying on the bottom of the loch with their underwater cameras. I'm not sure what it could be...but it was the same shape that people imagine Nessie to be. Plus, it looked hollow and there were stringy things hanging from it (yum). So, what I'm trying to say is that it looked like a dead Nessie. They tried to get samples but were unable. Then they couldn't find it when they went back the next day.

There was also footage of something moving across the surface of the water that the onshore cameras had caught.

All in all it was quite interesting. The "carcass" on the bottom could have been quite a find if they were able to get samples. Who knows...it could have just been that giant sturgeon that everyone seems to think is being blamed for Nessie.
 
I was quite intrigued by the carcass,or whatever it was,too.Unfortunately,it ended up as these things all too often do.The film of the wake was also very unusual,as the water was dead calm.It was a fairly good report all in all,and I think Dr. Rines came out all right.It's good to see he's still spry and bright and confident as ever.Damn good for a man pushing 80!
 
It looked to me like there were bubbles behind the hump (or whatever was making the wake). Do you think that was a wash from the hump? Also, why weren't there any movements from what was making this thing move? There was no swimming motion (like from a tail) or flipper motion on the sides. I thought that was odd.

The carcass was very interesting. I don't understand why they didn't get samples of it when they had in front of them. That just seems odd to me.

I thought that they made a couple interesting arguments. That you hardly ever see salmon jumping or other marine animals. When you're looking at the surface of the lake, you have no idea what's underneath. Fish, etc. usually stick to their own world.

When they were showing the underwater footage, it reminded me of the stories I've read of divers' encounters with Nessie. One told of a diver sent down to recover a body from a shipwreck and when he came up, he was very shaken and they took him to an emergency rom. He refused to go back in the water. I think he told a friend later that a large black animal swam near him.
 
I feel so isolated up here in Canada! Does anyone know where I can get hold fo this footage? Cheers!
 
can anyone give me a webpage where i can find this footage or more information about this new sighting? thanks
 
admittedly, i have misplaced my zoology degree, but wouldn't a catfish in the UK be a bit of an anomaly in itself?

sturgeon and eel are a possibility, but I think a squid and a whale can be pretty much discounted:
squids are cephlapods and never found in fresh water, and whales are whales. They surface often to breathe, and when they do, they look like whales. A whale in Loch Ness would remain unidentified and undiscovered for about five minutes.
 
Slytherin said:
admittedly, i have misplaced my zoology degree, but wouldn't a catfish in the UK be a bit of an anomaly in itself?

sturgeon and eel are a possibility, but I think a squid and a whale can be pretty much discounted:
squids are cephlapods and never found in fresh water, and whales are whales. They surface often to breathe, and when they do, they look like whales. A whale in Loch Ness would remain unidentified and undiscovered for about five minutes.
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I totally agree with you on this one.
The thing that baffles me the most is that the creature is often sighted curving down into the water with only the top of its back coming out of the water so this rules out the posibility of the creature being a fish as we all know that fish spines dont curve this way, the curve side to side. Would it be possible that the monster could be some sort of exotic unknown sea cow or relative to the sea cow? I know that seals are often found in the Loch so if they can get in im sure a sea cow could.
 
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