The Loch Ness Monster

[GNC]

I was going to say, when has a whale EVER been in Loch Ness?! Even the seal theory was stretching credulity somewhat.

I think the tabloids just like to get away with mentioning erect penises...

 

[BS3]

From probably the mainstream 'paranormal' story in the UK to whale penises in 30 years - can't believe how much Nessie has come down in the world

 

[maximus otter]

I was going to say, when has a whale EVER been in Loch Ness?! Even the seal theory was stretching credulity somewhat.

There have been seals in Loch Ness. Here’s an account of one that lived there from November ‘84 to June ‘85:

https://icrwhale.org/pdf/SC039151-157.pdf

The abstract states that seals visit the loch “approximately once every two years”.

maximus otter

 

[Sid]

There have been seals in Loch Ness. Here’s an account of one that lived there from November ‘84 to June ‘85:

https://icrwhale.org/pdf/SC039151-157.pdf

The abstract states that seals visit the loch “approximately once every two years”.

maximus otter

Obviously - it's the seal of approval, and conformation!

 

[Paul_Exeter]

There have been seals in Loch Ness. Here’s an account of one that lived there from November ‘84 to June ‘85:

https://icrwhale.org/pdf/SC039151-157.pdf

The abstract states that seals visit the loch “approximately once every two years”.

maximus otter

I'm not majorly into Nessie but did visit Loch Ness back in 1997 and have always kept a close eye on the various Nessie websites and sightings. So I'm surprised I haven't heard much more about these confirmed seal sightings with photographs in the Loch. There is one photo of a seal swimming in that link that pretty much provides an answer to at least one purported Nessie photograph, so why aren't we hearing more about seals and are they responsible for most Nessie sightings...?

 

[Sharon Hill]

It's funny how this topic keeps resurfacing. This goofy topic appeared last year at this time. It's clickbait. This time it was via a tweet from Michael Sweet. Sweet, who stresses the importance of public engagement in science, missed a major point. His presentation on social media, which has 100K likes, is more misinformation than science. It’s too common for scientists to exaggerate, dramatize or misrepresent the natural world in order to impress others. While it seems noble to get people interested in science and nature, this is a faulty method.

 

[GNC]

There have been seals in Loch Ness. Here’s an account of one that lived there from November ‘84 to June ‘85:

https://icrwhale.org/pdf/SC039151-157.pdf

The abstract states that seals visit the loch “approximately once every two years”.

maximus otter

Sorry for taking sooo long to reply to this, it kept slipping my frazzled mind (!).

Anyway, a seal arriving in the loch around every two years isn't a whole lot, is it? That's assuming anyone sees the creatures on their visit. There are far more sightings than that per year, but you would have to be really wanting to see Nessie to mistake it for a seal, which are very distinctive. Mind you, there is always going to be a contingent who see a ripple in the surface caused by a breeze and think, "Good grief - the monster!"

 

[maximus otter]

Sorry for taking sooo long to reply to this, it kept slipping my frazzled mind (!).

Anyway, a seal arriving in the loch around every two years isn't a whole lot, is it? That's assuming anyone sees the creatures on their visit. There are far more sightings than that per year, but you would have to be really wanting to see Nessie to mistake it for a seal, which are very distinctive. Mind you, there is always going to be a contingent who see a ripple in the surface caused by a breeze and think, "Good grief - the monster!"

True, but just because a scientist doesn’t see it, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen more often.

Also, most people are a bit poo about identifying wildlife, especially unfamiliar types, which seals are to most people. (A mate of mine tanned the skin of a roadkill fox years ago, and gave the result to me. l had it on the floor of my room as a joke, riffing off the old “tiger-skin rug” idea.

At least two people, independently of one another, asked me, “Is that a squirrel?” Yeah: a 3’-long, 25lb ginger “squirrel”... )

maximus otter

 

[catseye]

I'll be driving (roughly) past in a few weeks on my way to and from Orkney. Might get to drop in, although we will probably only have time to drive about forty miles past and then say 'damn, we were going to go to Loch Ness, weren't we?'

 

[GNC]

True, but just because a scientist doesn’t see it, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen more often.

Also, most people are a bit poo about identifying wildlife, especially unfamiliar types, which seals are to most people. (A mate of mine tanned the skin of a roadkill fox years ago, and gave the result to me. l had it on the floor of my room as a joke, riffing off the old “tiger-skin rug” idea.

At least two people, independently of one another, asked me, “Is that a squirrel?” Yeah: a 3’-long, 25lb ginger “squirrel”... )

maximus otter

According to the news today, people can identify seals perfectly well - and use them as a focus of their aggression, kicking them, punching them, and throwing objects at them. I'd like to see them try that with a loch monster.

 

[Ermintruder]

There's an extensive 2-page illustrated article on 'The Monster' in today's edition of that well-known radical & unconventional hotbed of supranatural phenomena, the 'Daily Mail' (I had to buy it for someone else, and accidently read all of it, before handing it to the recipient). The article's very well-written.

If I can recapture it (the newspaper, not the monster) I'll do a summary / extract here. There's a particularly-interesting line drawing in it from 1936, which I've never seen previously: this is from one of the alleged sightings during an ultra-rare land encounter.

From memory, the head seemed much bigger & rounder than the canonical plesiosauroid, and short-necked, plus with odd distinctive dangling flaps at the cheeks. It was wonderfully-depicted, in a confident free-from-conformity or projections style.

Does this sound familiar to any Nessie experts on the forum?

ps where (and to whom) do I give my confession about have bought & read a whole copy of the Daily Mail?

 

[EnolaGaia]

... If I can recapture it (the newspaper, not the monster) I'll do a summary / extract here. There's a particularly-interesting line drawing in it from 1936, which I've never seen previously: this is from one of the alleged sightings during an ultra-rare land encounter. ...

Here's the sketch ...

The drawing showed a beast that was supposed to have come ashore near the village of Drumnadrochit in September 1936.
It was seen both facing forwards and side-on, with its rolls of fat around its midriff standing out.

SOURCE / FULL ARTICLE: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-sketch-giant-beast-secret-Monster-Files.html

 

[kamalktk]

There is one photo of a seal swimming in that link that pretty much provides an answer to at least one purported Nessie photograph, so why aren't we hearing more about seals and are they responsible for most Nessie sightings...?

"Its just a seal" doesnt get very many newspaper readers or tourist dollars?

 

[EnolaGaia]

The sketch (above) is attributed to landscaper artist / illustrator Alastair Dallas. One investigator's inquiry into the sketch and the alleged film(s) associated with Dallas and his LNM-related colleagues is documented at:

http://www.lochnessinvestigation.org/McRae.htm

 

[lordmongrove]

New interview with the latest Loch Ness Monster witness.

 

[Amergin]

There have been seals in Loch Ness. Here’s an account of one that lived there from November ‘84 to June ‘85:

https://icrwhale.org/pdf/SC039151-157.pdf

The abstract states that seals visit the loch “approximately once every two years”.

maximus otter

A few years ago (1999 or 2000) I stayed in Inverness, and the lady who ran the bed & breakfast happened to mention that people frequently see seals in the river Ness, indeed they can often be spotted from bridges in the town heading upstream. This appears to be common knowledge locally.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

A few years ago (1999 or 2000) I stayed in Inverness, and the lady who ran the bed & breakfast happened to mention that people frequently see seals in the river Ness, indeed they can often be spotted from bridges in the town heading upstream. This appears to be common knowledge locally.

Kind of what I was thinking, after all the seals don't have to declare themselves to Loch Ness customs... Ultimately, what is more believable, a monster unknown to science or more seals than previously thought...?

 

[Nemo]

The Loch Ness monster video: ‘The best footage in decades!’ Or another log?.

Nessie enthusiasts have been getting excited by a holidaying couple’s film of a mysterious ripple in the loch

Name: The Loch Ness monster.

Known affectionately as: Nessie.


Age: The first account of a monster in the Loch Ness area appears in the Life of Columba by Saint Adomnán of Iona, written in the sixth century AD. That would make the monster at least 1,500 years old.

Unless the current one, assuming one exists, is a descendant of Adomnán’s. That would presumably mean there’s more than one at any given time, for reproductive purposes.

And since the sixth century AD? Things went a bit quiet on the loch until the early 1870s, when a D Mackenzie saw a log-like object “wriggling and churning up the water”. There followed sightings of “a large stubby-legged animal”, a “whale-like fish”, and a “most extraordinary form of animal” crossing the road. By the 1930s, the legend of Nessie was world famous, with accounts, sightings and photos appearing sporadically ever since.

Any evidence? Scientists remain sceptical, putting sightings down to wishful thinking, hoaxes and actual logs. One professor of ecology has suggested that the images of a “tentacled and alienesque” creature could be a whale’s penis during mating season.

(C)The Guardian. '22

 

[Min Bannister]

It's funny how this topic keeps resurfacing. This goofy topic appeared last year at this time. It's clickbait. This time it was via a tweet from Michael Sweet. Sweet, who stresses the importance of public engagement in science, missed a major point. His presentation on social media, which has 100K likes, is more misinformation than science. It’s too common for scientists to exaggerate, dramatize or misrepresent the natural world in order to impress others. While it seems noble to get people interested in science and nature, this is a faulty method.

Well it has backfired on him spectacularly since it has grown legs and/or tentacles of its own. It has just popped up again in the Guardian article above.

Any evidence? Scientists remain sceptical, putting sightings down to wishful thinking, hoaxes and actual logs. One professor of ecology has suggested that the images of a “tentacled and alienesque” creature could be a whale’s penis during mating season.

Oops...

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

Pardon me if this has been posted before, but I watch this "Loch Ness Monster" site regularly, run by Roland Watson, extensive information available:

http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/

He is also on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/593164994893955

 

[Frideswide]

@Ronnie Jersey When a thread is 53 pages long then some repetition is likely. Anyway, an individual endorsement makes it a new piece of the puzzle

 

[gordonrutter]

Pardon me if this has been posted before, but I watch this "Loch Ness Monster" site regularly, run by Roland Watson, extensive information available:

http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/

He is also on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/593164994893955

Roland is a member of the Edinburgh Fortean Society and has given us a number of talks but unfortunately none are on the video channel.

 

[maximus otter]

Existence of Loch Ness Monster is ‘plausible’ after fossil discovery

The Loch Ness Monster is “plausible”, a British university has declared, after finding that some plesiosaurs may have lived in freshwater.

Nessie proponents have long believed that the creature of Scottish folklore could be a prehistoric reptile, with grainy images and eyewitness accounts over the years hinting that the beast has a long-neck and small head similar to a plesiosaur.

However, skeptics argue that even if a plesiosaur lineage had survived into the modern era, the creatures could not have lived in Loch Ness because they needed a saltwater environment.

Now, the University of Bath has found fossils of small plesiosaurs in a 100-million-year-old river system that is now in Morocco’s Sahara Desert, suggesting they did live in freshwater.

The fossils…hint that these creatures routinely lived and fed in freshwater, alongside frogs, crocodiles, turtles [and] fish.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/26/existence-loch-ness-monster-plausible-fossil-discovery/

maximus otter

 

[PeteByrdie]

Existence of Loch Ness Monster is ‘plausible’ after fossil discovery

The Loch Ness Monster is “plausible”, a British university has declared, after finding that some plesiosaurs may have lived in freshwater.

Nessie proponents have long believed that the creature of Scottish folklore could be a prehistoric reptile, with grainy images and eyewitness accountsover the years hinting that the beast has a long-neck and small head similar to a plesiosaur.

However, skeptics argue that even if a plesiosaur lineage had survived into the modern era, the creatures could not have lived in Loch Ness because they needed a saltwater environment.

Now, the University of Bath has found fossils of small plesiosaurs in a 100-million-year-old river system that is now in Morocco’s Sahara Desert, suggesting they did live in freshwater.

The fossils…hint that these creatures routinely lived and fed in freshwater, alongside frogs, crocodiles, turtles [and] fish.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/26/existence-loch-ness-monster-plausible-fossil-discovery/

maximus otter

After tens of millions of years of evolution, there was never anything that made plesiosaur derivatives, or any other aquatic species derivatives, implausible as a perpetrator of Nessie sightings. In fact, even terrestrial animals seem to evolve an aquatic lifestyle under favourable circumstances. I see they say it's at 'one level' plausible. It was always plausible at that level. It's everything else about Nessie that's implausible.

 

[Sharon Hill]

Existence of Loch Ness Monster is ‘plausible’ after fossil discovery

The Loch Ness Monster is “plausible”, a British university has declared, after finding that some plesiosaurs may have lived in freshwater.

Nessie proponents have long believed that the creature of Scottish folklore could be a prehistoric reptile, with grainy images and eyewitness accountsover the years hinting that the beast has a long-neck and small head similar to a plesiosaur.

However, skeptics argue that even if a plesiosaur lineage had survived into the modern era, the creatures could not have lived in Loch Ness because they needed a saltwater environment.

Now, the University of Bath has found fossils of small plesiosaurs in a 100-million-year-old river system that is now in Morocco’s Sahara Desert, suggesting they did live in freshwater.

The fossils…hint that these creatures routinely lived and fed in freshwater, alongside frogs, crocodiles, turtles [and] fish.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/26/existence-loch-ness-monster-plausible-fossil-discovery/

maximus otter

This any-plesiosaur-news = "Loch Ness Monster" bullshit is SO tiresome.
Guaranteed the Uni press office wrote this garbage and the scientists did not say any such thing.
The media seems intent on making everyone dumber every day.

 

[PeteByrdie]

This any-plesiosaur-news = "Loch Ness Monster" bullshit is SO tiresome.
Guaranteed the Uni press office wrote this garbage and the scientists did not say any such thing.
The media seems intent on making everyone dumber every day.

Agreed. On a forum with such wide ranging topics as this, it's shocking that this very interesting piece of palaeontological news should end up in the 'Loch Ness Monster' thread rather than the 'Dinosaurs (and other saurs)' thread.

 

[Kondoru]

Lets not mention the picture used to illustrate a plesiosaur bone in my local museum...

(Its by Sir P Scott...)

 

[lordmongrove]

This any-plesiosaur-news = "Loch Ness Monster" bullshit is SO tiresome.
Guaranteed the Uni press office wrote this garbage and the scientists did not say any such thing.
The media seems intent on making everyone dumber every day.

It has zero bearing on anything living in the Loch today. It's just an annoying headline used to gain the interest of the public. There are no plesiosaur alive in the world today, more's the pity.

 

[Tunn11]

It has zero bearing on anything living in the Loch today. It's just an annoying headline used to gain the interest of the public. There are no plesiosaur alive in the world today, more's the pity.

Always struck me as odd that that body form has not been "used" by anything else. Ichthyosaurs and Dolphins looking like fish but the whole long neck form; Plesiosaur, elasmosaur, pliosaur, seems to have gone. Wonder why when that form obviously worked well for so long. Have the seals occupied that niche?

 

[PeteByrdie]

Always struck me as odd that that body form has not been "used" by anything else. Ichthyosaurs and Dolphins looking like fish but the whole long neck form; Plesiosaur, elasmosaur, pliosaur, seems to have gone. Wonder why when that form obviously worked well for so long. Have the seals occupied that niche?

To some extent, I think we can hypothesise that pinnipeds probably live a similar lifestyle, allowing for the difficulties of knowing for sure what a long extinct organism's lifestyle was like. Personally, I've long thought the long neck of some plesiosaurs hint at something we've yet to figure out. When I was young, they were portrayed darting at fish with their heads on flexible necks. Now it seems those necks were less flexible than supposed, in which case I don't see the need for them. Indeed, the necks of many were much shorter than those commonly imagined.

Like you said; if the long necks were a hunting advantage, why haven't pinnipeds got them, and because pinnipeds haven't, what were those plesiosaurs doing that pinnipeds are not?

There may be excellent answers to these questions, and I'm writing this having made no attempt to find those answers, so perhaps I'll delve into it tomorrow.

EDIT: A quick dive into why some plesiosaurs had long necks has only shown how difficult this issue is. So I'm going to have a Friday night drink instead.