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The Loch Ness Monster

dannycheveaux1 said:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...e-myths-image-ricky-phillips-new-evidence/amp
nice video
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That Tynemouth video was circulated a while back; it's not new. Funny how any alleged water monster seen in or around the UK is assumed to be Nessie on holiday.

The thing waving about in the water looks to me like either a piece of waste plastic trapped or snagged on something, or possibly a length of broad-leafed seaweed, undulating in response to the movement of the waves.

I've seen congers, morays and freshwater eels close up. When they wriggle, they move! That is why they wriggle. Also, all eels are bottom dwellers and it is not part of their behaviour to break the surface for extended periods.

Unless, of course, it's Nessie practising his "moon walk" moves on the spot.

Analogue Boy: I agree about the apparent scale of the Surgeon's Photo, and the waves. Until I knew it was a hoax done with a model, I always assumed it was a bad picture of a grebe (or similar water fowl) surfacing.
 
Mikefule said:
That Tynemouth video was circulated a while back; it's not new. Funny how any alleged water monster seen in or around the UK is assumed to be Nessie on holiday.

The thing waving about in the water looks to me like either a piece of waste plastic trapped or snagged on something, or possibly a length of broad-leafed seaweed, undulating in response to the movement of the waves.

I've seen congers, morays and freshwater eels close up. When they wriggle, they move! That is why they wriggle. Also, all eels are bottom dwellers and it is not part of their behaviour to break the surface for extended periods.

Unless, of course, it's Nessie practising his "moon walk" moves on the spot.

Analogue Boy: I agree about the apparent scale of the Surgeon's Photo, and the waves. Until I knew it was a hoax done with a model, I always assumed it was a bad picture of a grebe (or similar water fowl) surfacing.
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However, the person on the camera does exactly the right thing by zooming out and giving reference points to judge distance and also approximate length of the beast.
 
Analogue Boy said:
However, the person on the camera does exactly the right thing by zooming out and giving reference points to judge distance and also approximate length of the beast.
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This is true.

Although I would have found it even more satisfactory if they had waded in and found out exactly what it was. The water just there can't have been all that deep. :)
 
Comfortably Numb said:
One of the prime arguments against the existence of our 'Nessie' up here, is the absence of a sustainable food source.

Taking neither side of the debate, this is a related article I thought worth highlighting:

http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2012/02/is-there-enough-food-for-nessie_12.html?m=1
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As Roland points out he is not a biologist with a PhD. Nor is he a biologist of any sort. At our Nessie at 80 conference he stated he did not accept the 10% energy transfer figure in a food chain. By the time he had written it up on his blog he had disproved this figure! I think his figures on eels are sadly misguided. Also for his argument to work then every individual animal as soon as it entered Loch Ness would have to be eaten. Depending on how you play with the figures he is either a factor of ten or one hundred out. Following his logic that would give beasties of 300kg or 30kg. But his whole argument also rests not only on the fact that Nessies eat everything that enters the Loch but that nothing else eats any animal matter in the loch. Literally every other animal he has mentioned is a meat eater. Not quite the devastating blow to Loch Ness deniers that Roland feels it is.
 
gordonrutter said:
As Roland points out he is not a biologist with a PhD. Nor is he a biologist of any sort. At our Nessie at 80 conference he stated he did not accept the 10% energy transfer figure in a food chain. By the time he had written it up on his blog he had disproved this figure! I think his figures on eels are sadly misguided. Also for his argument to work then every individual animal as soon as it entered Loch Ness would have to be eaten. Depending on how you play with the figures he is either a factor of ten or one hundred out. Following his logic that would give beasties of 300kg or 30kg. But his whole argument also rests not only on the fact that Nessies eat everything that enters the Loch but that nothing else eats any animal matter in the loch. Literally every other animal he has mentioned is a meat eater. Not quite the devastating blow to Loch Ness deniers that Roland feels it is.
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I agree with your assessment GR, I am not all that knowledgeable about Biology, but I am well aware that it is very foolish to assume too much about the calorie intake of large carnivores, especially when you know nothing about the speed of their metabolism. Consider snakes and crocodiles. They have the capacity to eat nothing for extended periods. Furthermore, we don't even know if the creature exclusively lives in the Loch or merely visits occasionally from deeper saltier waters. While I consider much of the LNM evidence questionable, there is nothing to support the notion that the local ecosystem couldn't support a large carnivore.
 
AlchoPwn said:
Consider snakes and crocodiles. They have the capacity to eat nothing for extended periods. Furthermore, we don't even know if the creature exclusively lives in the Loch or merely visits occasionally from deeper saltier waters. While I consider much of the LNM evidence questionable, there is nothing to support the notion that the local ecosystem couldn't support a large carnivore.
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I agree with all you said in that post. I would add that there should be no assumption either that (a) the LNM is particularly large or that (b) it is a carnivore.

If we assume for the sake of argument that there is a breeding population of unknown "large" creatures in the Loch, then it is reasonable to assume that excited observers would be likely to describe it as bigger rather than smaller than its actual size.

How big is "large" then? The size of an otter, or of a young deer, or a sheep, or a cow, or a red deer stag, or a bull seal? Certainly not the size of a giant plesiosaur. An unknown species the size of an average dog would be quite a find! A monster does not have to be enormous.

Something only the size of a large turtle could easily be perceived or reported as much larger than it really is by someone predisposed to see a monster.

(Example, comparison for size only — I'm not suggesting the LNM is a turtle. Marine turtles range in size from around 2 feet to 9 feet in length (60 cm to 3 metres)

Various aquatic and marine creatures are herbivores or omnivores, including, to use the same example, turtles. Imagine a small but stable population of slow moving creatures grazing all day on algae and fresh water mussels, only occasionally surfacing at night time to dash across the road in front of a car, or perhaps to confront the odd saint now and again.

That said, it seems more likely to me that a large-ish species in a freshwater lake would be carnivorous.
 
Read this article then look at one of the comments below... https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/loch-ness-monster-experts-reveal-14090828


Alright, here is a direct quote verbatim from Steve Feltham's forum:

"Yesterday I was phoned by the Daily Mirror, wanting to get my thoughts on the recent spate of Nessie sightings.
We had a long chat, in which I tried as always to get my opinion across that, yes I believe there is an unidentified mystery in the Loch to justify its status as a world class mystery, but alas I know longer think that long necked dinosaurs are the most likely explanation.

The article he went away and wrote is, as always not an accurate summing of our conversation. It's bits of it taken out of context."

So yeah shame on you Daily Mirror. Don't always believe what you read in the news people.
 
The mention of turtles is interesting, though Scotland is a bit far north, they
are often seen off Wales and we had a very big one a few years back on
Morcambe Bay, A big leather back it was unfortunately dead but had not been long, took
a JCB to shift it, they follow the jelly fish and were by all accounts quite
common round the bay but are now a rare visitor.
 
Nessie spotted again on Webcam:


An avid viewer of a webcam aimed at Loch Ness says that he has successfully spotted the site's resident 'monster' for the second time in less than a month. Eoin O'Faodhagain of Ireland made news last month when he was one of two people to report seeing Nessie over the span of just five days. In his case, the sighting occurred as he was watching Loch Ness webcam back on February 27th and noticed a dark object briefly emerge from the water. Incredibly, just a few weeks later, O'Faodhagain caught sight of the creature once again.
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https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/webcam-watcher-spots-nessie-again
 
Min Bannister said:
Terrible quality but it does look pretty windy. I think it is just the wind whipping up spray.
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Very blurry, but my first thought was the wakes of two boats crossing in opposite directions. Where two waves meet, the peaks and troughs are added. If they cross at an angle, the extra peak appears to move.
 
lordmongrove said:
The Ruins Boleskine House, lair of the Great Beast and the Great Beast is up for grabs.
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kBk57sp.jpg


"Fixer-upper. Might need some roof repairs"
 
It may be in an area where you can build a dwelling only if there is one there already.
 
Not sure if there is a creature there, although I would like to think there was one at some point.I do believe there is creatures in the sea/lochs worldwide that are not discovered. I have a friend who is a fisherman who once told me about a creature caught off Elgin {not far from Inverness) He said it was like a very large eel. He said it was badly mangled and thrown back in. Chay Blyth who rowed the Atlantic also claimed to have seen a large sea serpent swim beside his boat for a brief time. If there is no monster in Loch Ness to see, you still have Boleskin House to visit......
 
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