Thursday 11 October 2012

The Murky Allure Of The Loch Ness Monster

On the 25th anniversary of Operation Deepscan, The BBC have run an article and podcast on the Loch Ness Monster worth reading and listening to. Adrian Shine is interviewed on his times at Loch Ness and his views on the 79 year hunt and what may constitute the Loch Ness Monster. Jonathan Downes of CFZ also contributes.




The theme of not quite "getting there" in a final theory continues to this day as Adrian looked back on those three sonar contacts from 1987 which he says he cannot explain to this day. In fact, the general tone of the article may be summed up in one quote:

Nevertheless, Shine says it is hard to dismiss "the honesty and volume" of eyewitness testimony of the Loch Ness monster. 

Now this raises a question with me. Adrian is honest enough to say he doesn't quite know what these sonar contacts are telling him. Yet, he could have simply said it was a seal or his favoured sturgeon. But it seems these explanations are inadequate as it was a bit deep for a seal (and did anyone in that mass of boats see a seal surfacing - as it must). As for a sturgeon, again I guess it did not pass muster.

So, fair enough, it was marked inconclusive. But 25 years on, should it still be marked inconclusive? After a quarter century, has no progress been made on what a seal sonar signature looks like or how a sturgeon would behave in Loch Ness? Perhaps the "inconclusive" tag is better served with a "waiting for an explanation" tag.

But if you run out of "normal" explanations, should there be a "sell by date" on them and tentatively conclude it could be an unknown and animate object?

P.S. They mentions "Doctor Who and the Zygons" which features a rather threatening Nessie. The sooner they get this on DVD the better ... perhaps next year?






Monday 8 October 2012

Some Nessie Tidbits

I am finishing off part 3 of the Lachlan Stuart series, but came across some small items in the world of Nessie worth putting out.

1. DAY TRIP TO LOCH NESS

The Scottish Screen Archive has a piece called "Ferguslie Mills outing to Inverness, July 1936". You can view it here.




You can slide the film bar to 4:25 for a minute's worth of our works outing surveying Loch Ness at Dores Bay. They have a look out for Nessie and with a group shot at the end you see Dores Pier in a much better state to the few rotten posts that it is now. The blob in our still frame above is not Nessie!


 2. THE LOCH NESS SEAL(S)

Well, some people think the Loch Ness Monster is a pinniped of sorts. This photo seems to offer proof of a serpentine seal but is in fact a shot of appropriately lined up seals having some fun at Whipsnade Zoo in 1955. I don't think any seals that ventured into Loch Ness have ever pulled off such a stunt in front of those incredulous humans - but who knows?



3. PHYSICAL PROOF OF NESSIE?

Perhaps, but then again, maybe not. A current eBay entry makes this claim:

Legend has it that these are nose hair from the legendary Loch Ness Monster. We got these from a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, who claims to have seen the monster on three occasions. A few years ago, it reared up next to his boat, its head only inches from him, he grabbed out at it to fend it off and grabbed some nose hair, before the monster returned to the murky depths of the loch. This man wishes to remain anonymous and this is all we know of the story. He passed them on to an ‘aristocratic’ collector who kept the hair for some years, in his collection of weird and wonderful stuff, he gave it an artist friend of his. He now has decided to sell them, he also wishing to remain anonymous has asked us to list them for him!
 


Those who have spent years, nay decades, at the loch looking for that final physical proof may be a bit miffed to be upstaged by an eBay entry beginning bids at £1. But if it's the real deal, expect bidding to go into the tens of thousands. This could be a valuable addition to a cryptozoological museum. No, I am not the seller and I don't plan to bid!

POSTSCRIPT: Nessie's nasal hairs sold for the princely sum of £6.50.


Thursday 4 October 2012

A personal "hunt" for Mokele-mbembe

One of this blog's long term readers, Erik Kristopher Myers, has been on a Mokele-mbembe quest for some time. However, it's not an expedition into the Congo, but something he saw as a kid on TV:

When I was a wee lad in the early 1980s, there was an American program called "That's Incredible!" that dealt with people, places, things and other assorted Nouns that were...well, incredible. This was just after I'd made the natural transition from a childhood Dinosaur Fixation to a Nessie Fixation due to the idea that maybe there were still living, breathing dinosaurs out there...! Such possibilities truly capture a young mind. 

At any rate, my parents, having seen commercial previews, made sure to sit me down this one evening for the latest episode of "That's Incredible!", as it was due to show what they mistakenly believed to be new Nessie footage. Turns out that while Nessie was name-dropped in the previews, the footage was actually of a purported Mokele-mbembe.

Said footage blew my mind in a way that no photo or motion picture before or since ever has (aside from the good ol' Surgeon's Photo). What was shown that night was captured by an investigator (whether African or African-American now escapes me), and clearly shows a head and neck rising from a mist-enshrouded swamp. My memory is colored by time, but what I recall seeing was unlike anything ever captured at Loch Ness, and was essentially the Sandra Mansi photo of Champ brought to life. 

At any rate, this has stayed burned into my mind for thirty years now. With the advent of the internet, I began digging for info, and the dig is ongoing. The bottom line is that the footage has gone the "Thunderbird photo" route and dropped off the face of the earth. The crypto books don't mention it; and it seems to be commonly confused with the "swimming elephant" Mokele-mbembe video taken above Lake Tele in the early 90s. However, there's a growing number of folks online who are also coming forward to say that they too remember this particularly striking video. Attempts on my part and the part of others to contact the show's producers or locate copies through independent channels has been fruitless.

This Mokele-mbembe mystery has become the stuff of legend, with so many crypto-heads "discovering" lake monsters via this film's one and only TV screening, presumably at a young (and very impressionable!) age. Seeing this still is disappointing in the extreme, and just underlines how unreliable the memory can be. A lesson to be remembered, I think?"

Erik's search has been partly fulfilled in the finding of an old article quoting Roy Mackal which sheds light on this old but forgotten video footage. The relevant words are shown below plus a still from that film which is now shown to be a fake. Note Dr. Mackal's other words concerning his belief that Nessie is an extinct whale called the zeuglodont.






If anyone can add the last piece to the jigsaw by providing a link or otherwise to the actual video then I am sure Erik would be grateful. Meantime, the hunt for the real Mokele-mbembe continues.

As a footnote, Erik is a film producer who is working on a script for a Loch Ness story which focuses on the monster hunters of the 1960s and 1970s. It's in its very early stages, as there is one film and another screenplay ahead of it. But if it ever gets to final release I know I will be in the queue to buy a copy!

By coincidence, Tabitca Cope has done a piece on Mokele-mbembe too, here. We can also expect a new book on the beast by Paul Harrison this year or next.


Saturday 29 September 2012

60th Anniversary of John Cobb Disaster

The Inverness Courier notes the gathering today of speed enthusiasts to mark the death of world land and water speed record holder, John Cobb at Loch Ness. On that day of the 29th September 1952, the 52 year old had exceeded the record with a speed of 206mph. However, before the second mile run which would have established the record, the boat broke up on hitting a wave and Cobb was killed. The events of those days are shown on this YouTube video.



The memorial cairn at which these people gather today has a simple plaque but it speaks of the bravery and determination of the man who pushed the boundaries of speed.


Between 2000 and 2002, the Loch Ness Project team and other experts managed to find the debris field of the boat at a depth of 200m (picture below from BBC). However, unlike the Wellington Bomber that was recovered from Loch Ness, I am not aware of any attempts to recover the remains of the Crusader.



The Crusader had hit an unexpected wake which led some to ask a single question. The fact was that there should have been no wakes to disrupt and endanger the boat. The loch would have been cleared of boat traffic and Cobb would have had as calm as surface as possible. Hence the word "unexpected" applied to the rogue wake. But is "unexpected" the same as "unexplained"? The single question asked was whether the Loch Ness Monster had moved just beneath the surface and produced the deadly wave?

The only Loch Ness expert I am aware of who it is claimed held to the theory of a Nessie produced wake was Tim Dinsdale. Terence Gallacher, a documentary film maker relates a conversation he had with Tim (original link here):

He claimed that John Cobb, who was killed while attempting a new water-speed record on Loch Ness, “was killed by Nessie”.

Tim explained that when a water speed attempt is made on a loch (or lake), it is necessary for all craft, of whatever size, to be stopped.  This is because the “line wake” of a craft is sufficient to upset the speed boat.  What is required is what is known as a “Jelly calm”.

We knew that Movietonews had a shot of the disaster that befell John Cobb.  It had been shot on 35mm film and showed the speed boat taking off just like a seaplane before it somersaulted and crashed back into the water.

I had the film step-printed to enable us to show, in slow motion, the very definite line wake and the bouncing of John Cobb’s boat when it arrived at the line wake.

This matter has never been resolved and it requires an answer.

One of this article's comments below pointed me to Tim's book "The Leviathans" ("Monster Hunt" in the USA). In this we read Tim's full investigation into the matter following a discussion with another Nessie hunter, Torquil MacLeod. You can refer to the book for further details of what Tim thought.

Clearly, if one believes there is one or more large animals in Loch Ness, then it is a possibility. However, what can be gained from following this line of enquiry is uncertain. Nicholas Witchell, in his book "The Loch Ness Story" suggests the reflection of the Crusader's previous bow wave was to blame but the Courier article linked above says the crash occurred at the end of the first run before such a wave became an issue.

In that light, the aforementioned Loch Ness Project team suggest one of Cobb's support boats was to blame. That is also possible though how one proves it is another question. Perhaps, it is best just to leave this minor mystery alone as it is the kind of Nessie headline that seems undesirable. To that end, we leave you with a photo of the man himself on that fateful day and again we recognise the bravery and determination that marked him out from others.





Tuesday 25 September 2012

Some Nessie Webcam Images?

From time to time, readers will send in various items of interest pertaining to the Loch Ness Monster. That includes shots taken of objects at Loch Ness on the popular webcam found at this link.

So it was that from the dedicated army of webcam hunters, a Nessie watcher by the name of Ed provided me with a sequence of 40 snapshots he took on the 5th April 2012 between 1020 and 1036.  With a little help from some GIF file processing software, I managed to concatenate the images into an animated GIF which gives the files a video like quality. Click on the first image below to see the entire video properly.


The sequence is a bit jerky for obvious reasons as the time gap between snapshots is typically 30 seconds. Brief points where the object appears to slow down are more due to images with a shorter time gap between them. The same can be said in an opposite sense for faster portions where the time gap is longer.

Now it may appear that this is nothing more than a blob and in all likelihood just a boat heading north (Ed was willing the object to submerge before it disappeared past the hill!). However, apart from the interesting exercise of creating such an animation, there is something else eye catching about this object and that is the fact that it is changing its appearance in the animation. The video below is a zoom in of the object and allows you to see more detail. If you click on the video icon and then click the bottom right hand corner to go full screen, you will get a good view of the changing aspects of the image (you can also zoom in on the GIF file above if you open it in a new tab and type in a few "control +" characters).



As you observe the object, you will notice it seems to "grow" to the front as it makes progress up the loch and then go back to the "dome" appearance. If this was Nessie, you would conjecture this was the front part of the creature briefly surfacing and submerging again. The difference in the two is shown below - dome-like and then extended.




An attempt can also be made to estimate the speed of the object. We know the time elapsed is about 16 minutes and the object is roughly mid-loch. By projecting a line in the first frame through the object to the opposite shore and again as it disappears behind the hill, an estimate of distance and hence speed can be calculated. I estimate it travelled at least a mile giving a speed of about 4 mph but a final answer also depends on the webcam elevation and the precise distance to the object (the Google 3D map below give rough idea where lines AB and CD are possible object routes).




The other curious feature is the lack of a wake from the object. You would expect it from any motor driven boat but nothing is readily apparent in the animation. Once we get some dry days at Loch Ness, I will see if I can spot a boat in a similar situation on the webcam and report back. So what is going on here? Is this a crazy boat rotating about 360 degrees as it moves north? That seems unlikely. Is it a rowing boat which may account for less wake but again how do we account for the changing shape?

There is a long boat that goes up and down Loch Ness which is quite fast and manoeuvrable and that is the RIB boat that leaves Fort Augustus (below). However, it tends not to go north of Urquhart Bay and you can see that it would leave an easily discernible wake on the picture. As an aside, the boat cruising season had not yet started on Loch Ness when this webcam sequence was taken. This was Thursday April 5th and official cruises did not start until the Easter Weekend the following day. So, using a cruise timetable to pinpoint a boat in the area would be a bit haphazard (although I do not doubt some dry runs at "unofficial" times may have been happening). It is also to be noted that a lot of boats that cruise Loch Ness are white.


The other theory would be video artifacts in the image which could give it an extended appearance. I am not convinced of that explanation - especially when the image extension happens at the same point more than once.

Another objection may be why no else saw this object plainly moving up the middle of the loch for at least sixteen minutes? I would reply, how do we know no one else saw it? It is my belief that the majority of witnesses to strange things in the loch never report what they see or they do but it is never published.

On the flip side of potential witnesses, the tourist season had not started (as evidenced by cruise companies not running) and the rush hour was over so traffic volume was lower. Also note that so called loch observers who speed their way along the A82 carriageway are not focused on the loch and neither should be for road safety. A quick glance at the loch at a dark object may be simply ignored and dismissed as a boat. I would also add that the road at that point above the object is very high and the object was not likely visible from many points along the road (unless you got out at a layby).

So did anyone else see something? We simply don't know.

Or perhaps it is a trick of the light as the sun plays upon the surface of the object? A run of my favourite solar position calculator gives the position of the sun on that day and time. The sun is to the right of the webcam and so the object is somewhat in shadow. Could the sun be blanching out the front part of the object at various intervals due to that part being more reflective? The sun position does not suggest it and if this were the case, I would still expect to see a lighter area of pixels where the "extension" would be and be readily distinguishable from the rest of the object and open water. I don't see this in the sequence of images.



By way of update from a comment below from Tim, could the extended part simply be the shadow of the object? I thought about this and noticed some problems with this theory. Firstly, if you observe the sky in the top left, it gets steadily darker toward the end of the sequence but the form of the shadow does not seem to follow it. Secondly, why would the shadow completely disappear? Surely the sun's degree of shining is not that variable? Thirdly, if it was a shadow, then it is too long for that time of day. The elevation of the sun in the solar calculator is given as 33.86 degrees. A simple trigonometrical calculation shows that a shadow would be no longer than half the height of the object. However, the enlarged image above suggests the "extension" is longer than the height of the object. So, we conclude it is not likely to be shadow.

There are two other interesting points to make in concluding. Firstly, there was another reported sighting of something unusual in Urquhart Bay only 17 hours before and you can read that incident here. It would indeed be strange that the only two known "Nessie" incidents over these past 260 days of 2012 would be so close together!

The other point is that when examining the sequence I noticed another object making its way in the opposite direction! If you look at our dark object at the beginning of the sequence and look to the right and slightly up, you will see a whitish object which is presumably a water disturbance moving south and which disappears before the end of the animation. What is this, you may ask? Was it birds disturbing the surface or some other animal just breaking the surface as it moved? Comments and suggestions are welcomed.

So we have an interesting sequence of images here. As luck would not have it, I turned up at Loch Ness the next day! It seems spotting the Loch Ness Monster is often more luck than judgement.

But has Ed captured the Loch Ness Monster on webcam or is there the usual (and inevitable) alternate explanation for this strange image? You be the judge, I'll put it in the log of reported sightings for 2012.




Thursday 20 September 2012

Russian Lake Monsters

The media is running a story originally from the Siberian Times about a monster in Lake Labynkyr (Labinkir) in Russia with a photograph of a strange looking object and some sonar traces. The lake itself is located about 60 kilometres south of the town of Oymyakon in the Oymyakonsky District in Sakha, Russia and is a lot smaller than Loch Ness at 5 by 3 kilometres with a depth of about 60 metres. Though an abundance of fish is suggested, the freezing location of the lake implies it is not the most fish rich environment. The remoteness of the region also offers the possibility of things as yet undiscovered though unlike my four hour drive to Loch Ness, this is more like a four day trip! Like Loch Ness, it is claimed that the lake never freezes over.








I didn't find the date, time or other details for the photograph, but it looks vaguely like a man in a boat and there is not much more you can say about it (but one presumes there were other pictures). The odd thing though when blown up is the distinct impression that there are two circular objects on the surface with one similar circular object on top. The object appears to be at rest on the surface as there is little water disturbance.



The sonar picture below is interesting but the quoted "scientists" who drew a comparison beast on the screen must have realised that was a nonsense exercise since the sonar trace is a sequence of sonar returns built up over time rather than a snapshot image. Either they were not as qualified as we are led to believe or their PR man was getting a bit carried away.




There is also another monster lake nearby by the name of Lake Vorota and Russian cryptozoologists have mused whether there is an underground tunnel linking the two bodies of water. Once again, this sounds a lot like the fabled link from Loch Ness to the sea.

So the picture of "Nesski" itself, in true lake monster tradition, does not give much away but the shape of the object reminded me very much of a Loch Ness Monster sighting made back in 1933 by a man called Kirton.

When Rupert T. Gould went to Loch Ness in 1933 to investigate this new creature, he interviewed various witnesses - including Dr. Kirton who sketched the object below. His sighting was of a hump like object off Knockie on the 14th November 1933 at about 3pm. He witnessed the object from Fort Augustus so the object was over a mile away but was sending out a "considerable wash" on each side.


The presumption is he was viewing the creature rearwards and the head was the portion visible and further ahead, but we indulge in speculation. The two images are merely similar and no more and though Lake Labynkyr has a lake monster tradition, what the photograph shows is a matter of debate.





 


Text below (these items can vanish forever from the Internet after some weeks/months. Best to read original with its pictures here).

SO IS THERE A LOCH NESS MONSTER IN SIBERIA?

By The Siberian Times reporter
18 September 2012
A Moscow scientist is calling for a new scientific expedition to solve the mystery of a huge 'monster' claimed to be living in remote Lake Labynkyr in Siberia.

Is this the Siberian Nessie...?

Known as 'Russia's Loch Ness Monster', the accounts of the creature in Yakutia predate the Scottish claims yet in many ways are similar.

Intriguingly, too, there are theories that Labynkyr - which has unusual cracks on its 60 to 80 metre deep floor  - is connected by underwater channels to another lake, Vorota, where monster sightings have also been recorded, including by respected Soviet geologist Viktor Tverdokhlebov, an academician not given to hyperbole.

Associate Professor of Biogeography Lyudmila Emeliyanova revealed to The Siberian Times that on her own scientific mission to Labynkyr she recorded 'several seriously big underwater objects' with sonar readings. 

She is not the only researcher to have done so.  

'It was our fourth or fifth day at the lake when our echo sounding device registered a huge object in the water under our boat,' she said.

'The object was very dense, of homogeneous structure, surely not a fish nor a shoal of fish, and it was above the bottom. I was very surprised but not scared and not shocked, after all we did not see this animal, we only registered a strange object in the water. But I can clearly say - at the moment, as a scientist, I cannot offer you any explanation of what this object might be.'

The readings were repeated and she became convinced there was more than one large living object in the pure waters.

'I can't say we literally found and touched something unusual there but we did register with our echo sounding device several seriously big underwater objects, bigger than a fish, bigger than even a group of fish.

'This is why I fully support the idea of a new trip there and extra research.

'I would love to take part in another visit to this lake. I know how to organise it and know enough good local people who can help on the spot. It is a hard trip I must say but it is definitely worth doing it again. This mysterious and very deep lake still has some secret to tell us.'

Freshwater Labynkyr, some 5,000 km east of Moscow, is mysterious for another reason, too. It is only around 60 kilometres from the settlement of Oymyakon - the coldest inhabited place on Earth - yet, astonishingly, the lake does not freeze over completely in winter, in contrast to virtually all lakes in the region. The ice that does form, unusually, can be too thin to walk on.  It is not uncommon to driver cars on lakes in Yakutia in winter: but not Labynkyr.

One unproven theory is that Labynkyr, where much of the rock is volcanic, is warmed slightly from below by a fissure in the Earth's crust.

Dr Emeliyanova, from the Biogeography Department of the Geographical Faculty of Moscow State University, is struck by historical accounts of monsters in Labynkyr and Vorota and believes they are credible.

They date from the late 19th century, while accounts of the Loch Ness monster are usually held to have emerged in the 1930s.


On the basis of 'sightings' there has been speculation that Labynkyr and Vorota might be inhabited by a school of ichthyosaurs, prehistoric marine reptiles resembling dolphins or sharks, or plesiosaurs, a popular theory concerning 'Nessie' in Scotland which is often depicted with a long neck.

Another version has speculated that relic killer whales could have become marooned in Labynkyr. Some accounts even suggest the 'creature' makes a hideous primeval cry as it attacks its prey.

'Personally, I do believe that when the information about something strange circulates among local people for so many years, it just can't be groundless, it means something is there,' she said. 'I know the local people very well - they are ingenuous but they do not lie,' she said previously.

Now she adds: 'I have been on a dozen expeditions to this region and I can say I know the character of local people quite well. They are emotional - but are not intended to show their emotions and they are very true and honest by nature, often more honest than is necessary. This is why I am not ready to reject all these stories.'

For her another factor is how the stories of monsters in Yakutia relate solely to these two lakes out of more than 800,000 across this giant region.

'There are many lakes in Yakutia and around the Indigirka River, hundreds of them, big and small, their shores are more or less populated, but all the talk is about Labynkyr and Vorota lakes, and it has gone on for many dozens of years. It makes us think about it. And these stories about the local monster are older than those about the Loch Ness monster.'
 
Even so, she insisted of her 2002 trip: 'I did not go there to chase the lake monster: as a biogeographer I was interested mainly in that very territory, I wanted to visit and study it.  
'But, of course, I was curious to see the place which has so many legends and stories. I did not suppose we could really find something there simply because we did not plan to spend there enough time. Our stop by the lake was just for 12 days.

'As a scientist I know this is not enough to locate and study some unknown creature. I can put it like this, however. I believe there is a mystery in this lake because there is no smoke without fire.

'I am sure that numerous legends which exist and circulate for many years just can't be groundless. I read many different legends but the account below is what I heard with my own ears.

'Several fishermen who visit this lake from time to time say they experienced the following when fishing from a boat in this lake: during quiet, and not windy, weather when there were no disturbances in the lake, some strange waves coming from under the water suddenly heavily shook their boats.

'It was as if a big body was moving under the water and producing waves which reached the surface and shook the vessel.'

She explained: 'These stories shook me up, for instance, about a boat which was lifted by something or somebody. Two fishermen were fishing in the middle of the lake in late Autumn, they were in a 10 metre long boat when suddenly the bow began to rise as if somebody was pushing it from under the water.

'It was a heavy boat, only a huge and strong animal can do such a thing. The fishermen were stuck by fear. They did not see anything, no head, no jaws. Soon the boat went down.'

Another account of an entirely separate trip to the lake in August 2006 - where researchers used a Humminbird Piranha MAX 215 Portable fish-finder - produced results echoing her findings. Images are available from this trip - some are shown here - but the identities of those who took part are hidden.

'The conditions were ideal - clear cold fresh water, no big waves, stone bottom without plants there, no engine on the boat, soft and slow moving - all this means there were almost no problems for the scanning,' claimed one of those present.

'Often the device showed the long chain of big fish some 4 meters above the bottom of the lake, when the depth was about 30-45 meters.

'The further we went away from the shore, the deeper the lake was, at one moment there was no fish registered for a long period long, the screen was dead. But all of a sudden it blew up with signals about a huge shoal of fish, just like a cloud.

'Let me say a word about local fish - all kinds of fish here are predators, the bottom of the lake is 'dead', stones with sand, very cold near the bottom, no plants. Fish-predators just cannot swim all together making such a huge shoal, anybody familiar with Zoology will understand what I mean.

'This is why it meant nothing else but the huge swimming object with some air inside.

'We went twice above the object, it was at the depth of 30 metres (where the floor was 50 metres below). The upper 'fish' was at a depth of 25 metres, the lower 'fish' at 32 metres. It suggests the object was seven metres wide. What was it? We can't say.


'I switched off the 'Fish ID' and we watched just pure scanning.....soon we registered a 'shadow' some 15-17 meters under our boat, it was about 6.5 meters long. It was pretty clear, it was not a fish and not a tree. There cannot be fish that big, and a log would have been registered in a different way. How can it swim under the water?

'The most active 'shadows' or 'bodies' were registered in certain parts of the lake when the depth was 42 to 60 metres.'

'The next shadow; the width of the object is about 70 cm, and although the screen shows its silhouette differently to how we imagined, my mind vividly paints a picture of a beast, swimming across the echo device scanning ray.

'Another object was 'caught' at the depth of 20 meters. It was definitely a live creature - look at the density! - but of a smaller size, like 2.5 meters.

Perhaps another giant fish. Or a baby of our monster?'

Pictures here show the some of the images seen on the scanning device, including sketches (drawn on the screen in red) to show how the 'monster' might look.

On another amateur trip to explore the lake, in 2000, Russian traveler Vladimir wrote: 'There was a signal from our echo sounding device, something was moving around our net with fish, something very big, seven to ten meters, it is hard to say because we did not know the speed of the object.

'And our nerves are not made of iron, there were two of us in the rubber boat, far away from the shore... we did not want to find it out, just got away from there...

'There were interesting trails on the water as if something big enough is swimming not very deep and playing in the water... There is a strange island there. It is in the middle of the lake and lots of broken nests of the sea gulls. The gulls were just crushed alive when they were asleep and did not have a chance to fly away. Some birds were eaten, some just left there... Who did it?

'In my humble opinion... there are four or five big animals in this lake, not more. If people do not rush there, maybe they will survive.'

In the 1960s, there are accounts of 'a monster with a long neck coming up out of the lake making an eerie sound'. Some versions say it was lizard-like.

In Soviet times and before, the lake was almost inaccessible. Today that is changing. Travel companies in Yakutsk, capital of Yakutia or the Sakha Republic, are already offering private trips to visit the lake, enabling people to carry out their own monster hunts.

This perhaps gives an added urgency to Dr Emeliyanova's plans to reach the lake and explore it in a fully scientific way: yet funds, so far not found, are needed to support this venture.


She emphasised: 'Apart from the legends about this monster, this lake is quite mysterious itself, for instance distances are hard to measure there.

'Probably it is diffraction of light but still - I mean when you are sailing in a boat and you clearly see the shore is quite far away, in a minute you all over a sudden get there and hit the ground.... One shore is just drift sands. One of the islands on the lake sometimes is not visible, like a mirage in the desert, it comes and goes.
'There is an amazing fact, too, that this lake is never totally frozen, not  what you would expect as it is not far from the Pole of Cold.

'But this is the fact, the lake is never fully covered by ice. If it had been fully covered, we could have closed this story about the monster forever. It could not survive.

'The question is - why it is not completely frozen? Probably because of its depth, I can suppose, too, it is somehow warmed from the bottom but it is not really my part of science and would like to give you the opinion of some colleague here rather then my suggestion. I met scientist in Yakutsk who told me they registered the depth of 80 meters in Labynkyr lake.'

There is also 'an absence of plants there... it is another mystery.

'There are 13 fish species in the lake.  Of course they eat one another but not all of them, some would need plants for food, yet these appear to be absent.'

While she has conducted no research on it, she said that 'some scientists believe that this lake is connected with other lakes on the same plateau, at least with Lake Vorota, via some underground tunnel system'.

Accounts of strange creatures in the lake - often called the 'Labynkyr Devil' - have been passed down from generation to generation.

One one version the monster is of dark grey colour with a huge mouth and 'distance between its eyes is just as the size of raft made of ten logs'. The legend says that this animal is aggressive, it can attack people and animals, it can leave the water and go on the shore.

A more recent 'sighting' involved a party of geologists some of whom went fishing on the lake. 'Suddenly those in the boat started screaming - apparently they saw a huge head of some creature. Others, who were waiting for them on shore, started shooting, and scared the creature away'.


Some years ago Itogi magazine analysed the sightings and concluded: 'Comparing the stories we can say that it is 9-10 metres long, 1.2-1.5 metres wide, its jaw is huge, up to one-third the size of its body, looking like a huge beak with lots of teeth, and there is a sort of bone-made horn on the top of the animal. The creature was met either in Labynkyr or in Vorota lake - locals believe these lakes are connected to each other with the help of  underground passages.'

Grasping for mundane theories to explain what the creature might be - if not a leftover from the Jurassic Age that somehow defied both extinction and the Ice Age - some have suggested an abnormally huge and well-fed pike.

Yury Gerasimov, head of the Ichthyology Department of the Institute of Biology of Freshwater of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is dubious. 'I have never come across such a big pike and I highly doubt they can exist.

'If we trust the stories about this 'Devil', there must be about 1.5 metres between its eyes. It means the length of its body must be about 7-8 metres.

'Pike do not live so long in order to reach such a big size. There are two factors that help fish to grow - nutrition and comfortable water temperatures. Even if nutrition is perfect there, surely the temperatures are not that high. So in my opinion the view about a huge pike is a fantastic one.'

Another Russian traveller Sergei Karpukhin, a former geologist who once spent 35 days alone at Labynkyr, questions two basic premises of the monster theory. If these monsters were to survive down the ages, there must be sufficient of them to reproduce. There would also need to be connections to other lakes, something he disputes.

'A little pack of them, like male/female plus several cubs is not enough,' he said.  'To survive this population must have such a number of animals that the lake would be swarming with them.
'Or at least there should be such number of them, that they would not go unnoticed - given the description of them being quite big, and the lake is not that large.

'I even think that there will need to be more creatures in the neighbouring lakes which the Labynkyr ones can be in contact with. Only then they can survive.

'Now the Labynkyr Devil defenders would, I know, refer to Lake Vorota, some 20 km away from Labynkyr. This is where Tverdokhlybov saw that mysterious creature. Here the legend has some extra bits to it, that allegedly the lakes are connected with some underground canals. I will argue this from a position of a geologist: it is possible to have two connected lakes. BUT, when the lakes of karstic origin. There must be some carbonaceous stones,  which can be dissolved by water.

'But there aren't any. The stones there are all volcanic.'

Accounts began reaching the outside world after nine geologists led by Viktor Tverdokhlebov, of the East Siberian branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, were involved in an expedition to this remote corner of the then USSR in the summer of 1953, a few months after the death of Stalin.  As they rode on horseback, their guide was the elderly Varfolomey Vinokurov, a local man.

It took eight years his diary account to be published in a Soviet magazine and this referred to his own sighting in Lake Vorota - a name which literally 'Gates' (an unusual name for a lake, perhaps signifying Gates of the Devil?) while also including historical accounts he heard from locals.

'30 May. We left Tomtor village, went 70 kilometres up the Kuidusun Valley, turned left and got to the large Sordonnokhskoe plateau. Ahead of us there is Lake Labynkyr where there is storage with food and equipment. 
'There are many legends about this Lake Labynkyr. In the evenings sitting by the fire our old guide told us that a 'devil' lived in this lake. He is so big that the distance between his eyes, as Varfolomey said, 'is wider than a fisherman's raft made of ten logs'.
'I heard about this 'devil' before and many times. In Ust-Ner, I heard that the devil ate a dog. The dog swam to bring the shot duck to the hunter, then huge jaws raised from the water and the dog just disappeared in a moment.
'One of the Tomtor villagers told me that one day he found a huge bone on the shore of Lake Labynkyr. It was like the devil's jaw - if you put it vertically, you could ride on a horse through it like under an arch. He said this jaw bone remained near the fishermen house on the shore.
'I heard legends how a whole caravan perished going under the ice of Labynkyr. It was spoken that people saw a big horn stuck out of the ice. People gathered around it on ice and tried to take it out but suddenly the ice broke and many people and reindeer died'.
'5 June: Early in the morning we got to the shore of Lake Labynkyr and reached the storage. Comfortable tents with wooden beds and floor and table awaited us.
'7 June: We are having a rest. Lake Labynkyr is a square, 15 km long and 3 km wide. I found the ruined fisherman's house on the shore, carefully explored the house and all around it but did not find any 'jaw bone'.
He did not witness anything untoward in Labynkyr but went on with his expedition.
28 July: Now we stopped at the shore of Lake Vorota. Mikhail made a raft and went to measure the depth. It is 60 meters as in Labynkyr. But the lake itself is much smaller.
30 July: This is what happened today. It was sunny friendly morning, Boris Bashkatov and I went on a walking trip around Lake Vorota.  We had to climb rocks on the way - about 11 am the way became dangerous and we decided to go down a bit, closer to the water. Looking at the water from the rock, I clearly saw a terrace under the water with a huge white spot on it. But when I looked at the terrace again a minute later there was no white spot there. 'Maybe sunshine is joking with me', I thought. But suddenly Boris shouted 'Look! What is there, in the middle?'  We stopped. Some 300-400 meters away on the water there was clearly seen some white object, shining under the sunlight. 'A barrel', said Boris, 'made of tin.' 'Maybe a horse got into the lake,' I said. 

Truly, the object was swimming, and fast enough. It was something alive, some animal. It was making an arch - first along the lake, then right towards us. As it was getting closer, a strange coldness like a stupor was growing inside me. Above the water there was big dark grey body, the white colour has gone. On this dark grey background there were clearly visible two symmetrical light spots looking like eyes and there was just stick in the body - maybe a fin? Or a harpoon of an unlucky fisherman?
'We saw just a part of the animal but we could guess its much bigger, massive body was under the water. We could guess this looking how the monster was moving - raising from the water, it threw its body forward then fully went under the water. At this time the waves were going away from its head, waves originating under the water. 'Flapping its mouth, catching fish', I guessed.
The animal was obviously swimming towards us and the waves made by the animal reached our legs. We looked at each other and immediately began to climb up the rock. What if 'it' goes out of the water? We witnessed a predator, no doubt, one of the strongest predators in this world: such indomitable, merciless and some sensible fierceness was in every his movement, in all its looks.
'The animal stopped some 100 meters away from the shore. Suddenly it began to beat against the water, waves went all ways, we could not understand what was going on. Maybe it lasted just a minute and then the animal was gone, dived. It was only then when I thought about a camera.
'We stood for another 10-20 minutes, it was quiet. We went further.
'There was no doubt, we saw the 'devil' - the legendary monster of this area. The Yakut fisherman was right, the animal had dark grey skin and the distance between its eyes was surely not less than a raft of 10 logs. But he saw it in Labynkyr and we saw it in Vorota lake. They are 20 km away from each other - and they are not connected.
'I recalled that white spot under the water. Obviously, the animal was hunting at that underwater terrace and we scared it when shouted going down the rocks.'

There is, now, the possibility that the waters of the two lakes are connected by a subterranean channel. For Tverdokhlebov, the sighting reminded him of the killer whales he had seen in the Sea of Okhotsk.

'At first I thought it that this animal is an unknown offspring of extinct animals who inhabited this area ages ago. But this feeling of fierceness was so familiar to me - where could I see it?'

In 1945 he had a clone encounter with such a creature when swimming.

'We turned around and some 30 metres away in the water we saw a huge dark grey body with two light spots and a fin above them. The animal was looking at us as if it was choosing who to start with.'

He also heard more accounts from locals of 'monsters' in lakes on this plateau, which some geologists say maybe of very recent formation. An old fisherman told how he took his net out of Lake Yastrebiny and complaining it was torn, he nodded his head and blamed some animal.

'I did not pay attention then, thinking it was just a big pike,' he wrote.

'I recalled the stories of the workers who saw holes in the ice of Lake Labynkyr and one day they saw some grey body through the hole which disappeared later. Maybe all these stories are not that fantastic, and they are just a chain of real events?

'But if we imagine it is a killer whale, how could it get here? The Sea of Okhotsk is some 300 km away, and the plateau is 1 km above  sea level. How would the sea animal survive in fresh water? How did it get here? Is it alone here or is there a whole family? What do they eat? How did they survive the Ice Age?

'What is obvious to me - the existence of this mysterious animal is closely connected with the mystery of the plateau, how and when it appeared.'

His suggestion of a killer whale led to some ridicule for his account. Cryptozoologist Valeriy Nikolayev scoffed: 'What killer whale? How on earth would it get there, miles from sea?!'

'A group of such creatures stranded, perhaps, when this plateau was cut off from the sea that has gone on reproducing in these remote parts? No, it's impossible!'

In a book 'Trip to the Cold Pole', author Gennady Borodulin recounts another tale from Labynkyr in the 1920s.

'An Evenk family of nomads followed their reindeer and reached the shore of Lake Labynkyr. They decided to stay overnight on the shore. A five year old child went to the bank of a  stream which led into the lake while adults were busy. Suddenly the adults heard the boy screaming.

'The father and grandfather rushed to the bank. They stopped on the edge of water and saw the child being carried away by an unknown animal to the centre of the lake. It was a dark creature, with a mouth looking like bird's beak. It held the child and moved away with quick rushes, then it dived leaving huge waves and dragged the child under the water.

'The granddad swore to revenge the 'devil. He took a sack made of animal skin, stuffed it with reindeer fur, rags, dry grass and pine trees needles, put a smouldering piece of wood inside. He attached the sack to a huge stone on shore with a rope and then threw the sack far into the waters of the lake.

'At night there was noise and splashes and terrible screams of the 'devil'.  In the morning the waves brought the huge dead animal, about seven meters long with a huge jaw, almost one third size of the body, and relatively small legs and fins.

'The old man cut the animal's stomach, took out the body of his grandson, and buried him on the bank of the stream. Since then this stream is called 'The Stream of a Child'.

'It is hard to say what happened to the remains of the animal but this jaw was put like an arch on the shore.'
Could it have really happened? Only a fully fledged scientific mission can hope to answer whether the Labynkyr Monster is myth or reality. 

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Tim Dinsdale, Nessie and the Paranormal


I mentioned in a post from last year that some Nessie hunters thought there was more to the Loch Ness Monster that natural flesh and blood. Indeed, a supernatural or paranormal explanation was courted by some. Ted Holiday and Tony Shiels were two prominent examples but Tim Dinsdale may have been a believer or at worst sympathetic to the argument.

Did Tim Dinsdale hold to the view that the Loch Ness Monster was an animal that would naturally and eventually takes its place in the appropriate taxonomic order of phylum, genus and species, etc or was there more to the classification of this entity?

There is no outright quote by Tim that he held such a "heretical" view but some think it may be inferred. The first source is the late Jon-Erik Beckjord who died in June 2008. Beckjord believed that many of the cryptozoological creatures such as Bigfoot and Nessie were not mere animals but multi-dimensional ghost-like entities. In that light, he claimed that he was close enough to Dinsdale to know that he did hold similar beliefs (though how close to Beckjord's is another matter). In a book review on amazon.com, he made this comment:

He praised Tim Dinsdale, also deceased, not knowing Tim had told me in person, with a witness, that he was a secret paranormalist and kept it quiet just to save his book sales.

Who this other witness was we shall find out, but this went further with another reference to Beckjord concerning Dinsdale and strange events on Loch Ness (quoted from the article "Is The Loch Ness Monster a Shapeshifter" from the July 2010 issue of Paranormal Underground):

Another Nessie hunter that eventually had to amend his view was a researcher named Tim Dinsdale. ... The event that convinced him there was an undeniable supernatural element attached to the monster transpired one night while he was anchored just off of Boleskine House, where Crowley performed the Abramelin rituals 70 years prior. According to Dinsdale "he endured a series of ghosts, ghoulies and demons crawling into his boat and coming at him. They never harmed him physically, but they finally killed off the plesiosaur idea for him."

Unfortunately, Beckjord's reputation amongst some crypto-researchers was not great due to firstly his obviously fringe views but also his somewhat abrasive nature with other researchers. So it is no surprise that plenty would scoff at these two quotes. Of course, being disdained by others does not mean you are a liar. The identity of the other witness was given by Beckjord himself in his now defunct website www.beckjord.com. However, thanks to the Internet archiving program at archive.org we can access various defunct Nessie websites, including Beckjord's. What he said concerning Dinsdale and the paranormal can be found here during a claimed visit to Tim's house in 1983.

Suffice to say, he claimed Dinsdale did not believe in a normal biological Nessie but hid it since publicly holding such a view could prove to be detrimental to his research and reputation. Beckjord  reiterated the ghostly episode near Foyers mentioned above. However, he names the other witness who was his then girlfriend, Kathy Quint, a hospital assistant administrator.

Now I suspect Ms Quint resided in Seattle at that time but tracking down such a person now is a major task in the given time I have. I presume, if alive, she would be aged around 70 years of age. If anyone can discover a lead to find whether this person can confirm this story, let me know. In the meantime, Beckjord's story remains in the "unproven" category.

But did Tim Dinsdale have anything directly to say on the matter which would give Beckjord's claims some credence? This answer is partly "yes". In the 1982 edition of his "Loch Ness Monster" book, he makes this uninhibited comment while discussing the Shiels photograph:

In the field of the paranormal in recent years science has reluctantly been obliged to admit to the reality of phenomena, which occur, and which are physical in the occurring, and which cannot be explained away in terms of the physics we understand ... It is all very embarrassing, and raises the question ‘what is reality?’.

It goes without saying that if one suspects the Loch Ness Monster of being a paranormal phenomenon then one must first accept the premise that such phenomena in general exist. Tim made a further admission to his credence of such things in his "Operations Newsletter" dated 1976:

"I hope to maintain a good humoured working relationship and contact between the key figures in the Ness and Morar search and research projects - and other fields of exploration, such as the Bigfoot, UFOs and Paranormal Phenomemon each of which deserves a focus of attention."

Furthermore, it is recorded that Tim was a member of The Ghost Club which is the oldest organisation associated with psychical research. He was active in recruiting psychic researcher, Bill Bellars, to its membership:

"Tim was a member of our club, and we met up in Scotland. We became firm friends, and it was he who invited me to join the Ghost Club."

However, perhaps the most thorough article Tim wrote on himself, Loch Ness and the paranormal was published in the late 1970s. Here he revealed something about the strange goings on at Loch Ness for the March 1979 issue of the now defunct Alpha magazine. To begin with, Tim makes a curious statement about a dichotomy of phenomena at Loch Ness:

"Firstly, that the Loch Ness monster, whichever way one chooses to regard it, really is a phenomenon. Everything connected with it - be it measured in terms of mythology and legend, zoological possibility, scientific improbability, or human involvement - is phenomenal."

"Secondly - that beyond the phenomenon, in real terms, there exist the phenomena witnessed by researchers at Loch Ness and Loch Morar, and visitors, and local people, which can be both inexplicable, and "etheric" in lack of substance, but real enough in effect."

Are these two phenomena in any way connected in Dinsdale's eyes? On the one hand, he sounds perfectly "zoological" but on the other hand he refuses to draw a strict line of demarcation between the two:

"The difference between the two is simply the difference between the 'normal' and the 'paranormal'  because if the Loch Ness monster exists, for all its extraordinary features, it is as 'normal' a being as is, for example, the mountain gorilla, which for many years before its official discovery was thought to be an imaginary creature. Paranormal happenings, on the other hand, need to be recognised as such, and classified separately - and they may have nothing to do with the monster."

Note he does not say "they have nothing to do with the monster". Tim then delves further into these paranormal happenings at Loch Ness and his own experiences.

"Over the years I have been careful to collect information on these paranormal happenings, and to record my own experiences which have on occasion been peculiar, and sometimes disturbing. As a serious student of this type of phenomena, both as a member of the College of Psychic Studies and the long-established Ghost Club, and having read widely on the subject, I have become convinced of the need to keep one's feet squarely on the ground - as an engineer should - and thus in recording a few of these happenings, the reader may be assured of a balanced approach to the subject, and a degree of objectivity."

When I read those words, I wondered if Tim had collected enough material for another book on Loch Ness, but one of a more nebulous and other worldly nature? And just what were these events described as "disturbing"? Were we approaching Beckjord territory? Without a full disclosure of information we cannot say for sure.

As stated in the quote, we are given a hint of Dinsdale's further involvement with paranormal matters by his membership of another psychical organisation, the College of Psychical Studies which advertises itself thusly:

"Founded in 1884, the College is a beacon of light and learning for those seeking to explore a consciousness beyond matter."
 
Clearly, Tim Dinsdale was a man who had more than a passing interest in the paranormal. Going back to the article, Tim does record one unusual encounter at Loch Ness around 1975.

"Climbing down the steep hillside west of Urquhart Bay at Loch Ness one night about four years ago, I was making my way back to the small research boat, Water Horse, on which I lived. It was swinging at anchor about 30 yards off-shore. There was just enough light to make out the white of the fibreglass hull. Glancing at the hands of my watch I could see they were both exactly at midnight, giving a 'one hand only' impression, which was odd. 

At that precise moment a strange bluish light seemed to emanate from the ground, about 40 yards ahead of me - for a fraction of a second it lit up the field, and the trees below me at the water's edge. Startled, I halted in my tracks - before continuing down the slope into the eerie gloom, determined not to be put off by ghostly fireworks. A second flash then occurred, from beyond the line of trees, just over the water. There was no one there of course; and when climbing into my inflatable dinghy.

I rowed out quickly to Water Horse and scrambled aboard. I could think of no rational explanation for the lights, which unlike summer lightning were blue in colour. Furthermore, they were immediately local - they did not light up the sky, only the field and trees ahead of me. It was a strange experience, and the coincidence of the watch hands directly in line at midnight, equally so."

Interestingly, this reminded me of another bluish object that was seen falling near Loch Ness a year or so ago (story here). Tim further adds an experience from Loch Morar when he heard a blood curdling scream echo across the loch one night as he sought a safe haven during a storm at 3 o'clock in the morning. He further mentions the dowsing abilities of an unnamed lady in 1970 (whom we can identify as Winifred Cary) who apparently dowsed over a map of Loch Ness to pinpoint two monster locations for them. 

Tim goes onto say that they went out to the locations with sonar equipment and registered anomalous hits within 200 yards of her first location and exactly at the second location.

So what are we to make of this matter? Did Tim Dinsdale come round to a paranormal view of Nessie or did he always keep stories of Loch Ness Monsters and Loch Ness Paranormalities apart in a state of continual tension?

I was once told by a fellow cryptozoologist that Tim Dinsdale's mother was a christian seer and one can presume that some of that supernatural influence must have left an impression on her son. Given all this paranormality in Tim's life, it would indeed seem strange that the Loch Ness Monster was a lone zoological island in a paranormal sea. In fact, based on what I have researched, it would be no surprise to me if it was proven conclusively that he did hold to a paranormal Nessie (whatever that may entail).

What seems certain is that Tim Dinsdale did not shut the door on a paranormal Loch Ness Monster and he had tales to tell of Loch Ness which I suspect are now lying in a box or folder somewhere crying out to be told to the world! Sadly, it is probably safe to assume that if such material does exist, it will go the way of other Loch Ness research and never see the light of day again.

POSTSCRIPT:

Tony Healy, who is a paranormal cryptozoologist, met Tim Dinsdale in 1979 and adds this comment:

"While at Ness in 1979 I asked Tim if he thought there was any possibility that the creatures were, as Ted Holiday suggested, paranormal. He said no, but went on to say that he did believe in some paranormal phenomena. One night while moored near Ft Augustus Abbey he'd heard what sounded like a man being flogged, and was sure it was a psychic experience - and that it may have been the sound of someone being tortured there after the '45 rebellion."