The Loch Ness Monster

[BIAD]

...and locally where i am from we had our own Swan River monster, reportedly 10 meters long, as thick as a football (AFL),
effectively a giant eel but, no reported sightings in @ 50 years and relegated to myth status and stupidity...

Thank you for the Angelfire link and here's a Rogue Nation link that may interest you.


Lake Monsters Or Giant Eels.

[Raggedyman]

Lake Monsters Or Giant Eels.

Nothing more intriguing than crypto animals, far to many sightings to dismiss as fairytails and foolishness

[gordi]

Sorry mate but from where I'm standing its something completely different.

Most Scots living around Loch Ness are quite happy to see the tourists this evil myth brings in, in fact they rely on it for a living.

Its no British/English conspiracy at all and its certainly not designed to portray Scotland as some backwater.

Is paranoid Nat ramblings aimed at smearing those bastard British - for that read English - yet again.

The SNP should really concentrate on the thing the Scottish people elected them to do; govern the country and not promote utter bollocks like this.

@"Freeborn" - I have no idea what you're going on about here.
I think that you may have misinterpreted what I was saying?

G

[Freeborn]

Sorry mate but from where I'm standing its something completely different.

Most Scots living around Loch Ness are quite happy to see the tourists this evil myth brings in, in fact they rely on it for a living.

Its no British/English conspiracy at all and its certainly not designed to portray Scotland as some backwater.

Is paranoid Nat ramblings aimed at smearing those bastard British - for that read English - yet again.

The SNP should really concentrate on the thing the Scottish people elected them to do; govern the country and not promote utter bollocks like this.

@"Freeborn" - I have no idea what you're going on about here.
I think that you may have misinterpreted what I was saying?

G

I got the impression that you agreed with the premise that the Nessie legend is somehow deliberately maintained to portray Scotland as some sort of barren backwater and is an example of how the Scots are 'downtrodden' and subjugated by their English/British overlords - which is as we both know complete and utter bollocks. 

Maybe I misread both the article and/or your post.....it wouldn't be the first time.

Nessie is a part of Scottish folklore going back centuries, why can't people just leave it as that?

[gordi]

Sorry mate but from where I'm standing its something completely different.

Most Scots living around Loch Ness are quite happy to see the tourists this evil myth brings in, in fact they rely on it for a living.

Its no British/English conspiracy at all and its certainly not designed to portray Scotland as some backwater.

Is paranoid Nat ramblings aimed at smearing those bastard British - for that read English - yet again.

The SNP should really concentrate on the thing the Scottish people elected them to do; govern the country and not promote utter bollocks like this.

@"Freeborn" - I have no idea what you're going on about here.
I think that you may have misinterpreted what I was saying?

G

I got the impression that you agreed with the premise that the Nessie legend is somehow deliberately maintained to portray Scotland as some sort of barren backwater and is an example of how the Scots are 'downtrodden' and subjugated by their English/British overlords - which is as we both know complete and utter bollocks. 

Maybe I misread both the article and/or your post.....it wouldn't be the first time.

Nessie is a part of Scottish folklore going back centuries, why can't people just leave it as that?

Where did I say anything even remotely like that?? smh

[DISRAELI]

When our family first visited Scotland, my younger brother was very anxious to see "the Loch Ness lobster". But we didn't even manage that.

[Freeborn]

Sorry mate but from where I'm standing its something completely different.

Most Scots living around Loch Ness are quite happy to see the tourists this evil myth brings in, in fact they rely on it for a living.

Its no British/English conspiracy at all and its certainly not designed to portray Scotland as some backwater.

Is paranoid Nat ramblings aimed at smearing those bastard British - for that read English - yet again.

The SNP should really concentrate on the thing the Scottish people elected them to do; govern the country and not promote utter bollocks like this.

@"Freeborn" - I have no idea what you're going on about here.
I think that you may have misinterpreted what I was saying?

G

I got the impression that you agreed with the premise that the Nessie legend is somehow deliberately maintained to portray Scotland as some sort of barren backwater and is an example of how the Scots are 'downtrodden' and subjugated by their English/British overlords - which is as we both know complete and utter bollocks. 

Maybe I misread both the article and/or your post.....it wouldn't be the first time.

Nessie is a part of Scottish folklore going back centuries, why can't people just leave it as that?

Where did I say anything even remotely like that?? smh

Like I said; it was the impression I got.

You say you didn't, fair enough I misinterpreted what you wrote....no bigee.

Still doesn't change what I think about the idiots trying to make something out of nothing regarding this Nessie story.

[BIAD]

Whoops...! nearly missed this one!
In these days of 24-hour pessimism and media negativity, it seems we've lost our sense of wonder.
However, towards the end of the sixties, those we deem our betters were contemplating the labyrinthine
puzzle of how to deal with the inhabitant of Scotland's most-famous body of water.

Thursday April 21 2022, 12.01am BST, The Times

Fleshy Nessie sketch convinced experts to stick their necks out

'On the benches of the House of Lords in 1969, a government minister was mocked for entertaining the notion
that the Loch Ness monster was real.

A few years later, an old sketch was seized upon by credulous experts. The drawing of a creature with a long neck,
flippers and dorsal fins saw the light of day yesterday. The cache known as the “monster files” reveals how seriously
the Scottish establishment was taking the prospect that a dragon-like creature was living deep in the loch.



Ian HJ Lyster, of the Royal Scottish Museum department for natural history, was “staggered” by the witness sketch
of a giant beast that had emerged from the murky depths. He accepted it as a plausible rendering. At the time the
Nessie myth was not considered outlandish. When a Labour peer suggested it was a ploy to lure “gullible tourists”,
Lord Hughes of Hawkhill, a minister for Scotland, said: “I do not know on what scientific ground my noble friend
says that the monster is a myth.”

Nevertheless the credulity of Scotland’s foremost experts is striking. Despite being shown the barest of evidence,
Lyster accepted that the sketch was likely to be genuine. His comments are recorded in a dossier, marked “confidential
material”, held at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The tranche contains the image of a large creature
that was supposed to have come ashore near the village of Drumnadrochit in September 1936.

Almost 40 years later a person sent the drawing to Lyster. The natural historian wrote on October 7, 1975:
“I was quite staggered when I first saw the sketch. My first reaction was that such a creature would explain a lot of the
apparently odd descriptions of the Loch Ness Monster and also such photographs as the three humps taken by Lachlan
Stuart in 1951.

The odd fleshy lobes hanging from the head have also been variously described by witnesses.”
Lyster believed the sketch depicted an older monster and suggested that younger creatures would be leaner.
He wrote: “I suspect that younger specimens may not have the floppy fins or the dewlaps [folds of loose skin] and that
it is the younger, more agile ones which are occasionally seen ashore.”

The sketch was reported to have been by Alastair Dallas, of Kirkcudbright, Galloway, who was working by the loch.
He said the beast was “fleshy and flabby” with a “mangy appearance” and was sucking the weed from stones.

Lyster did not find it strange that Dallas had not come forward previously. “Several of the people I have spoken to who
have seen the monster have been very reluctant to speak of it for fear of ridicule,” he wrote.

He appeared uncertain only as to what kind of animal was depicted in the sketch. “I am only sorry that I cannot
say definitively reptile or mammal and must retreat behind a smokescreen of scientific caution,” he said. “Send
me a specimen and I will tell you. Certainly one or the other, no ‘giant sea slug’ or ‘freshwater squid’ looks like
that.”

The image was also seen by John Dennis, an American botanist. In 1978 he commented: “Frankly, the drawings
look like a Walt Disney caricature.” But he believed it was genuine as well, adding: “Hoaxers are anxious to have
people discover their handiwork; otherwise why would they go to all the trouble. So far as I am concerned these
drawings are the most reliable pieces of evidence I have seen.”

The global curiosity was prompted in 1933 by a report in The Inverness Courier of a “monster” seen in Loch Ness.
More than 1,000 sightings have been recorded since. But in 2019 a study by Otago University in New Zealand
decided Nessie was probably a giant eel.

Today the monster’s existence is championed only by Highland businesses that rely on tourism, and a handful
of diehard believers, but the possibility that the loch could contain creatures unknown to science was at one
time treated seriously.

In 1962 Sir Peter Scott, founder of the World Wide Fund for Nature, helped to launch the Loch Ness Phenomena
Investigation Bureau with the Conservative MP David James. He proposed the scientific name Nessiteras
rhombopteryx after a blurred underwater image appeared to show a fin in a diamond shape.
It was later pointed out that the name was an anagram of “monster hoax by Sir Peter S”.


Flipper image original and enhanced.

In 1985 Swedish officials wrote to the Scottish Office seeking advice on statutory protection for a monster said to
inhabit Lake Storsjon in the north of the country. An official reply to the embassy in Stockholm revealed that the
secretary of state for Scotland had the power to protect “any wild creature” if it was in danger of extinction...'

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