Loch Ness

**Mcnowhere** · 05-31-2007

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe....ap/index.html

To watch video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/default.stm

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) -- Like tartan, bagpipes, and shortbread Scotland's Loch Ness Monster is as much an emblem as a tourist draw.

And now Nessie's back.

An amateur scientist has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland's most mysterious lake.

"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45-feet (15 meters) long, moving fairly fast in the water," said Gordon Holmes, the 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video this past Saturday.

He said it moved at about 6 mph (10 kph) and kept a fairly straight course.

"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years."

Loch Ness is surrounded by myth and mystery, as it is the largest and deepest inland expanse of water in Britain. About 750 feet (230 meters) to the bottom, it's even deeper than the North Sea.

Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake, viewed the video and hopes to properly analyze it in the coming months.

"I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen," Shine said.

He said the video is particularly useful because Holmes panned back to get the background shore into the shot. That means it was less likely to be a fake and provided geographical bearings allowing one to calculate how big the creature was and how fast it was traveling.

While many sightings can be attributed to a drop of the local whisky, legends of Scottish monsters date back to one of the founders of the Christian church in Scotland, St. Columba, who wrote of them in about 565 A.D.

More recently, there have been more than 4,000 purported Nessie sightings since she was first caught on camera by a surgeon on vacation in the 1930s.

Since then, the faithful have speculated whether it is a completely unknown species, a sturgeon -- even though they have not been native to Scotland's waters for many years -- or even a last surviving dinosaur.

Shine doubts that last explanation.

"There are a number of possible explanations to the sightings in the loch. It could be some biological creature, it could just be the waves of the loch or it could be some psychological phenomenon in as much as we see what we want to see," he said.

But Nessie isn't just an icon of the paranormal -- she's also an emblem of Scottish tourism. She has been the muse for cuddly toys and immortalized on T-shirts and posters showing her classic three-humped image.

The Scottish media is skeptical of Nessie stories but Holmes' footage is of such good quality that even the normally reticent BBC Scotland aired the video on its main news program on Tuesday.

**Nighthawk** · 05-31-2007

I'm sorry to say I don't find that video to be compelling evidence of Nessie's existence. There is just no way to tell exactly what I'm looking at. Does anyone else have an opinion?

**Alpha** · 06-01-2007

I've been fascinated by Nessie and the Loch since I was a little girl.

Dark Skies and I talked about this a bit in the TO last night.

Many theories abound about this elusive creature. Perhaps as some say, she is some surviving prehistoric creature who carves some existence in the Loch and travels to other remote waters through some tunnel or cave system under water.

I doubt if she exists, that she would be the only one left of her kind. In addition, one has to wonder about her "life span", since these sightings go back for 70 years +.

One has to wonder why so many, over time, report seeing the same type of creature, who in my mind resembles an aquatic brontosaur of sorts....atleast visually. Some interdimensional creature perhaps

Perhaps just another one of those mysteries that we'll keep chasing forever and a day.

**Dark Skies** · 06-01-2007

On the heels of the new video taken of something moving through the water, A group of Scottish business owners has launched a bid to nominate Loch Ness for World Heritage site status.

Loch Ness

**Malaria_Kidd** · 06-01-2007

I can't speak for all the individuals who've seen something swimming since 565 AD. But I will take their words as truth spoken by the living and repeated by the writings or spoken family legends of the dead eye witness'. Three years ago a tooth 4.5 inches long was consfiscated by the Loch's Water Warden. This tooth will never be seen again.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention. An anchored buoy part way across attached to two winched lures could go back and forth. Use small cable pulling scented "deer like" fishing lures swimming across the Loch in the "kill zone" at night. And see what gets caught by the large trebble hooks! A steel leader before the gang of hooks would be a must. Road killed deer with interior floatation and weights on the legs would suffice. The cold water would keep them preserved. But what would you do with it if you caught "it!"

We do everything else to catch "it" on film, but we don't actualy try to catch "it". "It" now may be an eel that's 45 feet long. Instead of Bill MacDonald & Steve Alten's idea of the length being 14 to 20 feet total.

I saw the film on FOX NEWS an hour ago. It was very good film of something moving that most would call Nessie. All these big eels have had a name all these years.

MK

**Alpha** · 02-03-2009

Well, what do you all think of this?

Invention of Loch Ness monster, fortune-teller's misfortune and an amusing fraud

LOCH NESS MONSTER “INVENTED”

An Italian journalist claims in the Milan illustrated weekly that he invented the Loch Ness monster in 1933.

Signor Francesco Gasparini said that he was the London correspondent of a Milan newspaper at the time and amassed hundreds of British newspaper clippings. They included two lines published in a Scottish newspaper about some Inverness fishermen who had seen a strange fish. “At the beginning of August 1933 my supply of news was even slower than usual,” he wrote. “I had the inspiration to get hold of the item about the strange fish.

The idea of the monster had never dawned on me, but then I noted that the strange fish would not yield a long article, and I decided to promote the imaginary being to the rank of monster without further ado.” But the monster grew out of hand.

The next day, Signor Gasparini said, he was forced to invent eye-witness accounts, backed up by local colour gleaned from a geography book. By the time he began plotting the monster’s death or escape, long reports were appearing in other papers. “It had to live on. The British press grabbed my little monster and made a giant out of it.”

The legend grew. “Photographs” of the monster and magnificent drawings, based on eye-witness accounts were published widely. Affectionately called “Nessie”, it became a national institution. Signor Gasparini declared: “The monster of Loch Ness has never existed. I invented it. I admit it – but I am not sorry.”

Article

**Alpha** · 06-04-2009

Here are two most recent news articles about Nessie:

Remains of 200M Year Old Loch Ness Creature Found

Nessie Pops Up to Say "Allo"

**Dera** · 06-04-2009

Fun! Makes me want to go there and sit in a boat (BIG boat--really BIG) for a couple of weeks at least, with my binocs at the ready.

I think they might be ratcheting up the tourist trade, but what the heck.

**Alpha** · 11-03-2009

Rip....

Loch Ness Hero Robert Rines Dies

robert h. Rines, 87, was well-known as a tireless seeker of the cryptids termed the loch ness monsters and nessies. I am upset to report that he died this past sunday, at his boston home, surrounded by his family, of a heart attack.......

full article

**Alpha** · 01-09-2010

Hope it's not true...I always loved the story about Nessie and hoped that she was real....

The end of Nessie: Researchers fear Loch Ness monster may be dead

NESSIE fans fear their favourite monster may be dead, it emerged yesterday.

There was only one decent sighting in Loch Ness last year and a recent documentary explored the possibility that the monster might be sleeping with the fishes.

Now Nessie watchers have warned that there are "reasons to be fearful".
Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club president Gary Campbell said sightings were becoming increasingly rare.

The only one in 2009 he considers credible was near the Clansman Hotel in June.

Gary added: "We were so relieved to have heard about this sighting.
"When it was reported, nobody had seen anything for a year. If it hadn't been for that one, we would have been really, really worried.
"Ten years ago, we had a lot of good sightings but in the last two or three years, they have tailed off."

There were, however, a number of "more dubious" sightings during 2009.

These included a sonar contact witnessed by 'Allo, 'Allo star Vicki Michelle while she was on a pleasure cruise on the loch in May, during a week-long run of the stage version of the BBC1 sitcom at Eden Court in Inverness.
And data analyst Ian Monckton, of the West Midlands, took a picture of what he thought could be the elusive monster while driving to Invermoriston late at night....................

Full Article

**TRAVISJAMES03** · 01-21-2010

Sadly, I think the Nessie, etc., were a species of extremely large eels and never a plesiosaur (SP?).

Look up these eels on the 'Net and it makes absolutely perfect sense that it is them.

That does NOT mean that existing plesiosaurs and the like don't exist in parts of the ocean never examined.

**imaginationsgal** · 03-08-2010

I feel this is just a publicity stunt. The creature could be anything; again, it could be something that your imagination tells you it is..like Nessie. I seriously doubt it.