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Loch Ness Monster real?

mummymonkey said:
So no proof at all then. Thought not. In any event, the existence or otherwise of an introduced large catfish in an English pond is not evidence for a Loch Ness monster.
What species are these supposed giant eels?
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They're called Eunuch eels. They're so-called because they're born with atrophied reproductive organs and so don't leave their freshwater homes for breeding out at sea. Because of their environment they grow to an enormous size, sometimes over 20 feet long. All this is explained in the film.

As for the Wels in Martin Mere, would anything count as proof for you, other than catching the fish? You can't catch a fish that size alive and I would never support killing a giant 100+ year old creature just to satisfy someone's curiosity. Downes and his team took photogropahs, sonic scans and many visual descriptions of the monster. It actually says on the back cover of the book "Yes, they do solve the mystery.
 
Big Les said:
Argument from personal incredulity. Big lake + lots of stories, does not = truth. for how long, have how many people been looking? And still no evidence? Seems reasonable to suggest that it is a myth. By the same logic one could suggest that it's "likely" that ghosts, demons, psychic powers, the tooth fairy, and anything else lots of people have reported as existing, exist. There is about as much evidence for Nessie as there is for any of those things.

Which is to say, sod all.
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I disagree. I think lots of stories on their own don't count as evidence; but put that together with photoes, multiple contemporary sightings and sonic scan data does count as truth. Something is there as sure as smoke=fire. How exactly do we get more evidence? The Loch is 900 feet deep and as opaque as cola, the monster itself is reclusive and avoids human contact. Put this together with the fact that giant fish do exist makes a resonable theory deserving of investigation. Give the CFZ a chance to prove it.
 
Porterboy said:
I disagree. I think lots of stories on their own don't count as evidence; but put that together with photoes, multiple contemporary sightings and sonic scan data does count as truth. Something is there as sure as smoke=fire. How exactly do we get more evidence? The Loch is 900 feet deep and as opaque as cola, the monster itself is reclusive and avoids human contact. Put this together with the fact that giant fish do exist makes a resonable theory deserving of investigation. Give the CFZ a chance to prove it.
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That just doesn't follow. "The plural of anecdote is not evidence". There are many reasons why people have and will continue to report strange creature sightings, that don't actually require there to be any strange creatures to see. Urban myths are analagous to cryptozoological ones in my opinion; way back when you have a single source for a made-up story designed to thrill/instill fear/make a cultural point/whatever. 50-odd years down the line you have fresh reports being made, with varying details, but ALL propagated from that one, or few, original myth. The same, in my opinion, goes for rural myths, within which I include monster sightings. Once the myth is rooted in the popular conscious, whenever someone sees something they don't understand, the instinct is to put it down to Nessie, the beast of Bodmin, or whatever. Even without this myth effect, people can still misinterpret what they see, or even photograph/film, all on their own. Eyewitness testimony and amateur photo/film interpretation being notoriously unreliable (just see the Conspiracy Theory forum!). Black pussy cats being held up as examples of panthers living wild in the UK being a case in point.

Which leads me to your "lots of photos" comment. I can take a blurry photo of a stickleback and call it a Nessie piccy; if it doesn't hold up to expert interpretation, and isn't corroborated by any other evidence, it's not in itself evidence. Adding lots of those pieces of non-evidence together doesn't strengthen your case.

Or to put it another way, "bollocks multiplied by bollocks = a load of bollocks".
 
Big Les said:
The same, in my opinion, goes for rural myths, within which I include monster sightings. Once the myth is rooted in the popular conscious, whenever someone sees something they don't understand, the instinct is to put it down to Nessie, the beast of Bodmin, or whatever. Even without this myth effect, people can still misinterpret what they see, or even photograph/film, all on their own. Eyewitness testimony and amateur photo/film interpretation being notoriously unreliable (just see the Conspiracy Theory forum!). Black pussy cats being held up as examples of panthers living wild in the UK being a case in point.
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All well and good...........except there are examples of pictures which clearly AREN'T showing black 'pussycats'.

And how about when more than one person at the same time sees something they don't understand? One person can be mistaken. Two possibly. More than that? Highly unlikely.
 
The US seems to have melanistic felids that aren't in the literature. This photo was taken by a retired biology proofessor (which makes it alright):

blackbobcat2.jpg


http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/black-felid-pic/

The animal is residing in Florida and will soon have its habitat destroyed.
 
William Parcher said:
Melanistic bobcats are in the literature.
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Source? Being reported and being in the literature are two different things.

Melanistic Mountain Lions evidently aren't. They're seen around here and in Georgia and Tennessee, but the rangers tell people there are no Mountain Lions in the area at all.

"The southern Bobcats seem to have a more spotted coat, with the spots being much smaller than the northern cats. Both melanistic and albinistic Bobcats have been reported, but the melanistic ones have only occurred in Florida."

http://www.bigcatrescue.org/bobcat.htm
 
LAL said:
Source? Being reported and being in the literature are two different things.
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Anderson, E. M. 1987. A critical review and annotated bibliography of literature on the bobcat. Denver, Colorado: Spec. Rept. no. 62. Colorado Div. Wildl.

Hamilton, W. J., Jr. 1941. Notes on some mammals of Lee County, Florida. Amer. Mdl. Nat. 25: 686-691.

Laing, S. 1990. Florida's unique bobcats. Fla. Wildl. 44(5): 30-31.

Paradiso, J. 1973. Melanism in Florida bobcats. Fla. Sci. 36: 215-216.

Regan, T. W. & Maehr, D. S. 1990. Melanistic bobcats in Florida. Fla. Field Naturalist. 18(4): 84-87.

Ulmer, F. A., Jr. 1941. Melanism in the Felidae, with special reference to the genus Lynx. Jour. Mammal. 22: 285-288.
 
carcharodon said:
All well and good...........except there are examples of pictures which clearly AREN'T showing black 'pussycats'.

And how about when more than one person at the same time sees something they don't understand? One person can be mistaken. Two possibly. More than that? Highly unlikely.
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By your estimation. Ever heard of communal reinforcement? This explains why reports are so numerous and so similar, and something similar happens on a small scale even with as few as two people being involved; egging each other on that what they can see is unusual, or even if they can actually see what it is the other person is pointing at! Just as willing clients will urge on a psychic to get "hits" because a) they want to believe and b) failure is socially embarrassing.

Even if it is "highly unlikely", I would venture it's more likely that two people are wrong about a mutual observation that it is that creature that has remained unknown to science has been spotted.

Don't you see the parallels here to other supposed phenomena for which evidence is lacking? For example, alien abduction reports. The consistent descriptions of grey, big-headed hairless aliens with large almond shaped eyes? Does that mean that abductees are telling the truth? Or has popular culture simply reshaped conceptions of what imagined alien lifeforms would look like? Which is more likely? Now apply your conclusion to the Nessie debacle; lots of reports of vaguely similar creatures, no hard evidence.

Clearly species previously unknown to science do still get found. But it doesn't follow from that, that there is a monster in Loch Ness, or a Bigfoot in your local park. Besides; we have a dead ceolocanth; we don't so much as have a toenail clipping of Nessie's!
 
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Porterboy said:
They're called Eunuch eels. They're so-called because they're born with atrophied reproductive organs and so don't leave their freshwater homes for breeding out at sea. Because of their environment they grow to an enormous size, sometimes over 20 feet long. All this is explained in the film.
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It's explained in the film, perhaps. I've had a quick Google for Eunuch Eels, and all I've found are cryptozoology pages and messages from a couple of anglers who've read the cryptozoology pages and would like to try catching some.

My field guide gives a max length for the European Eel of up to 1 metre. Wikipedia suggests 1.5 metres in "exceptional cases", which is still rather short of the 6 metres suggested here.

Do we have any other sources that talk about them? Because at the moment this looks to me like a rather expedient creature.
 
Big Les said:
Clearly species previously unknown to science do still get found. But it doesn't follow from that, that there is a monster in Loch Ness, or a Bigfoot in your local park. Besides; we have a dead ceolocanth; we don't so much as have a toenail clipping of Nessie's!
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Shows what you know! Nessie doesn't have toes thusly no toenails to clip. And as if Nessie could work toenail clippers. Bigfoot, maybe.:p

It seems there's just no accounting for the romantically 'where the wild things are' inclined with hopeless yet thoroughly enjoyable cases of monster fascination. What the hey, everybody's gotta have some kinda hobby.
 
I have said it before and I will say it again...

Nessie is real.

So shut up.

Come to Scotland. And bring lots of money.

Particularly my brother in laws B&B at Drumnadrochit.

All major credit cards accepted.
 
Big Les said:
By your estimation. Ever heard of communal reinforcement?
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That's totally a different concept altogether. That is merely being party to a belief without experiencing first hand what started the belief. That's called follow the leader. That's different to, say, two seperate groups of witnesses each independant of each other making the same report. There is a classic report from Loch Ness where one party of two fishermen on one side of the Loch reported a very strange occurance in conjunction to a completely seperate party on the other side who reported the same thing without knowing anything about the two fisherman. If I can dig up the report I will find it.

Even if it is "highly unlikely", I would venture it's more likely that two people are wrong about a mutual observation that it is that creature that has remained unknown to science has been spotted.
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What about when it is over a dozen?

Don't you see the parallels here to other supposed phenomena for which evidence is lacking? For example, alien abduction reports. The consistent descriptions of grey, big-headed hairless aliens with large almond shaped eyes? Does that mean that abductees are telling the truth? Or has popular culture simply reshaped conceptions of what imagined alien lifeforms would look like? Which is more likely? Now apply your conclusion to the Nessie debacle; lots of reports of vaguely similar creatures, no hard evidence.
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Are there many many multi witness reports of alien abduction?

Clearly species previously unknown to science do still get found. But it doesn't follow from that, that there is a monster in Loch Ness, or a Bigfoot in your local park. Besides; we have a dead ceolocanth; we don't so much as have a toenail clipping of Nessie's!
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True, but on the flip side it doesn't follow that there is absolutely nothing whatsoever to these reports just because conclusive 100% poof hasn't been established yet.
 
Porterboy said:
They're called Eunuch eels. They're so-called because they're born with atrophied reproductive organs and so don't leave their freshwater homes for breeding out at sea. Because of their environment they grow to an enormous size, sometimes over 20 feet long. All this is explained in the film.
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So you're postulating that in every eel generation, there are a certain percentage that migrate to freshwater, live out their entire lives in freshwater, and never leave to go and breed in saltwater? If this were true, then it ought to be true of eels everywhere, not just eels in a particular lake in Scotland, and there ought to be resident populations of giant, aging, non-breeding saltwater eels in freshwater lakes and rivers everywhere.

Which there aren't.

There are eels in freshwater lakes and rivers, but nobody has ever found a giant eel. And those are bodies of water with even more robust ecosystems than Loch Ness--there's more to eat--and so if there were going to be giant eels anywhere, they'd be in places like the Thames and the Penobscot.

Which they aren't.

The USGS notes that "adult eels are occasionally found in landlocked lakes". If the USGS has found regular-sized eels in landlocked Northeastern lakes, why haven't they found any giant eels?
 
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