Loch Ness Monster real?

[SimonD]

By some estimates only 1% of all species that have every lived have left traces in the fossil record

Nobody is saying an animal exist that doesn't shows up the fossil record, except of course the usually suspects (Loch Ness, bigfoot, dragons, unicorns, etc)

 

[Huntster]

Nobody is saying an animal exist that doesn't shows up the fossil record, except of course the usually suspects (Loch Ness, bigfoot, dragons, unicorns, etc)

Really?:

Paranthropus
If an animal like Sasquatch has ever existed in North America, it has been argued that a likely candidate would be a species of Paranthropus, such as Paranthropus robustus, which would have looked very much like Sasquatch, including the crested skull and naturally bipedal gait. This was suggested by Napier and by anthropologist Gordon Strasenburg.

 

[Fnord]

Claim: The Loch Ness Monster is real.
Proof: None.
Conclusion: The Loch Ness Monster is not real.

Please provide more than anecdotal proof. For instance, give me the monster's postal address, and I'll send him an engraved invite for a supper of haggis, bashed neeps, and tatties. If he shows up, then that'll be proof enough.

Hold on a sec ... there's a shadow on the door ... no-one ever comes out to this dark scottish loch ... especially to this cottage ... would someone call the Police?

 

[Soapy Sam]

Loch Ness is not an isolated body of water in the wilds of outer Umbongoland. It may seem far away if you are reading about it in Nevada, but it lies right beside the main road from Fort Augustus to Inverness.
Tens of thousands of people drive past it every day. Thousands fish in it, sail on it , swim in it, throw rocks in it. In this age of ubiquitous pocket digital cameras, it is probably photographed several hundred thousand times annualy.

Yet not one dropping, bone, carcass, footprint, egg, scale, tooth, bonnet or sporran has been found to suggest such a creature as nessie exists.

What most certainly do exist are otters. There are also occasional red deer swimming in the loch - frightened by dogs or traffic- and almost certainly the occasional seal. (The loch is freshwater, but connects to the sea via the Caledonian Canal and there's nothing to stop seals getting in.)

I know several anglers in the area. I never heard them mention any giant eels.

 

[BillC]

By some estimates only 1% of all species that have every lived have left traces in the fossil record, but you want rare animals that live in relatively inaccessible places to leave remains, protected from the scavenger system,where people can find them?

Loch Ness is "relatively inaccessible"? Its shoreline of over 20 miles lies right next to the A82, the main Fort William-Inverness road. It must be visited by a hundred thousand tourists a year.

Spot the monster:

 

[wipeout]

It occured to me a while back that monster supporters could suggest that this mythical monster might not actually live in the loch but that it instead lives in the sea and uses the river Ness to go in and out of the loch for reasons best known to itself, going from saltwater to freshwater and back to saltwater much like salmon do.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Loch Ness is "relatively inaccessible"? Its shoreline of over 20 miles lies right next to the A82, the main Fort William-Inverness road. It must be visited by a hundred thousand tourists a year.

Estimates range from half a million to four million.

 

[SimonD]

Really?:

Sorry - aren't you just proving what I said?

And really - wikipedia as a reference??

 

[Beady]

The possession and/or use of cameras (or the lack thereof) has nothing to do with it.

Bigfoot, Champ, Nessie... Total the tourists and locals in the area of each claimed sighting, multiply by the number of cameras, multiply again by the number of possible photos in those cameras (24 for film, say, and 1 thousand for digital), and divide by the total number of photos of the beast.

I can certainly understand why you would claim cameras are irrelevent. It must be downright embarrassing!

 

[Porterboy]

Well, that's 38 minutes and 25 seconds that I want back again. It's just another wide-eyed CZ "we went to [fill in the blank of the place where the monster reportedly hangs out]--but unfortunately we didn't get to see the monster", along with interviews of people who say they did see "the monster".

Along with thinly disguised pleas for funding for his other projects from Jon Ronson.

So, they go to Loch Ness, throw out some bait to attract the giant eels that they hypothesize populate the Loch, and when no eels come to their bait, they conclude that...the eels are there, but are ignoring the bait? Uh huh.

And then they go to Lake Coniston, throw out some bait to attract the giant eels, and when no giant eels come to their bait, they conclude that...it doesn't prove that there are no giant eels in Lake Coniston?

The problem with having "giant" eels in Lake Coniston is the same one with having plesiosaurs in Loch Ness: the issue of biomass. There just isn't a big enough ecosystem to support them. And in Coniston in particular, there is already a thriving pike fishery for sport fishermen. If there were giant eels out there, they would be eating the pike, and there would be no sport fishery for pike on Coniston.



What footage? The blurry footage from Loch Ness from a few years ago? Looks like a set of tied-together boat fenders floating in the water to me. (It occurs at about minute 12:00 in the video.)

Or the nighttime underwater pictures of the bottom of Lake Coniston taken by the diver? All I saw was a few juvenile pike, and indeed in the video they admitted that it didn't show any signs of giant eels.

Wait a minute, let's not forget that the CFZ have a good track record of solving these kinds of mysteries. A few years ago they discovered a giant Wels catfish in Martin Mere in Lancashire; this was proven! The fish was thought to be over 100 years old and had survived the drainage of most of the lake. Martin Mere is tiny compared to Coniston Water yet it has the biomass to feed a 10 foot Wels. Also in many cases these lakes are not land-locked. Loch Ness and many others have channels leading to and from the lake to rivers and the sea. Large eels don't need to be permanent residents.

Eels big enough to be "monsters" do exist, so it's a perfectly sound theory that Nessie and her cousins might actually be them. Descriptions of Nessie match the shape of a big eel too. I think it's a more reasonable explaination than the idea that she is a reptile or mammal left over from millions of years ago.

Give Downes and his pals a chance. Just see what they come up with.

 

[Porterboy]

My favorite Loch Ness debunking was the "dragon head" picture which turned out to be a photo of a log. They actually sent down a diver and recovered the log.

No, that was actually an oil painting by someone called Tony Shiels, who is a friend of Jon Downes. Shiels is a self-professed wizard and eceentric poet. He's alos probably behind the supposed sightinghs of Morgawr, the Cornish sea monster.

However some Nessie reports come from more reliable sources, including a retired chief constable of the Highland Police. If he's got a motive to lie, then who hasn't.

 

[carcharodon]

Fine and dandy all the bitching about monsters not existing. The subject of this thread is about giant freak eels. Loch Ness is up to 800 ft deep in places. Eels will not flap about on the surface constantly. All it needs is one very large, one very old eel to be swimming around in Loch Ness and there you have one possibility for the basis of all this. It's not an impossibility. Even normal freshwater eels are thought to live up to 100 years. Females are believed to live even longer. Loch Ness, despite the St Columba nonsense (which actually supposedly took place in the river Ness and not the Loch itself) doesn't have a history of monster sightings throughout the centuries anymoreso than many other Lochs in Scotland with their water kelpie legends etc etc.

The modern 'monster' reports seem to stem from the end of the 19th century when talk of a huge 'fish' was first mentioned. It's not out of the realms of possibility that one or two freak giant eels have been swimming around Loch Ness for over a century. The Loch is huge and very deep. Sonar hits have been made.

 

[Porterboy]

Not even the one that proved the monster in the photograph was really a wind-up toy? That was unsatisfactory?

What is your definition of unsatisfactory?

I'll rephrase: I meant that it's unsatisfactory to explain all Nessie sightings as such. I know some of them are fake; see what I write about the Tony Shiels photo.

 

[carcharodon]

Wait a minute, let's not forget that the CFZ have a good track record of solving these kinds of mysteries. A few years ago they discovered a giant Wels catfish in Martin Mere in Lancashire; this was proven! The fish was thought to be over 100 years old and had survived the drainage of most of the lake. Martin Mere is tiny compared to Coniston Water yet it has the biomass to feed a 10 foot Wels. Also in many cases these lakes are not land-locked. Loch Ness and many others have channels leading to and from the lake to rivers and the sea. Large eels don't need to be permanent residents.

Eels big enough to be "monsters" do exist, so it's a perfectly sound theory that Nessie and her cousins might actually be them. Descriptions of Nessie match the shape of a big eel too. I think it's a more reasonable explaination than the idea that she is a reptile or mammal left over from millions of years ago.

Give Downes and his pals a chance. Just see what they come up with.

You beat me to it. I was posting the same kind of sober thoughts at the same time.

Honestly, some people are so scoftical that it really is hard work. I thought this forum was about critical thinking, not out and out poo pooing of anything and everything.

 

[carcharodon]

Loch Ness is "relatively inaccessible"? Its shoreline of over 20 miles lies right next to the A82, the main Fort William-Inverness road. It must be visited by a hundred thousand tourists a year.

Spot the monster:


http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/31024591b7823c983.jpg

That picture you posted is of Urquart Castle. Most of the Loch isn't open to panoramic views such as that. A lot of the shoreline of Loch Ness is hidden from the road, particularly the south side. Indeed, from Foyers the road cuts inland around the hillside away from the Loch shore. The north side with the A82 road often has blocked views of the Loch along much of it's length.

This was taken from the A82 road. You can see that trees block the view of much of this road further down the Loch. This was one of the few clear spots I had to take a panoramic view like this. Alot of this road has blocked views.

Only from high up on the hills overlooking the Loch (no main road up here) do you get a sweeping view like this where you can see along much of it's length.

 

[Beady]

However some Nessie reports come from more reliable sources, including a retired chief constable of the Highland Police. If he's got a motive to lie, then who hasn't.

I hear about these "reliable sources," and I've seen a couple on TV documentaries (one was even a supposed retired MI5 officer). The only thing that's missing is the guy spreading his arms and saying "It was this big!"

But fishermen don't lie, do they?

 

[Beady]

Honestly, some people are so scoftical that it really is hard work. I thought this forum was about critical thinking, not out and out poo pooing of anything and everything.

"Critical thinking" is not philosophy, it is evaluation of evidence. Come up with some evidence, as opposed to philosophy, assumptions, suppositions, evidence-less inferences and such, and we'll think critically.

 

[sat556]

"Critical thinking" is not philosophy, it is evaluation of evidence. Come up with some evidence, as opposed to philosophy, assumptions, suppositions, evidence-less inferences and such, and we'll think critically.

Is it not reasonable to try and come up with a theory though?

I'm a bit confused here. These people are saying it could be a giant eel. What's wrong with saying it might be that?

Are you thinking that there's just nothing that needs explaining in the first place?

 

[tmackean]

As a Scot, I've spent plenty of time by Loch Ness. I've been out on it, and I've driven the length of it many time. It's a very big body of water. I can't be bothered to check this, but I'm sure I read that it contains more water than all the other lakes in England and Wales combined.

It also, reputedly, contains networks of tunnels connecting it with other lochs, etc. Undoubtedly it can maintain an ecosystem of interesting species.

But there isn't a monster. No one really believes that. Tour round the visitor centre at Drumnadrochit (near the loch) and go do the "Loch Ness Experience". Posing the questions "Is the Loch Ness Monster real", the tour does it's best to leave the answers to the end and maintain the mystique, but even it, at the heart of the Nessie tourist industry, eventually concludes that there's nothing to see. Certainly not a plesiosaur.

There may well be fairly big eels, but I don't think the CFZ come across as serious cryptozoologists (if such a thing is possible). Wacky eccentrics having a neat little adventure, perhaps.

It's a pointless endeavour. Discovering giant eels in Loch Ness probably wouldn't destroy the myth of Nessie, but it would remove a little more of the charm around the tale. A shame, I think.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Yes, yes I do.

Anyway, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about giant animals that virtually live among us by the hundreds, but can only be seen by people who don't know how to operate cameras.

That's good !

Gonna have to sig that for a while ..