• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Loch Ness Monster real?

Porterboy

Critical Thinker
Joined
Feb 27, 2006
Messages
446
For the first time since it was first reported by St Columba more than 1500 years ago, we could be close to solving one of the most famous mysteries in the world. There have been many attempts to explain Loch Ness Monster sightings away as hoaxes and delusions; none of them have been satisfactory. In the last few centuries, since the area around Loch Ness has been inhabited by humans, the sightings have accumulated into the 1000's and are reprted by multiple, reliable witnesses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk656VyO1vA

This film describes the recent expedition to the Lake District by the Centre for Fortean Zoology to prove a new theory: That there exist in British lakes giant eels over 20 feet long! Eels that easily qualify for the title "monster". I've a lot of respect for Jonathan Downes and his colleages and I've read all his books. I wish them luck. Here's their website:

http://www.cfz.org.uk/
 
Last edited:
I'm certain it is a real tourist attraction. Of that there can be little doubt. I am disappointed that the local government doesn't come up with something for the news more often. Heck, even a million-dollar hoax would bring in twice that.

tsk.
 
Rob, as Jon explains in the film, mosters are not a part of the tourist industry of Lake Windemere. The region has no monster legends. The same cannot be said for Loch Ness, but still, see that camera footage. I can't see them staging that!
 
"Testimony like this is hard to ignore..." Oh, puh-leeze. :rolleyes: One guy says he saw some sort of thing, and that's "hard to ignore"? Only if you already have an agenda to prove something like this exists.
 
Last edited:
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.


see that camera footage. I can't see them staging that!
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.
 
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.

Until the thing shows up on the cover of Time Magazine over the headline "Yes, I'm Gay," I'll remain skeptical.
 
Why is it that all these creatures (bigfoot, Loch Ness) which are reportly 'huge' never seem to leaves bodies, bones are any other material behind when they die?

Even gaint squids leave remains behind and they live miles below the oceans waves.

Talk is cheap
 
Rob, as Jon explains in the film, mosters are not a part of the tourist industry of Lake Windemere. The region has no monster legends. The same cannot be said for Loch Ness, but still, see that camera footage. I can't see them staging that!

Most of the tourist industry for Windermere revolves around talking rabbits, and hedgehogs who take in laundry. If they don't count as monsters, I don't know what does!
 
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.

Not to mention that Loch Ness itself was formed by the glaciers of the last Ice Age, tens of millions of years after the plesiosaur went extinct. Which is why it drives me nuts when I see headlines like this:

http://www.nbc5i.com/technology/10510482/detail.html
 
Along with thinly disguised pleas for funding for his other projects from Jon Ronson.

Um, as much as I would like people to send me money, I think you are talking about Jon Downes, not me. Two Jons in the same video can be confusing, I grant you that.

Jon Ronson
 
This film describes the recent expedition to the Lake District by the Centre for Fortean Zoology to prove a new theory: That there exist in British lakes giant eels over 20 feet long! Eels that easily qualify for the title "monster".

Quite entirely possible. It's the best explanation yet.
 
Not even the one that proved the monster in the photograph was really a wind-up toy? That was unsatisfactory?

That merely explained away that particular picture, not the 'legend' as a whole.
 
Last edited:
Why is it that all these creatures (bigfoot, Loch Ness) which are reportly 'huge' never seem to leaves bodies, bones are any other material behind when they die?

Even gaint squids leave remains behind and they live miles below the oceans waves.

Talk is cheap

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?
 
...but you want rare animals that live in relatively inaccessible places to leave remains, protected from the scavenger system,where people can find them?

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.
 
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?

Only if we are expected to believe they exist. So long as these magnificent animals stipulate that they do not exist, I have no problem accepting grossly insufficient evidence of their existence.
 
Nessie isn't the only monster said to lurk around Scottish waters. There's also the Kelpie.

kelpie.jpg
 
.....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.

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

Attachments

  • Frame 352 PG Film.jpg
    Frame 352 PG Film.jpg
    6.5 KB · Views: 656

Back
Top Bottom