At the very beginning, I would like to highlight that this post does not
target the Loch Ness Monster of being a hoax. May be, it is, may be, it is one
of these true stories, which is hard to believe. There are multiple encounters
and multiple pictures, and to claim that they are not true, we should review
each case one-by-one (like this one below), and the post does not carry such
ambitious target.
No, would like to address probably the most famous photo, which could noticeably
change the public perception of the story and make it famous. So, it is all about
“surgeon’s photograph” only.
Surgeon’s
Picture
This famous picture, which shows what looks like the head of a
prehistoric creature emerging from the waves of Loch Ness in the Scottish
Highlands,
was allegedly snapped by Col. Robert Wilson, a respected London gynecologist, in 1934. Dr. Wilson was
driving along the loch when a companion glanced down at the water and shouted:
"My God, it's the monster!" Despite taking the historic picture, Dr.
Wilson himself
always denied the Loch Ness Monster even existed and insisted he had just taken
a picture of some animal in the water he didn't recognize. The picture was taken
at the distance of 200
to 300 meters (half a mile).
Nevertheless, after the surgeon's photo spread around, the creature
gained worldwide attention, and it was identified by the scientists as plesiosaur - a
long-necked, seafaring reptile supposedly extinct. Before the photo, Loch Ness was the stuff of
legend and myth. Many bodies of water in Northern Scotland
have ancient legends about monsters that were never written down. A tale that
supposedly occured in 565 A.D. tells of Saint Columba who saved a swimmer from
a hungry monster in the Ness river. This story was recorded in the book The
Life of Saint Columba sometime in the late 7th Century and is often
connected with later sightings in the in the nearby lake.
The locals
knew the ancient history of the sea serpent and a few months before the
publication of the famous photo a couple claimed they had seen a large
"monster' in the lake. But people came to the lake more to relax than to go on expeditions
looking for mythical beasts. After the photo, the scientific experts were
called in and cryptozoologists offered their opinions to any who would listen.
Hoax Revealed
While the public opinion was mostly uniform over the years, that the
image is real, there were always skeptical minds, who questioned it. For
example, in 1984,
Stewart Campbell analyzed the photo in an article in the British Journal of
Photography. He argued that whatever was in the photo could have been only
two or three feet long. He guessed that it was probably an otter or a marine
bird.
Finally, in 1994, a man named Christian Spurling finally put an end of
the picture circulation as a real thing, confessing to the hoax. Spurling explained
that his father-in-law Marmaduke Wetherall had staged the picture using a fake
monster head attached to an 18-inch long toy submarine.
Duke Wetherell apparently compiled his elaborate plan as revenge upon the
London Daily Mail newspaper. In 1933, the Daily Mail had hired Wetherell
to find the Loch Ness Monster. Soon after arriving at the lake, Wetherell found
some strange tracks of a four-toed creature in the soft mud near the water.
Wetherell estimated that whatever left the tracks must be twenty feet in
length. Plaster casts were taken and sent to the London Museum of Natural
History. While the world awaited the Museum's analysis, however, hundreds of
monster hunters and tourists showed up at the Loch. Unfortunately after a few
weeks the Museum announced that the tracks were not that of an unknown monster,
but those of a hippo. Apparently Wetherell himself had been hoaxed. The dried
foot used to make the print was probably part of an umbrella stand or ash tray.
The Daily Mail was angered at Wetherell and ridiculed and humiliated him.
All right,"
he reportedly told his 21-year-old son, Ian. "We'll give them their
monster." Ian drafted his stepbrother, Christian Spurling, who built the
model, erecting the neck over the sub's conning tower in layers of plastic wood
and stabilizing it low in the water with strips of lead. It took eight days.
Duke and Ian Wetherell photographed it in the shallows of a quiet bay in the
loch, and quickly sank it when they heard a keeper approaching. Now all they
needed was a respectable front to take the plates to be developed at a local
chemist. Through a middle man they enlisted Colonel Wilson, whose credentials
lent the tale credibility.
Dr. Wilson
apparently went along with the hoax to be a good sport, without the slightest
inkling it would be so successful. The British Medical Association warned him
his tale was putting the medical profession under a cloud. He clammed up,
implying that he could not talk because his companion in the car that day was a
married woman.
Video Presentation
Why definitely not Plesiosaur?
While we do not
know for sure, does Loch Ness Monster exist, and if positive, what is its true
identity, there is very much doubt that it is indeed Plesiosaur, the most
popular and romantic candidate on this role.
The Plesiosaurs were prehistoric aquatic reptiles which
lived in the warm seas which surrounded Scotland 70,000,000 years ago. They
became extinct 65,000,000 years ago during the great extinction which may have
been caused by the impact of huge meteor or planetoid. There is no continuity
in the fossil record after that
time.
There were several
types of aquatic reptile including the ichthyosaurs,
which were fish-like in appearance, and many species of plesiosaur. Some had short necks and large heads; others had small
heads and long necks similar to the fictitious animal shown here.
If we are going to
consider the possibility of plesiosaurs
in Loch Ness we must consider
how they could have arrived here. Around 12,000 years ago Loch Ness was still within the grips
of the Lomond advance of ice and the loch would have been a solid block of ice.
No animals at all could have lived in it then and farfetched suggestions that plesiosaurs could have survived in
deep freeze until the ice thawed, is pure science fiction. If plesiosaurs came into the loch it must
have happened after the ice retreated when access to the loch would have been
easier until the land bounced back from the weight of the ice and the loch's
level rose. These creatures, then, must have been living in substantial numbers
in the North Sea if a viable
community were to become trapped in the loch. If there were large numbers in
the North Sea only a few
thousand years ago where are they today? This factor alone should rule out the plesiosaur, but there are other
factors too.
The plesiosaur was a creature of warm
shallow seas. It may or may not have been warm-blooded, but it is unlikely that
it could have survived in the ice age seas and the deep cold fresh water of Loch Ness. This is a critical issue
which would rule it out as a candidate. Also, the plesiosaur breathed air and, if it were to somehow survive in Loch Ness, it would need to have a
high metabolic rate. These two factors, alone or combined, mean that the
animals would have to surface regularly and would be seen often.
Sources and Additional Information:
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