# Storming Nessie.



## Foxbat (Aug 24, 2019)

RNLI warning over 'Storm Loch Ness' monster hunt
					

The suggestion of a mass search for Nessie has gone viral, and prompted a cautionary message from the RNLI.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I have  a problem with these idiots that are calling for a Storm Loch Ness (inspired by the call to Storm area 51).
If the monster exists then just leave it alone. It's simply a creature living within its own environment so why disturb it? 
On the other hand, if it doesn't exist, all these people will do is put extra strain on our already struggling rescue services. The last thing they need is a crowd of cretins drowning in  a loch that is deeper than the North Sea.

Get a grip and respect the environment with all its dangers, you half-wits


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## Venusian Broon (Aug 24, 2019)

Or it's yet another clever trick by those living near Loch Ness to generate revenue by selling crap/services/viewing spots to loads of people.


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## RJM Corbet (Aug 24, 2019)

Foxbat said:


> ... a crowd of cretins drowning in a loch that is deeper than the North Sea.


Natural selection culling retard genes


Venusian Broon said:


> Or it's yet another clever trick by those living near Loch Ness to generate revenue by selling crap/services/viewing spots to loads of people.


Lol. That is probably the real truth of it


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## The Ace (Aug 25, 2019)

Great ! They'll drive off the wild haggis and she'll be after the tourists again.

It took months to cover up the mess the last time.


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## J Riff (Aug 25, 2019)

The original Nessie picture was an elephant trunk, from a visiting circus, I thought we had that figured out. No, what's in there is much stranger, much bigger, much more dangerous, worse than anything, worse than Cthuhlu and if they disturb it we could all be in big trouble./


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## Foxbat (Aug 25, 2019)

Luckily not many people seem to know about Morag so she won't be disturbed


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## Danny McG (Aug 28, 2019)

It's maybe the last of it's kind.
An ideal chance to shoot it and take it to the taxidermist, I should think.


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## Toby Frost (Aug 28, 2019)

I look forward to the time when we can solve this mystery once and for all by creating a plesiosaur from preserved DNA and just sticking it in Loch Ness.


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## Vertigo (Aug 28, 2019)

Did you know that worldwide almost every remote-ish deep lake surrounded by steep forested sides has a similar legend? It doesn't take a genius to figure it out...


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## Toby Frost (Aug 28, 2019)

True - you can hide quite a few plesiosaurs in a forest.


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## Vertigo (Aug 28, 2019)

Toby Frost said:


> True - you can hide quite a few plesiosaurs in a forest.


It's more a case of trees and branches falling down the steep sides into the lake and looking like monsters in poor light.


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## Toby Frost (Aug 28, 2019)

My theory is that they grab branches in their mouths and stick their necks up whenever anyone comes past, thus impersonating trees.

When I was little, I had a book about prehistoric creatures. None of them were technically dinosaurs, but they all lived at that time. There were cartoons of what these things would be doing if they existed now. The one that sticks in my mind was of an archetypal bearded, kilt-wearing Scotsman doing a bit of fishing on a small rock in a lake. Looking up behind him was a cartoon Nessie, and it was clear that the "rock" was its back. It probably would look very silly now, but I remember the thing having a face like an angry bear-trap. It was one of two images of Nessie that scared the hell out of me as a child.


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## copper (Aug 28, 2019)

Anyone have a favorite Nessie book to share? Mine is The Boggart and the Monster by Susan Cooper--Nessie is a boggart who got stuck in that shape, his cousin helps him escape from the loch with the help of some children. Cooper's Boggart books are quite delightful if you enjoy children's literature (I do, guess I've never grown up).


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## Toby Frost (Aug 28, 2019)

I don't think it technically was Loch Ness, but I still think this counts:


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## Venusian Broon (Aug 28, 2019)

Toby Frost said:


> I look forward to the time when we can solve this mystery once and for all by creating a plesiosaur from preserved DNA and just sticking it in Loch Ness.


Nah, we know now that plesiosaurs couldn't lift their necks up in the manner of the surgeon's photo i.e. out of the water like a fire pole. It would be pretty disappointing having them just a big bump with an eel-like neck in the water.


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## Vertigo (Aug 28, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> Nah, we know now that plesiosaurs couldn't lift their necks up in the manner of the surgeon's photo i.e. out of the water like a fire pole. It would be pretty disappointing having them just a big bump with an eel-like neck in the water.


Spoilsport!


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## Dave (Aug 28, 2019)

Isn't more like a giant Eel than a Plesiosaur? There are even more stories of Wyvern (Lambton Worm, Sockburn Worm.) If it exists, and it isn't a tree log, I'm not sold on either the Plesiosaur idea, or the Dr Who: Terror of the Zygons one.


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## Venusian Broon (Aug 28, 2019)

I'm pretty sure the monster that local people originally would have attributed to sightings is the Kelpie - but that's deliciously shape-shifting and supernatural. Good luck trying to get DNA for that.


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## Foxbat (Aug 29, 2019)

I really hope it doesn't exist because if it does, it's just another creature we can drive to extinction (no doubt it will commit suicide after being pestered by selfie-takers). Perhaps, if VB is correct, I should refer to them as Kelpie Selfies.

Imagine what King Kong would have been like climbing up the Empire State Building with a load of folk hanging out the windows with their phones in hand


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## Venusian Broon (Aug 29, 2019)

Foxbat said:


> Imagine what King Kong would have been like climbing up the Empire State Building with a load of folk hanging out the windows with their phones in hand



Perhaps you are aware, but that the beginning of the modern sightings of Nessie*, in 1933 coincided with the release of _King Kong, _which is interesting given the sauropod/tryannasaur battle in the film. Likely have been a big factor in the apparent sighting of a long-necked sauropod-like creature in the loch! As well as the newspapers stoking of the matter. Slow news days?  

------------------------------------------------

* Yes, everyone keeps bringing up the St Columba sighting in the 6th Century, but....if you read the _whole _of the life of St. Columba by Adoman he pretty much lives out a constant 'X-file' life, battling with loads of supernatural beasts and monsters. So if you believe this account, do you also believe him casting a demon out of a pail, calming storms and monstrous wild beasts, returning the dead to life etc. ? 

Interesting there are no other sightings after this until 1933. One was reported to have been observed in the late 19th Century, but...this was revealed by someone in a letter to the newspaper in 1934. Quelle surprise


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## HareBrain (Aug 29, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> Yes, everyone keeps bringing up the St Columba sighting in the 6th Century, but....if you read the _whole _of the life of St. Columba by Adoman he pretty much lives out a constant 'X-file' life, battling with loads of supernatural beasts and monsters. So if you believe this account, do you also believe him casting a demon out of a pail, calming storms and monstrous wild beasts, returning the dead to life etc. ?



Given how many tricky crimes Columbo solves, I'd believe him capable of all those "just one more" things.


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## Foxbat (Aug 29, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> Perhaps you are aware, but that the beginning of the modern sightings of Nessie*, in 1933 coincided with the release of _King Kong, _which is interesting given the sauropod/tryannasaur battle in the film. Likely have been a big factor in the apparent sighting of a long-necked sauropod-like creature in the loch! As well as the newspapers stoking of the matter. Slow news days?


I'd actually never considered this but, timewise, there could be something in it.


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## Vladd67 (Aug 29, 2019)

Maybe we will have to wait for the invention of Star Trek style scanners and then scan the loch for lifeforms


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## CTRandall (Sep 1, 2019)

Nessie, Big Foot, the Yeti: they all seem to come and go every few years. I think aliens are behind all of it. They're sitting up there in space, looking down at us and occasionally saying to each other, "I think they're a little bored down there. Why don't we play a game of hide and seek with them? They'll enjoy it and it'll tire them out, so we can finally get some peace and quiet."


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## Dave (Sep 8, 2019)

Vladd67 said:


> Maybe we will have to wait for the invention of Star Trek style scanners and then scan the loch for lifeforms


Actually, we already have a way to do this. Marine biologists no longer need to net or fish to discover what species are living in an area of he sea/ocean/lake. They can simply take a sample of water and analyse it for the DNA of each species. So theoretically, if you have samples of 'long-necked sauropod-like creatures' with which to try to get a DNA match, then it ought to be very easy to see if they are present in that body of water. I also expect that we could get that DNA somehow, however, I think it is tricky (_Jurassic Park_ is not yet a reality) and you need more than just some bones - preserved flesh (like frozen in a glacier) or bone marrow. I'm not an expert on this, but maybe the organic matter in dentine from teeth can be used (if sauropods had teeth.) Anyway, my point is that this is not totally beyond the realms of the imagination, and very likely to be a 'thing' in the future.


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## Ursa major (Sep 8, 2019)

Dave said:


> Marine biologists no longer need to net or fish to discover what species are living in an area of he sea/ocean/lake. They can simply take a sample of water and analyse it for the DNA of each species.


They already have done this for Loch Ness:





> Researchers from New Zealand have tried to catalogue all living species in the loch by extracting DNA from water samples. Following analysis, the scientists have ruled out the presence of large animals said to be behind reports of a monster.


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## Dave (Sep 8, 2019)

I had no idea that had been done, but it makes prefect sense. So, it definitely isn't a sauropod or mammal, but I see they said that it could be a giant eel, which is exactly what I said earlier in this thread. There must also be some substance to the Lambton Worm, Sockburn Worm and other Wyvern stories that could be explained by giant eels.


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 10, 2019)

The Loch Ness monster? It could be a giant eel
					

It is an enduring monster mystery that has pumped millions of pounds into the local Highlands economy. Now a study suggests that what lurks in the depths of Loch Ness is likely to be nothing more than . . . a large eel.For decades sightings, and a few dubious photographs, have suggested the existenc




					www.thetimes.co.uk
				




... Gary Campbell, the keeper of the register, said: “Loch Ness is teeming with eels and about 20 years ago a fisherman came to me and said, ‘Listen I’ve got to tell you. We’ve got a 16ft boat with an outboard and when we were fishing on Loch Ness an eel passed on the surface of the water and it was longer than the boat’.

“In the 1980s the staff at the Foyers power station found a water inlet wasn’t working because it was clogged by eels and one of them was 18ft long.” ...


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## Dave (Sep 10, 2019)

So, has the Nessie question finally been solved? It is/was a giant eel?

European eels only grow to 1m long. The Moray eel is bigger, but still not big enough. However, the Slender Giant Moray or Gangetic moray, _Strophidon sathete_, is the longest member of the family of moray eels. The longest recorded specimen was caught in 1927 on the Maroochy River in Queensland; it measured 3.94 metres.

As far as I remember, there are locks on the Caledonian Canal at either end of Loch Ness. The juvenile eels could swim in and grow to adulthood, but the locks would prevent anything that long gaining exit, at least unseen. Once inside it would be stuck in Loch Ness. It would be unable to swim back into the ocean to spawn and die. 

They can, however, live for years in freshwater, growing bigger and bigger. Once it had eaten all the fish, hungry and cold, it would come up to the foreshore of the loch and snatch away lambs and little babies. [doubtful]

So, they should build special Nessie eel ladders parallel to the locks. I'd subscribe to the fund.


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 10, 2019)

Dave said:


> So, has the Nessie question finally been solved? It is/was a giant eel?


Interesting there really seems to be something unusual out there, though? More than just a hoax or mistaken bits of wood and things like that?


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## Vertigo (Sep 10, 2019)

Dave said:


> As far as I remember, there are locks on the Caledonian Canal at either end of Loch Ness. The juvenile eels could swim in and grow to adulthood, but the locks would prevent anything that long gaining exit, at least unseen. Once inside it would be stuck in Loch Ness. It would be unable to swim back into the ocean to spawn and die.


Well that's a sort of yes and no. There are indeed locks at either end of the Caledonian canal but at the Inverness end the outflow from Loch Ness runs (via another very small loch) into both the last stretch of the Caledonian canal (and it's final couple of locks) and the river Ness which flows through Inverness and out to sea by the Moray Firth. The only obstacle in the river route is the weir where the canal splits off from the river (I used to live about 100m down the canal from the weir). Whilst that might present a significant obstacle to an eel swimming upriver (I don't know if they are as nimble at a leaping salmon) but it is not a massively high weir and it would present no significant obstacle going downstream.


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## Vertigo (Sep 10, 2019)

RJM Corbet said:


> Interesting there really seems to be something unusual out there, though? More than just a hoax or mistaken bits of wood and things like that?


Most people living up here (at least those who don't regularly patronise the Inverness Flat Earth café - yes there is one!) would say "no there doesn't seem to be anything unusual in Loch Ness". But they would also say "Long may the tourists keep coming here and spending their money." The "Loch Ness Monster" is arguably the most powerful tourist advert that Inverness has ever had.


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 10, 2019)

Vertigo said:


> ... the Inverness Flat Earth café - yes there is one!) ...


Not that I doubted you, lol:









						Return of the "flat Earth" movement as shop appears in Inverness
					

It was a bizarre movement which sparked a police hunt and a barrage of criticism from residents across the Highlands last summer. But after a brief hiatus




					www.pressandjournal.co.uk
				




But you have to register log in to check-out the website; I'm not too sure I really want to do that:


			http://en2.supercali.net:2095/


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## Dave (Sep 10, 2019)

Vertigo said:


> it would present no significant obstacle going downstream.


Even something that was 4 metres long?

Anyway, it is fun to speculate. They have discovered deep sea fish that were once thought to be extinct (coelacanths) but they reason I was never sold on the aquatic mammal or reptile idea is that you would need a population of them to survive, not one single individual that has lived for thousands and thousands of years. The life-cycle of the eel avoids that problem as they swim thousands of miles to spawn in the ocean, but live most of their lives in freshwater, and one individual might be found alone.


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## Foxbat (Sep 12, 2019)

I vaguely recall when I was a nipper hearing stories of underground caverns, linking the biggest of the lochs and possibly providing a route to the sea. The notion at the time was that Morag and Nessie were either the same beast or members of the same family. Of course, there were also rumours  in Dunbar of a secret tunnel from the castle to the high street (the ghost of 'Black' Agnes was said to roam this tunnel at night). Neither have been found. I'm assuming both are fanciful notions provided by people who want to shore up their beliefs.


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## Dave (Sep 12, 2019)

I think they used sonar to map the bottom of the loch a few decades ago. I'm sure they would have discovered any tunnels. If the rumours bring in extra tourism then I'm all for them to continue. However, monster and ghost hunters are a strange breed of tourist to want to attract.


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## Dave (Sep 12, 2019)

Coincidentally, the _Discovery channel_ has a documentary about the DNA analysis of Loch Ness on this Sunday 15th September at 7.30pm. Unfortunately, I don't subscribe to that, so you'll have to tell me what they say. Also, that famous picture of the monster (the one shown in @RJM Corbet 's link to _The Times _article, and which is also used to advertise this TV programme) is not a photograph of an eel. So, either that is a fake photo (which I thought was generally assumed) or it isn't an eel.


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 12, 2019)

Dave said:


> ... that famous picture of the monster (the one shown in @RJM Corbet 's link to _The Times _article, and which is also used to advertise this TV programme) is not a photograph of an eel. So, either that is a fake photo (which I thought was generally assumed) or it isn't an eel.


It's an acknowledged fake. Apparently it was a head moulded from putty attached to a toy submarime ...


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## Vertigo (Sep 12, 2019)

RJM Corbet said:


> It's an acknowledged fake. Apparently it was a head moulded from putty attached to a toy submarime ...


Curiosity just made me take another look at that photo and I really don't think it's even that. The 'shadow' of the neck and head has perfectly smooth edges whilst the water is clearly rippled so the shadow edges would be rippled to. That shadow just looks blatantly fake to me. I don't think I've ever really bothered to look at that image closely before!


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## Ursa major (Sep 12, 2019)

Vertigo said:


> The 'shadow' of the neck and head has perfectly smooth edges whilst the water is clearly rippled so the shadow edges would be rippled to.


Surely you know that the rules of physics are different in the presence of Nessie....


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## RJM Corbet (Sep 12, 2019)

Ursa major said:


> Surely you know that the rules of physics are different in the presence of Nessie....







Yeti too


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## -K2- (Sep 12, 2019)

RJM Corbet said:


> Yeti too



Don't forget this guy...





K2


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## Vladd67 (Sep 13, 2019)

According to Harry Dresden Santa is a fairy.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 23, 2019)

The Ace said:


> Great ! They'll drive off the wild haggis and she'll be after the tourists again.
> 
> It took months to cover up the mess the last time.



Thats a complete fabrication , Nessie has never eaten a tourist.

  Okay, maybe  she's nibble on fireman or two.


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## The Ace (Sep 24, 2019)

BAYLOR said:


> Thats a complete fabrication , Nessie has never eaten a tourist.
> 
> Okay, maybe  she's nibble on fireman or two.



Just goes to show how effective the cover-up was.


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