I think that one tends to reinforce the other. I’m having considerable heartburn with someone sayong over and over “this guy is the most reliable citizen EVER” and he is CERTAIN that he saw a “fuzzy thing” that means an Earth invasion is imminent. Or Bownessie, or Bigfoot, same thing.

If you are so damn reliable, and you feel you saw something…tell us WHAT THAT IS. Folks can vouch for you all they want, but “it was big and fuzzy and…BIGFOOT, I TELL YOU!!!” isn’t moving my needle any.

Lots of detail by a known liar is potentially lots of lying. Reported by someone with a well-known reputation for honesty and veracity and powers of observation is…well, not proof, but we’ll put it in the “interesting, what else is there like this?” pile.

The best evidence I have ever seen was video footage of the ‘Denby dinosaur’ from the UK.

Loren Coleman interestingly appeared on the documentary that showed this footage.

Two monsters were videoed and photographed by the same journalist from two different lakes. One was Loch Lomond in Scotland I think. The second was in Wales.

I was AMAZED at the almost unmistakable crocodilian/reptilian type creatures that appear.

What is even more interesting is that virtually nobody talks about it. The media says hardly anything and even within cryptid circles its unknown.

A small clip was on youtube before it disappeared. Luckily I think I may have saved it on an external hard drive. Will look for it and upload it if I can.

As for this Bownessie? Can’t tell. This is nowhere near as good as the Denby Dino footage.

Best way to raise £10k is fake a photo.

Graduates’ Profiles

Tom Pickles Discipline ASPIRE

What is the best part about your graduate scheme?

The best thing about the graduate scheme is that it promotes the Capgemini value ‘fun’. Besides the social aspect of being around graduates in the same boat as you there are loads of fun team building activities I have been able to get involved in. This includes a week in the Lake District, a day at Go-Ape and a fund raising activity where as a group we are to raise £10k for charity. Part of the gradate scheme includes time working in our Accelerated Solutions Environment which is not an ordinary working environment.Tom Pickles

In addition we are familiar with the reality of space ships and every day becoming more aware of the probability of other kinds of live forms either out there or somewhat closer!

I don’t doubt cryptozoological evidence is easier to accept or should be as it is not that much different to ordinary experience in general. I find it hard to keep more than a monitoring interest in UFO’s as usually one sees some lights in the sky and there is a bit of exitement thereafter doesnt seem to be much progress whereas with Sasquatch say, you can almost smell him.

In both cases eyewitness reports are a valuable resource but somehow for me sasquatch is more special.

Similar to Gordon Holmes on Loch Ness.

Maybe 10 or 15 feet long.

Okay, first rule–rule out the obvious and get as many detailed questions answered as possible (and let’s ask ‘em twice or more so we get the same responses each time).

A witness SHOULD be able to give a rough time of day, place (at least an area), details on what they saw, where they were at, and so on. The more details you get, the better idea you get of what they think they saw. AND, you start getting a feel for the witness…are they confident about what they saw, conviction of their sighting, etc. Also you get background on the witness from them–how much time have they spent near this body of water? How familiar are they with the animal life there? Do they have actual knowledge that pertains to the sighting or could they be a person who’d see a floating log and think it’s a critter? You get the idea.

To me, more important is the time amount of the sighting (are we talking 10 seconds or 3 minutes?), and movement (sitting still in the water or actually moving). Why? If they only saw something for span of a few seconds, that’s not enough time to make a sound judgment, in my opinion (unless they saw it on shore and bound for the water…and even then…). If they were able to watch something for a good span of time, then the witness is going to get more, solid details and have a better idea of size and what they were actually watching. If you see part of a deer or moose crossing a lake, and if you watch the thing long enough, it’s going to keep its head above water and come to land.

Loren’s right. You can’t take anything at face value, and doing background checks into witnesses these days needs to be a fundamental practice. Even then, who knows. I’ve seen and read enough of the information and evidence on lake and ocean cryptids to decide they’re living breathing creatures, but personally, I’m also a practical joker…anybody who knows me will tell you so. IF I ever come up with any kind of sighting or photo evidence, I’m not sure I’d ever be taken completely seriously just because of that fact alone, and the debunkers would have a heyday.

For me, I try to take in the totality of the sighting: the witness testimony, their validity, their motives, the photo evidence (if any), the sighting details, the history of the area, the background of the people, etc. No one piece of the incident has more weight than any other, and any aspect of the sighting can be a reason to rule it out. And applying that to every sighting is how I make my own determination of what constitutes a legitimate sighting and everything else.

In this particular case, the photo’s interesting, but like most photos, it’s vague at best. AND that’s a standard problem with the water cryptids. Usually, you only get a partial look at the creature because you almost never get to see the entire creature–hence the water. And if there’s any distance involved, you can get shadows, waves, etc that can distort a sighting, which just makes discerning a photo like this all the more difficult to say what it actually is.

Was the thing in the photo moving with any speed? I know they gave a size estimate, but again distortion, and does Sarah have any real experience in gauging the size of something in the water? The “humps” could be anything from humps to a back fin…to a log, a collection of floating bags, some half submerged junk, and so on.

I don’t think we’re apt to get a single photo that can put the question to rest–there’s too many variables and most often too few details in photos to say anything without a doubt.

However, the bottom line, as with all cryptid sightings, is be skeptical and rule everything else out. If you’ve got anything left over, then you’ve got something to go on and add to your case file. And that’s why this business is often disappointing and tedious…but it’s that 5% leftover that makes it all worthwhile too.