28 Responses to “The Water Horse Land Sightings at Loch Ness”

1. MattBille responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 am

   The Wall Street Journal yesterday gave a very good advance review to The Water Horse, calling it a family film with wit and heart.

2. Cryptid Hunt responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 11:26 am

   After the Water Horse film. I think something big is going to happen in Loch Ness.

3. sschaper responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 11:43 am

   A cow moose (or Irish elk) resembles a cross between a horse and a camel.

   The other sitings don’t sound much like an Irish elk, though. I suppose that we don’t know if plesiosaurs were amphibious. They did breath air, though. If they weren’t viviparous, they would have had to come to land, just like turtles, to lay their eggs.

   If there are long-necked seals or sea lions, where do they have their rookeries? Are there any pinipeds which are solitary?

4. Rappy responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm

   Don’t quote me on it, sschaper, but I am pretty certain that leopard seals don’t have rookeries. I could be wrong, though, I haven’t read anything on pinnipeds other than fossil species in a while.

5. Judy Green responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 1:14 pm

   Since this is by the same producers of The Chronicles of Narnia, it should be an outstanding production and I am looking forward to seeing it over the holidays. It can’t help but create a burgeoning interest in Loch Ness! I also enjoyed Beowulf although some of the characterizations were a tad off in my opinion, however, I guess that is a subject for another thread, but these animated films seem to be headed in the direction of entertainment not just for children, but also adults and a good thing.

6. DavidFullam responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 2:01 pm

   I’ve always enjoyed the tales of the land sightings and even more the tales of how even the most open minded believers try to explain them away. Sightings of things that look like camels, hippos, salamanders, frogs, Loch Ness is truly a strange place.

7. red_pill_junkie responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 3:04 pm

   … You shock me, as you must know that I don’t “believe” in anything to do with Loch Ness cryptids, as that word speaks more to religious fervor and blind evangelical faith, which I feel has little place in cryptozoology, except to characterize how some “researchers” approach the subject.

   AMEN!

8. wbp responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 5:54 pm

   Thanks for a post about such an important–but highly neglected (perhaps for the reasons you suggest)–aspect of the Nessie (and, presumably, most/all “Lake Monsters”) phenomenon. It seems that what’s important in this discussion–and really all discussions involving cyrpozoology–are the data. One cannot pick and choose to promote or highlight one part of the data while willfully ignoring other elements. “Believers” (sorry to use that word!) and skeptics alike tend to do so, on occasion.

   I found it interesting that you used a religious connotation for the term “believe in [Nessie]” in answering the Loch Ness Skeptic at the beginning of the post. I’ve always felt that the most resonsible position to take (in terms of crypozoology) is rather akin to the religious viewpoint of the agnostic, one who niether believes or disbelieves (even when the data strongly suggest there is really something there).

   Mammal? Plesiosaur? Let’s hope that the new film will, indeed, renew interst in Nessie and other Lake Cryptids, and that perhaps a long-delayed discovery of one somewhere will then occur.

9. Judy Green responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 8:30 pm

   I often wonder what is behind the word “believe” that raises the hackles of some people. The religious context of the word is not the only meaning of it. Sure, you can use it in a religious context, but it also means to accept as true, genuine or real and I, for one, will continue to use it when I choose. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

10. Loren Coleman responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 8:36 pm

    Of course, as Ms. Green states, anyone can use words in any way they wish.

    However, for me, within the context of cryptozoology, regarding, especially, media interviews and challenges from skeptics, I have to be very clear about the role of science and not belief in my responses.

11. KurtB responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 9:14 pm

    I was always fascinated with the land sightings. An ability to hump-it overland for short distances would explain how a modest population of animals seems to have representatives in so many different bodies of water. Would also explain sightings of animals in Irish loughs, many of which are too small to host a permanent visitor but could accomodate the occasional transient.

12. big mack responds: December 22nd, 2007 at 10:17 pm

    it’s been a long time since there’s been a sighting of nessie on land. it’s nice to know she’s still here.

13. DWA responds: December 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 am

    See, the land sightings, in my view, damage, pretty seriously, the case for an unknown species of large animal in Loch Ness.

    Or, on the other hand, they raise the possibility of a menagerie of large unknown animals in Loch Ness.

    What we have here is a sauropodian pinniped with a long neck, a cross between a horse and a camel. That catches salmon in the bushes and takes them into the water. Very reminiscent, in fact, of a giant hippopotamus. With an elephant’s gait, an eel-like head, and whale-like skin, that is heavily furred, and maned like a lion’s. And very long, very short legs.

    “Totally mad”?

    Oh, I would say so.

    I can tell you what a sasquatch looks like, and how big they are. And I’ve never seen one. But I have no idea what all 50 of this one unique animal in Loch Ness look, or looks, like.

    Or, um, doesn’t.

    Oh. Forgot toad and frog. Toss them in there too.

14. Richard888 responds: December 23rd, 2007 at 10:08 am

    I recall seeing a black and white picture of “Nessie on land” and at night, somewhere. It purports to show a large mass of flesh on a rocky shore that could very well be a large rounded rock. It is not one of the more popular pictures, no doubt, due to the difficulty of accepting what it shows.

15. sschaper responds: December 23rd, 2007 at 5:00 pm

    Tae much single-malt tends ta confoos th’ reportins.

    (this is not a statement on cryptozoology, but in response to an earlier humorous post about what the critter looks like, based on compiling the different reports over time)

16. AleksandarLovcanski responds: December 23rd, 2007 at 5:22 pm

    I’m quite intrigued by Richard888’s claim of there being a photograph which is said to show the Loch Ness Monster on shore. I know of very many photographs from Loch Ness but I must admit that I never found any references to the one referred to. Apart from the LNI’s film from 1963, which supposedly depicts a large unidentified object on the opposite shore (or in the shallows thereof); I am unaware of any similar photo or film evidence.

    However, the description of a ‘large mass of flesh’ photographed at night sounds like the object in the black and white photo taken by Peter O’Connor near the shore (at Foyers) back in 1960. Could it be that particular photo?

    There was also a recent colour photograph published, which purported to show some sort of a carcass in the shallows of the Loch, which obviously was a tree branch. The photo was supposed to be taken on 20th of August, 2002 by Tobias Beitz and Claudia Erwin.

    And finally, the only black and white photo that is said to show a lake monster on land - to my knowledge - is the one taken near Lough Sraheens (Achill Island) in Ireland. It too was taken in 1960 and it seems to depict a ‘monster’ that bears some resemblance to the extinct stegosaur. US investigator, Nick Sucik, was the first researcher who has published this long forgotten photo. It can be seen at his excellent website: http://www.mysteryanimalsofireland.com/photos.htm

    Nick has done a tremendous amount of research into the Irish ‘mystery animals’, and he is of the opinion that the photograph was faked. Indeed, a few years ago I have tried to make a reconstruction of it by using a small dinosaur model, and to my satisfaction the resultant photograph was very similar to the original.

17. MattBille responds: December 23rd, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    I agree it’s not proper to reject the land reports a priori, and there’s no reason a water animal can’t be at least occasionally amphibious, as so many creatures from true amphibians to sea otters do straddle the land/water boundary from one direction or another. That said, they do make me uneasy. It is hard enough to believe (though not impossible) that the hunt for a water animal perhaps 10m long in a large but finite lake has not yielded more conclusive evidence by now: it’s that much harder to accept if the animal occasionally ventures on land, where it should leave distinctive tracks or marks of some kind.

    I’ve never put stock in the idea that the Ness animals, whatever they are, habitually travel between lakes. There should be many more good land sightings than we have, and more bodies, either having been shot, hit by vehicles, stabbed with a pitchfork, or whatever.

18. Loren Coleman responds: December 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 pm

    Travel between lakes have never interested me as much as the speculation that routine, regular, or significant cycles of transport might be occurring between the marine environments and the freshwater ones. Whether this migration might be annual or of a longer cicada-type cycle, whether for breeding or spawning or eating, is unknown to me.

    But I’ve thought an exploration of these possibilities, re: movement between the sea and loch, might be worth exploring.

19. dogu4 responds: December 23rd, 2007 at 9:30 pm

    Animals adapted to a life in the cold and dark, such as the silt bottom of these glacially associated lakes, of which Loch Ness is a fine example, might stay submerged in a torpid state waiting for an environmental/metabolic signal to move in response to food or reproductive instinct.

    That they are confused with other more common animals is understandable as is the eccentric periodicity of their appearance since it might be in sync with some natural cycle that’s so far gone unnoticed in the environmental record. Not too hard to believe considering how scatter-shot and relatively short-term some of the understanding of nature’s complex patterns have been to date.

    Might this also explain how a sparse population would survive and sustain itself without a regular exploitable kind of behavior that researchers could detect in surveying the lake with the methods they’ve been using.

    This always makes me wish I had a cow carcass, an anchor and a boat and an underwater camera with a long time lapse function….hmmm, might be tough to get on the airplane too.

20. MattBille responds: December 24th, 2007 at 1:05 am

    >> Animals adapted to a life in the cold and dark, such as the silt bottom of these glacially associated lakes, of which Loch Ness is a fine example, might stay submerged in a torpid state waiting for an environmental/metabolic signal to move in response to food or reproductive instinct.

21. MattBille responds: December 24th, 2007 at 1:09 am

    Sorry, part of my last post seems to have been chopped off. I was asking if we had any known examples of large aquatic animals making this adaptation.

22. dogu4 responds: December 24th, 2007 at 10:26 am

    Matt; a quick view of the wiki for hagfish will reveal some interesting aspects to their particular life pattern which I find relevant to glacial lake habitat, but what everything primarily draws attention to is how little is actually known about ‘em since they are so far removed from areas with which we are familiar.

    No suggestion that they have an indeterminate growth pattern that would allow ‘em to grow to enormous size, but then again so little is known, and other eel like vertebrates can bet pretty big with one suggestion that they represent a particular morph of species of eelpout in which sexually precocious and possibly hermaphroditic individuals leave the mainstream and expand the species range by entering promising freshwater sources in search of the muddy habitat they require. Lots of speculation, to be sure, but when it comes to the abyssal plain there’s lots of room for speculation and nature still surprises us.

23. rl_esteves responds: December 24th, 2007 at 7:28 pm

    Very interesting. Anyone every read the Waterhorse land sightings in Ted Holiday’s Goblin Universe?

24. jerrywayne responds: December 29th, 2007 at 6:58 pm

    A few observations…

    1. The Ness land sightings are generally problematic and cannot be reduced to simple “data”. Many sightings are much more akin to “twice-told tales” than field reports. Such stories lack fundamental information, such as names and dates, confirming evidence, personal information about the sighters, etc. Also, most of the sightings are recorded by advocates who are not too interested in contradicting the accounts.

    2. The sightings are largely inconsistent. (See DWA’s pointed post above to this effect.)

    3. Even the best sightings are altered and embellished in their retelling. For instance, in our kind host’s account of the Arthur Grant sighting, Grant saw an animal cross the road with “four seemingly legs ending in flippers.” Yet, I recall reading Grant’s earliest account and he pointedly stated he did not see legs, feet, or any other mode of transportation concerning the animal he saw. The earliest sketch of Grant’s creature did not show legs or flippers.

    4. Most land sightings seemed to be bunched around the founding events of the early 1930’s. This may imply that such sightings were influenced by sudden and new accounts of a “monster” in the loch (suggestibility and imagination at play).

    5. As noted in the original post above, it is suspicious that so few land sightings have been noted. Either Nessie travels across land or not. If she does, more sightings and evidence of it should have been accumulated by now.

25. jerrywayne responds: December 29th, 2007 at 7:15 pm

    A note concerning the founding events at Ness in the early 1930’s.

    I’m surprised that advocates and skeptics alike have largely ignored what I take to be a major revelation: a monster in Ness was a PR stunt!

    In Bauer’s “Enigma” book, he recounts a reference he ran across concerning a transplanted public relations officer. The fellow was from British Columbia transplanted to England. The officer stated in his memoirs that, hired to boost tourism at Ness, he had created a monster in Ness based on his remembrance of stories of a lake monster in B.C. (”Ogopogo” anyone?) He had planted the original story of “something big” in the loch (and remember, the original news report came from a married couple who were Ness inn owners!) Bauer did not discount this story (although he didn’t think it important).

    If the story is true, we have an explanation for the sudden appearance of a “monster” in the loch in the 1930’s. And by extension, we could suggest that ensuing events at Ness were part enchanted imaginations, part-hoax, and a demonstration of the lovely human will to (yes) BELIEVE.

26. Loren Coleman responds: December 29th, 2007 at 8:36 pm

    Actually, as I mention in my and Patrick Huyghe’s field guide, the first reference to a lake monster sighted in Loch Ness during the era in question can be traced to the Inverness paper, the Northern Chronicle, for August 27, 1930, three years before that couple’s sighting launched the big media flap of 1933.

    This 1930 sighting would seem to undermine any notion that the Loch Ness Monster was a publicity stunt promoted by a British Columbian arriving lochside in 1933.

27. DWA responds: December 30th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    jerrywayne: your post is an excellent example of the lovely human will to, yes, believe.

    Nessie’s been around for centuries. Trying to explain the whole thing away with one incident in the 1930s strikes me as, well, pretty credulous. (Ogopogo post-dates Nessie by centuries. Everyone knows that, at least so I thought.)

    A skeptical mindset comes up with an alternative explanation for ALL the Nessie evidence. Or it really isn’t skeptical, just negatively cross-fingers-and-toes hopeful.

28. jerrywayne responds: December 31st, 2007 at 6:15 pm

    DWA,

    Nice trick. The skeptic is the believer. The believer is the skeptic. (Reminds me of “scientific creationism” land, where religion is science and science is religion). Up is down, too.

    Your matter of fact “Nessie’s been around for centuries” is, well, no matter of fact. It is more accurate to conclude that “Nessie” as a phenomena originated in the early 1930’s, and the year 1933 is usually attributed as the founding year of the “monster” myth. Once the story appeared in the local paper (perhaps planted) concerning an large animal seen in the loch (perhaps a PR event), people began seeing the monster on land and in the loch, and even a couple of (now considered dubious) photos were taken. The fact is that more sightings of “Nessie” occurred in 1933 than any year since may suggest we are dealing with imaginations excited by rumors and current events, not long standing knowledge, centuries old, of a lake monster.

    Nessie advocates themselves have recognized this issue as a potential problem. They offer this scenario: the loch was a forlorn, remote place until a loch side road was created in the early 1930’s which allowed more people than before to see the loch. Problems with this scenario have been noted. First, the loch was a tourist destination in the 1800’s. It even had large boat trips for those who could afford them. Second, survey maps show that the loch side road had been there prior to the 1930’s.

    That there are “monster” sighters before the 1930’s is equally problematic. First, many of the alleged accounts came to light AFTER the “flap” of 1933. One could plausibly make the case that the “flap” was the cause of “the twice-told tales”.
    For instance, amid the 1933 excitement, a letter appeared in a Scottish paper claiming a large fish had been seen in the loch in 1520, 1771, and 1885. No evidence was given for the claim

    If it was known that Ness harbored a “monster” for centuries, we would expect a cultural influence in music and story through the ages in the Highlands. We do not, unless you want to conflate water horses and kelpies (Highland supernatural boogies that kept children away from the lochs) with a flesh and blood animal.

    The St. Columbia event is found in a folkloric book that was full of fabulous stories. I honestly don’t know how advocates can use this “evidence” with a straight face.

    Of course the Ness story is more complex than a planted story. I wouldn’t suggest otherwise. I make the point of a possible PR event as the IMPETUS that got the whole story going. The excitement of belief moved it along, putting doubt to the side.

    You speak of “alternatives” to the “evidence” that must be proposed by skeptics. As usual, I think you put the cart in front of the (water)horse. Give me a credible piece of evidence for a large, unknown animal in Ness. Then we can talk about “alternatives”.

    Kind Host,

    I have read a couple of your books and have found them entertaining. I did not read your co-authored book on lake monsters. I probably shouldn’t put my neck out like this, but I vaguely recall a source that suggested the sighting reported in 1930 in a paper was written by Alex Campbell. It was suggested that Campbell had tried to float the “monster” in Ness story then, and it was stillborn. He tried three years later (perhaps set up by the PR man who found out about Campbell’s “monster” beliefs), and, this time, a legend was born. Campbell definitely believed the loch had a “monster”, it is unclear if his belief was based on the superstition of the “water horse” or not.

    Kind host, does my memory serve me well?

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