Comments on: Nessie and Hunt the Gowk

By: coolbug

coolbug — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 19:30:35 +0000

I think the surgans photo is fake. I keep heering about it on t.v they allways say its a toy boat with a surgans head on top of the toy boat it’s a hoax!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Tabitca

Tabitca — Mon, 08 May 2006 16:05:19 +0000

Having studied the loch ness phenomena for a great many years(unknown to my university employers,who do not approve) and having seen something strange in Loch Ness, I can only comment from my own perspective. Death bed confessions to monster hoaxes seem to be the thing these days. It’s become fashionable once again to not believe, and to protect their families from media intrusion people often change their stories. I’m sure if my employers found I said I’d seen something in the loch they would send me for a mental health review. It’s not so many years ago that staff from the Natural History Museum were, shall we say made redundant, for investigating Loch Ness. It’s just something to bear in mind when looking at stories of past denials and also memory, something I teach a bit about, is notoriously unreliable. People may look back and say ..no I can’t have seen anything..I know I did.

By: elizabetzimmerman

elizabetzimmerman — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:05:05 +0000

Hi All
Obviously each claim to proof of any kind should be considered with an objective, open mind and heart
I believe in the lochness monster, have done since my childhood. Never seen any credible proof of its existence but hey I have believed in God since who knows when. I’ve studied religion for many years and guess what STILL NO PROOF!
The Lochness Monster, Big Foot, Fairies, Demons, Angels etc. etc. all require one thing to allow them to become reality- FAITH!!
GET MY POINT?

By: Grendel

Grendel — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 18:20:15 +0000

If he didn’t wish to compromise his extramarital liaison, why then release the photo at all? Because it isn’t Dr. Wilson’s photo.

I think maybe you take the term ‘plastic wood’ a bit too literally. Moldable natural polymers have existed since the 17th century. In the 1800s, natural polymers or latex rubber were commonly mixed with saw dust to make a moldable compound. By the mid 1800s vulcanization allowed man made polymers, or rather, man-improved natural polymers, for use as moldable agents. Cellulose nitrate emerged in the mid 1800s, Thermo-setting plastics, amino plastics, and thermoplastics also predate the Nessie photogragh.

I suspect that the use of the term ‘plastic wood’ wasn’t a reference to a current DAP product at ACE Hardware, but a simple generic descriptive of a moldable material, many versions of which were readily available in 1934.

As for Dr. Wilson’s refusal to name his monster Nessie, he had only lent his name to the hoax and sought only a bit of local fun, but the hoax was believed and took off in the media of the day and he grew tired of it. He began to downplay. So what?

Have you seen the second photo? I have. It is clearly not even of the same object. It is also of a much inferior quality. A hoaxer taking multiple photos would be expected to use the ‘best’ one.

Dr. Wilson was not ’secretive and shy’ about talking about the photographs at first. It was only when the story exceeded the local area and he began to become pestered by believer and newspaper writers that he became more reticent to speak, and began downplaying the whole thing.

The author of the hoax is Wetherall. Dr. Wilson took no photos, only claimed to have at Wetherall’s behest, to lend them credibility. Wetherall has a documented local history of hoaxes. He used an imported umbrella stand -the hollowed out foot of a hippopotamus -to make ‘monster’ tracks in the area for dupes to find.

I once hoaxed a UFO photo. One fellow I know owns a copy of it, still insists it ‘might be real’ even after I admitted the hoax, showed him the model remnants, etc. Once he bought in, he couldn’t seem to extricate himself even when absolute proof was provided.

I think the same sort of belief dynamic affects many people who had long accepted the Dr. Wilson photo as geniune.