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by Daniel Loxton


  111 Mackal, Monsters of Loch Ness, 98.

  112 Roy Chapman Andrews, This Business of Exploring (New York: Putnam, 1935), 59–60.

  113 “The Making of a Monster,” Sunday Telegraph (London), December 7, 1975, 6, quoted in Martin and Boyd, Nessie, 14.

  114 Martin and Boyd, Nessie, 17.

  115 Quoted in ibid., 20.

  116 Robert Kenneth Wilson to Constance Whyte, 1955, quoted in ibid., 62.

  117 Robert Kenneth Wilson to Maurice Burton, April 27, 1962, quoted in ibid., 57.

  118 Major Egginton to Nicholas Witchell, November 3, 1970, quoted in ibid., 68–69.

  119 Ibid., 50.

  120 Nicholas Witchell, The Loch Ness Story: Revised and Updated Edition (London: Corgi, 1991), 47.

  121 Martin and Boyd, Nessie, 77.

  122 Major Egginton to Nicholas Witchell, November 9, 1970, quoted in ibid., 72.

  123 Quoted in ibid., 70.

  124 Denise Wilson to Tim Dinsdale, 1979, quoted in ibid., 58.

  125 Quoted in ibid., 59.

  126 Quoted in ibid., 77–78.

  127 Ibid., 83; Paul H. LeBlond and M. J. Collins, “The Wilson Nessie Photograph: A Size Determination Based on Physical Principles,” Scottish Naturalist 100 (1988): 95–108.

  128 Quoted in Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell, Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006), 17.

  129 Witchell, Loch Ness Story, 75–77.

  130 Quoted in ibid.

  131 Witchell, Loch Ness Story: Revised, 82–83. The man who Stuart took to see the props is identified by Witchell as “another Loch Ness resident, who is known to me and with whom I confirmed the following details.” His name is revealed as Richard Frere in Campbell, Loch Ness Monster, 44.

  132 Mackal, Monsters of Loch Ness, 102.

  133 Quoted in Radford and Nickell, Lake Monster Mysteries, 19.

  134 Mackal, Monsters of Loch Ness, 13.

  135 Dinsdale, Loch Ness Monster, 5–6.

  136 Ibid., 81.

  137 Ibid., 82.

  138 Ibid., 95–96.

  139 Ibid., 100.

  140 Ibid., 104.

  141 Ibid., 110.

  142 Ibid.

  143 Mavis Cole, “Summer’s Here and Britain Sees Loch Ness Monster,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 14, 1960, B6.

  144 Donald White, “The Great Monster Hunt,” Boston Globe, December 6, 1970, G57.

  145 Tim Dinsdale, Project Water Horse (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), 159–160.

  146 White, “Great Monster Hunt.”

  147 Dinsdale, Project Water Horse, 11.

  148 A detailed discussion of the analysis of the film is in Binns, Loch Ness Mystery Solved, 107–125. See also “Photographic Interpretation Report: Loch Ness,” in “Did Tim Dinsdale Film Nessie?” Cryptozoo-oscity, http://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2010/05/did-tim-dinsdale-film-nessie.html (accessed September 14, 2010).

  149 “The Dinsdale Film,” http://henryhbauer.homestead.com/DinsdaleFilm.html (accessed September 14, 2010).

  150 Shine, Loch Ness, 12.

  151 Binns, Loch Ness Mystery Solved, 121.

  152 Ibid., 108.

  153 Quoted in Henry Allen, “On the Monster Trail,” Washington Post, April 16, 1972, E9.

  154 Dinsdale, Project Water Horse, 154–155.

  155 Ibid., 6–7.

  156 Quoted in Allen, “On the Monster Trail.”

  157 Tony Harmsworth, “Tim Dinsdale’s Loch Ness Monster Film,” Loch Ness Information, http://www.loch-ness.org/filmandvideo.html (accessed September 16, 2010).

  158 Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe, The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep (New York: Penguin / Tarcher, 2003), 21.

  159 Dunn, “Monster Bobs Up Again.”

  160 Dinsdale, Loch Ness Monster, 13.

  161 Loren Coleman, “Why Do Plesiosaurs Have Long Necks?” September 2, 2009, Cryptomundo, http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/plesiosaurs-necks/ (accessed June 23, 2010).

  162 Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark, Cryptozoology A to Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature (New York: Simon and Schuster / Fireside, 1999), 140.

  163 Michael Thompson-Noel, “The Day I Saw Five Loch Ness Monsters,” Financial Times (London), September 13, 1997, 17.

  164 Bernard Heuvelmans, “Review of the Monsters of Loch Ness,” Skeptical Inquirer 2, no. 1 (1977): 110.

  165 Karl Shuker, The Beasts That Hide from Man: Seeking the World’s Last Undiscovered Animals (New York: Paraview Press, 2003), 187.

  166 Dinsdale, Loch Ness Monster, 232–233.

  167 Shine, Loch Ness, 26.

  168 Adrian J. Shine, “Postscript: Surgeon or Sturgeon?” Scottish Naturalist 105 (1993): 271–282.

  169 Bauer, Enigma of Loch Ness, 56.

  170 Mackal, Monsters of Loch Ness, 200–201.

  171 Dinsdale, Loch Ness Monster, 81–82.

  172 John Kirk, In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1998), 115, 119.

  173 Mackal, Monsters of Loch Ness, 29.

  174 Bentley Murray, letter to the editor, Scotsman, October 30, 1933, 13.

  175 A. T. C., letter to the editor, Scotsman, November 4, 1933, 15.

  176 “Loch Ness Monster Theory,” Inverness Courier, September 5, 1933.

  177 “The Loch Ness ‘Monster’: Is It a Giant Eel?” Inverness Courier, September 15, 1933.

  178 W. P., letter to the editor, Scotsman, November 2, 1933, 11.

  179 Alan MacLean, letter to the editor, Scotsman, November 16, 1933, 11.

  180 John Moir, letter to the editor, Scotsman, November 6, 1933, 13.

  181 Holiday, Great Orm of Loch Ness.

  182 Joe Nickell, “Lake Monster Lookalikes,” June 2007, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/lake_monster_lookalikes/ (accessed September 10, 2010).

  183 This effect has often been disputed by cryptozoology enthusiasts, but it certainly happens. See, for example, Loren Coleman, “Real Otter Sense,” June 16, 2007, CryptoMundo, http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/real-otter-sense/ (accessed September 10, 2010).

  184 Otters have, for example, been filmed at the loch by longtime Nessie researcher Dick Raynor, as he reported in “Otters in Loch Ness,” Loch Ness Investigation, http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/otters.htm (accessed April 10, 2012).

  185 Mackal, Monsters of Loch Ness, 136.

  186 Gould, Loch Ness Monster, 74.

  187 Binns quotes an article from the Inverness Courier, but seems not to provide a citation for it, in Loch Ness Mystery Solved, 20.

  188 Campbell, “Strange Spectacle on Loch Ness.”

  189 “Loch Ness ‘Monster’ Again,” Inverness Courier, June 9, 1933.

  190 Gould, Loch Ness Monster, 142.

  191 Because the word “porpoise” has both formal and informal meanings, it is not clear what type of animals are described in this story. They may have been true porpoises, or they could just as well have been dolphins. See “Captured by Nature,” Daily Mail, September 16, 1914, 3.

  192 Gordon Williamson, “Seals in Loch Ness,” Scientific Reports of the Whales Research Institute, no. 39 (1988): 151–157.

  193 Dick Raynor, “Seal in Urquhart Bay, 1999,” Loch Ness Investigation, http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/Seals.html (accessed June 25, 2010).

  194 Dick Raynor, “What do you think of Dr. Rines and his ideas of tracking and filming a moving object in the loch?” Loch Ness Investigation, http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/cyberspace.html (accessed June 25, 2010).

  195 “The ‘Monster’—Scientists’ Views After Seeing Film,” Scotsman, October 5, 1934, 9.

  196 “Film That ‘Removes Doubt’ to Be Shown in Scotland,” Scotsman, November 3, 1936, 10. This appears to contradict a quote from Irvine, not clearly sourced, that the creature had “a huge body … over 30 feet long” (quoted in Witchell,
Loch Ness Story, 52–53).

  197 “The Monster of Loch Ness: New Accounts from Eye-witnesses,” Times, December 18, 1933, 9.

  198 Quoted in F. W. Memory, “The ‘Monster’ Again: New Support for Seal Theory,” Daily Mail, ca. December 18, 1933–January 19, 1934, undated clipping, Loch Ness and Morar Project Archive, http://www.lochnessproject.org/adrian_shine_archiveroom/paperspdfs/LOCH_NESS_1933damail.pdf (accessed January 13, 2012).

  199 Quoted in F. W. Memory, “There Is a Seal in Loch Ness,” Daily Mail, ca. December 18, 1933–January 19, 1934, undated clipping, Loch Ness and Morar Project Archive, http://www.lochnessproject.org/adrian_shine_archiveroom/paperspdfs/LOCH_NESS_1933damail.pdf (accessed January 13, 2012).

  200 Compare “What Was It? A Strange Experience on Loch Ness,” Northern Chronicle, August 27, 1930, with Gould, Loch Ness Monster, 37–38.

  201 Quoted in Witchell, Loch Ness Story, 29–30.

  202 It is interesting to note, however, that those who claim to have been abducted by aliens are more prone than control subjects to form false memories in a laboratory setting. See Susan A. Clancy, Richard J. McNally, Daniel L. Schacter, Mark F. Lenzenweger, and Roger K. Pitman, “Memory Distortion in People Reporting Abduction by Aliens,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 111 (2002): 455–461.

  I know of no similar research involving people to claim to have seen cryptids, but it is intriguing to speculate that this population might also exhibit increased vulnerability to false memories. In either event, a significant rate of false memory is common to us all.

  203 “Sea Serpent in the Highlands.”

  204 Mackal, Monsters of Loch Ness, 99. The claim of twenty-one photographs conflicts with news reports at the time, such as “Five Photographs Secured by Searchers—Seen 21 Times,” Scotsman, August 9, 1934, 9. However, Mackal claims to have examined all twenty-one photographs from Mountain’s expedition.

  205 Binns, Loch Ness Mystery Solved, 37–38.

  206 The Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau (LNPIB; now Loch Ness Investigation Bureau [LNIB]) was formed in 1962, and Adrian Shine says that its camera surveillance began the same year. See “Loch Ness Timeline,” Loch Ness and Morar Project, http://www.lochnessproject.org/adrian_shine_archiveroom/loch_ness_archive_timeline.htm (accessed July 5, 2010). Holiday says that the camera rigs were built for the 1964 season, and mentions earlier work by the LNPIB, in Great Orm of Loch Ness, 64–65.

  207 Holiday, Great Orm of Loch Ness, 65–67.

  208 Mackal, Monsters of Loch Ness, 200.

  209 Ibid., 45–48.

  210 Dick Raynor, “Submarine Investigations,” Loch Ness Investigation, www.lochnessinvestigation.org/Subs.html (accessed July 3, 2010).

  211 Rikki Razdan and Alan Kielar, “Sonar and Photographic Searches for the Loch Ness Monster: A Reassessment,” Skeptical Inquirer 9, no. 2 (1984–1985): 153–154. Based on the shape of the fin, Sir Peter Scott, a noted naturalist and a co-founder of the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau, gave the creature the scientific name Nessiteras rhombopteryx (monster of Ness with the diamond-shaped fin) so it could be registered as an endangered species. See Peter Scott and Robert Rines, “Naming the Loch Ness Monster," Nature 258, no. 5535 (1975): 466–468. But it was soon pointed out that the name can be anagrammed into “monster hoax by Sir Peter S,” as reported in “Loch Ness Monster Shown a Hoax by Another Name,” New York Times, December 19, 1975, 78. To counter this insinuation with another anagram, Rines “came up with the anti dote—‘Yes, both pix are monsters—R’” (Dinsdale, Loch Ness Monster, 171).

  212 Mysteries of the Unknown: Mysterious Creatures (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1988), 73.

  213 Campbell, Loch Ness Monster, 67.

  214 Harmsworth, Loch Ness, Nessie and Me, 181.

  215 Witchell, Loch Ness Story: Revised, 165.

  216 Campbell, Loch Ness Monster, 72–74.

  217 Witchell, Loch Ness Story: Revised, 168.

  218 Gould, Loch Ness Monster, 120.

  219 Binns, Loch Ness Mystery Solved, 35.

  220 David S. Martin, Adrian J. Shine, and Annie Duncan, “The Profundal Fauna of Loch Ness and Loch Morar,” Scottish Naturalist 105 (1993): 119.

  221 “Nessie Dead or Alive,” Loch Ness and Morar Project, http://www.lochnessproject.org/loch_ness_reflections_news_links/loch_ness_traps.htm (accessed July 5, 2010).

  222 Quoted in Holiday, Great Orm of Loch Ness, 201.

  223 Binns, Loch Ness Mystery Solved, 148–149.

  224 Shine, “Loch Ness Timeline.”

  225 Quoted in “BBC ‘Proves’ Nessie Does Not Exist,” July 27, 2003, BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3096839.stm (accessed July 5, 2010).

  226 Karen DeYoung, “Sonar Search for ‘Nessie’ Reveals 3 Wobbly Scratches,” Washington Post, October 12, 1987, A1.

  227 For a thorough discussion, see Adrian J. Shine and David S. Martin, “Loch Ness Habitats Observed by Sonar and Underwater Television,” Scottish Naturalist 100 (1988): 111–199.

  228 Ibid.

  229 Dick Raynor, “The River Ness—From Loch Ness to the Sea,” Loch Ness Investigation, http://www.lochnessinvestigation.org/RiverNessJourney.html (accessed September 19, 2010).

  230 Quoted in “Commander Gould to Investigate,” Scotsman, November 10, 1933, 11.

  231 Meurger and Gagnon, Lake Monster Traditions, 135–139.

  232 Mackal, Monsters of Loch Ness, 25.

  233 Shine and Martin, “Loch Ness Habitats Observed by Sonar and Underwater Television.”

  5. THE EVOLUTION OF THE SEA SERPENT

  1 Benjamin Radford, Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2011).

  2 Sherrie Lynne Lyons, Species, Serpents, Spirits, and Skulls: Science in the Margins in the Victorian Age (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009).

  3 Ray Bradbury, “The Fog Horn,” in The Golden Apples of the Sun (New York: Morrow, 1997), 1–9, members.fortunecity.com/ymir1/beastfro9.html (accessed February 2, 2012).

  4 Dennis Loxton to Daniel Loxton, April 8, 2005.

  5 Depending on the movie, Godzilla’s height ranges from a measly 167 to 334 feet tall, according to Robert Biondi, “So Just How Big Is Godzilla? A Model Builder’s Guide to Godzilla’s Size Changes,” Kaiju Review, no. 4 (1993).

  6 Emily Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 183.

  7 The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version (Glasgow: Collins, 1952).

  8 For an overview, see J. V. Kinnier Wilson, “A Return to the Problems of Behemoth and Leviathan,” Vetus Testamentum 25, fasc. 1 (1975): 1–14.

  9 John K. Papadopoulos and Deborah Ruscillo, “A Ketos in Early Athens: An Archaeology of Whales and Sea Monsters in the Greek World,” American Journal of Archaeology 106, no. 2 (2002): 213.

  10 Ibid., 216.

  11 Ibid., 187–227.

  12 Katharine Shepard, The Fish-Tailed Monster in Greek and Etruscan Art (New York: Privately printed, 1940; repr., Landisville, Pa.: Coachwhip, 2011), 78.

  13 Papadopoulos and Ruscillo, “Ketos in Early Athens,” 216–219.

  14 John Boardman, “‘Very Like a Whale’: Classical Sea Monsters,” in Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Papers Presented in Honor of Edith Porada, ed. Anne E. Farkas, Prudence O. Harper, and Evelyn B. Harrison (Mainz: Zabern, 1987), 73–84.

  15 Diego Cuoghi, “The Art of Imagining UFOs,” ed. Daniel Loxton, trans. Daniela Cisi and Leonardo Serna, Skeptic 11, no. 1. (2004): 43–51.

  16 Bernard Heuvelmans, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents (New York: Hill and Wang, 1968), 508. For further discussion, see Loren Coleman, “The Meaning of Cryptozoology: Who Invented the Term Cryptozoology?” 2003, www.lorencoleman.com/cryptozoology_faq.html (accessed February 12, 2011).

  17 Heuvelmans, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, 96–99.

  18 Boardman, “Very Like a Whale,” 78.

  19 A. C. Oudemans, The Great
Sea-Serpent (1892; repr., Landisville, Pa.: Coachwhip, 2007), 89.

  20 Adrienne Mayor, “Paleocryptozoology: A Call for Collaboration Between Classicists and Cryptozoologists,” Cryptozoology 8 (1989): 12–26.

  21 Pausanias Description of Greece, trans. W. H. S. Jones (London: Heinemann, 1918), Paus. 1.44.8.

  22 Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library 353 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940), 3:bk. 9.5, 173.

  23 Richard B. Stothers, “Ancient Scientific Basis of the ‘Great Serpent’ from Historical Evidence,” Isis 95, no. 2 (2004): 223–226.

  24 Aristotle, History of Animals, trans. D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (Sioux Falls, S. Dak.: NuVision, 2004), bk. 4, chap. 8.

  25 Ibid., bk. 8, chap. 28.

  26 Heuvelmans, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, 82.

  27 Apollonius of Rhodes, Jason and the Golden Fleece, trans. Richard Hunter (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 102.

  28 W. R. Branch and W. D. Hacke, “A Fatal Attack on a Young Boy by an African Rock Python Python sebae,” Journal of Herpetology 14, no. 3 (1980): 305–307.

  29 Richard Stothers, “Ancient Scientific Basis of the ‘Great Serpent’ from Historical Evidence,” Isis 95, no. 2 (2004): 228–229.

  30 Pliny used the word Dracones; John Bostock’s translation of Natural History (1855) renders it as “dragons,” while H. Rackham’s translation (1940) substitutes “serpents.”

  31 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 3:bk. 8.11, 25–27.

  32 Edward Topsell, The Historie of Serpents; or, the Second Booke of Living Creatures (1608; LaVergue: ECCO Print Editions, 2011), 168.

  33 Heuvelmans, In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, 82.

  34 Indeed, during my research I realized that this connection has occasionally been made. For example, the question was raised in this 2006 cryptozoology forum thread, in which poster Fel Faralei wondered, “It’s a long shot but from what I’ve learn’t about Caddy it seems to fit the description of a hippocampus quite well…. What if they were real only less beautiful and horse could it be caddy?” (http://www.cryptozoology.com/forum/topic_view_thread.php?tid=5&pid=372181 [accessed May 28, 2011]).

 

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