"Loch Ness Monster— what do you think it is?" Topic

Nessie is back in the news again, for some reason (seems just a re-discussion of the most recent photo release). So how about a poll?

Is Nessie real, and if so, what is it?
Options:
Nessie is a plesiosaur/elasmosaur or descendant.
Nessie is a giant sturgeon.
Nessie is a giant eel.
Nessie is a giant catfish.
Nessie is a stranded extraterrestrial.
Nessie is real, but I don't know what it is.

Nessie is not real. It's just otters.
Nessie is not real. It's just rotting pine trees.
Nessie is not real. It's all a tourist hoax.
Nessie is not real. It's divers perpetrating the hoax.
Nessie is not real. It's just Bigfoot out for a swim.

Nessie is real, but I don't know what it is.

All stuff and nonsense – now just a tourism / merchandising enterprise. But if that's what people like, then why not. After all as a grown man playing with toys, I'm in no position to criticise.

A bunch of otters in a plesiosaur suit!

Don't really believe it. However, there are just enough things like the RAF report on the film from years ago and the high peat content of the water that prevents effective use of sonar so that I would not be totally shocked if something ever turned up.

Grelber

Catfish don't live in Scotland (barring the occasional aquarium fish dumped into the wild).

Sturgeon don't live in Scotland, though maybe they used to visit a long time ago.

Extraterrestrials don't live in Scotland. I think they're all somewhere in New Mexico, aren't they? Or is it New York?

Bigfoot doesn't live in Scotland.

All the others are possible, I suppose…

It's Cthuhlu on holiday.

It's Champ from lake Champlain on holiday!

"Many miles away/ something crawls from the slime
at the bottom of a dark/ Scottish lake."

Until I see something definitive it's nothing

Other:

The Loch Ness Monster was real (mid-1800 sitinga and before), the last dying off few of a salamander species like the hellbender or giant salamander, related to the newts of modern Scotland. One could have even been around for the popularization siting in the 1930's.

Well, all I know for sure is, the monster is lookin' for $3.50 USD to put its kids thru college

link

It's a model floating in the lake…sadly doesn't' exist.

The surgeon's photograph
While on a shooting and fishing trip to the north of Scotland in 1934 with a friend, Maurice Chambers, Wilson took photographic plates to Ogston's chemists shop in Inverness to be developed and printed.[10] Two of the prints purported to show the Loch Ness Monster and one was sold to the Daily Mail for £100.00 GBP[1] This was published in the Daily Mail on 21 April 1934 and became known as 'the surgeon's photograph'.[11] Wilson did not publicise his involvement and tried to exclude his name from the inevitable publicity, yet was fined by the British Medical Association for allowing his name to be associated with the photograph in what was regarded as a breach of professional ethics.[1]

The photograph became the most famous on the subject and was subjected to scientific scrutiny over the ensuing years. Although there were doubts from the outset about its authenticity, no credible explanation about what it depicted was forthcoming until the 1990s.[12] After the death of Maurice Chambers in 1994, some of his personal papers revealed that the photograph had been an elaborate hoax by a group of conspirators.[1] The photo had been taken by Marmaduke Wetherell,[13] a big game hunter and film maker, and depicted a toy submarine to which had been added a 'head and neck' made of plastic wood.[14] It had been made by Christian Spurling (1904–1993), an artist and sculptor,[15] who corroborated the story in 1993 at the age of ninety.[16] Wilson had been selected by the group as the 'front man' because he enjoyed a practical joke and because his status as a physician might lend credibility to the story.[17]

link

Nessie is either (A) a tulpa – a physical manifestation of the collective unconscious, i.e., when enough humans are thinking "wouldn't it be cool if there were still one dinosaur left in the world?" all at the same time, she appears, or
(B) one of those "fatbergs" from the London sewers. They use one of those port-a-potty vacuum trucks to clean the accumulated grease and wet wipes from out of the sewers, truck it up to Scotland, then dump it in the Loch, or "transported off site for recycling," as mentioned in the link below. Bloody Brits!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa
link

In defense of "maybe…" are indeed the latest round of photos (digital camera, 71 pics in succession, circa 2018) which show "something" moving at the surface of Loch Ness, perpendicular to the wind, and leaving a definite wake. Is it a creature? Debris? (How, then, is it advancing and leaving a wake?) These photos don't appear to be staged or photoshopped. Yes, the image from 1934 is a fake. But that wasn't the first one, nor the first sighting.

Not saying I believe it all, but I'm willing to keep an open mind. The tale of St. Columba came from something, after all.

Kudos to Eumelus for remembering that wonderful Police song 'Many Miles Away'!

Nessie is a formidable T- shirt salesperson second only to Che Guevara with far less homicidal tendencies but likely equally deceased.

Nessie is not real. Sightings are a mishmash of misinterpreted mundane animals, boat wakes, deliberate hoaxes, and whatnot.

Nessie is a Victorian submersible, as proven by Sherlock Holmes in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes".

Case closed, Watson.

link

Bigfoot's swimming buddy.

I believe it is real but unsure what it is.

It's Scotland, so I'm going with "not proven."

That said, I've had second-hand accounts from sober people even in my lifetime. Sadly, as my squint buddies liked to say, "lots of things look good in one image." But mistakes and even frauds don't prove non-existence either. Note that "something WAS there" is not proof that "something IS there" and the reverse.

Colgar6, as I understand it, ET's normally live under Denver International Airport, with the odd TDY to Area 51. (The ones you see in New York are mostly derelicts on welfare. Very sad.)

One Nessie can't exist longer than one lifespan. It needs a reasonably sized group to exist for long, perhaps as many as 60. They also need food, and with lots of food their numbers would increase until the food supply runs short, when they would all die of starvation.

And that came from the visitor centre on Loch Ness itself, although it's common sense really.

Unless it's really Phoenix-like …

Actually one of the few things I never give any thought to.

But it brings in tourists and money. 😉

Of course there is a monster. And also a Santa Claus.
And dinosaurs in the Congo, and sasquatches in No. America.

Who wants to strip all the fun out of the world?

PS: And I do believe in Fairies, I do, I do!