Hoax Museum Blog: Nessie

Loch Ness Chip Monster — Artist Prudence Straite makes works of art out of fish-and-chip shop food. Below is her version of the Loch Ness Monster.

It's a chip monster, and it looks like the banks of the Loch are made from fried fish. [via Yahoo! News]

Is Nessie Dead? — People who keep track of Nessie sightings are disturbed because last year there were no good sightings of her. The sighting from last year that got the most attention was an admitted hoax, and the other sightings were just feeble.

So what's going on? Some people are suggesting Nessie may be dead. Or maybe she's gone into hibernation.

The year Nessie went off the radar
The Herald (Glasgow)

THE Loch Ness Monster failed to make a single "appearance" in 2013 - for the first time in almost 90 years.
Last year there were just three possible sightings, but two were nothing more than waves or the wake from a boat. The third was a duck, said Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club.
The lack of possible appearances prompted William Hill to hold over its Best Nessie Sighting of The Year competition, which carries a prize of £1000. There will be £2000 for the best sightings this year.
Mr Campbell has checked past records and confirmed 2013 was the first year since 1925 that there had not been a registered sighting.

Nessie Photo Fake — Last August, a Loch-Ness-Monster-sighting picture was published that some declared to be the best picture of Nessie ever taken. Now (in a shocking revelation!) the photo turns out to be a fake. The picture really only shows a fiberglass hump that had been created for a 2011 National Geographic documentary, The Truth Behind the Loch Ness Monster.


The photo was taken by George Edwards, who operates a Loch Ness tour boat, the Nessie Hunter. There's some relevant Museum of Hoaxes history here, because back in 2005 the Museum's first-ever Loch Ness expedition took a ride in the Nessie Hunter — with video to prove it! I remember we were all very impressed by how much Edwards sounded like Sean Connery. You can hear a bit of Edwards narrating the tour in the video below.

Edwards is entirely unrepentant about his photo hoax. He's quoted as saying: "Why should I feel guilty for having a bit of fun? Where would Loch Ness be without the world’s best known forgery, the Surgeon’s Photograph? These so-called experts come along with their theories about big waves and big fish, and their visitor centre, but I’m sick to death of them. People come here for a holiday and a bit of fun. I’m one of the people who has brought thousands of people to the Highlands over the years, and I can tell you they don’t come here for the science." [Daily Mail, Express]

The Wall Street Journal notes that Edwards' photo hoax reveals a deep divide within the community of Loch Ness over how to deal with Nessie. One faction, represented by the Loch Ness Exhibition and Center (operated by Adrian Shine), feels that visitors to Loch Ness should be given the scientific facts about the legendary monster (i.e. that there's no evidence for her existence). The other faction, represented by Edwards, feels that Nessie is basically fantasy and should be treated as such. In other words, that visitors to Loch Ness want the fantasy, and that's what should be given to them.

The Log Ness Monster — While walking his dog, Patrick Cramer snapped a photo of something monster-like floating down the River Clwyd in North Wales. He concedes that it's probably just "a strangely-shaped log." But adds, "it could be the famed Rhuddlan River Monster." The Daily Post has a video of the thing floating downstream.

Hello, Nessie! — Well, this is one of the lamer Nessie photos I've ever seen. Not even a head poking above the water! The video is even worse than the photo.

Yet Another Nessie Theory: She’s a Sleeper Shark — Alaska biologist Bruce Wright, writing in the Alaska Dispatch, offers a new theory to explain Nessie sightings — as well as sightings of 'monsters' in other lakes, such as Alaska's Lake Iliamna. He thinks people may actually have been seeing Pacific Sleeper Sharks. Despite the name, this type of shark is found circumglobally in northern waters and could have made its way into Loch Ness. Wright elaborates:

He's planning an expedition to Loch Ness in 2013 to see if he can catch a sleeper shark there on video. Given how many other people have tried and failed (or tried and hoaxed) to get photographic evidence of large marine animals there, he has a difficult task ahead of him.

Sonar Image Shows Nessie… or Algae — Marcus Atkinson, skipper of a Loch Ness tourist boat, noticed something strange on his sonar fish finder: a long, snake-like object at a depth of 75 ft. (In the image, the green line to the left of the number 25.) So he quickly snapped a picture of the sonar screen with his mobile phone. The picture recently won him bookmaker William Hill's Best Nessie Sighting of The Year Award.



Of course, the scientists have to throw cold water on the excitement of all the Nessie fans. Dr Simon Boxall, of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, says:

Links: express.co.uk, dailymail.co.uk.

Is Nessie a Phantimal? — An article by Nick Redfern on mania.com discusses the theory that the Loch Ness Monster (and Bigfoot) may be "phantimals". That is, "the spirits or ghosts of creatures that became extinct thousands of years ago." This theory is promoted by paranormal expert Joshua P. Warren, author of Pet Ghosts, who argues that "the world’s most famous lake-monster, Nessie, might actually represent some form of 'ghostly plesiosaur,' rather than a literal, living animal or colony of animals."

Nice theory. But what I found more interesting was the next part of the article, in which Redfern discusses the research of Jim Marrs, author of PSI Spies, who learned that during some of the U.S. government's experiments with remote viewing (the Stargate Project perhaps?) remote viewers were asked to focus on Nessie and detail what they saw:


And here I went all the way to Loch Ness to see Nessie. I could have just stayed in San Diego and remote viewed her.

What really lurks in Loch Ness — Apparently, it's golf balls. From cnn.com:


It would be kind of sad if Nessie died choking on a golf ball.

RIP Robert Rines — Nessie Hunter Robert Rines died of heart failure yesterday in his Boston home. From Boston.com:

Natural History Museum to provide positive identification of Nessie — According to the Daily Mail, recently released documents from the archives of the British Natural History Museum reveal that in 1987 the Museum struck a deal with the bookmaker William Hill. The Museum agreed that, should the body of the Loch Ness Monster ever be found, the Museum would provide "positive identification." Only if it receives a positive id, will the bookmaker pay out on bets about the creature's existence. (It offers odds of 500/1 on the Loch Ness Monster being found within a year.)

It seems like a pretty good deal for the Museum, since the bookmaker pays them £1,000 per year to maintain the contract.

Loch Ness on Google Earth — I missed this while on vacation. A security guard looking at Google Earth in his sparetime found what he believes might be evidence of the Loch Ness monster. Almost everyone else thinks it looks obviously like a boat, except for Loch Ness researcher Adrian Shine who is quoted as saying it looks "really intriguing" and deserves "further study."