Loch Ness Facts

Dozens of books (bibliography here), hundreds of chapters, thousands of articles

have been written about Nessie since the 1930s.

The name "Nessie" and the Surgeon's Photo (above left) are recognized everywhere.

Almost everyone has the impression that Nessie is, like Santa Claus, just a nice story for children as well as a great boost to the economy of the Highlands of Scotland. Around Loch Ness itself, that impression is reinforced by Nessie-sighting tours and boat rides and by the innumerable Nessie trinkets on sale: Nessie logos on all sorts of souvenirs, toy Nessies in every size and shape and texture, postcards with every imaginable joke about Nessies and every sort of image of her: serpentine, or dragon-like, or teddy-bear cuddly.

The Loch Ness 2000 Exhibition in Drumnadrochit conveys the view that

people who think they see NESSIE are influenced by expectation and wishful thinking

and are really seeing a seal, or an otter, or a wave, or a boat wake, or a bird, or a deer,

or, the Exhibition's favorite, a very large sturgeon.

BUT IN FACT, THERE IS STRONG EVIDENCE

THAT THERE REALLY ARE

LARGE, YET-TO-BE-IDENTIFIED ANIMALS

IN LOCH NESS

The Dinsdale film (above right is one frame from it)

The film can now be watched over the Internet at

http://www.themanwhofilmednessie.com/tims-nessie-film.html

That link is also on the website describing the biography of

Tim Dinsdale by his youngest son Angus:

The Man Who Filmed Nessie ---

Tim Dinsdale and the Enigma of Loch Ness

That evidence is discussed at length in my article,

"The Case for the Loch Ness Monster: The Scientific Evidence"

Journal of Scientific Exploration, 16(2): 225--246 (2002)

Among other points made in this article, evidence is presented

that the "flipper" photos have not been "retouched" to show something

not present in the original photos. Charles Wyckoff, the photographic expert

on the Rines team points out that the only manipulation was to superpose

several transparencies filtered through different colors. Alan Gillespie, who did

this "computer enhancing" at Jet Propulsion Lab, pointed out

that the flipper shape can be seen in the original unenhanced transparency,

which was published in WILDLIFE, March 1976, article by Nigel Sitwell, "The Loch Ness Monster evidence", pp. 101-109.

The "retouching" allegation was first made in an article in DISCOVER magazine, which refused then to print Wyckoff's letter of protest,

a copy of which is now available here.

WHY IS THIS STRONG EVIDENCE SO LITTLE KNOWN?

Because the media continue to treat Nessie only as an amusing story.

The objective and strong evidence summarized in the above article is not properly presented in the "documentary" films and television programs about the subject. There have been at least 18 such programs (in English alone) since the 1970s. Typically they give the false impression that eyewitness reports are the main grounds for believing Nessies to be real. Often the strongest evidence is not even mentioned, and when it is, it is often misrepresented. For a detailed analysis of the 17 documentaries shown between 1972 and 2001, see my article,

I had published earlier analyses of the coverage that Nessie has received

in newspapers, magazines, and books:

Public Perception of the Loch Ness Monster, Scottish Naturalist, 1988, 69--93

The Loch Ness Monster: Public Perception and the Evidence, Cryptozoology, 1 (1982) 40--45

My book,

The Enigma of Loch Ness: Making Sense of a Mystery

University of Illinois Press, 1986; Wipf & Stock reprint, 2012

discusses how searching for Nessie is different from doing (professional) science. The book begins by showing how exactly the same evidence can be used to argue for and against the existence of Nessies. It is available as an AUDIO BOOK, RC 25592 (1988). REVIEWS are listed HERE.

Minor corrections were made in a 2nd printing, 1987

Some updating was done for the paperback edition, 1988.

The British edition, Johnston & Bacon 1991, omits the extensive bibliography without correcting the index accordingly.)