Loch Ness Monster

[Setec Astronomy]

For any of you who have seen that (really blurry) video on CNN...let me throw this out there. When I was in Jr. High I became fascinated by "Nessie", read all kinds of books, even wrote some fictional short stories (for school) about hunting for the monster. My teenaged mind wanted to believe.

As an adult, I have grown more and more skeptical, as scientific studies and sonar trawlings have made it logically unlikely and unfeasible for such a creature to exist. The kicker was when I was watching a show a few years ago about Loch Ness, and they showed a distant video of exactly what the current videographer saw, a series of humps undulating through the water. "Holy crap!!!" I thought, "there it is!!"...and then they zoomed in the camera and it was an otter chasing some fish who were jumping in and out of the water trying to get away. Myth busted! After seeing that with my own eyes I will never be able to believe anyone who says they saw "serpent humps" on Loch Ness, and the whole phenomenon to me can be chalked up to optical illusions like that.

I had a similar epiphany driving to work one sunny morning. I'm in traffic, and a glint from the sky catches my eye...and what do I see...but a freaking flying saucer!! Holy crap! I can't believe this! And then my angle of view changed, the sun stopped reflecting off the airplane fuselage, and I could see the wings and tail. Mind you, I'm an airplane guy, and I was sure I was looking at a saucer. Myth busted! All those flying saucer rumors started in the late 40's/early 50's when airplanes started to fly higher and faster..and before they started painting them...so they were highly polished aluminum (like the plane I saw). Never again will I think for a minute that anyone who swears they saw a flying saucer saw anything other than an airplane optical illusion. (By the way, IIRC the numbers from Project Blue Book attributed something like 90% of the "UFO" sightings they studied to unacknowledged aircraft operations.)

[BigJimZ28]

I am preaty sure the person who took the origonal pictures/ video of the
Loch Ness Monster confesed on this death bed that is was a stick floating in the water!

[Setec Astronomy]

That was the 1934 picture, and yes, that was a carved wood fake.

[BlueZero]

Oh sure, crush my childhood dreams of finding Nessy!

[paul34]

Well, here's the thing. Any "video" (especially if its on the Crock News Network) can be interpreted however you want. Any piece of info disseminated through the mass media conglomerates of today can be spun however the network's benefactors (usually also politicians) want.

I'm not saying the Loch Ness monsters exists... or doesn't exist. Heck, it could have been an alien lifeform capable of leaving and going. There could be something at the bottom of Loch Ness no one knows/talks about.

Don't give up on such things so confidently just because you saw a random video on a mass media channel! By the same token... don't just fall hook, line, and sinker for anything you see either... like most Americans do.

It used to be American to ask questions... get the facts. Now, no one cares.

[kompressornsc]

I was watching a show on 'monsters' yesterday on A&E. Bigfoot, dragons, etc. My degree is in anthropology / archaeology and although I would in no way say that these things do exist, I also would not rule them out yet. Look at the number of things thought only to be myths that have been discovered in the last century-Giant Squid, Panda, Mountain Gorilla-just to name a few.

I did hear a good theory on Bigfoot and why it is in both Asia and the Northwest US-Approx. 100,000 years ago, Gigantopithecus was alive - basically a huge gorilla in Asia. And coexisting with humans. During this time, there was the land bridge from Siberia to what is now North America. This is how the Native Americans came to North America. Either one of two things happened: Either Gigantipithicus crossed the land bridge, or the myth of it crossed with the Native Americans ninety thousand years later.

[TortoiseAWD]

A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage.

Tort

[GTFreddy]

This is a very interesting topic for me, and much like SA I was facinated with this during my childhood along with UFO's.

The Loch Ness Monster is cryptid, or in other words a creature who's existance is questionable. If we look at the list Paul34 mentioned, it is full of beings which we can classify as "boring". Amongst other ones listed are;

The woolly cheeta (from a genetic disorder)
The beast of gevaudan (some sort of large cat)
Coelacanth (a boring fish)
and gambo (a beaked whale)

As we can see, the list looks credible and in fact proven. However, the "cool" monsters are the ones that have never been proven;

The Jersey devil
Ogopogo (similar to Loch Ness monster)
Chupacabra
LOL
and of course the Dragon.

I think that the Loch Ness falls right into the "cool" category because its chances of existance are NONE. If it did exist we would have seen one already given the technology available.

In other words, the myths that do exist and aren't really myths are just a deviation of what we know as common, but the true myths are just that.

[truzoom]

I have a lochness monster in my pants?

[the other pc]

Originally Posted by GTFreddy

...I think that the Loch Ness falls right into the "cool" category because its chances of existance are NONE. If it did exist we would have seen one already given the technology available....

But the fun thing about Nessy is that the technology to completely explore Loch Ness and characterize everything that goes on in it doesn’t exist. Conditions in the Loch are vastly different from the open oceans and other places that have been heavily researched.

The chances may be extremely slim but the possibility remains...


PC.

[Scottwax]

Just FYI, we can thank the shiny aluminum planes for the development of the Cyclo.

[Joshua312]

Originally Posted by truzoom

I have a lochness monster in my pants?

Myth Busted