View Full Version : Does Nessie exist?



AFCM
06-01-2007, 11:01 AM
Nessie caught on tape? You decide - Science - MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18970301/)

EDINBURGH, Scotland - The Loch Ness monster is back — and there’s video.

A man has captured what Nessie watchers say is possible footage of the supposed mythical creature beneath Scotland’s most mysterious lake.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water,” said Gordon Holmes, a 55-year-old lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video Saturday.

Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine viewed the video and hoped to properly analyze it in the coming months.

“I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen,” said Shine, of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake.

Holmes said whatever it was moved at about 6 mph and kept a fairly straight course.

“My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpentlike features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years.”

Surrounded by myth
Loch Ness is surrounded by myth. It’s the largest inland body of water in Britain, and at about 750 feet to the bottom, it’s even deeper than the North Sea.

“There are a number of possible explanations to the sightings in the loch. It could be some biological creature, it could just be the waves of the loch or it could some psychological phenomenon inasmuch as we see what we want to see,” Shine said.

While many sightings can be attributed to a drop of the local whisky, legends of Scottish monsters date back to one of the founders of the Christian church in Scotland, St. Columba, who wrote of them in about A.D. 565.

More recently, there have been more than 4,000 purported Nessie sightings since she was first caught on camera by a surgeon on vacation in the 1930s.

Since then, the faithful have speculated about it is a completely unknown species, a sturgeon — even though they have not been native to Scotland’s waters for many years — or even a last surviving dinosaur.

Emblem of Scotland
Real or imagined, Nessie has long been a Scottish emblem. She has been the muse for cuddly toys and immortalized on T-shirts and posters showing her classic three-humped image.

On Thursday, a group of Scottish business owners launched a bid to nominate Loch Ness for World Heritage site status — though they cited its natural beauty, not Nessie. The Destination Loch Ness consortium must submit the nomination to the British government, which would decide whether to forward it to UNESCO.

The Scottish media is skeptical of Nessie stories, but Holmes’ footage is of such good quality that even the normally reticent BBC Scotland aired the video on its main news program Tuesday. The BBC quoted skeptics as saying the creature could have been a seal or an otter.

Oh GAWD the Smell!
06-01-2007, 11:06 AM
That could be anything from a fraudster's remote-controlled doohickey to slightly organized gust of wind (think dust devil).

Or...You know...A mythical creature that lives on entirely too little food and that armies of experts have found ZERO evidence of...Ever.

Misty
06-01-2007, 11:14 AM
Hey, I did an in-depth report on this very subject in the 4th grade. Based on my highly advanced research my conclusion then was YES.

Oh GAWD the Smell!
06-01-2007, 11:20 AM
Hey, I did an in-depth report on this very subject in the 4th grade. Based on my highly advanced research my conclusion then was YES.

I did the same thing the the 3rd grade about mummies. Even after I read the part about where their brains were pulled out through their noses with hooks, I STILL believed that they would rise from the dead and stumble around strangling people.

I also thought that chocolate milk came from brown cows.

Misty
06-01-2007, 11:32 AM
So what are you implying, mummies aren't real either? Next you'll be telling me there is no bigfoot. I feel the need to direct you to the Hogzilla posting.....LOL

Karried
06-01-2007, 11:44 AM
lol...scandalous rumors!

Of course she's real.. I personally saw the satellite pic beamed from the UFO.

allseeingeye
06-01-2007, 12:13 PM
Over the past two decades, species of ancient fish, long thought to be extinct, have been found in various waters across the world. At 750 feet deep, its not entirely impossible for a large ancient species of fish to survive, undetected by man. The most recent that comes to mind was the world record 1000 pound catfish caught somewhere in Asia. Those fish we thought to have been extinct a long time ago. Is it a dinosaur, not very likely but it definitely could be a fish that dates back to around the time dinosaurs lived. Think about it, crocodiles existed near the time of the dinosuar, why couldn't this large fish? I remember back in 1999, the discovery channel ared a documentary where a larget team of scientist and about 20 boats scanned the entire lake with hi tech sonar looking for signs of Nessie. On the last day, one of the sonars picked up a very large object swimming on the bottom of the lake that was estimated to be around 50 feet in length. They knew it was not rocks because whatever it was was moving. Granted, they left open the possibility that it could be a large school of fish but stated that it was unlikely because of the depth of water the object was located in.

Martin
06-01-2007, 12:56 PM
next you people will be saying that count chocula doesn't exist. sheesh.

-M

Misty
06-01-2007, 01:29 PM
Speaking of which....I bought a box of Boo Berry last night, I haven't seen it in years!

Oh GAWD the Smell!
06-01-2007, 01:32 PM
Boo Berry rules ALL.

Oh...Mummies are real all right.

So is my bicycle.

http://members.cox.net/imawingnut/fs/poorman.jpeg

Misty
06-01-2007, 03:25 PM
I'll be laughing later while I'm thinking "oh GAWD the smell of my delicious Boo Berry cereal. Booalicious.