Loch Ness Monster

Beneath the brooding mists of a vast Scottish loch, where dark waters guard ancient secrets, a legendary enigma slithers through the depths, captivating hearts for centuries. Tales of a serpentine beast, vast and elusive, draw fearless explorers to its fog-shrouded edges, where whispers of sightings fuel both awe and unease. From Saint Columba’s miraculous encounter to modern sonar scans, the loch’s mysteries beckon the brave to chase shadows in its icy embrace. Will you unravel the truth behind the creature, or vanish into the eerie lore of the highlands? Things are about to get strange.

Transcript

Beneath the misty veil of the Scottish Highlands, a vast shimmering lake holds ancient secrets. Whispers of a mysterious creature stir the hearts of adventurers and dreamers alike. With every ripple and shadow, the water beckons curious minds to explore its hidden truths.

Today, we dive into a thrilling journey through time, tracing tales of sights and quests. Will the mystery unfold or remain just beyond our grasp? Things are about to get strange. Hello all you ghouls and goblins, welcome to Conspiry Weird where we talk about conspiracy theories and all things weird. 

I am your humble leader Molly and with me today is my husband Joshua. Yo! And we have a fun snack time right now. Well, what do we got going on babe? We got a charcuterie board. 

We got crackers, got salam, some salami, pepperoni, kobe, jack, cheese, mild cheddar cheese, crackers. I got some mozzarella. Um, we got, we got sour candies.

There's no way to go. We got, we got Pocky. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. 

You got, you got goobers in the freezer. This is so good. And uh, we got what, what else do we got? I'm drinking a nice cold Dr. Pepper. 

The cool thing about being an adult and having free will. Charcuterie boards. Charcuterie for dinner. 

It's just like an adult Lunchable. Yeah, exactly right. We're not sponsored by Lunchables, but hey, hey, Lunchable hit us up.

So today we're going to talk about the Loch Ness Monster. So let's start this off with some sightings. Okay. 

Don't mind my rustling. I'm still eating You might hear us crunching throughout this whole episode and rappers apologize in advance. We don't apologize. 

We're hungry. Might hear some rattling of rappers. Okay. 

So sightings, we're going to start oldest to newest going through with the whole entire sequence of events. Okay. So St. Columbia 565 AD. 

So this is the oldest story in the book. It comes from the life of St. Columbia written by a dome. None, none, none, none.

Ottoman. Well, Adam, none in the seventh century about events a hundred years earlier. The tale goes that St. Columbia, an Irish monk, go Irish. 

Oh no. Okay. So you're fighting Irish monk. 

I don't know. Was chilling with his crew in the land of the picks. They were stumbling across some locals bearing a guy in by the river Ness. 

The locals say this poor man was swimming when a water beast attacked him, mauled him and dragged him underwater. Even though they tried to save them by boat. Colum Columbo. 

I'm so tired. Columbo not phased. Tell us his follower.

Louie. We want to say Louie, but when we need Luigi, we apologize to you Italians. To swim across the river, the beast comes to him, but Columbo makes the sign to cross and yells, go no further. 

Don't touch the man. Go back at once. Boom. 

The creature stops like it has been yanked back by ropes and takes off. Columbo's men and the picks were amazed, calling it a miracle. Now, Nessie believers don't always link this to her since it was in the river and not the lock, but they still use it to say, hey, something was out there in the sixth century.

Skeptics, though, say these water beast stories were super common and old stately tales, probably just a recycled myth tied to a local landmark. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of I mean, just thinking that they're old tales. Think of like old maps from like medieval times. 

Every time you go to the water, there's like dragons in the water, you know, just myths being passed down. D. McKenzie in 1871 or 1872. Jumping ahead to October 1871, 1872 ish, the records aren't quite clear. 

D. McKenzie from Bownane says he saw something strange in Loch Ness. He described it as looking like an upturned boat or a log wiggling and churning up the water. It moved slowly at first, then zoomed off. 

This didn't hit the papers until 1934. This is when McKenzie sent a letter to Rupert Gold right when the Nessie fever was taking off. My turn to eat get some rustling in Alexander McDonald in 1888, a mason named Alexander McDonald from a break. 

Oh, my gosh. He's named a break in operation. We're not professionals here.

OK, we are on the break and spotted what he called a large stubby legged animal coming up from the lock about 50 yards from where he was standing on the shore. He reported it to Alex Campbell, the Loch Ness water bailiff, saying it looked like a salamander. Spooky stuff.

Salamander. We have in 1933, we have Aldi McKay. Here's where things really get going.

On May 2nd, 1933, the Inverness Courier published an article that put Nessie on the map. Damn. Alex Campbell, who was a water bailiff and a part time journalist, wrote about a sighting from a from April 14th, 1933. 

Aldi McKay and her husband were driving along the A82 when they saw this enormous creature with a whale like body rolling in the water. The article titled Strange Spectacle in Loch Ness described it. The creature disported itself rolling and plunging for a full minute, its body resembling a whale with water cascading and churning like a simmering cauldron. 

Soon it disappeared in a boiling mass of foam. Both onlookers confessed there was something uncanny about it. Not your average fish, especially with its huge size and the big waves it sent out. 

They say the word monster was first used here, maybe by editor Evan Barron. In 2017, the Courier shared excerpts and Aldi said she yelled, stop the beast when she saw it. In a late 1980s interview, she admitted she knew about an oral tradition of a beast in the her sighting, so maybe that colored what she saw. 

The modern Nessie craze really kicked into gear on July 22nd in 1933. George Spicer and his wife were driving when they saw a most extraordinary form of animal cross the road right in front of their car. They said it was about four feet high, 25 feet long, with a long wavy neck, thicker than an elephant's trunk, stretching across the 10 to 12 foot road. 

They didn't see any legs and it lurched toward the lock about 20 yards away, leaving broken undergrowth behind. Spicer said it was the closest thing to a dragon or prehistoric animal I've ever seen, carrying something in its mouth with a body that moved like a scenic railway. The Inverness Courier published this on August 4th, 1933, and it sparked a wave of public interest and more sightings. 

Basically the height of me. I'm only five foot tall, basically the four. I'm five, but it was like 20 feet long, you know, you're not that long. 

So let's talk about Hugh Gray in 1933. First some salami. Okay, sorry, go ahead.

On November 12th, 1933, Hugh Gray took what's considered the first picture of Nessie near foyers. Some people say if you look closely, it looks like a dog's head, maybe because Gray was walking his dog and it could have been fetching a stick. Others think it's a swan or an otter. 

The original negative's gone, but in 1963, Maurice Burton got two lantern slides made from it. When projected, they show an otter rolling at the surface in its usual way. Otters are cute though. 

I just want to snuggle with one. Now the next person we're going to talk about is Arthur Grant in 1934. On January 5th, 1934, he said he nearly crashed his motorcycle into the creature near Moore.

Can you say that word for me? You know, you just shoved your face full of food. Around 1 a.m., he described a small head with a long neck, which saw him and darted across the towards the lock. Grant called it a mix of a pliosaur and a seal. 

He followed it to the water, but only saw ripples. His sketch, checked by zoologist Maurice Burton, matched an otter's look and behavior, maybe misjudged by bad lighting. Paleontologist Darren Nash thinks Grant saw a seal or an otter and exaggerated over time, which, you know, tends to happen.

My turn for salami. This is the big kahuna of Nessie lore. On April 21st, 1934, the Daily Mail published a photo supposedly showing the monster's head and neck, taken by gynecologist Robert Kenneth Wilson. 

I hate male gynecologists. They are weird. Sorry.

Who didn't want his name on it. So it was so it's called the surgeon's photograph. Wilson said, I don't know if I like the fact that the gynecologist is calling himself a surgeon now.

You're not a surgeon. The fact of just imagining what a surgeon does, but being near you. I mean, gynecologist can do surgical shit, I guess, because, you know, that's true. 

Cutting a baby out of a belly is kind of surgical. I'm just thinking of, like, sharp objects. Well, you know, it is sharp. 

Do you see these instruments that go up on a daily basis? I don't because I don't have one. You have one of my gynecological appointments, bro. Did I? Yes. 

Wow. You took a picture of me in the stirrups one time. Oh, you mean when you were about to you were getting ready to give birth? Yes. 

Oh, was that a gynecologist? Okay. Well, I only saw a drape and, you know, the hands going on my vajayjay. Yeah. 

I didn't see any instruments. There were. Okay. 

Well, I think I only got a shot of you, you know, because you were about to go in the hospital. Anyway. All right. 

So this was so it's called the surgeon's photograph. Wilson said he saw the monster grabbed his camera, took four shots. One, two, three, four. 

One, two, three, four. Only two of them came out. One with a small head and back the other with a diving head. 

But that one's blurry and got less attention for 60 years. People thought this was proof, though the skeptics said it could be an otter, elephant, bird or driftwood. The uncropped photo shows a small object with ripples, not waves, suggesting something two to three feet long. 

In 1993, Loch Ness discovered by Discovery Communications found a white object in every version, possibly toad, hinting at a hoax. In a 1975 Sunday Telegraph article and a 1999 book, Nessie, the surgeon's photograph exposed, revealed it was a fake. Christian Spurling, son-in-law of big game hunter Marmaduke Weatherall, made a toy submarine with a wood putty head. 

Weatherall, humiliated by the Daily Mail over fake footprints, planned this with his son, Ian Weatherall and Maurice Chambers. Wilson, a prank lover, delivered the photos. The second photos, often ignored, too blurry, maybe a diving bird or an earlier hoax try. 

Okay, we're going to talk about the G.E. Taylor film in 1938. May 29th, South African tourist G.E. Taylor filmed something in Loch Ness for three minutes on 16 millimeter color film. Maurice Burton got the film but only shared one frame in his 1961 book, The Elusive Monster. 

He said it was a floating object, not a creature. William Fraser, in 1938, he was a chief constable of Inverness Shire. He wrote, whoa. 

He wrote that he was sure the monster existed. He was worried about a hunting party with a custom harpoon gun trying to catch it dead or alive. His letter, released by the National Archives of Scotland on April 27th, 2010, said he wasn't sure if he could protect the creature legally, which is sad.

That's not real. Don't look at me with those believing eyes. It is real.

Okay, so there were some sonar readings in 1954. In December of 1954, the fishing boat Rival 3 got sonar readings of a large object at 479 feet, keeping pace for 2,600 feet before losing and regaining contact. Earlier sonar attempts were duds.

On July 29th, 1955, Peter McNabb photographed two black humps near Urquhart Castle, unpublished until Constance White's 1957 book in The Weekly Scotsman in 1958. Ronald Binns thought it was a wave from three trawlers. Roy Mackle got the original negative and found it differed from the published version, suggesting it was doctored. 

You know, I don't like all these doctored doctored. Two black humps. My humps, my hump, my hump, my hump. 

Okay. In 1960, aeronautical engineer Tim Dinsdale filmed a hump leaving a wake on his last search day. He described a reddish object with a blotch that started moving when he set up his camera. 

He shot 40 feet of film and the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Center called it probably animate. Skeptics said increasing contrast shows a man in a boat. In 1993, Loch Ness discovered, enhanced the film, finding a shadow in the negative. 

Maybe the creature's back half underwater? The enhancer said, I thought Nessie was rubbish. But after this, I'm not so sure. Ooh, changing people's minds up in here. 

So let's talk about the Loch Ness Muppet in 1977. But Josh will eat some cheese and some crackers. I'm going to have some salami. 

And some salami. Excuse me. It's called hard salami. 

As opposed to soft salami? We'll talk about that later. Let's not talk about that. Oh no. 

Oh no. Oh no. Okay. 

Okay. On May 21st, 1977. Get it together, Molly. 

Get it together. You shut your mouth when you're talking to me. You shut your mouth when you're chewing.

On May 21st, 1977. Magician and psychic Anthony Doc Shields. Perfect.

Exactly who I want. Telling me about if something. Do you remember? Magicians.

Where do you get your information from? A magician. Do you remember the random ass magician that showed up to our baby shower? He just showed up. We didn't even pay him.

He was watching over the center. He was a charter. And he was like, you want me to show you guys some magic tricks? You want me to do some magic tricks for the kids? Not really. 

Okay. We're going to do it anyways. Okay. 

So he was camping and he claimed he took some of the clearest Nessie photos ever. He called it an elephant squid, saying the long neck was a trunk with an eye at the base. Dubbed the Loch Ness Muppet for its stage look.

It was called a hoax due to barely any ripples. No shit. It's coming from a magician.

Magician that hardly caused any ripples. So let's talk about the Holmes video in 2007. I made Holmes video. 

Oh, 2007. Sherlock Holmes with an L. Holmes. May 26. 

Gordon Holmes filled a filmed a jet black thing about 46 feet long. I love how detailed some of these things are. Some of these descriptions are jet black thing. 

Jet black thing. This is a quotations jet black thing about 46 feet long. Moving fast in the water. 

I mean, that doesn't really tell you much, does it? Adrian Shine, a marine biologist at the Loch Ness 2000 center called it some of the best footage. Listen, that is one person I will trust about sea life is a marine biologist. That makes more sense than a magician. 

You know, I actually wanted to be a marine biologist, but I'm poor. Yeah, I don't like the smell of fish or dead things. I love fish. 

And I love eggs. One of us would have been a marine biologist and not the other. Quit day one. 

OK, so BBC Scotland and STV News aired it in late May 2007, but Shine later said it was likely a seal, water bird or otter. Yeah, there was more sonar image in 2011. Good reason.

On August 24th, boat captain Marcus Atkinson got a sonar image of a 4.9 foot object following his boat at 75 feet for two minutes. He ruled out a seal or a small fish. In April 2012, a National Oceanographic Center scientist said it was probably a bloom of zoo plankton and algae.

Oceanography. No. Oceanography. 

Shut your mouth. Let's go. Shut your mouth when you're talking to me. 

Shut your mouth when you're talking to me. On August 3rd, 2012, George Edwards. She's George Edwards, claimed a November 2nd, 2011.

Photo showed Nessie after 26 years of searching, spending 60 hours a week on the walk with tourists. He said it looked like a manatee, but quote unquote, not a mammal. Steve Feltham thought it was a fiberglass hump from a National Geographic documentary documentary Edwards was in. 

Dick Rayner noted inconsistencies like Edwards claim of a deeper lock bottom. Edwards deep and a faked 1986 photo. Edwards admitted in October 2013, the 2011 photo was a hoax, but insisted his 1986 one was real.

So let's talk about the David Elder video in 2013. Get your cheese. On August 27th, David Elder recorded a five minute video of a mysterious wave from a foot. 

Whoa. Try that again. On August 27th, David Elder recorded a five minute video of a mysterious wave from a 15 foot solid black object near Fort Augustus. 

I just spit out cheese. That's gross. He was for photographing a swan and said the water was still with no other activity.

Skeptics blamed a gust of wind. Apple Maps. Welcome to the modern era. 

Apple Maps 2014. On April 19th in 2014, Apple Maps satellite image showed a 98 foot shape under the water at the lock's north end. Some called it Nessie. 

Others said it was a boat wake seal ripples or floating wood. Wood. Some might call it the morning one.

Google Street View. Also now this in 2015, the year later, Google went big, adding Loch Ness to Street View so you could explore above and below water. They spent a week with a tracker camera on a boat and worked with the Caitlin Sea View survey for underwater shots. 

So let's get pretty cool. Yeah. So let's get into some of the searches and expeditions to look for this monster. 

You ready? Yep. So the Edward Mountain Expedition in 1934, after reading Rupert Gold's The Loch Ness Monster and others, Edward Mountain. Imagine having the last name Mountain. 

Thanks. Pretty highly. He funded a search starting in July 13th, 1934. 

He had 20 guys with binoculars and cameras around the lock from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. for five weeks. They took 21 photos, but none were conclusive. He was there that long. 

It was 1934. OK, so it wasn't like we had digital cameras, but still still. Yeah. 

Supervisor James Frazier filmed until September 15th, 1934. The film was lost, but zoologists said it showed a seal. Showed a seal. 

Cheese. Cheese. It didn't show the cheese. 

It showed a seal. Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau. That's the bureau I want to be a part of. 

LNPIB. In 1962, Norman Collins, R.S.R. fitter, politician David James, Peter Scott and Constance White formed the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau, LNPIB. Later, the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau LNPIB. 

I just dropped the phenomena part. So later, the LNPIB to figure out what the creature was or why people kept seeing it. In 1967, they got a $20,000 grant from the World Book Encyclopedia for two years of daylight watches from May to October. 

Somebody send us a $20,000 grant. And we'll go look for Nessie. They used 35 millimeter movie cameras with big lenses, including a 36 inch one at. 

Here comes another Scottish name at Aknahonit. Volunteers paying a yearly fee watch from vantage points, including a caravan camp from Aknahonit. Perfect. 

From 1965 to 1972, by 1969, they had 1030 members, 588 from the UK, and the group shut down in 1972. So let's talk about the sonar study. And it was from 1967 to 1968. 

D. Gordon Tucker was the chair of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. Josh is dropping his cheese over here. I can't ignore you. 

I just see you laughing and turning in your chair. We're very serious over here, if you cannot tell. He volunteered his services as a sonar developer and expert at Loch Ness in 1968.

His gesture, part of a larger effort led by the LNPIB from 1967 to 1968, involved collaboration between both professionals and volunteers in a number of different fields. Tucker had chosen Loch Ness as a test site for a prototype sonar transducer with a maximum range of 2600 feet. The device was fixed underwater at Temple Pier and Urquhart Bay and was directed at the opposite shore.

Acoustic. I almost said autistic. Oh god.

We're dealing with autism in 1968. No, they just put them in mental asylums. That's a whole other topic for another day. 

Across the lock through which no moving optics could pass undetected. Multiple targets were identified during the two-week trial in August. One was most likely a shoal of fish. 

Others moved in a way that was not typical of shoals and sped up to 10 knots. In! In! Let me lean in for this one. Okay. 

In 1972, a group of researchers from the Academy of Applied Science conducted a search for the monster. It was led by Robert H. Rines and it involved sonar examination of the lock depths for unusual activity. Rines took precautions to avoid murky water with floating wood and peat. 

A submersible camera with a floodlight was deployed to record images below the surface. Rines turned on the light and it took pictures. Stop! Stop! He's playing footsie with me. 

Rines turned on the light and it took pictures. If anything was detected on the sonar. On August 8th, Rines Raytheon DE-725C sonar unit operating at a frequency of 200 kilohertz and anchored at a depth of 36 feet identified a moving target or targets. 

It was estimated by echo strength at 20 to 30 feet. It was sent to specialists from Raytheon, Simrad, Hydroacoustics, Marty Klein of MIT and Klein Associates, and Ira Dyer of MIT's Department of Ocean Engineering. Itzke of Raytheon suggested that the data indicated a 10-foot protuberance. 

Protuberance? Protuberance. Projecting from one of the echoes. According to Roy Mackle, the shape was a highly flexible laterally flattened tail or the misinterpreted return from two males swimming together. 

Along with the sonar readings, the floodlight camera obtained a pair of underwater pictures. Both depicted what appeared to be a rhomboid flipper. Skeptics have dismissed the images as depicting the bottom of the lock, a fish fin, a rock, or air bubbles. 

The apparent flipper was pictured in different positions which indicated that it was moving. The first flipper picture is better known than the second. Both were enhanced and retouched from the original negatives. 

According to one of the team members, Charles Wyckoff, the pictures were retouched to superimpose the flipper. The original enhancement showed a considerably less distinct object. No one is sure how the originals were altered.

Rinds admitted during a meeting at the Loch Ness Center and exhibition that the flipper picture may have been retouched by a magazine editor. In 1975, British naturalist Peter Scott announced that the creature's scientific name would be Nessiteris rhomboterics, which is Greek for Ness Inhabitant with Diamond-Shaped Fin. This is based on the photographs provided. 

Scott intended that the name would enable the creature to be added to the British Register of Protected Wildlife. Another sonar contact was made. This time was with two objects estimated to be about 30 feet. 

The strobe camera photographed two large objects. They were surrounded by a flurry of bubbles. Some interpreted the objects as two plesiosaur-like animals. 

This suggested that several large animals were living in Loch Ness. This picture was barely published. In 1975, a second search was conducted by Rinds. 

Some of the pictures did seem to show unknown animals in various lightings and positions. This is despite their obvious lack of concurrent sonar readings and murky quality. One picture appeared to show the head, neck, and upper body of a plesiosaur-like animal. 

Skeptics argue that the object is a lot due to the lump on its chest area, the object's log-like skin texture, and the mass of sediment in the full picture. Another picture seemed to depict a horned gargoyle head. This was consistent with some of the other sightings of the Loch Ness monster. 

Skeptics point out that the tree stump was later filmed during Operation Deep Scan in 1987. Deep Scan or Deep Throat? What? You never heard of Deep Throat? Anyways, it's a whole theory. Anyways, moving on.

That's not... I've heard that term. This bore a striking resemblance to the gargoyle head. The Rinds Academy of Applied Science videotaped a V-shaped wake in 2001. 

The water was still on a calm day. The academy also recorded an object on the floor of the loch. It resembled a carcass. 

They found marine clam shells and a fungus-like organism usually not found in freshwater lochs. This suggests a connection to the sea and a possible entry spot for the monster. Rinds theorized in 2008 that the creature may have become extinct. 

This is citing a decline in eyewitness accounts and a lack of significant sonar readings. He went on one final expedition. He used an underwater camera and used sonar attempting to find the body of the Loch Ness monster. 

Rinds believe that the animals may have failed to adapt to temperature changes that came from global warming. I hate global warming. Let me open my soda real quick. 

Hold on. It's gonna pop. It's Ramune. 

Sponsor us, Ramune. Heyo! Don't explode. Sometimes it explodes. 

That's not gonna explode. Sponsor us, Ramune. You're my favorite. 

So... He chose the noisiest drink for our podcast. We're literally making jokes about hard salami this episode. I think it's okay. 

Oh. Time for you to read about Operation Deepthroat. I mean DeepScan. 

Operation DeepScan in 1987. Okay, they can't understand what you're saying. So, Operation DeepScan in 1987. 

24 boats that were equipped with echo sounding equipment were deployed in the loch. At the same time, acoustic waves were sent out. The scientists had made sonar contact with an unidentified object of unusual strength and size, according to BBC News. 

The researchers returned and re-scanned the area. Analysis of the echo sounder images seemed to indicate debris at the bottom of the Ness. There were motion in three of the pictures. 

Adrian Schein speculated that there might be seals that had entered the loch. This was based on the size. Lawrence Electronics founders and sonar expert, Daryl Lawrence, Daryl, donated quite a few of the echo sounder equipment units used in the operation.

After examining a sonar return indicating a large moving object at a depth of 590 feet near Urquhart Bay, Lawrence said, there is something here that we don't understand and there's something here that's larger than a fish. Maybe some species that hasn't been detected before. I don't know. 

He doesn't know. He doesn't know. He doesn't know. 

In 2003, the BBC used 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking, sensitive enough to spot a small buoy. They found no big animals. Nope. 

And the scientists admitted Nessie is likely a myth. It aired on BBC One. You know they're haters. 

I'm just saying. They just are. They are haters. 

They couldn't find anything. They are haters. They're just sore losers. 

Let's talk about the DNA survey in 2018. Let's. Let's. 

In June 2018, a team from the Universities of Copenhagen, Otago, Hull, and the Highlands and Islands did a DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid sweep. DNA sweep of the lot.

Okay. Over here, Mr. I have a brain. I've been waiting. 

I've been waiting to say this my whole 37 years of life. I've been waiting to say this my whole 37 years of life. I think like in third grade when I learned how to finally read that word. 

Say it one more time. Deoxyribonucleic acid. How smart do you feel right now? Just a little. 

Just a smidgen? Yeah, because there's other words I don't know how to say. But I learned that one and I've remembered it since. Okay. 

Thank you, school system. Was that your New York school system? Yes, that was my New York school system. Because nobody in Florida is that smart. 

I was like third grade, third or fourth grade or something. Coming from someone who went to school all the way to Florida. Like, what the fuck is he talking about right now? Okay. 

Speaking another language. That was published in 2019. The language of the nerds.

Okay. They found no. Say it one more time. 

Deoxyribonucleic acid. From big fish, seals, otters or reptiles, but tons of eel DNA. Oh, you don't want to say this. 

Okay. Deoxyribonucleic acid. I can say it as many times as you want.

Neil Gemmel from Otago said it could mean giant eels, though maybe just lots of regular ones. Okay. Tons of eel DNA. 

He added, I'm pretty sure there's no giant reptile in Loch Ness. Okay. Hater. 

Hater. Let me just take a sip of my noisy soda. Ronald Binns, a former LNPIB member, wrote two skeptical books. 

The Loch Ness Mystery Solved in 1983 and The Loch Ness Mystery Reloaded in 2017. He says there's no one explanation, but human psychology, seeing what you expect, plays a big part. Here's what might be going on. 

We've covered some of these items already, but to lay them out, go ahead. Misidentification of known animals. Eels. 

Yeah, we've said it. Some think Nessie is a giant eel. Eels are in the Loch in the 2018, 2019. 

DNA study. Oh, I thought you were going to say it. I'm trying to get through this.

Found lots of eel DNA, suggesting a big one could cause sighting, so eels move side to side, unlike Nessie reports. A big one. Yeah. 

An elephant. In 1979, Dennis Power and Donald Johnson said the surgeon's photograph was an elephant's trunk. In 2006, Neil Clark suggested circus elephants bathed in the Loch, their trunks looking like heads and necks. 

But that other person that said they saw something go across in front of them. I think they'd know if it was an elephant. Everybody knows what an elephant looks like. 

Yeah. And elephants are. An elephant is an elephant. 

Four foot tall. Even baby elephants are probably. My size. 

At least five. Baby elephants are my size. They're big. 

And you would know a baby elephant if you saw one. And the elephant theory. Yeah.

Greenland shark. In 2013, Jeremy Wade on River Monsters proposed a Greenland shark up to 20 feet that might survive in freshwater feeding on the locks. Salmon. 

Salmon. Wells catfish. In 2015, Steve Feldman, after a record breaking vigil, suggested a big Wells catfish may be released in the 19th century.

Why would it still be alive from the 19th century? Anyways, other animals such as otters, deer or birds can look like Nessie when judging size through binoculars with no reference. Ben says otters or deer swimming might be mistaking for a creature. I don't know why that was funny to me. 

Your car has no reference. OK, so we also so we talked about animals, mammals, you know. What about misidentification of inanimate objects? Because people don't know how to use your brain or effects.

Boat wakes boots. People report wakes in calm water with no boats nearby. Bartender David Monroe saw a zigzagging wake with 26 witnesses, but some sightings match boat wakes. 

Others don't. Optical effects. In 1979, WH Len showed wind and atmospheric refraction can distort objects.

He published a rock mirage on Lake Winnipeg that looked like a neck and head. Oh, trees, trees. In 1933, the Daily Mirror said a tree trunk at foyers might be the monster.

In 1982, Maurice Burton suggested Scott's pine logs propelled by gas from decay could mimic Nessie heater seismic gas geologist Luigi. This one actually says Luigi, not the wingy or whatever that other one was. Geologist Luigi Picardy. 

Luigi Mangione ties. That's not his name. I know. 

Anyway, Picardy ties sightings to the Great Glen Fault. The roaring in St. Columbus story could be an earthquake and water disturbances might be gas releases. OK, then there's wakes and psyches, psyches. 

I really should figure out how to say some of these words. Loch Ness's shape causes psyches, psyches, psyches? Babe, just read. Oscillations at oscillations every thirty one and a half minutes that create odd ripples. 

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake caused a wild psyche, but no Nessie sightings were reported. So really quick, fun little snippet of folklore before we move on to the hoaxes. In 1980, Bengt Sjogren, Sjogren, Sjogren, we're not professionals here, linked like monster tales to Kelpie legends, horse like creatures to scare kids from water.

An 1879 newspaper mentioned at Kelpie inspiring Tim Tinsdale's Project Water Horse. Loch Ness was a top spot for pre 1933 water horse stories. Fun little folklore in there for you.

OK, Josh, you want to get in some of the you want to get into the hoaxes? Sure. Go for it, babe. There have been quite a few hoax attempts actually made some more successful. 

Some weren't. Let's go over them. In August 1933, Francesco Gasparini, an Italian journalist, submitted what he said was the first news article on the monster.

In 1959, he reported sightings or citing a strange fish. He fabricated eyewitness accounts. I had the inspiration to get hold of the item about the strange fish. 

The idea of the monster had never dawned on me. But then I noted that the strange fish would not yield a long article, and I decided to promote the imaginary being to the rank of monster without further ado. In the 1930s, big game hunter Marmaduke Weatherall went to the loch to look for Nessie.

And we talked about this earlier. Marmaduke claimed to have found footprints when cats, cats, when casts of the footprints were sent to scientists for analysis, they turned out to be from a hippopotamus. Hippos? Not even close to a flipper. 

A prankster had used an umbrella stand shaped like a hippopotamus foot. A team of zoologists from Yorkshire's Flamingo Park Zoo went searching for the Loch Ness monster in 1972. They discovered a large body floating in the water of the loch. 

The body was about 16 to 18 feet long and weighed up to one and a half tons. It was described by the Press Association as having a bear's head and a brown scaly body with claw like fins. The creature was placed into a van and carried away for testing. 

Police seized the body under an act of Parliament prohibiting the removal of unidentified creatures from the loch. Haters! Haters! It was later found, no that was good, the police actually stopped them from removing stuff from the lake. Anyway, it was later found out that Flamingo Park education officer John Shields shaved the whiskers and disfigured a bull elephant seal that had died the week before and dumped it into the loch. 

So fucked up. This was to dupe his colleagues. I would hate him after that. 

Can you imagine having such a grudge on your colleagues that you did something like this? I mean some of my colleagues. Well I dumped the seal onto my colleagues. That's too bad for the seal. 

Like what did the seal do? It was dead so you know. Respect bro. True. 

Gerald McSorley discovered a fossil on July 2nd 2003. It was apparently from Loch Ness Monster. After examining the fossil, it was obvious that it had been planted. 

A Fire TV documentary team used cinematic special effects experts to try to convince people that there was something in the loch. In 2004, they constructed an animatronic model of a plesiosaur. They called it Lucy. 

Even though there were setbacks like Lucy falling to the bottom of the loch, around 600 sightings were reported where she was placed in the loch. Two students claimed that they found a large tooth embedded in the body of a deer on the shore in 2005. They publicized the find and set up a website. 

Expert analysis soon revealed that the supposed tooth was the antler of a muntin jack. The tooth was a publicity stunt to promote a horror novel by Steve Alton, the loch. I guess I'm buying that book. 

Fun facts. Fun facts. Fun facts. 

A 2013 Scientific American article listed tons of hoaxes since the 1930s. George Edwards 2011 photo published in 2012 was called definitely a hoax by the journal. Google celebrated the 81st anniversary of the surgeon's photograph with a 2015 doodle. 

I wish I would have remembered that. Right. And a long slender creature washed up near Laguna Neiguel, California, tangled in seaweed. 

Reddit users compared it to a plesiosaur or Nessie. Okay, so question for you. Do you believe in the Loch Ness Monster? I. Every answer other than yes is lame. 

False. You're lying. Here's what I believe. 

You believe in Nessie dinosaurs and possibly some dinosaurs that may have lasted for a lot longer than they should have. Because, you know, we are modern day. What is what is the percent? We've like explored like 10 percent of the ocean or something like that. 

A tiny percentage of the ocean. So very well, there could be something that and like they said earlier, we said earlier, there could have been something that came from the ocean, went into Loch Ness from salt water or seawater to freshwater. It's possible. 

But no, but I think some and I you know, maybe there was somebody that spotted Nessie, but I don't think I you know me, I'm a skeptic. I don't believe in it. And I'm on the totally opposite end of I believe in Nessie and she believes in me.

But, you know, every everything is is there's there's nothing new in this world. Everything is created because of being sparked from some other idea. Right. 

So when somebody wanted to start the hoax of Nessie, it probably started because of passed down stories or folklore or something about it. And somebody's like, you know what? I can I could do that. I could make something and pass that off as as a monster. 

So if if it's not a monster, what do you think people are saying? Fat seal. Yeah, I saw on a line just recently, I saw a photo of a seal and the damn thing was massive. It was long. 

And I mean, for somebody that saw it in passing or really quickly and very well, they might have thought that's not a seal. And it was. I mean, this seal was enormous. 

Like it was probably 15 feet long in the photo I saw. I had never seen anything like that, but it was a photograph. And I'm like, well, pretty sure it's not a. So sometimes it's really easy to spot AI and sometimes it's not hard. 

It's getting harder and harder. It's getting harder and harder. And it's so super frustrating. 

Like we went to Barnes and Noble, what, like a month or two ago. And I love graphic novels and I picked up a graphic novel. I'm like, oh, this looks so great. 

And I showed it to you. And you're like, oh, this is entirely made by AI. I'm like, fuck this. 

I'm not buying it. I only support actual artists and not AI. I'm sorry. 

There's plenty of them out there. I don't see why we'd need to. OK. 

Yeah. Last question for you. Is this just one giant hoax? I think in modern times, yes. 

But I am on the belief of the later, the earlier and possible stories being passed down because there was a monster, a dinosaur that was at some point still living. I believe. But I don't think there's a modern Nessie. 

I believe that at one point there was Nessie and Nessie may have passed and everything after that was just bullshit. Precisely, my dear Watson. I love Nessie and Nessie loves me and you can't tell me otherwise.

Anyways, so that is our episode. We love you. We appreciate you. 

Go on our Patreon. Yeah. Well, he's releasing some stuff on there and we have a book club. 

We have a book club on there. I haven't started it yet because no one has joined. And I want to do a book club because I love books and join my book club. 

And even if you only do one month, you can. Yeah. And we have little mini shows. 

Josh is doing it. Talk about your little mini show that you're going to do that in there. And then I'll talk about my mini show. 

I'm going to be releasing episodes about yokai. And if you are at all interested in any of Japanese culture, the yokai, they're not just ghosts, but they can be spirits, ghosts and taunted objects, even of sorts. And yeah, we'll be breaking those down. 

And then my little mini show that I'm going to be doing, it's called Weird After Dark and it's just mini episodes that are not long enough for a full episode. Because yeah, we already have Mel's Hole Up on Weird After Dark. Go listen to that now. 

It's on Patreon. And we love you guys. So we wanted to apologize to you guys for taking so long to put out another episode. 

Sorry it took so long. I wasn't feeling that well. I do have chronic illnesses. 

Yay. So thank you for being patient with us. We love you guys. 

Stay weird y'all. We want to thank you for tuning in. You can find us on all your favorite social platforms by searching Conspirary Weird, posting photos and details from each episode. 

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And remember, question everything.