Robert Rines: “Are They All Liars?”
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 11th, 2008
It reads like an obituary. And after a fashion, it is a pre-obit, a reflection on how it must feel as the end is in sight.
The Boston Globe looks at the final and waning days of the Loch Ness Monster hunter Robert Rines.
The article carried in today’s New England newspaper is detailed, joyous, and, I must admit, a little sad to read.
In 1999, along with my sons (one of whom has a very Scottish name and it’s his birthday today), I came upon Rines and one of his sons in a teahouse on the shores of the famed loch.
Along with meeting some other great souls there (such as Henry Bauer and Adrian Shine), talking to Rines was a high human point of my trip. He is a knowledgeable and gentle man. No one can be happy by the thought of the world of cryptozoology without Rines.
I’m glad I met him ~ specifically ~ there. The following article is a tribute that pulled a bit at my heart, I must say.
Robert Rines | Meeting the Minds
Loch Ness monster quest nears end
By Billy Baker
Globe Correspondent / February 11, 2008
In 1972, Robert Rines was at a tea party at a home overlooking Loch Ness in Scotland when his host, Scottish air force officer Basil Cary, saw something moving in the water below. Everyone rushed to the porch and, for a few fleeting minutes, watched what appeared to be a large hump with the texture of an elephant move back and forth across the water.When the hump submerged, Rines’s wife told him that he needed to find the animal again, no matter how long it took.
This summer, like nearly every summer since then, Rines is going back to look for the fabled Loch Ness monster. He’s 85 now. The rest of the tea party is gone. And he thinks “Nessie” is gone, too.
Rines believes there were at least two Nessies alive in the murky depths of Loch Ness in the ’70s, when he took a series of underwater photographs that are perhaps the best physical evidence yet to support the existence of a large unidentified animal. But Rines’s sonar hasn’t picked up any of the large moving objects since the mid-1980s, and eyewitness accounts have dropped off significantly.
So now, he’s chasing skeletons, or at least spots on a sonar map that he hopes will turn out to be a great beast’s remains.
As he unfurls a sonar map of the loch and lays it out on a conference table in the “Nessie Room” of his apartment in the Harbor Towers, Rines points to 100 suspicious spots. He checked out five last year, before he had a stroke. His recovery is going well and he’s ready to go back and look at the rest. But he says it’s his last chance.
He’s out of ideas. “And I’m running out of age, too,” he says.
Rines is probably the most accomplished person to try to prove to the scientific community that Nessie is – or was – real.
Several rooms in his apartment are stuffed with videotapes, binders, photos, and honors from his various careers as a patent attorney, physicist, inventor, MIT professor, Broadway composer, law-school founder, and World War II veteran.
Rines points out that his Nessie expeditions haven’t just been about searching “for a needle in a mountain of hay stacks”; the dark waters and extreme depths of Loch Ness have provided a great testing ground for many new technologies.
“When you get a bunch of people together who are searching for an elusive goal, the minds come together and you end up discovering a whole bunch of other things,” said Alex Slocum, a mechanical engineering professor at MIT who accompanied Rines on an expedition in the ’90s to build camera frames that would allow them to film on the bottom.
Rines’s expeditions have fostered “a whole plethora of new ideas in areas like how to deploy underwater video and how to look through the murky water,” Slocum said. “In that regard, it doesn’t matter if Nessie is there or not.”
The Loch Ness Monster has captivated the world since the 1930s, when eyewitness reports of a large, dinosaur-like animal began spreading from a remote area in Scotland. Believers and debunkers have been making pilgrimages to the Scottish Highlands ever since, and the legend has suffered more failures than successes, including a deathbed confession in 1992 revealing that the most famous photograph, of a creature with an elephant-like neck sticking out of the water, was a hoax.
Rines himself wasn’t sure there was anything to be found in the loch when an MIT colleague, Harold “Doc” Edgerton – who earned international acclaim for his advances in flash photography – asked Rines to bring his sonar expertise to the search in 1971.
Within 15 minutes of putting sonar equipment in the loch, they detected large moving targets. Rines was intrigued and returned again the next year, which is when, he says, “I had the misfortune of seeing one of these things with my own eyes.”
Rines had some success with underwater photography, including a 1975 picture of what appears to be the body, flipper, neck, and head of a large animal, but Nessie’s trail went cold in the 1980s and Rines believes the last of the creatures has since died.
Joe Nickell, coauthor of “Lake Monster Mysteries” and a Nessie doubter, said he’s certain that Rines believes that his 1975 image shows Nessie, “but it takes a good deal of imagination to see what he wants us to see. It’s like a Rorschach test. It could be anything.”
Though Rines has yet to find the irrefutable evidence that skeptics demand, there have been some bright spots to support his theory that Nessie existed. Six years ago, he discovered evidence that the sea once reached to the freshwater loch, which supports theories that Nessie is the descendent of a large ocean animal. And then, last year, his underwater cameras captured an unexpected life form – a common toad, 324 feet down, surviving well outside of its known habitat. Finding that remarkably misplaced toad, he says, suggests that perhaps Nessie could have lived far from its native habitat – and gave him a new lease on his quest.
“Admiral [Robert] Peary had to make 28 trips before he got to the North Pole,” Rines said, with a bit of fire in his eyes, as he looked down at a table covered with his Nessie history. “What am I to do, forget what I saw?”
Rines leaned back in his chair and surveyed the photos in front of him.
“There are a lot of eyewitness accounts. Are they all liars? All drunks? I don’t believe that about human nature,” he said. “What disturbs me as a lawyer is that we prove cases by eyewitness testimony. The human brain is not 100 percent accurate, but it’s not zero, either.”
FACT SHEET
Hometown: Born in Brookline; has lived in the Harbor Towers since they opened in 1971.
Education: Bachelor’s in physics from MIT in 1942; law degree from Georgetown University in 1947; doctorate in physics and microwave technology from Chiao Tung University in Taiwan in 1972.
Family: His wife, Joanne, is the former editor and publisher of Inventors Digest. Son Rob is a lawyer in New Hampshire; daughter, Suzie, runs a feral animal clinic in Duxbury; son Justice ran a record company in New York until recently.
Broadway bound: Rines has composed the music for several Broadway shows, including Sean O’Casey’s ‘‘Drums Under the Windows,’’ August Strindberg’s ‘‘Creditors,’’ and Eugene O’Neill’s ‘‘The Long Voyage Home’’; he shared an Emmy in 1987 for his composition for the television production of ‘‘Hizzoner The Mayor.’’
Other Distinctions: In 1963, he founded the Academy of Applied Sciences; in 1973, he founded Franklin Pierce Law Center; in 1994, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the US Army Signal Corps Wall of Fame.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
This Man is one of the All Time Greats. When I first saw his photos in the Academy of Applied Sciences, I felt sure it proved that Nessie was a Pleisosaur. One last trip and perhaps some fossil evidence will appear.
Happy Birthday to your son Loren!
I bet you are a cool dad 🙂
He really is one of the true greats of the cryptic world. It is a shame that people like himself, John Green and others who have spent most of their lives searching for the great unknown creatures just don’t seem to get the big rewards of discovery. BTW, every time I read something from Joe Nickell, I just get p—– off with him more and more. I hate snivelers!
Compared to most of us mediocre people, Rines has had the accomplishments of 2, perhaps 3 lifetimes. Finding the final unquestionable evidence of Nessiterias Rombopterix would certainly be the crowning jewel, but if it doesn’t happen it won’t matter because of all the extraordinary legacy he already has to show for his multiple careers.
Alghouth I certainly hope he’s wrong about Nessie being dead!
True Renaissance man.
I agree the article IS a tad sad.
Hope to God Nessie is still there.
The Old Guard is passing away. Who will pick up the mantle?
it’s only sad if there never was a Loch Ness ‘Monster’. Then this obviously
brilliant man (along with Tim Dinsdale and others) have spend a considerable
amount of time on nothing, which i’m sure has crossed his mind now and then. But what *did* he see on the surface in 1971? Something that looked like an elephants back, above the surface, like many of the famous photos we are all familiar with. Obviously it was a strong enough sighting to prompt all the time, effort, and money he has put into it. I really do hope there were two Nessie’s back in the 70’s, and he filmed one or both … but the ‘enhancement’ issue has me rather doubtful he did.
Sad? I’m a glass-half-full type, myself.
And this:
““There are a lot of eyewitness accounts. Are they all liars? All drunks? I don’t believe that about human nature,” he said. “What disturbs me as a lawyer is that we prove cases by eyewitness testimony. The human brain is not 100 percent accurate, but it’s not zero, either.”
No kidding. People see, generally, what they think they do. It’s what other people do with it that counts – and suddenly thinking huge chunks of your conspecific population have gone daffers doesn’t seem to cut it as explanation.
I really appreciated Robert Rines comment at the end of the article about eyewitness testimony:
“The human brain is not 100 percent accurate, but it’s not zero, either.”
Logic dictates that just because someone “saw” something, doesn’t mean it should be ignored.
Nessie isn’t dead.
This was just a typical report written by a newspaper journo who did half of his research. Interviewing Rines is good; not attempting to check out whether there have been sightings since the 1990s is actually derelict.
There are a number of webpages on-line that talk to sightings of Nessie. As a matter of fact, I just typed in “Nessie Sightings”…and lo, and behold:
A webpage that is fairly meticulous, it seems:
http://www.lochness.co.uk/fan_club/thisyr.html
1996: 17 sightings; 1997, 12; 1998, 12; 1999, 4 sightings; 2000, 12 sightings; 2001, 4; 2002, 3; 2003, 2; 2004, 3; 2005, 4 sightings; it appears that is as current as it is on this particular website.
So I am fairly certain, that the Boston Globe journo did only 50% of his homework.
There are probably other sites that have sightings for 2006 and 2007, etc.
This short sojourn on the Internet disproves the notion that Nessie “is dead.” Kind of similar to the ontological discussion during the 1960s in the US about whether “God is dead.” LOL
The article certainly is couched in an “end of an era” way, which is a bit of a sad realization, but I also find it uplifting that Rines’ great belief in Nessie drove him to to do things that most of us can only wish we did. He’s lived an accomplished life to say the least, and it’s great to read that he’s recovering well and intends to continue his research of the loch.
It would be rather depressing to find out that the bulk of work that brought you into the public eye turned out to be a wild goose chase, but I think Mr. Rines already experienced that when he learned that the alleged “flipper” photos had been airbrushed before being released to the public. I do recall reading that he was very disappointed after that was brought to light, and believed it called his ’70s research into serious question. I’ve also seen recent documentaries that showed the cameras used in those expeditions weren’t stationary as was originally said to be the case, and that they found a stump that matched the so-called “gargoyle head” photo. I never felt the “gargoyle head” or “neck & body” photos were viable evidence, but the flipper photos seemed genuine until it was revealed that they were touched-up after the fact. That kinda dashed my hopes quite a bit.
However, disproving a handful of photos only proves that those pictures in question can’t be taken as proof of anything large and unusual in the loch. There is still plenty of evidence that points to a strange resident that was in Loch Ness at some point, whether it’s long-dead or still lurking somewhere in the dark waters. I think the hysteria that began in the 1930’s, much of it thanks to Marmaduke Weatherall despite the fact that he was proven a fraud in this case, influenced many minds & eyes to believe they were seeing a creature from 65 million years ago. That has clouded judgement and led many of us to think extinct creatures may still exist in dark corners of the earth, and while it may be possible as with the coelacanth and several other creatures, leads us to make great leaps when we don’t know what we’re actually seeing.
Dr. Strings-
Before you negate Rines’ evidence, consider:
1) There are three versions of the “flipper” photo. Only one, the version that appeared on the cover of “Nature”, is alleged to have been airbrushed. This may well have been the work of someone at the magazine and not Rines. The original version of the photo is vague, but still interesting. The second version is the enhancement done at NASA’s JPL. This version has never been alleged to have been inappropriately manipulated and is pretty darn compelling. The “head and neck” photo was also enhanced by JPL and, to my knowledge, has also never been accused of being airbrushed. There is also another photo of what looks to be the hindquarters of an animal(s) swimming away from the camera. For whatever reason, it tends to get overlooked.
Four photos taken in Loch Ness that just happen to look like parts of the Loch Ness Monster? The odds must favor a real monster over such an unlikely convergence of circumstances.
2) Rines knew the cameras weren’t stationary when the photos were taken. One of them shows the bottom of a boat at the surface. His claim is that something large bumped and upset the camera rig which was designed to hang vertically in the normally calm water. Debunkers have suggested that the rig hit the bottom and the photos taken are in fact of features on the bottom. If the rig was pounding away at the bottom for some prosaic reason, why only four photos of bottom features out of hundreds taken?
3) The fact that one author, Steuart Campbell, claims the “gargoyle head” is a tree stump doesn’t necessarily make it so. I’ve seen a photo of his stump and it isn’t terribly convincing.
Sometimes “explanations” for strange things can gain the same kind of acceptance as urban legends. They’re simply accepted as fact and take on a life of their own without the benefit of any sort of analysis or verification. Every theory, whether it comes from a proponent or a debunker, should expect to be scrutinized once it is presented to the public.
Robert Rines is one of the all time greats indeed, now for whats going on over at lochness ive read much literature on this lake iam just not sure that lake is so murky and scary looking but im goin to mention a couple of interesting things here, one ive read saw im some lochness websites that many divers who have bravely have studied at lochness have told many tales of seeing strange looking animals at the bttom of the loch much as describing them as looking like giant salamanders there were so many divers that came too the surface shaking and very frightened by what they saw. Thats why you dont see divers diving into the loch. I thought i would just mention that. The long neck description leans toward a aquantic dinosaur. To me i just dont know what the heck is in that lake.
By all accounts, Mr. Rines is a good fellow. However, this does not mean he has garnered evidence of a cryptid in Loch Ness. His underwater photos are all suspect, for one reason or another. I’ve seen the photos of the tree stump referred to by KurtB above, and have come to an appraisal directly counter to his. The notion of eyewitness testimony being on the balance accurate is wishful thinking. The comment that eyewitnesses are really seeing a cryptid in Ness or else we must charge them with lying or being drunk is a disingenuous dodge that doesn’t admit other very plausible explanations.
Mr Rines was not advocating the drunk or lying statement. That is the common response of a lot of individuals to Nessie sightings. He merely showed the frustration of being told it’s ALWAYS something other than an unidentified creature.
Are there other explanations for certain sightings? Of course, and that has been shown by many over the years. Especially by those searching for Nessie.
And the “eyewitness testimony is wishful thinking” comment has been bandied about for a long time. But all scientific evidence has to be “seen” to be considered. The idea that eyewitness testimony is unacceptable on its face is the scientific community’s way of ignoring evidence that doesn’t fit pre-conceived notions.
“And the “eyewitness testimony is wishful thinking” comment has been bandied about for a long time. But all scientific evidence has to be “seen” to be considered. The idea that eyewitness testimony is unacceptable on its face is the scientific community’s way of ignoring evidence that doesn’t fit pre-conceived notions.”
Couldn’t agree more, gavinfundyk. It is, in fact, wishful thinking, this automatic-debunk mode scientists tend to get in when things they don’t acknowledge are under discussion.
Anyone who knows anything about psychology and human perception knows, with absolute certainty, two things. (I’m using my favorite example.)
1. It is virtually impossible for a sane, functioning person in North America to see a bear, or any other known North American animal, and think it’s an ape. Much less be CONVINCED that it’s an ape, to the extent that the person REPORTS IT as an ape to people that the person knows will reply: you are a nut!
2. It is not only possible, but indeed extremely likely, that many people in North America have seen an uncatalogued species of ape, and convinced themselves it’s just a bear. (pleasepleasepleasepleaseMAKEitbeabear….)
PEOPLE SEE, FOR THE MOST PART, EXACTLY WHAT THEY THINK THEY DO. The concept of “seeing things” has been expanded, by ignorant laymen and by scientists practicing wishful thinking, far beyond anything that the study of human psychology and visual faculties supports. PEOPLE DO NOT SEE THINGS! Not unless they are (a) mentally ill; (b) physically and psychologically impaired; or (c) momentarily deceived (which they virtually always, almost automatically, correct upon further review).
And yes, I forgot (d) liars and (e) pranksters.
To say that every cryptid sighting is one of the above, and now we’re done with that discussion, is, well, it’s absolutely a flight of fancy. “Wishful thinking,” as it were.
Scientists, well, they need to stop doing that. It’s RESPECT we’re talking about here. Our respect for them, I mean. They gotta stop the harebrain stuff and stick to the science, you know?
Erratum, hee hee.
I wrote: “Anyone who knows anything about psychology and human perception knows, with absolute certainty, …..[that i]t is not only possible, but indeed extremely likely, that many people in North America have seen an uncatalogued species of ape, and convinced themselves it’s just a bear…”
Well, of course not. Let’s not get carried away. All kinds of experts can get poopooh off-the-cuff dismissive; I’m sure that most psychologists would scoff at most cryptids.
What I MEANT to say is that “anyone who knows anything about psychology and human perception knows” that when you see something, you don’t make a leap – wishful or otherwise – into the unknown. You attempt to categorize it in terms of what you know. You are NOT going to see a bear and go, APE! Not if you are functioning according to the norms of our species, you aren’t. If you see an ape in a place you are not supposed to see one, you are going to make damn sure it’s an ape before you go yapping to someone about it. And if it’s an inconclusive glimpse? Your conclusion will be, bear.
Unless, of course, you want to deliberately mislead. And given what happens, generally, to folks who go tell their friends they saw Something Everyone Knows Doesn’t Exist, I think it’s unlikely, in the extreme, that anyone will do that, in person, to folks they know.
On websites looking for reports, where one can report anonymously? Sure, there are probably tons. (BFRO says they dump over 80% of what they get.) But that still leaves way too many for a conventional explanation – or any combination, permutation, or concatenation of reasonable conventional explanations – to cover. Take the word of someone who reads them. Or look yourself.
THAT’S what I meant.
See what happens to us reasonable people when blockheaded obstructionist thinking gets to us?
Eyewitness testimony seems to be a touchy issue for those of us interested in cryptozoology. This is so, I think, because eyewitness testimony is sometimes the only evidence for the existence of the more romantic, enchanted cryptids of pop cryptozoology, or the only evidence for certain cryptids in certain areas (for instance, the idea of bigfoot in Texas depends on eyewitness accounts much more than it does on evidence like footprints). If you deny the eyewitness accounts, then you deny the believer his or her cryptid (and then bald insults may result).
Nessie sightings, as opposed to bigfoot sightings, are suspect because there are multiple effects on water that mimic “monster” sightings. All one needs to add to the mix is a belief in lake monsters (or an active imagination) to transform an ambiguous event into a “monster” sighting report. To suggest that “lake monster” sightings should harbor our concern, and even doubt, is not an outrageous position to take.
Bigfoot sightings are of a different type. I am doubtful that people are having clear views of bears and mistaking them for ape men. Certainly, the Roe account can not be one of mistaken identity (either Roe saw what he said he saw, or else a hoax was perpetrated).
Yet, doubt can and should persist in dealing even with the heavily “documented” bigfoot sightings. How many of the sightings have seriously been investigated? If sightings are supremely important, then why do so many folk discount fairies, ghosts, aliens, and so on, all entities with far larger catalogs of sightings than bigfoot. (The rejoinder to this statement is usually of the “but bigfoot sightings are more consistent” than alien sightings, for instance. Well, this rejoinder is not strictly true; most people have a general idea of what a bigfoot looks like and their sightings reflect their ideas. And, anyway, a sighting is a sighting is a sighting, be it of a bigfoot or a dead Elvis).
Getting back to Dr. Rines. His underwater pictures, not enhanced, do not appear to be of an animal at all. Look at the above photos again. If these photos had been just recently released and made their debut at Cryptomundo, most folks here would probably dismiss them out of hand.How do Rines’ advocates reconcile the “head” photo with the “body and neck” photo (to present only one problem). I think the only reason his photos are defended now: they have become part of the Ness lore, virtually doctrinal.
jerrywayne: some stuff to take issue with here.
“How many of the sightings have seriously been investigated?”
Well, isn’t that the problem? (Yes.) It certainly doesn’t take anything away from them. If by “seriously” you mean by mainstream scientists, isn’t that shame on them? (Yes.) If you just mean by intelligent people who have a good grasp of what they’re doing, some of whom just happen to be in clearly relevant fields (and actually some of them ARE mainstream scientists), MANY sightings have been seriously investigated. Many are debunked (by proponents, I should note, not by “skeptics.”) Many, many remain that, well, haven’t been.
“If sightings are supremely important, then why do so many folk discount fairies, ghosts, aliens, and so on, all entities with far larger catalogs of sightings than bigfoot.”
A read of the catalogs for each might supply the answer to that question. (If you could even point to a serious database for the others, of which there are several for the sasquatch.)
” (The rejoinder to this statement is usually of the “but bigfoot sightings are more consistent” than alien sightings, for instance. Well, this rejoinder is not strictly true; most people have a general idea of what a bigfoot looks like and their sightings reflect their ideas. And, anyway, a sighting is a sighting is a sighting, be it of a bigfoot or a dead Elvis).”
Um, heh, not really. All sightings are NOT created equal. It’s what’s being seen and who is seeing it – and their willingness to stand by it. How many scientists are willing to vouch for dead Elvis sightings? Several wildlife biologists and physical anthropologists will vouch for the sas, publicly. And the consistency has nothing to do with a “general idea” of what the sas looks like. Legions of details of physique, diet and behavior – very few of which appear, at all, in the public image of Bigfoot – show up time and time and time again in the sas data.
Why do folks keep coming on here with stuff like this, when all they have to do is read and get educated? Just wondering there. Anyone who wants to point me to the reality of fairies and ghosts and goblinsBOO! SCARED YA! please go ahead. I’m ready. Just point me there. But first, let me point YOU:
texasbigfoot.org
bfro.net.
R!S!R!
Reply
A sighting is a sighting. If one gives credence to a bigfoot sighting and not to a space alien sighting, what does that tell us? It tells us there are criteria beyond the sightings themselves that compel belief. You may accept bigfoot reports because the idea of ape men in the piney woods of East Texas (for example) seems credible to you. You may not accept similar data about alien spacemen or ghosts or fairies or ufos, but only because these entities seem less credible to you. (“It’s what’s being seen….”, remember.) (By the way, formally, I would say the database for ufo’s and spacemen more than match a similar accounting of bigfoot. Informally, I know several people who have told me they have seen ghosts. I know no one who has seen bigfoot.)
I think the eyewitness issue is fascinating and not explored enough in the writings of cryptozoologists (lay and professional). Folks more knowledgeable than I, like the late Dr. John Napier, thought there had to be some credible sightings of bigfoot in all the numerous published accounts. On the other hand, studies into eyewitness accounts have cast doubts about the efficacy of such events. Many examples from my own experience in life cause me to question the total reliability of eyewitnesses.
My Sighting
I give this example of a cryptid sighting to highlight the problems with eyewitnesses. It happened to me.
On a bright summer day, I was hiking through some woods and patchy open country. It was hot and I moved from the bright sun to shade under an oak tree. As I moved from sunlight to deep shade, I walked face first into a substantial spider web. I immediately wiped the web from my face, feeling a little creepy. Then I looked straight ahead and saw the largest spider in my life, a giant garden spider. It was larger than any tarantula. Its body was at least the size of a standard lamp bulb, its legs at least six or seven inches long.
I was scared and turned and walked away as fast and far as I could. Later, I thought: “Did I really see what I thought I saw? Are there giant garden spiders unknown to science? Did I just have an encounter with something mysterious and unknown?”
Did I really see a giant spider? Or did I merely imagine it because the spider web put in my mind
the idea of a spider? Did I see an odd, truncated tree limb and think something else? Did I see a normal garden spider that I magnified in my mind? Did my eyes play tricks on me as I moved from bright sun to shade? Or is there a very large spider out there, one that I witnessed, but is unknown to science and common knowledge? Which scenario is most likely?
jerrywayne: aaaah. I see what our problem is.
A sighting is A sighting is A sighting. The problem comes when many people, like thousands, and that’s only the ones who actually come forward and say something, with no preconceptions, are all seeing the same thing, over and over and over. (R!S!R!) NOPE, NO preconceptions. Your theory about people’s sightings “reflecting their ideas” presupposes that they had “bigfoot on the brain,” which (R!!!!!!!!!!!S!!!!!!!!!!!R!!!!!!!!!!!) most sighters most assuredly did not, as their accounts make crystal clear. (Or else, sure, mmmmmhmmm, they’re all deranged, or liars, or jokers, or deranged joker liars.)
In other words, we’re arguing past each other. I care not a fig for a sighting. (Particularly if I’m a scientist.) I go for MANY of them, forming a PATTERN that tells me there is a CONSISTENT something there, external to the viewer. Fairies, fail. Aliens, fail. Nessie, fail. (Lake monsters in general, fail.) Thunderbirds, fail. Orbs, fail. Ghosts, fail. Saquatch/yeti….BINGO.
(If anyone who’s up on any of those labeled failures knows more than me, I await enlightenment. All I can say is this: one thing has me talking hairy hominoids. The EVIDENCE.)
I keep saying this. And since I have been on this site, it has remained my mantra, my unbudgeable Bottom Line, my Golden Mean, my Fermat’s Last Theorem, my …you get the pic.
RSR. When you’re done, and I can tell you when that is if you need any guidance, hint, I ain’t done with it yet myself, give me a coherent explanation, of all of them, that makes sense in terms of all relevant topics, most specifically in terms of human behavioral and perceptual psychology. (Because if it ain’t a real animal there’s something even stranger going on.)
Or I’m not sure what we’re discussing.
(Oh, your spider. You got startled, and….never ever adjusted your understanding of what you saw…?)
Yes I agree, I got a bit emotional after reading the article on Mr. Robert Rines. I guess I have keept an interest on his career and his work as long as I can remember, when I first became interested in Loch Ness. Who will indeed carry the mantle now? Unfortunately it seems Robert Rines just like Nessie is a last of his kind, which is a shame since there are few scientist’s who take his pursuit seriously. However I wish the plans for skeletal remains were carried out long ago. I dont think fossilisation can occur in such an environment like loch ness. Also does any one know when Mr. Rines plans to conduct this final search? I have been unsuccessful in contacting him.
DWA says what I think very well. I also want to ask jerrywayne if there is no sasquatch, what did Patterson and Gimlin film? Don’t say it is fake because though we don’t know for sure it was not a hoax in decades no one has been able to show it was fake or create anything even close to it. This piece of evidence, which is consistent with the thousands of eyewitnesses, is the lynchpin. The only way for skeptics, in my view to destroy sasquatch for good is to debunk that film. I don’t see it happening anytime soon.