Google Earth Blobmonsters
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 27th, 2009
Stop, stop, please stop. Everyone and their dogs and cats have sent me the links on the various stories (e.g. here, here, and here) about Nessie being seen from high overhead, thanks to Google Earth.
Frankly, I wasn’t going to run the tale or the photo. It appears to so obviously be a boat to me, why waste your time?
Then the emails, from fans, friends, and future Cryptomundo readers apparently, just kept coming in. For the last few days.
So, please, here are the pictures. I’m aware of ’em, and now you can see, read and, if you wish, comment all about them. After you look at the photos, and make up your own mind, a word with you at the bottom, no pun intended, please.
As usual, click on the images to enlarge them.
We’ve been here before. Google Earth mania said that a “giant serpent” had been spied from space, near the Amazon River. Whether it was a new road or photoshopping, I forget, but it certainly was another case of someone seeing something cryptid that wasn’t there.
Now, I’m not saying Google Earth might not be useful to cryptozoology, hominology, zoology, and anthropology. We must remain open-minded to what can be seen by looking closely, but let’s not go overboard and make things up that aren’t there.
If you will remember, Google Earth photos have identified unknown native villages in South America where none were suppose to be, and picked up vegetation patterns indicating new species in other parts of the world.
Even closer to home, Hockomock Swamp maps from Google Earth can be used to explore the areas where “mystery apes” have been sighted and identify Lake Nip’s island that has been said to vanish.
But in general, we have to be careful. Most of the mysteries to be explored via Google Earth are human and not cryptozoological, such as why in the world would there be a school in Missouri named after Walt Disney?
🙂
[If you are having technical difficulties in uploading the photographs that should appear here, due to their large size, try clearing your cache, rebooting your browser, and uploading your Cryptomundo.com page again. It should work.]
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.
It’s a giant squid with a boat-shaped mantle!
I would say that is a boat, Or maybe its Nessie 2.0 now with neon blue color and happy tassels. It looks closer to being a giant squid then the Loch Ness Monster but it looks even more like a boat.
good call, Loren. Looks like a boat with a wake. Neat, but not an animal.
And isn’t it funny that nearly ALL the supposed Google Earth monsters have looked the same as these two? So clearly a boat…
But yeah, Google Earth is a good thing, in some regards. It’s great to, for instance, locate and mark sighting areas and create a map of cryptozoologically relevant places.
All I can say, Loren, is thank heavens you are the proverbial voice of reason in the wilderness. If the future of cryptozoology were left in the hands of people who confuse obviously symmetrical, man-made objects leaving motorized wakes for sea serpents, it would be doomed.
Of course, if your last name were Davis, you’d be describing the obvious sea serpent vs. tour boat massacre depicted in these photos…once you’d enhanced them, of course.
Now we have documented proof that boats do exist on Loch Ness. Amazing!
If it is a boat it looks to be a larger powered boat with a blunted bow. Based on the width of the shoreline and what looks like the road running parallel to it, the width of the object seems to be maybe 10 to 12 feet which would make for a length of maybe 20 to 30 feet. Definitely in the ball park for a tourist boat.
There’s not a lot of unpredictable large boat traffic on Loch Ness, even during tourist season. Dick Raynor knows all the tour boat schedules and given the time and location, could probably tell you exactly which boat it is. That’s assuming it is a boat.
I find the disturbances to the left of “Nessie” interesting as they are running perpendicular to the wind. If they are some sort of man-made objects as well, they look to be danger close to both themselves and the larger object (only five or wave crests away).
It couldn’t be an overlay as the object actually is in the Google Earth photo for all to see.
This picture is evidence of an earlier “Nessie massacre”. If blow up this picture and process it right, you can see the point where the bullets disturbed the scales.
Come On Guys! You can clearly see that it is infact Nessie. He is simply swimming backwards doing the breast stroke. And to his left are two little nessies learning to swim.
I’ve seen this on other sites during the past few days.
I was hoping you’d comment on it, Loren.
I also basically thought “Boat”—kind of knew you’d think the same thing. Cool.
Though I personally don’t see anything wrong in at least mentioning it in passing. It would certainly be at least an educational opportunity in teaching folks about jumping to conclusions and “seeing what they want to see.”
That’s me, I guess.
But to each his own… 🙂 BTW, The Sun is NOT considered by most to be a legitimate source of ANYTHING anyway. This is still intriguing to me as an interesting type of optical illusion one needs to be familiar with in Cryptozoology.
As for Walt Disney—
In case you do not know, he partially grew up in Marceline, Missouri. His family moved there when he was very young.
Thanks for the post, though.
Very interesting. 🙂
I saw this picture of Loch Ness on one of our local news websites here in Australia. I first thought it looked like a squid of some kind – it certainly doesn’t look like all the pictures and descriptions of Nessie we have seen and heard about. I agree with previous posters – it’s got to be a tourist boat or similar. Of course, M K Davies would tell us different! 🙂
Holy Caesar’s Ghost, people! Anyone and I mean anyone who has spent any time on google earth can tell what a boat with a wake looks like. How the heck did this get onto the news? Guess the anchor or news person was a real incompetent.
The apparent wake isnt what I would expect a boat wake to look like and perhaps an expert would explain it for me/us? The funny looking legs and all. Then perhaps an old sea dog (Mac, Jock), can go on to the school of Nessies to the west of the first mystery? Please keep it simple for a landlubber.
It should be possible to pick out whales and maybe more exotic sea monsters from satelite picture shouldn’t it? This is an ability that will increase as unfortunately sea monsters decrease. I have had a go, but only discovered for myself the hugh undersea grid pattern off the African coast. An alien mining project I presume.
I would say that it actually is the abominable snowman on vacation. He is indeed swimming backwards and doing the breast stroke. I have heard if you touch up the photo a little you can see Rudolph, Yukon Jack, and Ernie. Mr. Snowman, and Santa stayed at the North Pole.
I looked at the picture and assumed no one would think the obvious boat was Nessie. I was looking at the ambiguous shapes off to port and behind the boat, and I figured that’s what everyone else was looking at. Floating logs? A larger shape just under the surface?
amazing to think we have access to images all across the world…for public use! even scarier to think Lochheed martin developed those satellites…even the GPS aided munitions…
Giant Otter. 🙂
There is another Google Earth clipping worth a look. It is on Loch Ness, just off Urqhart Castle.
57 19′ 28.27″ N 4 25′ 59.04″ W elev 49 ft Eye alt 553 ft
Any comments?