Testing Nessie’s DNA
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on April 4th, 2017
DNA test could solve Nessie mystery at last: Scientist to test waters at the Loch for unusual traces in bid to solve the monster mystery
Professor Neil Gemmell, from New Zealand, thinks it could solve the mystery
Researcher Roland Watson said no one has tried searching for DNA before
Nessie hunter Steve Feltham vowed to never give up searching for the monster
A scientist is to DNA test the waters of Loch Ness in another bid to determine once and for all if Nessie exists.
Professor Neil Gemmell will look for traces of unusual DNA by gathering water samples from the Scottish loch before analysing them using police forensic techniques.
Professor Gemmell, of New Zealand’s University of Otago, thinks this could solve the monster mystery.
He said: ‘We use environmental DNA to monitor marine biodiversity. From a few litres of water we can detect thousands of species.
‘All large organisms lose cells as they move through their environment. New genomic technology is sensitive enough to pick this up and we can use comparisons to databases that span the majority of known living things.
‘If there was anything unusual in the loch these DNA tools would be likely to pick up that evidence.’
Nessie researcher Roland Watson, 54, said he was not aware of anyone doing a DNA test before.
But he added: ‘There are some monster supporters that would not care about the result because they believe it is something paranormal and so wouldn’t expect to see any DNA.’
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Prediction: there will be absolutely no mysterious or unknown DNA discovered.
Not to be a snarky skofftic, but waves, wakes, and logs have no DNA and the otters, seals, and waterfowl that cause the remaining incidents of misidentification are not going to show up as anything unusual on this test.
re; NMRNG…
In fact, logs would have DNA being living or once living matter. But, I agree with your conclusion that nothing of any consequence will be uncovered in this exercise at Loch Ness.
Apart from being visually exciting, I’m still not sure as to why plesiosaurs are shown when discussing maters at Loch Ness.
I’m dubious about whether or not their experiment would work just taking water samples anyway. I want to see if they can even come up with DNA of anything first–see if they can get samples of fish known to live in the loch.
On the plesiosaur note…I once chatted here with Loren Coleman who had an interesting factoid: namely that European and UK proponents of Nessie and other lake cryptids tended to believe it was a plesiosaur, while Westerners (U.S.) tended to believe Nessie and others were long necked mammalians.
I just always found that interesting.
Environmental DNA sampling does work and is currently used in studies.
It is primarily used to to study the locations of threatened or endangered species across all environments. I suspect it’s not infallible as any forensic DNA investigation.
Hello Springheeledjack. I personally think just testing the water will lead to a very mixed bag of DNA that will all be very hard to isolate. This is stuff that is very easy to get contaminated by outside influences, so anything they do find will likely not hold up very well, unfortunately.
By the way, long time, no see!