Nessie: An Intriguing Sighting
Posted by: Nick Redfern on April 14th, 2013
“A few months back,” says Glasgow Boy at his blog, “I was doing some research on an old sighting and managed to contact a person who knew of the case for further details. Having helped me add some details to that case, the person told me that they themselves had had a good sighting of the creature back in 2010. I can now bring you the details of this previously unreported sighting.
“At around 7:20 in the morning on the 14th June 2010, the witness and their spouse were travelling south about a mile past Urquhart Castle on the A82. At this point a large object described as ‘clearly visible’ was noticed in the water by the driver about 40 feet from the shore. In the witness’ own words: ‘We almost went off the road with the sheer amazement of the sighting and could not find a layby so we slowed down till we had almost stopped on the main road which I suppose was rather dangerous to say the least.'”
About Nick Redfern
Punk music fan, Tennents Super and Carlsberg Special Brew beer fan, horror film fan, chocolate fan, like to wear black clothes, like to stay up late. Work as a writer.
Cool–a sighting that’s much more contemporary.
Anonymous testimony for any alleged cryptid sighting has no value and should always be ignored. Like this one.
Even when witnesses identify themselves, their stories are just that, stories. Maybe food for some thought but not a lot more.
Anyone can write anonymously to any crypto blog today without any consequences or providing any proof at all. You, me, anyone.
Like to hear about my sighting of a T-rex while I was in Vietnam?
Don’t mean to sound so cynical, except yes I do.
Footprints, fossils, photos, multiple witnesses, DNA, etc, all are worthy of investigation and time spent. But as far as I’m concerned, “anonymous testimony” is no different than ackowleged fiction.
its an interesting story… to me… but nothing more without any evidence/proof.
Understandable, Corrick–but if this is a legitimate sighting, I suspect the witnesses might be willing to speak with a respected researcher if it were kept off the record (i.e., no names publicized). At the very least, that would at least allow the researcher to establish their sincerity to some extent. Not ideal, true, but better than nothing.
chewbaccalacca, even if its a “legit” sighting, without any proof of what they saw or evidence, i’m afraid it’s just a story.
corrick:
“Anonymous testimony for any alleged cryptid sighting has no value and should always be ignored. Like this one.”
Nope. Science doesn’t “ignore” anything. (Scientists do, all the time. Doesn’t make it right.)
One does not have to mount an expedition to the hinterlands based on one report. And the volume and consistency – particularly the latter – in Nessie sighting reports certainly make them problematical to me. But ignoring them? Nope, can’t. Science doesn’t “ignore.” At worst, it tables until more evidence is available. But scientists do worse than worst, every single day. If Nessie – and sasquatch, for which the testimony is vast and guidebook-consistent – exist, they will be confirmed thanks to people who, in science’s absence, did its work for it.
“Like to hear about my sighting of a T-rex while I was in Vietnam?”
If there are a thousand of them, by witnesses there is no up-front reason to doubt, and your report sounds consistent with theirs: sure. Got those handy?
Let’s accept this report at face value (why not?).
If an object large enough to park a bus on is only 40 feet from shore, it brings to question the depth of the water. If an object of this size then dives down into the water, not to be seen again, it suggests that the water is deep enough that something this wide could disappear by going straight down. Had the object not gone straight down, it would’ve been visible in the water until such time that it reached an area where the depth would allow full submergence. So I ask this question…
How deep is the water 40 feet from the shore in the area in question? The answer to this question will tell us if the report is at least plausible.
As I recall, most of Loch Ness’ shoreline drops off pretty quickly. It’s a deep lake, after all. But I don’t have any definitive information in that regard on hand.
Corrick, as author of the blog report I can vouch that I know the witnesses’ names and have communicated with one of them via email.