An expert who has been investigating Nessie for 50 years has given his shocking verdict on the monster – that people are seeing lice.
Naturalist Adrian Shine said people who see the ‘long-necked’ creatures on Loch Ness don’t really recognize the waterfowl in the calmer environment.
Even the strange humps or loops in the water were just the boat’s wake, he said, which is ‘what makes the monsters visible’.
He also said that the legendary Nessie was an ancient sea serpent that was shown on old maps in a new land position.
Mr Shine, who is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and founder of the Loch Ness Project, says he is a ‘compassionate sceptic’ about the monster.
But he offered little consolation to those who believed Nessie was real.
He said: ‘It is probably the boating that causes the animals to be seen, and the water birds are the ones with the long neck.’
He continued: ‘There are indeed long-necked creatures in Loch Ness – we call them swans.
An expert who has been investigating Nessie for 50 years has given his shocking verdict on the monster – that people are seeing lice. Image: a composite image of the different parts of the canvas
Naturalist Adrian Shine said people who see the ‘long-necked’ creatures on Loch Ness don’t really recognize the waterfowl in the calmer environment.
Photographs taken by various witnesses of their sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, published by Nessie researcher Rupert Gould in 1934.
‘And in calm conditions you can lose your ability to judge distance, and if you can’t judge distance, you can’t judge size.’
He is not the only one to notice the similarity.
Finnish artist Tommi Vainionpää put together a convincing portrait of Nessie using images from different parts of the canvas, drawn in silhouette.
Other seabirds mistaken for the predator include cormorants and mergansers, Shine said.
The naturalist, who still lives near Drumnadrochit, also explained how the rise of the boat would create Nessie’s “humps”.
He said: “When a ship comes to you, it is clear what the expectation is;
‘But if it passes in front of you, it’s very different – you see trains of all kinds, all the way up, like solid black peaks.
‘They will be shorter and more for a slow-moving ship, and they will be longer and less as the ship gathers speed.
“Of course there are tall creatures in Loch Ness – we call them swans,” Mr Shine said.
In his new book, A Natural History of Sea Serpents, Mr Shine explores how the sea serpent was reborn in Loch Ness.
‘These wave lines can be continuous, and it’s a fascinating illusion. It’s very compelling.’
In his new book, A Natural History of Sea Serpents, Mr Shine explores how the sea serpent was reborn in Loch Ness.
He said: ‘You can’t talk about Nessies as one thing – they come directly from the sea serpent controversy.
‘The way it’s recognized… these two types – the multi-humpered and the long-necked – is where the 19th century debate over sea snakes came to.
‘We know what sea snakes look like, you do, I do, everyone else does – and what people are seeing here in Loch Ness will confirm that.
‘People will keep coming after seeing things they don’t know, and that will undoubtedly confirm the opinions people have – it’s called bias.’
As for any other creatures that might cause Nessie to see, Mr Shine referred to the others as a ‘basket of fish’ – sturgeon, catfish and giant giants.
But a 2018 study of DNA in Loch Ness did not find the first two ways, while the eel DNA found could have come from any eel species.
He said: ‘You can’t talk about Nessies as one thing – they are directly related to the sea serpent controversy’
The naturalist also said that there was not enough food in the room to keep the imaginary monster alive.
As evidence, he cited the 10% rule, which indicates that one-tenth of the energy in each type of food will be given to the next.
He said: ‘We have clearly measured the amount of fish in the water, and we see that it is about 20 tons.
‘And if you have 20 tons of fish, you can only have two tons of beast. That would be about half the weight of a shark.
‘You see the orders of magnitude we’ve had, and they’re very low.’
Either way, Mr Shine believes the debate over Nessie will outlast the question of sea monsters in the world’s oceans.
He said: ‘The sea is so big that people cannot argue with it, while the sea represents a limitless place, free to disappear.’
He continued: ‘Yes, the place is very deep, it is very big – there is more water than in all of England and Wales, but it is still a small place.
‘It has a limit, so the answer doesn’t seem too far off. That’s why it takes popular interest.’
A Natural History of Sea Serpents is available from Amazon or Whittles Publishing direct, priced at £18.99.
What is the Loch Ness Monster?
Rumors of a strange creature living in the waters of Loch Ness have abounded over the decades, but there is little evidence to support these claims.
One of the first sightings, believed to be the cause of the modern Nessie syndrome, came on May 2, 1933.
On this day, the Inverness Courier had a story about a local family who claimed to have seen ‘a large animal roll over and land’.
Another famous alleged sighting is a photo taken in 1934 by Colonel Robert Kenneth Wilson.
It was later revealed to be a hoax by one of the participants, Chris Spurling, who, on his deathbed, revealed that the photos were staged.
Other sightings include James Gray’s 2001 photo of him and his friend Peter Levings fishing in the Loch, while Hugh Gray’s vague description of what appears to be a large sea creature was published in the Daily Express in 1933.
Robert Kenneth Wilson, a doctor from London, drew the famous picture of the Loch Ness Monster. A photo of the doctor was published in the Daily Mail on April 21, 1934 – however it was later proven to be a fake.
The first reported sighting of the monster is said to have been made in AD565 by the Irish missionary St Columba when he encountered a large monster in the River Ness.
But no one has ever given a convincing explanation of what they saw – even in 2019, ‘Nessie expert’ Steve Feltham, who has been watching the Loch for 24 years, said he thought it was a giant Wels Catfish, born in nearby waters. The Baltic and Caspian seas in Europe.
The online register lists over 1,000 Nessie sightings, created by Mr Campbell, the man behind the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club and available at www.lochnesssightings.com.
So what could explain these amazing things?
Many of Nessie’s witnesses have reported large crocodile-like wounds on the creature’s back, leading some to believe that an escaped amphibian may have been responsible.
Sturgeon fish can also weigh several hundred pounds and have spines, giving them a reptilian appearance.
Some believe that Nessie is a long-necked plesiosaur – like an elasmosaur – that somehow survived when all the other dinosaurs were wiped out.
Some say the sightings descend from dying Scottish pines that fall into the shelters, before breaking through the water and drowning.
While in the water, the botanicals begin to absorb air particles.
Eventually, enough of this is collected to propel the log upward as deep pressures begin to change its shape, giving it the appearance of an animal coming into space.
