It seems like cryptozoology is plagued by bad photographs, and even the term “Blobsquatch” was coined to describe those oh-so-fuzzy photos of an amorphous something in the woods that might be Bigfoot, or might just be a tree stump. And while there have actually been some interesting photos and video of Sasquatch, I really don’t feel the same can be said for the Loch Ness monster (or lake monsters in general, for that matter). The best photos have been proven to be misidentifications or outright hoaxes, and the remainder look pretty much like waves. Now another set of photos, as well as a video, have surfaced, and again, there’s nothing too impressive to see, even though the photographer thinks he has proof of Nessie. But is it just a rogue wave?
The Loch Ness rogue wave. I dub him “Wavey.”
Is it a rogue wave… or something else?
The way amateur photographer David Elder tells it, you’d think he snapped a photo of Nessie, the fabled Loch Ness monster:
“Out of the corner of my right eye I caught site of a black area of water about 15 feet long, which developed into a kind of bow wave,” Elder, 50, told the Daily Mirror. “I’m convinced this was caused by a solid black object under the water. The water was very still at the time and there were no ripples coming off the wave and no other activity on the water.”
Elder’s alleged encounter took place earlier this month near Fort Augustus, at the south-west end of the 23-mile-long lake in northern Scotland. In addition to still photos, Elder was able to get video of the mysterious wave, which was published by the Daily Mail.
According to the Metro, Elder was taking a picture of a swan on the lake when he first saw the disturbance beneath the water.
In May, an Irish film maker captured footage of an unidentified creature breaking the surface of Lough Foyle in Ireland. Although the video fueled speculation that Ireland might have its own elusive sea creature, critics pointed to “inconsistencies” that suggested the footage was staged.
Although many scientists doubt that the Loch Ness monster exists, other people firmly believe that Nessie is out there. The most famous purported photo of the Loch Ness monster was taken in 1934 by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London gynecologist.
Wilson sold his photo to the Daily Mail, but refused to have his name associated with it, and it became known as the “Surgeon’s Photograph.” In 1975, the Sunday Telegraph published an article claiming that Wilson’s photo was faked.
The tricky thing about the paranormal is that human perception and photos, video and audio recording can really be dissonant. What sounds like a very clear voice to the human ear can sound like a muffled whisper on audio. What is clearly a Bigfoot-like creature looks like a brownish blog on the zoomed-in video. So I’m not saying that Mr. Elder didn’t capture something interesting on video. But the video doesn’t really show anything impressive or convincing. The plague of bad cryptozoology photographs continues…
