Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Review: Monsterquest 2-4-09

Notes:

Monsterquest: Death Of Loch Ness Notes

The premise of this episode is that Nessie may be buried at the bottom of Loch Ness.

The Loch is 23 Miles long and nearly 800 feet deep. 155 miles from Edinburgh, Scotland.

Witnesses are interviewed on their encounters, an animal 25-30 feet in length. Robert Rines had a sighting in 1972 while visiting a friend. He described the texture as between an elephant and whale. He compared the beast to a nearby fishing boat and found it to be 25 feet in length. Rines holds more than 80 patents in sonar technology. The number of encounters with Nessie has decreased in recent years, more particularly on sonar.

This scan was done in 2005, and brought about a conclusion that Nessie creatures died and are no longer living in the water.

A photo taken by an ROV (Remote Operating Vehicle) found a dead carcass of something in the bottom of the lake, which may be a carcass of Nessie. A MQ expedition is undertaken to search different locations on the lake to find proof of alive or dead creatures.

Forward-looking sonar is being used to scan the lake at the bottom.

Supervisor for Seatrepid John Nail is along to supervise the underwater cameras. He is an ROV pilot.

Urquhart Castle on the west side of the lake is targeted first to find any sign of the creatures. It is a location of many sightings.


The sonar equipment on the ROV can pick up things even in the murky water.

Gordon Holmes, an amateur researcher, says that he had a sighting in 2007 which may have been Nessie and that it is alive and well. This is the famous video which was shown on CNN a couple of years ago.


He apparently filmed two swimming objects which may or may not be two creatures. Holmes uses a small remote-control boat to capture images, while a part-time Cryptozoologist, Craig Fackrell, uses one of the most basic animal instincts used to lure one in-a fish cam.


John Northcoate, a 14-year boat captain, drives the vessel which drags the lure behind it.

Older photos from the '70's are also examined, which appear to show "Nessie."

The first written account is from 565 A.D. The Surgeon's photo, which was later revealed to be a hoax, is also discussed and shown.

Adrian Shine, a naturalist, is interviewed and discusses the hoax, a fellow named Marmaduke Weatherell took the faked photo.

Weatherell also faked some footprints with a hippopotamus ashtray.

Another photo, of humps, turned out to be straw bales covered with tarpaulin.

A photo from 1975 taken by Rines turned out to be not a hoax.

Dr. Alan Gillespie was the initial examiner of the photo and determined it to be inconclusive, but not a hoax.

Dr. Aubrey Manning, a zoology professor at University of Edinburgh, also examined the photo and believes it to be real, even of a plesiosaur possibly.

Dr. Leslie Noe, the curator of Natural Science at Birmingham Science Museum and a paleontologist for over 20 years, is an expert on the plesiosaur, and examines the Rines photo. He is a bit skeptical of the photo showing a plesiosaur, but is open-minded to the possibility of the creature existing.

Adrian Hall, a glaciologist, is an expert in the study of land forms, and believes that the reason a sea creature ended up in Loch Ness is that the surrounding sea levels for the past 10,000 years have been lower than the loch itself, which is 52 feet above sea level. A time window could have existed which could have supported the possibility of marine animals getting into the loch when the loch merged with the sea, including Nessie.


Robert Rines made a discovery a shell, a marine shell, while bringing up an anchor with clay on it from the bottom of the lake.

Dr. Tom Guilderson, a senior staff scientist at the Lawrence Livermore Labs in California, tested the shell and its time rate to see the age of it. It was determined to be over 14,000 years old, which would put it in the window of the ice melting from the land mass and forming the lake.

Witnesses are interviewed, the evidence is in, and it shows-well, I won't give too much away. Next week, Monsterquest examines the phenomenon of the Skinwalkers in an episode titled Cattle Killers, 9:00 EST/8:00 Central on History. Check local listings for time and channel.

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