The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 1 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster Preface To quote the great cryptozoologist Tim Dinsdale, there can be few people in the English - speaking world today who have never heard of the fabled ‘Loch Ness monster’. For the best part of a century, tourists and locals around the freshwater lake known as Loc h Ness have claimed to observe such a creature in some form or another. Dozens of independent witnesses have claimed to witness long, sinuous shapes at the surface of the water, abnormal creatures roaming the shores, beasts out of time that suddenly vanish without a trace. This unusual creature, the Loch Ness Monster, has become the central pillar for tourism in Loch Ness, the source of great amounts of tourism revenue. Over the years many theories about the creature's appearance and origins have come into play, and so a question must be put forward: what could exist in Loch Ness? The aim of this essay is not to debunk or prove the existence of the Loch Ness monster, but to hypothesize, based on the available data, what it may be if it does exist. A lmost eve ry listed account of the monster will be used to extrapolate a possible identity to allow the greatest spectrum of hypotheses , using twenty - six accounts of the creature. Contents Preface ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ 1 Figures ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ 2 Introduction ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ........................ 2 A History of Sightings ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ... 3 The Scientific View ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .......... 17 The Cryptozoological View ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................. 18 Methodology ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ..................... 18 Analysis ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................. 21 Proposed ranking system ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ........................... 21 The plesiosaurian hypothesis ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .................... 21 The amphibian hypothesis ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ......................... 23 The fish hypothesis ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .... 24 The Tullimonstrum - descendant hypothesis ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................ 25 The turtle hypothesis ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .. 25 The mollusc hypothesis ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................. 26 The pinniped hypothesis ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................ 27 Disc ussion ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ........................ 29 The particulars of classification ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............... 30 Population sizes ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ........... 31 Evolutionary mechanisms ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .......................... 32 Conclusion ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ......................... 33 Acknowledgements ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ .......... 33 The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 2 Figures Figure 1 Sketch of the alleged creature witnessed by Arthur Grant ................................ ................ 7 Figure 2 The ph otograph of an inscrutable creature, taken by H ugh Gr ay ................................ .... 7 Figure 3 The "Surgeon Photograph" of the Loch Ness Monster, proven to be a hoax .................. 8 Figure 4 The second photograph taken by H.L. Co ckerell, that which is most often reproduced ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............................... 11 Figure 5 The "Elephanteuthis nnidnidi" report ed by Anthony Shields. ................................ ........ 14 Figure 6 Skeletal reconstruction of Elasmosaurus platyurus by Edward Drinker Cope, rendered following his realization that he had initially restored the head on its tail. While the flexible neck is inaccurate, the flat back and clearly non - rhomboid flippers are not. ............................... 21 Figure 7 1914 life reconstruction of Archelon ischyros , belie ved by Henry Bauer to be a relative of the Loch Ness Monster. by Samuel Wendell Williston ................................ ............................... 26 Figure 8 Grew and Parsons' "lo ng - necked seal, or sea - calf", depicted alongside the harbour seal and an unknown " tortoise - headed seal" ................................ ................................ .......................... 28 Introduction Situated roughly 8 miles (12.87 km) southwest of Inverness, the 23 - mile - long (37 km) freshwater loch known as Loch Ness is alleged to have originated roughly 30,000 years ago during a glaciation period in Earth's history when Europe was covered in ice. At that time, the part of Scotland where Loch Ness is situated was supposedly covered by glaciers that extended down t o the Moray Firth; when these glaciers began to retreat, roughly 10,000 years ago, the loch entered its present configuration (Nessie.co.uk, n.d.) Now attaining a maximum depth of 240 m ( 787 ft), it is believed to have a greater volume of water than all of the lakes in England and Wales combine d (Gazetteer for Scotland, n.d.) In the intervening years, Loch Ness has developed a considerable number of intriguing superstitions, anecdotes and mythology concerning it that include reports of unexplained phenomena in the vicinity of the loch. Most famous among these is a large, aquatic animal that supposedly resides within its depths, the Loch Ness Monster. So pronounc ed is this ‘monster’ in local lore that it has become well known the world over, doubtless significantly contributing to Loch Ness’ tourist industry ; in 2018, it was estimated that the legend contributed approximately £41 million to the Scottish economy ye arly (Nadelle, 2022) . Roughly 1,141 alleged reports have been made by tourists and locals alike over the years , claiming to have seen a large animal near the surface of the water or on the shore Despite the abundance of sighti ngs and the evidence some of them provide , few scientific bodies have ever proven any evidence to support such claims besides that which can be considered wholly subjective or even circumstantial. Unfortunately, anecdote is al most all one has to go by when referring to the Loch Ness monster and other such creatures , with other evidence and data being scant but not wholly unheard of Fortunately, though, there is rather a lot of anecdote , and what evidence exists is valuable. Many researchers feel that the Loch Ness Monster is wholly fictional, based on misinterpretations of data, mistaken identity, and hoaxes perpetrated by men who would seek The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 3 to attract the attention and fame that more often than not accompany any major phenomenon reported to be a preternatural manifestatio n. Some individuals over the years have been so sure of the monster’s existence that they assigned a binomen to it , “ Nessiteras rhombopteryx ” . While the name as defined by Sir Peter Scott and Robert Rines (Scott & Rines, 1975) strongly indicates that the name was intentionally assigned to a hoax, being a proposed anagram of “Monster hoax by Sir Peter S” (Fairbairn, 1975) , the name appears to have stuck. A History of Sightings Saint Columba Purported sightings of the Loch Ness monster date back to the sixth century, with one anecdote being featured in The Life of Saint Columba , by monk Adamnán of Iona . In a certain part of the book, Adamnán recounted a particular account of an event which sup posedly occurred during Saint Columba’s ‘sojourning’ in the ‘land of the Picts’ , in wh ich the saint encounters a group of people burying a man who had been attacked by an aquatic creature, only to be attacked himself The account is as follows: “... he sees some of the inhabitants burying an unfortunate fellow whom, as those who were burying him related, a little while before some aquatic monster seized and savagely bit while he was swimming [ ... ] a nd hearing and obeying the command of the holy and illustrious man, Lugne Mocumin, without delay takes off his clothes, except his tunic, and casts hims elf" into the water. But the monster, which was lying in the river bed, and whose appetite was rather whetted for more prey than sated with what it already had, perceiving the surface of the water disturbed by the swimmer, suddenly comes up and moves towar ds the man as he swam in mid stream, and with a great roar rushes on him with open mouth, while all who were there, barbarians as well as Brethren, were greatly terror - struck. The blessed man seeing it, after making the Salutary Sign of the Cross in the em pty air with his holy hand upraised, and invoking the Name of God, commanded the ferocious monster, saying: “ Go thou no further, nor touch the man; go back at once. ” Then, on hearing this word of the Saint, the monster was terrified, and fled away again mo re quickly than if it had been dragged off by ropes, though it had approached Lugne as he swam so closely that between man and monster there was no more than the length of one punt pole. ” (Adomnán) While claimed by many to be evidence that the Loch Ness Monster has been present in the loch since at least the sixth century, connections have been made between this anecdotal account involving Saint Columba and numerous other mediaeval hagiographies, whi ch frequently involve water monsters (Binns, 1984) According to Charles Thomas, if the creature depicted was a real one, it may perhaps be a wayward bearded seal or even a walrus (Thomas, 1988) . However, i n the view of Jacqueline Borsje, the account is better viewed from a literary point of view (Borsje, 1994) , as it is clearly intended to depict a miracle Ultimately, it is perhaps best to treat the Adamnán report as a fictitious account, meant to convey a sense of ‘awe and wonder’ Ultimately, it seems likely that the Saint Columba report is wholly unrelated to the Loch Ness monster in the first place, and that the old myths of kelpies and water - horses — to The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 4 which the Saint Columba account seems more relevant — are only weakly, if at all connected to more recent "media - augmented" accounts (Bro, O'Leary - Davidson, & Gareis, 2018) Camp bell Following the Adamnán account, there is a gap of almost 1,000 years between reports of anything even superficially resembling a monster in Loch Ness In or around the year of 1527, a man by the name of Duncan Campbell reported a particularly brutal encounter with a creature: “This terrible beast — issuing out of the water early one morning about mid summer, he did easily and without any force or straining of himself overthrow huge oaks with his tail and therewith killed outright thr ee men that hunted him with three strokes of his tail, the rest of them saving themselves in trees thereabouts, whilst the aforesaid monster returned to the loch.” (Dinsdale, 1961) Tim Dinsdale, a foremost party in the study of the monster, noted that “the are, once more, features in it consistent with modern reports obtained from reliable sources”. If one assumes that the Saint Columba account is indeed wholly allegorical or ficti t ious, then the Campbell account may be the firs t encounter with the Loch Ness monster. In spite of this, it would seem that the description of the creature is too vague to be incorporated into the analysis, and the description of a long tail, which is at odds with several other reports, makes the accou nt somewhat dubious. 19 th century miscellanea Roughly 350 years after the Campbell report, further sightings of a creature in the Loch were made public In his book Loch Ness Monster , Dinsdale noted one 1870 record of a creature, from the Chronicle of Fortingall, which states: “There was ane monstrous fish seen in Lochfyne, having great in the head thereof, and at times waed stand aboon the water as high as the mast of a ship; and the said had upon the head thereof wa twa croons.” (Dinsdale, 1961) However, Dinsdale makes sure to bring up the contemporary interest in such creatures, stating that “at this time in Scottish history the legend of the fabled ‘water horse’ was strong in several distinct Highland lochs”. In either 1871 or 1872, an individual by the name of D Mackenzie allegedly saw an object, resembling a log or a small, upturned boat, “wriggling and churning up the water” (Mackal, 1976) Supposedly, despite the clear intr igue in what he had witnessed, Mackenzie opted not to report the sighting until 1934, after he sent a letter to Rupert Gould as popular interest in the monster began to increase (Gould, 1934) . A subsequent report by Alexander M acdonald of Abriachan describes “a large stubby - legged animal”, emerging from the surface of the loch, propelling itself to within fifty yards of the shoreline, before finally disappearing. Macdonald reported the sighting to water bailiff Alex Campbell, and the report was subsequently covered by Gould (1934). The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 5 Forbes At some point in February of 1919, Jock Forbes and his father were riding in a cart approximately two miles north of Inverfarigaig. Abruptly, their pony stopped and started to pull b ack , apparently startled by something. With that something emerged from the trees, roughly twenty yards ahead, slowly crossing the road and disappearing into the shallow bank of the Loch. Forbes’ father muttered something in Gaelic , and said no more about it (Watson, 2015) Fordyce What may be one of the strangest reports of the Loch Ness Monster came in the form of a June 1990 report by Lieutenant McP Fordyce , who relayed quite possibly the most bizarre sighting of any cryptozoological entity that has ever been laid bare Fordyce’s encounter supposedly took place in 1932, and was reported in the Scots Magazine While it would be a time - consuming endeavour indee d to track down the initial The Scots report, it appears that a version of the story is to be found on the internet, and it is perhaps one of the strangest, most utterly paradoxical accounts ever published: “ ... Travelling at about 25 mph in this wooded section, we were startled to see an enormous animal coming out of the woods on our left and making its way over the road about 150 yards ahead of us towards the loch. It had the gait of an elephant, but looked like a cross between a very large horse and a camel, with a hump on its back and a small head on a long neck. I stopped the car and followed the creature on foot for a short distance. From the rear it looked grey and shaggy. Its long, thin neck gave it the app earance of an elephant with its trunk raised. Unfortunately. I had left my camera in the car, but in any case I quickly thought discretion the better part of valour and returned to the vehicle .. .” Where to begin with this report? It is so radically diffe rent from the rest, a statistical outlier at its finest, that to compare it with other sightings of the Loch Ness Monster seems preposterous. As noted by Mike Dash in a comment on Darren Naish's article, the fifty - eight - year gap between the account and the report leave s plenty of time for Fordyce's memory of the incident to be impaired. The account as a whole seems so inconsistent and strange that attempting to reconcile it with the observations provided by others, no matter how strange or distinctive they may have been, becomes nothing more than folly. Mackay One year after the Fordyce report, Alex Campbell published a report on the creature On the 15 th of April, 1933, u niversity graduate Aldie Mackay and her husband, businessman John Mackay, witnessed a “tremendous upheaval on the loch”, which had previously been “as calm as the proverbial mill - pond”. The most significant portion of the report, though, is as follows: “The creature disported itself, rolling and plunging for fully a minu te, its body resembling that of a whale, and the water cascading and churning like a simmering cauldron. Soon, however, it disappeared in a boiling mass of foam. Both onlookers confessed that there The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 6 was something uncanny about the whole thing, for they real ised that here was no ordinary denizen of the depths, because, apart from its enormous size, the beast, in taking the final plunge, sent out waves that were big enough to have been caused by a passing steamer.” (Campbell A. , 1933) Two postulated identities for the creature were briefly discussed by Campbell: that of a type of porpoise, and that of a seal. Logically, Campbell immediately discounted porpoises as a possible explanation, noting that “ it would be utterly impo ssible for them to [enter Loch Ness]”. In regards to seals, Campbell noted that though they have on rare occasions been seen in the River Ness, their presence in Loch Ness has never once been definitively established ” However, the lat ter statement can be discounted, since Gordon Williamson reported that between 1984 and 1985, a harbour seal ( Phoca vitulina ) inhabited Loch Ness; this was only the first confirmed report, though, as Williamson noted that reports from fishermen indicated t hat seals appeared in Loch Ness every two years or so (Williamson, 1988) . If this is truly the case, then the notion that the Mackay report was one of a seal cannot be discounted with certaint y. Spicer A second Loch Ness sighting was published soon after the April 15 report. On the 22 nd of July, a man by the name of George Spicer and his wife observed “a most extraordinary form of animal” crossing the road in front of their car between the villages of Do res and Inverfarigaig In their report, they allege to have seen a strange creature indeed. “ [It was] t he nearest approach to a dragon or pre - historic animal that I have ever seen in my life ... a long neck, which moved up and down in the manner of a scenic railwa y ... [it] was fairly big, with a high back, but if there were any feet they must have been of the web kind, and as for a tail I cannot say, as it moved so rapidly, and when we got to the spot it had probably disappeared into the loch. ” (Inverness Courier, 1933) On the 4 th of August, the Inverness Courier published a piece on the sighting (Inverness Courier, 1933) , which immediately garnered significant attention throughout the region, and quickly became widespread. The term “Loch Ness Monster”, first use d on the 9 th of June, quickly became a term used almost universally for the monster. It can be said, then, that the Spicer report is what truly publiciz ed the creature , jettisoning it into the public consciousness for good Over the years, as noted by Darren Naish, the Spicer report was embellished in various regards. The creature witnessed was originally reported as being 1.83 – 2.43 m ( 6 – 8 ft ) , but subsequent reports exaggerated its size to 7.62 m (25 ft), or even 9.14 (30 ft) , far in excess of the initial sighting (Binns, 1984) ; (Campbell S. , 1986) Gray On November 12 th , Hugh Gray of the British Aluminum Company observed “a great upheaval of water, and then a tremendous disturbance and splashing, caused by some huge animal thrashing about”. Gray initially claimed that he saw roughly forty feet of the animal, which had “a thick roun ded back, which what appeared to be a powerful tail”. The creature The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 7 supposedly remained in evidence for a minute or two before submerging, but not before Gray had taken some photographs. Though light had somewhat spoiled them, a Kodak representative confirmed that the negative had not been at all tampered with. When questioned closely by Dinsdale, Gray claimed that “[he] cannot give any definite opin ion of size, except that it was very great — it was a dark greyish colour, the skin was glistening and appeared smooth”. However, despite Gray’s apparent certainty a bou t the creature’s identity, analysis of the photo revealed that it was very difficult to work out what it was. Ronald Binns suggested that the timing of the report seemed oddly suspicious, suggesting that Gray had taken the photograph on the 30 th of November, immediately after a report by Rupert Gould suggested that the Loch Ness monster was a landlocked sea serpent (Gould, 1934) Maurice Burton came into possession of two slides, contact positives from the initial negative, and suggested that the photograph depicted an otter “rolling at the surface in characteristic fashion” (Burton, 1982) . In a bizarre turn of events, Frank W. Holliday claimed that Gray’s photograph proved his hypothesis that all sea serpent sightings could be attributed to a single species of giant invertebrate, which he dubbed Orms, descended from Tullimonstrum (Holliday, 1968) . Most recently, though, Darren Naish has suggested that the creature depicted was a whooper swan with its head beneath the surface (Naish, 2016) Roland Watson attempted to dismiss this idea, citing Naish’s use of a mute swan for reference as opposed to a whooper swan, but ultimately the argument falls flat on its face. Grant On the 5 th of January 1934, within six months of this initial report, veterinary student Arthur Grant reported that he had almost hit a creature with his bicycle while approaching Abriachan, near the north - eastern end of the Loch. At F IGURE 2 S KETCH OF THE ALLEGED CREATURE WITNESSED BY A RTHUR G RANT F IGURE 1 T HE PHOTOGRAPH OF AN INSCRUTABLE CREATURE , TAKEN BY H UGH G RAY The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 8 around 1 AM , Grant claimed to have encountered a creature with a small head and a long neck, which saw him and immediately vanished into the loch. Grant described it as “a cross between a seal and a plesiosaur”, producing a sketch of the crea ture. Zoologist Maurice Burton suggested that it was an otter seen under poor light conditions (Burton, 1961; Burton, 1982) , and Darren Naish has suggested that it is either an otter or a seal (Naish, 2016) Wilson In April of the same year as the Grant sighting, the most famous Loch Ness Monster report was published by the Daily Mail . Known for a photograph s upposedly taken by a gynaecologist, Robert Kenneth Wilson , it is ultimately the most well - known sighting in cryptozoology, besides perhaps th at depicted in the Patterson footage. Supposedly Wilson saw the creature and took four photographs; two were unusable, and one allegedly depicted the ‘animal’ diving, leaving just one This photograph would quickly become sensationalized , and was quickly circulated as proof of a monster. However, over the years, this photograph has been disproven , its subject a toy submarine created by Christian Spurling, son - in - law of Marmaduke Wethere ll (UnMuseum, n.d.) The photograph was sold to the Daily Mail after insurance agent Maurice Chambers, co - conspirator of the hoax, sold the photographs to the Daily Mail ; the hoax was perpetrated because Wetherell had been humiliated after accidentally reporting on hoaxed ‘Nessie’ footprints. As for the second photograph of the ‘creature’ reported, Spurling “... thought it might have been a piece of wo o d they were trying to out as a monster, but [was] not sure ” (Ness Information Service Newsletter., 1991) To conclude, the Surgeon photograph was a hoax, concocted by a bored and resentful editor who had been disgraced after reporting on the same subject. Munro On the 5 th of June 1934, Margaret Munro , maid of a Mr and Mrs Pimley from Kilchumein lodge, at the western end of the loch, happened to look out of the window in the direction of Borlum bay. At a distance of around 200 yards, she reported seeing “the biggest animal she had eve r seen in her life” , clear in the water. This was perhaps the first truly detailed description of a more modern Loch Ness monster. “[It had a] giraff e - like neck and absurdly small head, out of all proportions to the great dark grey body, skin like an elephant and two very sh ort fore - legs or flippers. The animal kept F IGURE 3 T HE "S URGEON P HOTOGRAPH " OF THE L OCH N ESS M ONSTER , PROVEN TO BE A HOAX The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 9 turning itself in the sunshine and at times arched its back into one or more humps. Eventually it lowered its head, quietly entered the water and disappeared ” (Dinsdale, 1961) According to Dinsdale’s account of the sighting, Munro had only recently been hired by her employers, and — not realizing the “profound significance” of what she saw — refrained from waking them. In due course , the Pimleys were told, examined the beach, and fo und several impressions, including “a branch that had been pressed into the gravel” (Dinsdale, 1961) Ultimately, following this brief incident, the Pimleys appear to have had no further encounters with the creature. Mountain e t al After being inspired to do so by Rupert Gould’s The Loch Ness Monster and Others , Sir Edward Mountain financed a search for the monster. Twenty men with binoculars and cameras positioned themselves around the lock for several weeks, without fail, from 9 am to 6 pm, beginning on the 13 th of July, 1934. 21 photographs were taken, none of which were considered conclusive. The supervisor of the operation, James Fraser, remained by the loch after the rest had left, filming something in the loch on the 15 th of September. Zoologists concluded that the film Fraser captured, which is now lost (Binns, 1984) , was probably a grey seal. McRae In 1935, a retired physician by the name of Farquhar McRae (Watson, 2015) observed a creature floating at the surface of Loch Ness, apparently either asleep or simply resting. The footage depicts a creature with a long neck, pointed head, small “horn - like sense organs” (Holliday, 1968) atop its skul l and three humps. Further sequences of the footage supposedly exist, but are unknown. It is only due to the efforts of Frank Holliday that this footage is known at all, as it was initially stored away by McRae, who suspected that he wouldn’t be believed. 1930s – 1950s miscellanea By the mid - 1930s, the intrigue surrounding the Loch Ness Monster had died down. However, 1938, four years after the Surgeon footage, a South African tourist by the name of G.E. Taylor reported a sighting of something in the loch. The footage was obtained by Maurice Burton, who briefly discussed it in his book, The Elusive Monster , concluding it was little more than a non - living object floating in the loch (Burton, 1961) Taylor’s creature was described thus: “Its body was large and rounded, tapering down to the neck which dipped under the water, becoming visible about eight inches away, rising in an arc to about six inches above the water before dipping again.” Later that year, the chief constable of Inverness - shire, William Fraser, wrote a letter claiming that the monster existed, and expres sed his concern about the hunting party that had arrived to capture the creature (News Corp Australia, 2010) In 1943, CB Farrel of the Royal The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 10 Observer Corps observed a creature through his binoculars. He made special note of the eyes, large and prominent, and how on the back of the creature’s neck he could see a strange ‘fin’. The creature lowered its head like a swan, apparently feeding, before it finally disappeared without ev en a ripple (Dinsdale, 1961) In 1951, Lachlan Stewart, a woodsman working for the Forestry Commission, observed “three triangular humps with water showing between each”, and then “a small head and long neck”. The creature, wit h a great commotion, swam off and disappeared into the loch about 300 yards off - shore (Dinsdale, 1961) In 1952, Andrew Mc A fee claimed to s e e “three dark humps”, though the Natural History Museum in London (then the British Museum of Natural History) dismissed them as shadows, an assessment which McAfee himself agreed with. A nother such brief report came sixteen years later, (Legend of Nessie, n.d.) when on the 2 nd of December, 1954, a drifter from Peterhead known as Rival III reported anomalous sonar reading s indicative of a large object keeping pace with the vessel, at a depth of 146 m (479 ft ). The object kept pace with Rival III for around half a mile, before finally disappearing. A graphical representation of the object differed from that of a shoal of fish, which was for obvious reasons more than familiar to the crew. When the equipment was checked independently by its makers, it was found to be in perfect working order (Dinsdale, 1961) MacNab On the 29 th of July, 1955, Peter MacNab repo r ted an observation of a la rge , moving shape in the water , providing what is perhaps one of the most well - known photographs of the Loch Ness monster. MacNab’s account of the incident was published in a 1974 book by Nicholas Witchell, Loch Ness Story : “ I was returning from a holiday in the north with my son and pulled the car up on the road just above Urquhart Castle. It was a calm, warm hazy afternoon. I was all ready to take a shot of Urquhart Castle when my attention was held by a movement in the calm water over to the left. Naturally I thought of the 'Monster' and hurriedly changed over the standard lens of my Exacta (127) camera to a six - inch telephoto. As I was doing so a quick glance showed that some black or dark enormous water creature was cruising on the surface. Without a tripod and in a great hurry I took the shot. I also took a very quick sh ot with another camera, a fixed - focus Kodak, before the creature submerged. My son was busy under the bonnet of the car at the time and when he looked in response to my shouts there were just ripples on the water. Several cars and a bus stopped but they co uld see nothing and listened to my description with patent disbelief. ” (Witchell, 1974) MacNab took three more years to publish the photograph s of the incident , due to the ridicule he had received upon showing them to close friends. When the account of Hugh Cockerell was published by the Weekly Scotsman on the 16 th of October, 1958, MacNab was emboldened to come forward, presenting his photograph to the world. Strangely, though, two versions of this photograph exist: that presented by Roy Mackal, and that presented by The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 11 Constance Whyte . These two photographs display obvious discrepancies, such as the direction of light and the presence/absence of a tree in the background (Loch Ness Mystery, 2012) Taking note of the differences between the version he receive d and Whyte’s version, Mackal deemed it “unacceptable as evidence” , an assessment which I myself am forced to agree with for the time being. Cockrell Leading up to the incident that provoked MacNab to publish his own account, Herman Louis “Gus” Cockrell began what was initially a light - hearted search for the monster. According to his son, Peter, “This began partly as a publicity stunt for the Solway Fis hery and partly ‘ ...just for the hell of it ’ but as time passed it became much more serious and he put a great deal of mental and physical effort into the project over a number of years” . As time went on , Cockrell became more and more engaged with the projec t, garnering more publicity as his efforts progressed. Press reports of Cockrell’s efforts even seemed to imply that he intended to use explosives, leading to concern among parliamentarians. Cockrell’s search for the creature would come to a hea d in or around October of 1958 , when he published the last in a series of accounts that chroni cled his activities. This final account is an outlier , being the only one in which he reports a n observation of a creature: “Something appeared - or I noticed it for the first time - about 50 yards away on my port bow. It seemed to be swimming very steadily and converging on me. It looked like a very large flat head four or five feet long and wide. About three feet astern of th is, I noticed another thin line. All very low in the water just awash. I was convinced it was the head and back of a very large creature. It looked slightly whiskery and misshapen, I simply could not believe it. I was not a bit amused. With a considerable effort of will I swung in to intercept and to my horror it appeared to sheer towards me with ponderous power. I hesitated. There was no one anywhere near on that great sheet of water to witness a retreat but it was obviously too late to run. Curiously enou gh I found this a great relief. My heart began to beat normally and my muscles suddenly felt in good trim. I took a shot with my camera in case I got too close for my focus, and went in. The creature headed slightly away, my morale revived completely. I ha d another shot and closed in F IGURE 4 T HE SECOND PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY H.L. C OCKERELL , THAT WHICH IS MOST OFTEN REPRODUCED The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 12 to pass along it as I didn't want to be thrown into the air by a sudden rising hump or two. There was a light squall out of the glen behind Invermoriston, and the object appeared to sink.” (Cockrell, 1958) When Cockrell approached the spot where the object had disappeared, he found little more than “a long stick about an inch thick”. Cockrell returned home with the firm belief that the 'monster' he had seen was little more than a stick. To his obvious a nd understandable surprise, though, when the film was finally developed he was met by something that clearly was not a stick. The photographs were quickly published, and Cockrell’s sighting would spur Peter MacNab to come forward with his own account. Dinsdale Perhaps one of the most influential men in the study of the Loch Ness monster was Tim Dinsdale, a former aeronautical engineer that picked up a keen interest in sightings of the beast On the 16 th of April, 1960, he ventured to Loch Ness in search of the creature, spending several fruitless days waiting for something of note to occur. On the fourth day, Dinsdale reported hearing “a tremendous thunderclap of noise, which echoed back and forth between the walls of rock, in rolling peals of t hunder ; grumbling and muttering, far off into the distance”. O n the fifth day of his search , Dinsdale observed “a violent disturbance — a churning ring of rough water, centring arou n d what appeared to be two long black shadows, or shapes, rising and falling in the water!”, though , by the time he had gotten to the optimum spot to record the sighting, it had vanished. But then, on the final day of his search, Dinsdale recorded his most impressive sighting by far. “ At a point approximately halfway down t he road to the hotel, looking out at the water I saw an object on the surface a bo ut two - thirds of the way across the loch. By now, after so many hours of intensive searching, I was completely familiar with the effect that distance had on the scale of the l ocal fishing boats ... The first thing that struck me immediately about the object was that although it appeared to be slightly shorter than a fishing - boat, at the same distance it stood too high out of the water; and further more, with the sun shining on it brightly it had a curious reddish brown hue about it which could be distinctly seen with the naked eye [...] The object was perfectly clear and now quite large. Although when I had fi r st s een it, it lay sideways on, during the few seconds I had taken with the binoculars it seemed to have turned away from me. It lay motionless on the water, a long oval shape, a distinct mahogany colour. For some reason it reminded me of the back of an Africa n buffalo — it had fullness and girth and stood well above the water, and although I could see it from end to end there was no sign of a dorsal fin. And then. Abruptly. It began to move. I saw ripples break away from the further end, and I knew at once I was looking at the extraordinary humped back of some huge living creature!” (Dinsdale, 1961) The Proposed Taxonomic Status of the Loch Ness Monster 13 Dinsdale was able to observe the creature for quite some time, taking between 20 and 30 ft of film, but as the creature began to move away he decided on a sudden gamble, driving his car to the shore west of lower Foyers in the hopes of getting nearly a tho usand feet closer. Unfortunately the creature had long since disappeared, but to Dinsdale, he had all that he needed, for he knew that “without any lingering shadow of a doubt [he] had at last succeeded” (Dinsdale, 1961) The f ootage recorded by Dinsdale can be watched here , though several magnified frames are found in his book, Loch Ness Monster While some have attempted to dismiss the footage as a boat, Dinsdale himself emphasized the different wake pattern. McCullough In 1972, on the 21 st of November, 14 - year - old Borrowstounness schoolboy Michael McCullough claimed to have come within fifteen yards of a strange creature in the loch. The report, publishe d in an issue of the Livingston Journal and Gazette published six days after the fact, is as follows: “Michael McCullough, son of a well - known Bo'ness practioner [sic] Dr Michael McCullough of Rosemount, Dean Road, was walking along the shores of Loch Ness with three friends when the legendary "Ne