CryPtoReports.com

A new documentary examines the possibility that the monster might be extinct as its reported appearances become increasingly rare.

Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, said only one sighting, made just off the Clansman Hotel on 6th June, 2009, was judged by him to have been a credible report.

And according to Mr Campbell such reports are increasingly rare.

He said: “”That’s why were so relieved to have heard about this sighting.

“In June, when it was reported, nobody had seen anything for a year. If it hadn’t been for that one, we would have been really, really worried.

“There is an embarrassment factor to seeing Nessie. The first thing people say to you is, ‘Had you had a drink?’

“Ten years ago we had a lot of good sightings, but in the last two or three years, they have tailed off.”

He added: “What we regard as a dependable sighting is very much down to the person who sees it.

“This was a local chap who knows the things that Nessie isn’t – boat wakes, debris on the loch or seals in the summer. A local person will know what these things look like.”

However, there were a number of “more dubious” sightings over the course of 2009. These included a sonar contact witnessed by “‘Allo,’Allo” star Vicki Michelle and other cast members from the stage version of the popular BBC sit-com when they took a pleasure cruise on Loch Ness in May during the play’s week-long run at Eden Court.

Their boat, the Jacobite Queen, picked up five mysterious arch shapes on its sonar between Dores and Urquhart Castle.

Also claiming a possible Nessie picture was data analyst Ian Monckton from Solihull who used his car headlights and the flash from his camera, to take a picture of what he thought could be the elusive monster while driving to Invermoriston late at night.

The 2009 episode “Death at Loch Ness” of the documentary series “MonsterQuest” looked at the theory that the Loch Ness Monster might be extinct.

In this programme researcher Robert Rhines’ claim that Nessie, if it existed, may now in fact be dead and its corpse is lying somewhere at the bottom of Loch Ness is investigated.

To prove this theory wrong, Mr Campbell hopes new witnesses might come forward.

“If people start to believe this, it might start to affect tourist numbers.

“Whether you believe in Nessie or not, the Loch Ness Monster is one of the most important tourist attractions we have.

“Perhaps, though, the answers are to be found underwater instead of on the loch’s surface.

“Unknown sonar contacts happen all the time.

“Maybe Nessie is just keeping her head down.”

Source: telegrapgh.uk

1. There was only one confirmed good sighting of our old friend – on June 6th, just out from the Clansman Hotel.

2. There were, of course, a couple of apparent “sightings,” such as the cast of “‘Allo ‘Allo,” a touring production who were conveniently lucky enough in May to see some unidentified sonar blobs.

The Jacobite Queen cruise ship, with the “’Allo ’Allo!” cast on break on May 21, 2009, was on its way to Urquhart Castle when the crew picked up a strange signal on their sonar. The unusual readings on the ship’s sonar screen (actual video capture above) occurred between the village of Dores and Urquhart Castle. Ms. Michelle dashed below decks for a look, and was amazed to see five mysterious “arch shapes” on the screen.

3. Back in March, the most ludicrous passing off of another blob, this time just some light on a black background by some tourists even made it on to US TV.

4. In August, Google Earth came to the loch with an apparent worldwide exclusive of what is clearly a boat going up the loch which the boys at Google thought must be Nessie! If you look closely enough at the picture though, they seem to have missed a trick as there are some slightly more unexplainable traces of something in the water just to the side of the boat.

5. In September, we discovered that the Natural History Museum in London had done a deal to permanently exhibit any Nessie carcasses caught at the loch. (This came from a review of their archives and apparently was influenced by some money being offered by our old friends, William Hill the bookies.)

6. Towards the end of the year, we were all saddened to read of the death of Bob Rines. A colourful character, Rines was a dedicated Nessie hunter for many years and there is no doubt that his efforts at the loch spurred many others on in the quest for Nessie and her family.

7. In April, the History television show “MonsterQuest” revealed that they had made a previous, surprising discovery at Loch Ness. When the expedition’s US scientists lowered their high tech, cameras 800ft into Loch Ness, they were prepared for anything – except tens of thousands of golf balls.

8. “MonsterQuest” kicked off their Season III on February 4, 2009, with their program “Death at Loch Ness.” looking at the theory that the Loch Ness Monsters might be extinct. Adrian Shine, Gordon Holmes, and Robert Rines were involved with the episode.

9. The unexplainable Monckton Loch Ness phtograph opened the year. Ian Monckton, from Solihull, and his fiance Tracey Gordon, on a romantic weekend at Loch Ness, were driving to Invermoriston at about 11pm, when they pulled into a lay-by (a pull off along the road). Before the couple stopped their auto, they heard a noise in the water. Using their vehicle’s headlights and the flash from his camera to check their footing on the rocky shores of the loch, data analyst Ian unwittingly recorded this picture which he thought could be the elusive monster.

10. Beside Robert Rines, another death linked to Loch Ness happened earlier in the year. James E. Colvin (pictured below, in the US Navy, 1943), 96, who was the director of two expeditions in search of the Loch Ness Monster for World Book Encyclopedia, died of natural causes, on January 4, 2009, in Greenville, South Carolina.

The Loch Ness launch in July 1969 of the World Book Encyclopedia Expedition’s Viperfish involved minisub builder  Dan Scott Taylor , Dr. Roy Mackal of the University of Chicago, and Harry Reucking, Vice President of the World Book Encyclopedia. James Colvin ran the operation from Chicago.

source: Crytomundo

MADEIRA BEACH — If you believe retiree Russ Sittloh, the canals around Crystal Island have their own version of the infamous Loch Ness Monster.

After four sightings of the mysterious creature, he is so convinced that something’s out there that he has dubbed it Normandy Nessie.

Sittloh and his wife, Betty, say they’ve seen the creature from their Normandy Road waterfront home once in the spring, again in September and twice this month.

Nessie doesn’t have a regular routine, Sittloh says, but usually swims by in midafternoon.

The couple used to watch dolphins frolic in their canal, but since Nessie arrived the dolphins have been a no-show.

“At first, I was puzzled. I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then in September I thought it might be a python or some big snake. But then this month, I saw a caudal fin. He looks like he is over 30 feet long and about 15 inches in diameter. We are talking about a big beast out there,” Sittloh said.

When he told friends and neighbors about the first two sightings, he was met with skepticism and even laughter.

So he decided to prove his discovery. He spent $370 on a surveillance camera to monitor the canal from his window. He kept watch and downloaded both video and still pictures to his computer and then posted them on the Internet.

He even sent a letter to a local newspaper.

“At the risk of having everyone think I have lost it, gone bonkers or whatever, I must share this visual sighting with everyone,” he wrote.

He worries that the creature “could pose a real danger to people and small animals,” and particularly to those who swim or kayak in the canal.

Sittloh says his most recent sighting was about a week ago. The creature was in the middle of a school of baitfish, did a double roll and came back toward Sittloh with a “mouthful of fish.”

Now Sittloh’s Nessie sightings have gone viral on the Web.

Depending on how you structure your search, Google returns between 449 and 8,000 Web pages that reference “Normandy Nessie.”

Chatter on Web sites and blogs speculate on what Nessie could be. Guesses range from a large manatee to a Cretaceous-era mosasaur, a serpentine marine reptile that could reach nearly 60 feet long. Fortunately, it is extinct.

As for Sittloh’s first guess — a large python or snake — pythons can swim and have been reported in the Everglades. Presumably they are former pets turned loose by their owners.

A state-sanctioned hunting program reported capturing and killing 37 pythons this month. Officials estimate that 30,000 Burmese pythons live in the Everglades.

In July, an 8-foot pet Burmese python escaped from its terrarium and strangled a 2-year-old girl.

“I don’t know if we have a mutated species here or what,” Sittloh said. “Whatever he is, my God, is he big. He is some kind of big.”

Sittloh said he has warned his neighbors and called the city, but did not report the creature to the Sheriff’s Office.

“From the video, it appears most likely it is a manatee,” said Carli Segelson, media relations coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said no one else in Madeira Beach has reported seeing Nessie.

“It sounds like there is something out there, but we don’t know what it is,” she said.

Source: tampabay.com

WHEN asked if he has ever seen a monster in the deep dark waters of Loch Ness, local identity David Muir doesn’t flinch and doesn’t hesitate – he’s been asked before.

“Oh aye,” he says, tugging at his long, flowing white beard before conspiratorially looking over his shoulder, then leaning in close from his electric wheelchair to impart some advice.

“If you want to see the beastie, laddie, then the best way is after 10 Glenmorangies (whisky) and if you don’t see it after that, then you may at least get a visit from a herd of elephants.”

He pauses for a second before throwing his head back and erupting into infectious laughter that he tries to stifle unsuccessfully, hand-to-mouth, to produce a series of snorts and cackles.

For more than a century, Loch Ness in the misty Scottish Highlands has captured the imagination the world over but continues to either raise a laugh or a sombre, more serious tone, depending on who you speak to.

Recently, a grainy Google Earth satellite image purportedly captured the beastie swimming just below the surface, its “fins” splayed out behind, apparently propelling it along the 40km stretch of freshwater. It had been almost four years since a credible sighting.

“Oh that,” Steve Feltham sighs when visited in the hamlet of Dores on the banks of Loch Ness.

“That was the Ness Express (boat service).”

The 46-year-old speaks with authority and if anyone should know, it’s him.

Steve came to the banks looking for Nessie but the strangest thing he discovered was that, 17 years on, he was still there, living in a 1970 Dodge van.

The former graphic artist and home security alarm installer had planned a two-week hunt to satisfy a childhood obsession. He drove his Dodge to the loch and it and he never left.

Steve now makes small plasticine sculptures of the creature to fund his continued search for the truth.

In 18 years, he has had only one surface sighting, in about 1994. Armed with a pair of large ex-navy binoculars, he keeps looking.

On a shelf in his van, he has a collection of articles and images of so-called sightings. All are fakes – done by photographers or tourists to make money.

“If I was ever going to cry wolf I would have done it at year two or year three, not year 18,” Steve muses. “So there would be a little more weight of a sighting by myself because everyone knows this is what I do.”

His modelling is interrupted by two well-dressed Jehovah Witnesses selling salvation. Steve loves it and challenges them to prove their deity exists – he’s got evidence, he says, eye witnesses, sonar soundings.

They leave dejected, perhaps to probe further this rival religion.

Steve is an authority on Nessie hunting, with people now coming to him to show them their photos of all things suspicious.

He is a filter of nonsense, he says, and most of what he has seen falls well and truly in that category.

“But it’s not financial; for me it’s about the fact that this little tiny island that we live on has a world-class mystery on its doorstep which almost nobody is bothering to investigate. That, I find amazing, and that makes me want to be here doing it,” he said.

Richard Macdonald has been steering the Royal Scot ferry boat for 27 years and in that time, he says he has seen the monster seven times. He reels off the dates and precise times – June 28, 2007 at 6.01pm is the most recent.

But while the sightings are open to debate, he says the evidence that the world-class sonar equipment on his vessel finds is not, picking up moving objects up to 230m below.

Even if some are sonar glitches or reflections, he says there are just way too many for there not to be something there. His sonar records fish life, but also appear to show an entity more than 10m long, weighing six-and-a-half tonnes and moving at 40km/h.

One of the most credible sightings was by a no-nonsense policeman who, while on a fishing trip on June 15, 1965, watched a creature stir off his bow for 50 minutes.

Last word to Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club.

The pic on Google Earth is from 2006 and has been well researched before, with the clear conclusion that it is of a boat, Gary says.

Indeed, but for millions the hunt goes on.

Source: news.com

There are reports that an object visible in Loch Ness on Google Earth could be the Loch Ness monster.

A search of the loch, using the website’s satellite images, reveals what appears to be a light coloured object with a rounded front and a number of protrusions.

The object can be seen in the middle of the loch, across from the village of Invermoriston.

Over the years a number of theories about the existence of the Loch Ness monster have been put forward, including the possibility that sightings are a result of mis-identification of regular animals, birds, or objects such as trees.

Others maintain that there is a so-far unknown type of creature in the loch, possibly a surviving example of an otherwise-extinct type of dinosaur, or else a previously-unknown species of a known animal like a seal.

Over the years the loch has been subject to analysis and exploration using a number of means, including sonar, underwater video and unmanned submarine. While many of these projects recorded nothing unusual, others produced results that could be interpreted as proof of Nessie’s existence, including a picture of what could be the fin of a large creature as well as sonar contact with what could be a large object moving underwater.

Source: news.stv

There’s even a scientific-sounding name for it: cryptozoology, the study of hidden or unknown animals. Obsessive fans of legendary monsters travel the world over to hunt down their legendary quarry. The most famous U.S. cryptid is Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, and in Scotland it’s the Loch Ness Monster, Nessie.

Cryp fans know that besides these top two, there are many more whose lairs have become tourist draws. In the U.S. alone, you might have heard legends of the Mothman (West Virginia), Thunderbird (Lawndale, Illinois), Chessie (Lake Champlain) and the Jersey Devil (Pine Barrens of New Jersey), while roasting marshmallows around the campfire.

Obviously the U.S. hasn’t cornered the cryptid market. If you grew up in Scotland, you would’ve listened wide-eyed to tales of Nessie, who lurks in the deep dark waters of the famous Loch Ness.

Africa boasts a bunch—the walrus-like Dingonek, the Gambo, and the Adjule. In Java, you would have heard about the massive, flying Ahool, found in the deepest rainforests. England lays claim to the phantom wildcat, the Beast of Bodmin Moor, and the carnivorous Black Shuck, said to roam the craggy coastlines of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex.

Given such a wide variety of cryptids, it’s no wonder that at some point, monsters grew from an interest into an obsession, and finally, into a career for Loren Coleman, author of 30 books and an adviser to TV’s “In Search Of” series. He’s even opened a museum on the subject, the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. This by-appointment-only showplace features artifacts, toys and artists renderings from around the world.

Coleman has traveled far and wide looking for mysterious creatures, covering every state in the union and much of the world. His favorite spot so far: Not surprisingly, Loch Ness. “It reminded me of the first time I saw Fenway [Park]. It was so green and so beautiful,” he reminisces. “I got up every morning to go looking for the Loch Ness Monster.”

“They have the haar—the fog that goes across the loch; it was amazing,” Coleman continues. “Like a fairy tale.” Besides the atmosphere, Coleman also found it a relief to be immersed in a like-minded population. “Just to have people not laugh at you for being into monsters. . . .” he half laughs. “It certainly has changed the economy there. It changes the economy of a lot of places where the creatures are found.”

Not everyone is as obsessed. Scottish filmmaker John McFarlane remains skeptical about the Loch Ness monster, his country’s most famous resident. Though she was first reportedly spotted back in the sixth century A.D., he says that growing up, it certainly was a topic of conversation. “When I was a kid, my grandfather told me it is quite feasible that there is a creature that lives in the loch … that’s maybe from the dinosaur period,” he says. “There was speculation that there might be a link from the loch’s bottom out to the open sea.”

Fact or fiction? Go and see for yourself, but watch out for large, hairy (or scaly) animals.

Source: msnbc

china lake monster ?

Ten tourists from Guangdong and Hubei provinces were the latest to report a “water monster” sighting in Kanas Lake, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. They told local media that they saw a giant black creature on July 5 that stirred waves over 1 meter high and left a wake over 10 meters long for 20 seconds about 100 meters away from their boat.

Kanas Lake, which means “beautiful, mysterious lake” in Mongolian, is China’s deepest freshwater lake with a maximum depth of 188.5 meters, and 24 kilometers long from north to south. It’s located in the Kanas Nature Reserve in the Aletai mountain area of northern Xinjiang and has been the source of numerous monster sightings, similar to Scotland’s Loch Ness (or “Nessie”) monster for decades – particularly since the 1980s when more visitors and settlers came to the area. Scientists have carried out investigations, though no conclusive evidence has been found of the creature.

Some scientists believe, however, that the monsters may be taimen trout, one of the world’s largest and most ferocious freshwater fish which can grow as long as 10 meters.

Source: english.people