Just Shelley

There are many creatures that live in our myths and our minds, but the most famous is probably Scotland's Nessie, or the Loch Ness Monster. But first, let me digress and talk about another lake monster, one a little closer to home: Lake Champlain's Champ.

We used to live on a farm on the shore of Lake Champlain in Vermont. You might know Lake Champlain as home of, among other things, Champ, the Lake Champlain Monster.

Between our home and our next door neighbor's home was a large and dense stand of old trees and brush.

One night, and I'll never forget it, I and my husband listened to the sound of crashing from the woods as huge limbs were torn from trees at least 30 feet in height. No other sound penetrated the night, not a breath of wind, not a yip from one of the local foxes, no cars, no trucks, nothing — just the sound of smashed brush and crashing trees.

The sound continued long into the night and the next morning, the stand of trees was decimated.

Yes, I did live on the Lake Champlain islands in 1997-1998, and the incident I mentioned did occur — during the great ice storm of January, 1998, when the weight of the ice decimated many of the trees on the island.

Now, fess up — I bet you thought I was going to describe an incident involving Champ, the Lake Champlaign monster, didn't you? However, it is just acts of nature such as this that can sometimes generate tales of monsters, especially when one is searching for these same monsters.

However, sometimes, there just isn't an explanation for what someone sees, or hears, or believes. It is then that some monsters enter the ranks of the legendary, monsters such as Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.

Nessie: Origins of a Legend

During the Twentieth century, several photos of Nessie have been published, and in one very well known case, been proven to be a forgery. Numerous eye witness accounts of Nessie have been chronicled, and drawings made of eye witness accounts, such as those shown in this page, but there has never actual physical verification that Nessie exists.

Nessie's beginnings, though, go back to an earlier time. According to folk lore, and a PBS Nova special on the monster², the Scottish Highlands has had legends of a strange water-based creature since the Romans first entered the territory over 1500 years ago.

The Romans met up with the Picts in Scotland. The Picts were a pretty feisty group of people that liked to among other things, carve realistic images of animals, including the water-based creature mentioned in the last paragraph. Though it isn't that unusual for primitive tribes to create stylized images of animals, the Picts concentrated only on images of real world animals. Well, if this was true, what was the water-based beast they represented? It is from simple roots that legends can spring.

The first "modern recording" of the Loch Ness Monster was made by a Saint Columbia, who wrote about saving a swimming man from a large creature by invoking the name of God, an incident occurring in the 500's.

Of course, it wasn't that unusual for the early Christians to weave themselves and their beliefs into folk legends and practices of areas they hoped to convert.

Nessie Sightings

Though Nessie achieved most of its fame based on sightings in the 1900's, there are also eye witness accounts of seeing a the creature of Loch Ness in the 17th through the 19th century³, where it was also known as a water-kelpie or water horse, though without the frequency of this century's sightings.

However, it was in 1933 that a sighting occurred that put Loch Ness on the map, and Nessie in the news. In 1933, a Mr. Spicer and his wife were driving by Loch Ness when they saw a creature crossing the road, a creature unlike any they had ever seen before. They described the beast as having a long neck followed a large, ponderous body, and they watched it until it left the road and entered the water.

The Spicer sighting was only the first of a plethora of sightings of Nessie, and it seemed the world just couldn't get its fill of hearing stories about this mythical water beast. According to the Legend of Nessie site⁶, over 32 sightings occurred in the 1930's alone.

What accounts for such a sudden surge in Nessie sightings? Well, one main reason is that roads were built around the Loch, increasing exposure of the lake to many more people. Another probable cause is that the idea of Nessie was planted in people's minds. Where before a person may have seen a stick floating in the water, they may now see a tail. Where before a wave is only a natural movement of water, it now becomes the wake of a creature hidden from sight.

Perhaps it is also a matter a person seeing something that they can't explain and where before they dismissed the sight as a stick or the natural movement of water, now they consider another source for what they are seeing: Nessie⁵.

The larger number of sightings of Nessie continued until the advent of World War II turned people's minds to other monsters, in other places.

Century's Greatest Hoax?

Many if not most of the Loch Ness sightings are from folks reporting what they genuinely see, and genuinely believe they are seeing. However, you can't have the interest in something such as Nessie without attracting hoaxes, and the Loch Ness Monster had its share.

One of the first hoaxes was the finding of large and unusual footprints, discovered by a big game hunter of the time, Marmaduke Wetherell. He found large footprints, freshly made, in December of 1933, made casts of the prints and sent them off to the Natural Museum in London.

Well, there was a whole lot of excitement about the first physical "evidence" of the Loch Ness Monster. However, the excitement didn't last long, because the January following the finding of the prints, scientists announced that not only were the prints not that of an unknown beast, they were the prints of a hippopotamus foot, and a stuffed hippo foot, at that.

The footprint hoax definitely cooled interest in the Loch, at least from the basis of serious study, but it wasn't the most famous hoax that came from Loch Ness. This dubious honor belongs to a photo supposedly taken by a Dr. Robert Kenneth Wilson in 1934.

This photo shows what looks like a sea serpent with a small head on a long neck, and resembling known images of a pre-historic dinosaur known as the plesiosaur.

The photo was examined and was determined to be genuine, not the result of camera trickery, and investigation of the creature in comparison to the wave sizes put the creature's neck to be a couple of feet in length. All well, and good, except that the "creature" in the photo was nothing more than a fake serpent neck attached to the back of a toy submarine.

How was the information about the faking of the photo discovered? One of the people that was involved with the hoax made a death bed confession in 1994 to that effect. And the person who was responsible for the hoax? None other than our friend, Marmaduke Wetherell.

After the debacle of the fake serpent footprint, Wetherell contacted his stepson, Christian Spurling, about creating the fake monster and setting up the hoax. With the help of Spurling, Wetherell's son Ian, and two friends, Colonel Wilson and Maurice Chambers, who was with Dr. Wilson at the famous sighting, the hoax was on.

Why did Wetherell do this? A possible reason could be revenge after the embarrassment he received because of the fake footprint. However, once the photo was published by the Daily Mail, and once the world reacted so strongly to the photo, all involved probably felt it wouldn't be too good an idea to come forward with a confession about what they had done, even if this was the intention⁹.

Loch Ness researcher Alister Boyd helped to uncover the hoax when he had discovered a story published years before by Ian Wetherell confessing to the hoax, a story that had been originally ignored. Boyd and fellow researcher David Martin contacted the last living representative of the hoax, Spurling, who confessed that he had helped fake the photo¹⁰.

In spite of the two uncovered hoaxes, folks still believe in Nessie and every year, people go to considerable lengths to try and find physical evidence of the Loch Ness Monster.

Current Research Efforts and Findings

In the 1970's, Dr. Robert Rines from the Academy of Applied Science in Boston, Massachusetts, began to use sonar to try and obtain images of the Loch Ness Monster. He and his crew did obtain images of what they say are the flipper and head and upper body of a creature that they believe can only be the Loch Ness Monster¹¹.

In addition to the work performed by Dr. Rines, other folks have dedicated their lives to finding physical proof of Nessie, folks such as Tim Dinsdale, who literally spent his life looking for proof of Nessie.

Another research project is being conducted by Dan Scott Taylor and is known as the Nessa Project¹². The Nessa Project is based on the search for Nessie using a small, 4 person, submarine. Taylor used a smaller submarine, the Viperfish, to search for Nessie in the 1960's, though without success and with many mechanical problems (though he believes that he was turned around on the bottom once by Nessie passing). Taylor hopes to try again as soon as he has funding for his new, home made submarine, the "Nessa".

Not all those who research the Loch Ness Monster are seeking actual proof of the existence of the creature. For instance, as mentioned earlier, Alister Boyd helped to de-bunk the Nessie photo hoax, even though he says he has witnessed an actual appearance of Nessie and seeks proof of the monster's existence. Another more cautious researcher is Richard Carter, who also investigates the existence of Nessie, but also investigates the "evidence" of sightings, to see which is genuine, which hopeful thinking and bad camera shots¹³.

Of the research against the existence of Nessie, two areas that form the focus of this research is that the lake could not support enough of the Loch Ness creatures to form a viable population, without much more evidence of their existence; and that there is not enough food within the lake to support any such population of larger creatures. Another scientific fact that makes the Loch a difficult home for a creature that could possibly be the last remnant of the dinosaur age, the plesiosaur, is that Loch Ness was a glacier until a scant 10,000 years ago — long after the dinosaurs were extinct¹⁴.

However, the searches still continue, the hunt is still on.

You may be asking whether I personally believe in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. I would hope that I'm an open minded person, but the existence of another underwater creature, the giant squid, leads me to doubt the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.

The giant squid is a large creature, most likely up to a maximum of 60 feet in length, inhabiting the deepest depths of the oceans. To approach the surface is basically a death sentence for these creatures, yet we have physical evidence of the giant squid, including several well preserved examples in museums such as the Smithsonian.

The Loch Ness Monster is supposedly not as long as the giant squid, but is much bulkier and would be much heavier. It's supposedly located in a body of water that is much, much, much smaller than the ocean. The Loch Ness monster is also an air breather, meaning that it must surface to breath, unlike the giant squid — to reiterate, surfacing for the giant squid is death. Yet, we have physical evidence of the giant squid, and nothing more than faint, fuzzy images and highly scattered (yes, scattered) eye witness accounts of Nessie. I believe we would have physical evidence, hard evidence, of Nessie by now if it existed. We don't.

Regardless of my personal viewpoint, I respect the beliefs of others and I respect the beliefs of those who feel that Nessie does exist. Something such as the Skeptic's Dictionary can scorn this belief¹⁵, but those who tear down beliefs with such joy are not scientists — they are most likely nothing more than frustrated believers themselves who had their own beliefs shattered and now obtain considerable satisfaction is destroying the beliefs of others.

Photo of Champ, copyright by Sandra Mansi, Lake Champlaign, 1977 - from ISC¹

References:

¹ The Society of Cryptozoology.

² From the NOVA special, The Beast of Loch Ness read about Nessie's roots in Birth of a Legend.

³ Read more about ancient sightings of Nessie at the Cryptozoology Site.

Image from The Legend of Nessie Web site. Image artist unknown at this time.

⁴ See sketches from Nessie Sightings at the Nessie Menu.

⁵ List of Sightings at the best of the Nessie Web sites, the Legend of Nessie.

⁶ The Legend of Nessie.

⁷ Part I of the Beast of Loch Ness, at NOVA.

Drawing of beast as described by the Spicers, in 1993. Sketch from the Legend of Nessie Web Site.⁴

⁸ Part III from the Beast of Loch Ness, at NOVA.

⁹ Read more on the Photo Hoax at Urban Legends.

¹⁰ Part III from the Beast of Loch Ness, at NOVA, on the hoax.

¹¹ Read about Dr. Rines and his work at The Nessie Hunters page.

Hoax Photo from 1934, from NOVA Beast from Loch Ness Web Site.⁸

¹² Read more about the Nessa Project and Dan Scott Tayler's efforts to find Nessie with a submersible.

¹³ Read more about Richard Carter, including some of his articles on Nessie.

¹⁴ Check out the Geological View of Loch Ness. You can also see a Map of Loch Ness, and a Local Guide to Loch Ness.

My roommate hung wind chimes this last weekend, just in time for some of the windier storms we've had this week. I keep my window in my upstairs bedroom/office cracked a bit so that I can hear their gentle sound, interspersed with the songs of the cardinals, finches, and occasional red-winged blackbird. The geese have been migrating north, and it's a real treat to watch a few flying past my window, honking, looking for a place to set down for the evening.

New leaves are peeking out of the furry buds of my favorite bird and squirrel tree, a pussy willow that's across the street and in good view of my window.

Do you know the legend of the pussy willow tree? There are variations but the central theme is that a group of kittens were tossed into or fell into a river and started drowning. The mother cat ran to the riverbank and began to cry for her lost babies. The willows on the shores of the river felt pity for her, so they dropped their branches low enough to touch the water and scooped the tiny little kittens to safety.

According to legend, the spirits of the kittens so saved became transformed as tiny, furry buds, appearing on the willow tree every spring — a gift to the willows for their kindness.

I've always been fascinated with the myth of Trickster. He is cunning and sly; the wise man who acts as the fool. His very nature is contradictory because he is a bringer of both chaos and order. He is a necessary evil.

Every culture has Trickster in it, though the actual representation may differ: Raven is Trickster to many Pacific Northwest and Alaskan native people; Mercury, the winged God, is considered Trickster in Greek Mythology, because of his dual nature; Loki is Trickster in Norse mythology.

To the Turkish (Islamic) people, Trickster is a person, Nasreddin Hodja, and takes on the personification of Trickster as wise man who plays the fool. My favorite Hodja story is Everyone is Right:

Once when Nasreddin Hodja was serving as qadi, one of his neighbors came to him with a complaint against a fellow neighbor.

The Hodja listened to the charges carefully, then concluded, "Yes, dear neighbor, you are quite right."

Then the other neighbor came to him. The Hodja listened to his defense carefully, then concluded, "Yes, dear neighbor, you are quite right."

The Hodja's wife, having listened in on the entire proceeding, said to him, "Husband, both men cannot be right."

The Hodja answered, "Yes, dear wife, you are quite right."

The Navajo (the Dineh) have, in my opinion, the most sophisticated outlook regarding Trickster, who to them takes on the persona of Coyote. In fact, Coyote still forms an important aspect in current Navajo culture to the point where many of the Dineh will not cross the path of a live coyote, in case it is Coyote come to play a trick.

Occasionally you might hear a reference to Coyote in regards to a person having to fight their own personal demons. In particular, the Navajo associate many forms of illness with Coyote, referring to alcoholism, drug addiction, stomach and other illnesses as "coyote sickness". This sickness is usually associated with an external influence such as alcohol or drugs, or poor diet and even exposure to chindi, or ghosts.

To resolve these illnesses, the shaman will perform a healing ceremony and take a person back to their center, performing a ritual cleansing — a healing way — as the person makes reparations for the offenses they have made.

You won't find much online about healing ways, nor will you find much about the sandpaintings used by Navajo shaman during the rituals associated with healing — the Navajo consider that this information gives power and power given foolishly can rebound on the person who dessiminates it indiscriminately. However, I did find reference to one healing way, the Bear way, that seems to be for women in their 40's. The mention of the "crystals" in the ceremony, though, would lead me to guess that this is new age rather than traditional indian ceremony.

The study of Coyote and illness, particularly illness associated with addiction, isn't restricted purely to Navajo medical and religious tradition. In an excellent article, Jacques Rutzky discusses addiction and Coyote from a psychotherapist's postion, somewhat based on Jung's Archetypal Trickster:

Forced to cultivate an awareness of the Coyote in myself as well as my patients, I have come to recognize that Coyote's greatest delusion, that he knows everything, is frequently my own delusion as well. I try to remember that the images, associations, and thoughts that arise in my mind may be a link to another's experience. Or they may not. And though I know with great certainty that Coyote will never be destroyed, I can, at least, recognize his familiar shape, smell, and howl when he comes into my office, sniffs the furniture, and plops down beside me, smiling.