A naturalist who has spent 50 years researching water creatures claims the supposed Loch Ness Monster sightings could have another explanation behind them as he opens up about the Loch’s mysteries
An expert claims sightings of the Loch Ness Monster are actually something completely different – and many Nessie watchers will be upset.
Following 50 years of searching for the monster, Adrian Shine said he hears several reports of people spotting “long-necked” creatures on Loch Ness and they were actually misidentifying the beast completely. He claims the sham sightings were simply waterbirds who hunt on the Loch becoming more visible due to clear conditions. Mr Shine added that mysterious humps or loops in the water were really just boat wakes.
These are the “largest cause of monster sightings,” according to the naturalist who thinks the rise of Nessie hunting was due to the classic sea serpent illustration depicted on old maps. But it’s not all bad news, as Mr Shine claims he is a “sympathetic sceptic” when it comes to the monster and gave believers a bit of hope by not ruling out Nessie entirely, but giving another perspective.
He said: “Boat wakes are probably the number one cause of monsters sightings, and waterbirds are the long-necked ones. Of course there are long-necked creatures on Loch Ness – we call them swans.
“And in calm conditions you can lose your ability to judge distance, and if you can’t judge distance, you can’t judge size.” He’s not the only one to notice the resemblance either.
Finnish photographer Tommi Vainionpää edited together a convincing likeness of Nessie using images of different parts of a swan, captured in silhouette. Other waterbirds mistaken for the monster included cormorants and merganser.
Mr Shine, a Loch Ness local, described how the water movement could be interpreted as Nessie’s bumps. “When a vessel is coming towards you, it is obvious what the wake is – you see it spreading out from the sides of the vessel approaching you, or indeed going away from you.
“But if it’s going across your front, it’s quite different – you see the individual wave train, the individual wavelengths, as solid black humps. They will be short and many for a vessel moving slowly, and they will be longer and fewer as the vessel gathers speed.
“The wave lines can be almost continuous, and it is a fascinating illusion. It is very compelling.” Mr Shine has been gathering evidence and record of sighting for his new book, A Natural History of Sea Serpents.
Another aspect of his research included food. He claims there is simply not enough food in the Loch to maintain such a beast. Upon estimations, they say there around 20 tonnes of fish in the Loch. “And so if you’ve got 20 metric tonnes of fish, then you could only have two tonnes of monster. That’d be about half the weight of a basking shark.”
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