Thursday, January 7, 2010

Nessie or Nelly?

I begin my blog with a song.

"Nelly the elephant packed her trunk, and said goodbye to the circus, Then off she went with a trumpety trump, Trump, trump trump."
Well not really... I was reading up on the Loch Ness monster. Fascinating and it would be awesome were if some of the stuff were true. most of my research was done on one site- http://www.nessie.co.uk/. Great but a bit biased as its geared towards proving the Loch Ness Monster is real. Its a good site none-the-less.
From what I read, the legend of a Loch Ness monster or Kelpie has been around for hundreds of years. Sightings start in the late 1800's. In the 1930's a sighting and photograph take the world media by storm and ever since then its been popular. There has been faked evidence (my favourite is the big game hunter, Marmeduke Wetherall- what a name-, who used a stuffed hippo foot to make fake footprints!). The descriptions seems to mainly be of a creature/disturbance in the water which resembles an upturned boat, and/or long sinuous heads. Many sighting have been by locals who know the loch well and wouldn't mis it up with birdlife or otters.
There are very large eels living in the Loch which would account for some claims, which can apparantly leave the water too- so may account for some of the lan sighting that have occured from afar. Otherwise the belief by fanatics and Cryptozoologists is tha the Loch Ness holds a Plesiosaur:

Who knows- people have to make their own mind up. Regardles of what Nessie may or may not be, sightings have declined recently and fans of Nessie deny claims that its possible if it were real, that it has died.
I recently read something that piqued my fancy though and gives an explaination fo what Nessie is and why the sightings may be declining (other than less Media Hype!) Looking at the Nessie pics- the older ones seems to have long necks giving the classic Nessie shots, grainy balck and white shots. Here a a few of the classics.taken from google image and nessie.co.uk:















So what was also popular in the 1930's other than Nessie sightings- apparantly according to the National Geographic article i have linked to, travelling circuses. Could it be that elephants having a bath in the Loch mean that Nessie is actually Nelly?


So who knows- but here's a pic posted on nessie.co.uk- asking people to ask themselves if its real or fake- i say it's real- but maybe we need to nose-about the issue a bit more.


5 comments:

  1. speaking of 'Nelly The Elephant', fellow nerds should also check out the 2009 Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), which has a rather amusing article about the fact that 'Nelly The Elephant' is not an appropriate song to perform CPR to.

    Because I too, am a nerd and the christmas BMJ is about my favourite thing ever.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes REALLY good fake or maybe an elephant nose as you suggest!

    Willow

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Michelle, I think the plesiosaur idea was pretty much knocked on the head by the fact the Loch has been frozen in the dim past (during ice age). Finding a reason such as the elephant swimming is fascinating - I suppose if the original photographs were examined by forensic techniques perhaps more detail could be found out about them. I think however the possibility of finding an answer to the mystery will be impossible as people will say but yes that one was an elephant but the others were something else.... Did you know there is a live webcam trained on Loch Ness if you want to watch out for Nessie yourself? Lance

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rach: yeah gotta love christmas BMJ!

    Lance: Awesome- i'm Nessie spotting from now on... none of this study business. I'm going to see the Loch Ness Monster and become fabulously rich!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think this is the website but its not working on my PC now.... OK it won't paste into here will email!

    ReplyDelete