Scientist’s simple explanation for Loch Ness Monster mystery
More like the Flock Ness Monster.
A Scottish naturalist who has investigated the Loch Ness Monster mystery for a half-century believes there’s some fowl play when it comes to sightings of the perplexing plesiosaur.
“Of course, there are long-necked creatures on Loch Ness — we call them swans,” Adrian Shine, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and founder of the Loch Ness Project, told Pen News.
Scottish naturalist Adrian Shine believes there’s some fowl play when it comes to sightings of the perplexing plesiosaur. Credit: Pen News
“People will continue to come forward having seen things unrecognized by them, and [that] will inevitably confirm the stereotypes that society has – it is called confirmation bias,” declared Shine (pictured). Credit: Whittles/Pen News
Despite his 50-year investment in researching the creature, the Loch star dubs himself a “sympathetic skeptic” regarding the alleged existence of the mythical critter.
Much like a Bigfoot hunter who believes Sasquatch is someone in a gorilla suit, Shine offers little consolation to those who swear by Nessie sightings, of which there have been over 1,156 “official” ones.
“Boat wakes are probably the number one cause of monster sightings, and waterbirds are the long-necked ones,” the Scotsman declared. “And in calm conditions, you can lose your ability to judge distance, and if you can’t judge distance, you can’t judge size.”
His theory is supported by the work of Finnish photographer Tommi Vainionpää, who spliced together a convincing likeness of the Loch monster from different parts of a swan shot in silhouette.
Shine believes that Nessie might actually be a swan. Credit: Philip Wollenberg via Pen News
Other possible suspects include cormorants and mergansers, per Shine, who lives by the loch near Drumnadrochit, Scotland.
Along with thinking Nessie is for the birds, the naturalist also believes that boat wakes could form the iconic “humps” seen in photographs.
“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,” he said. “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.”
Shine added, “The wave lines can be almost continuous, and it is a fascinating illusion.”
Shine believes that Loch Ness’s finite size lends itself to popular curiosity. Credit: Pen News
In his new book “A Natural History of Sea Serpents,” the skeptic argued that Nessie sightings seem to conform to the classic images of sea serpents.
“We know what sea serpents look like, you do, I do, everybody else does — and the things people see now in Loch Ness will confirm that,” he said. “People will continue to come forward having seen things unrecognized by them, and [that] will inevitably confirm the stereotypes that society has — it is called confirmation bias.”
A photo showing a very Nessie-like composite image of different parts of a swan pictured in silhouette. Credit: Tommi Vainionpää via Pen News
Shine said other possible Nessie doppelgangers include sturgeon, catfish and giant eels.
However, a 2018 survey of the DNA in Loch Ness didn’t yield any traces of the first two culprits, while the genetic blueprint of the latter could’ve originated in eels of any size.
A compilation of sketches by alleged Nessie eyewitnesses. Credit: Whittles/Pen News
Another bit of counterevidence to this cryptozoological curiosity is the fact that the loch just doesn’t have enough food to sustain a critter of Nessie’s size.
For one, the amount of fish doesn’t abide by the 10% rule, which dictates that one-tenth of the energy in any level of the food chain will be passed to the next.
“We’ve measured the population of open-water fish acoustically, and we reckon it’s about 20 tons,” scoffed Shine. “And so if you’ve got 20 metric tons of fish, then you could only have two tons of monster. That’d be about half the weight of a basking shark.”
That’s a lot smaller than the 20-foot-plus beast described in many Nessie accounts.
Despite the improbability of this water monster’s existence, Shine believes that Loch Ness lore lends itself to “popular curiosity” due to — somewhat paradoxically — the water body’s small size.
“The sea is too big for people to really argue about, whereas the loch represents a finite environment, more amenable to resolution,” he claimed. “Yes, the loch is quite deep, it’s quite big – there’s more water in it than in the whole of England and Wales, but it’s still a relatively small place.
Shine concluded, “Therefore the answer seems not to be too far away.”
