Nessie High-Tech Hoax

[Xevious]

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1788802005

A number of skeptics performing an "experiment" created a highly detailed anamatronic Nessie and used it in Lock Ness to determine if tourists would think it was real. It is being heralded as a great triumpth for skeptics but their is a crucial error with this experiment.

First one should be reminded that although hollywood special effects have been maturing over the last 30 years, Nessie has been rumored LONG before these "skeptics" could have ever created such a puppet. Furthermore, the anamatronic was of course mean to be highly realistic. If one put a fiberglass model of say a Dodge Charger on a street courner and one couldn't lift the hood or touch it, would you have any reason to believe it was NOT a Dodge Charger? Skeptics should be doing their homework instead of trying to stroke their intellects with bogus superiority.

 

[Xevious]

As I think about it further, I do realize where the skeptics have a point. Plenty of photos of the Loch Ness Monster have been proven to be models and hoaxes. Just as many have not ever been debunked. Dishonesty is certanly a valid point to be made by skeptics, but I think you will find that it is more often the skeptics which parcipitate hoaxes, particularly with the crop circle phenomenon as an example.

Stop and think a moment. Skeptics are responsible for a good number of hoaxes. What they are doing then, is muddying the waters and preventing real research from taking place by making fun of people who believe something unusual is happening. Then, they say the vast number of the sightings are "hoaxes" and use this to support their own argument that a phenomenon does not exist. That sounds more like the antics of immature children then anything else.

 

[Stryder]

I sure back in the depths of the sciforum Archive I put forwards a theory that "Nessie" was potentially the sighting of a viking Longboat, since the Vikings could actually lift the boats out over land and then place them into bodies of water on the opposite site (namely Loch Ness)

The view of such a boat at night might of had the Viking sheilds look like the bumps on the back of some strange headed creature (notibly the front of the boat)

However whether there is or Isn't a nessy shouldn't be the point, I'm sure the people of Loch Ness would prefer you to check out their History/Heritage with a visit.

For tourists:
www.lochnesswelcome.co.uk

For Nessie Hunters
www.lochness.co.uk

 

[Neildo]

Well I don't really have an opinion on Nessie. It could easily be a hoax but I also don't doubt the possibility of some creature surviving many years and whatnot. But yeah, it's pretty silly to say that all because one can recreate a replica of a Nessie-like monster, that it means that's all that it is.

I outta show a pic of a wax dummy of Bush to show that Geoge Bush isn't real, but rather in fact, a dummy.

- N

 

[Odin'Izm]

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1788802005

A number of skeptics performing an "experiment" created a highly detailed anamatronic Nessie and used it in Lock Ness to determine if tourists would think it was real. It is being heralded as a great triumpth for skeptics but their is a crucial error with this experiment.

First one should be reminded that although hollywood special effects have been maturing over the last 30 years, Nessie has been rumored LONG before these "skeptics" could have ever created such a puppet. Furthermore, the anamatronic was of course mean to be highly realistic. If one put a fiberglass model of say a Dodge Charger on a street courner and one couldn't lift the hood or touch it, would you have any reason to believe it was NOT a Dodge Charger? Skeptics should be doing their homework instead of trying to stroke their intellects with bogus superiority.

The first myths emerged at the start of the 1900's when this photo came out untill then, it was a local joke, this photo itself is a hoax, a floating model about 1ft across:

The whole nessie thing is bullshit used to attract tourists and feed scotlands economy


Quote:

Said to have started with an account of Saint Columba, in 565 A.D rescuing a swimmer from a lake creature. From then on stories of such a creature emerged periodically, but little is actually recorded until the 20th century
It was only after1933, when a new road was built along the lake shore and people were first able to visit the area in large numbers, that reports of sightings really took off

 

[Stryder]

You say a model, it always looked to me as if someone was Swimming and that their arm was out of the water in mid stroke.

 

[Ophiolite]

No. This is the so-called "surgeon's" photograph supposedly taken by a London surgeon in 1933. The photo stood up well to analysis over the decades and was one of the major pieces of evidence for the reality of the Loch Ness monster. It emerged in 1993 that is was a hoax, arranged as revenge against the Daily Mail. See a fuller account here.http://www.unmuseum.org/nesshoax.htm

 

[Boris2]

>>>>A number of skeptics performing an "experiment" created a highly detailed anamatronic Nessie and used it in Lock Ness to determine if tourists would think it was real. It is being heralded as a great triumpth for skeptics....

skeptic(sic) was not mentioned in the article. a newspaper and the model builders were.

 

[Odin'Izm]

The plain and simple truth is that there isnt enough food in loch ness, to fead a creature that big. Just because a bunch of dipshits think nessie is real dosnt make it so.

 

[river-wind]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster

the only bit that I find interesting was the 1970 expidition, namely the rhomboid fin photo which came out of it (IIRC, the camera was set up w/ a motion sensor, and it took the photo late one night as something swm by).

Overall, I would say that it's hogwash, and we'd have seen something by now if a freaking pleseosaur was swimming around in a highly populated area, some kind of proof....then again, people said that about a few species over the years, only to have one finally pulled up on a fishing boat *cough*coelacanth*cough*.

 

[Xevious]

Chris Shaw, the network's senior programme controller, said: "The Loch Ness Monster is one of the world's most enduring myths and we thought it would be fascinating to see if the general public, fed on a diet of movie special effects, could still believe in Nessie. The results are really quite surprising."

Mr MacDonald said the stunt was superior to earlier "primitive" attempts to fool the public, adding: "In the past, people have used things like a labrador dog with a stick in its mouth and three bales of hay covered with tarpaulin sheets."

Those don't sound like skeptics to you?

 

[Xevious]

The Coleacanth is a good example. Skepticism is healthy, but critics have said something "does not exist" too often and been put flat on their faces.

 

[Boris2]

>>>>Those don't sound like skeptics to you?

they appear to be just conducting a basic experiment to see if people can be fooled. seems they can, even knowing about the quality of movie SFXs. they are not saying whether nessie exists or not but that anecdotal evidence is not to relied upon.

which btw is what sceptics say.

 

[shaman_]

The Coleacanth is a good example. Skepticism is healthy, but critics have said something "does not exist" too often and been put flat on their faces.

True... but it is a big step from a fish in the ocean to a dinosaur living in a lake in a fairly well populated area.

 

[Xevious]

Read it again...

"The Loch Ness Monster is one of the world's most enduring myths..."

"...could still believe in Nessie..."

Reliance purely on anecdotial evidence is a sure enough point. You still need have the issue of the sightings dating for hundreds of years before the area was populated. Worse for believers, if their was a population of unusual creatures in Loch Ness it may have died out and we will never know for sure.

The point however: Don't forget about meterorites.

 

[Boris2]

>>>>The point however: Don't forget about meterorites.

didn't even know about them. what did they do?

 

[Ophiolite]

True... but it is a big step from a fish in the ocean to a dinosaur living in a lake in a fairly well populated area.

1. No serious researcher is (or I think even has) suggested Nessie is a dinosaur.
2. Fairly well populated area! I take it you haven't been there. There are a couple of villages along the length of the loch. These are not villages in the English sense of a couple of thousand inhabitants, but more a couple of dozen houses. And the residents are too busy counting the money from the tourists to be looking at the loch. And the tourists, after five minutes of looking at the loch and seeing nothing promptly look at the souvenirs, go to Urquhart Castle, or head for the pub.

 

[shaman_]

1. No serious researcher is (or I think even has) suggested Nessie is a dinosaur.

Many researchers have suggested that nessie is a plesiosaur, or related to one.
What do your 'serious' researchers suggest?

2. Fairly well populated area! I take it you haven't been there. There are a couple of villages along the length of the loch. These are not villages in the English sense of a couple of thousand inhabitants, but more a couple of dozen houses. And the residents are too busy counting the money from the tourists to be looking at the loch. And the tourists, after five minutes of looking at the loch and seeing nothing promptly look at the souvenirs, go to Urquhart Castle, or head for the pub.

Yes I have been there. We passed several other busses full of tourists that day and that was in late autumn.
A couple of dozen houses? There are 50 000 people in Inverness!

 

[Ophiolite]

Plesiosaurs are not dinosaurs.

You could live in Inverness your entire life and never visit the loch. Unlikely I agree, but possible. Inverness does not lie on the loch, so it really does not count.

 

[shaman_]

Plesiosaurs are not dinosaurs.

Well I have learnt something today. I wont refer to a plesiosaur as a dinosaur again. The point I was trying to make is that plesiosaurs (or serpents) are huge and coelacanths are just fish.

You could live in Inverness your entire life and never visit the loch. Unlikely I agree, but possible. Inverness does not lie on the loch, so it really does not count.

Inverness is next to Loch Ness. We were talking about the population in the area, so yes it does count.

We are getting a bit off the track from my point. - There are differences between the finding of the coelacanth and nessie.