Some time ago, we were discussing the MonsterQuest episode of pterosaurs in New Guinea.  Since they would roughly have the wingspan the size of a plane, Learjet said this "At that size they would be visible on the sat images used in Google Earth."  Learjet has now proven himself to be a wise and all-knowing prophet.  Apparently, a creature has made an appearance on Google Earth…

The Loch Ness Monster On Google Earth

What are we looking at in the picture?  I haven't the slightest idea…

I don't matrix very well. I saw a boat before I saw a squid.

Nosfer said:

I agree…I'm just matrixing but the first thing I said when I saw it was octopus (or squid…I went with octopus because of the bulbousity of the head, there, another new word for the English Language!)

"Bulbousity."  Nice.  Making up words is a key component to becoming a great cryptozoologist.  Nosfer…finally…welcome to the club.  As a new member of the RCS (Revenant's Cryptozoological Society), you will be receiving a really cool safari hat, a couple of motion camera traps, a plaster-casting kit, and a clip of silver bullets.  Also included will be an autographed copy of my new book; "How To Get Away With Being A Cryptozoologist And Live To Tell The Tale," on how not to collect viable evidence and how to write rich and enduring stories about it.  Look for it in the mail! 

alicat said:

…since they have been crying there hasn't been a "sighting" in over a year.  Of course, it's global warning that killed Nessie or so they are claiming now. 

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Actually, that's my favorite part of the whole thing.  Here's the direct quote from the piece:

"Earlier this year it was reported that climate change may have killed the Loch Ness Monster. There have been "no "credible sightings" of Nessie for over a year.  Veteran American monster hunter Bob Rines thinks environmental conditions in the Highland loch have changed and can no longer sustain the elusive reptile."

So…no viable evidence to support the claim of the monster has been produced throughout the years.  And now, that the monster (which again, has never been proven to exist in the first place) has not been seen for a year (and since it has not been proven to exist, the likelihood of seeing something that probably doesn't exist is rather dim) the story now becomes that the monster is dead.  And because the monster is dead, no evidence shall ever be found but the stories may live on for eternity.  Nice… 

To better illustrate it…lets view it another way:

There has been an evil gnome living in my basement for years.  Every year, my basement floods and the evil gnome just swims around.  I have a few grainy photographs to prove it.  Although, well…some of them have proven to be fake.  Anyway, beyond that, as for other evidence of the evil gnome, well…I did some sonar work.  I got a couple of hits showing blobs.  So there's that.  And a bunch of other people have claimed to see him too.  Or…they saw something that resembled an evil gnome.  But I haven't seen him in over a year now so I think he's dead.  I did change my fabric softener around that time and since the dryer is in the basement, that's what may have killed him.  So now we'll never find any evidence of the evil gnome in my basement, but trust me…all the stories that you heard about him were true.

So, my question is…why is the story of the Loch Ness Monster viable and believable yet the story of my evil gnome isn't?  What is truly the difference?  I can fake photo's.  I can make blobs show up on any model of radar that you can come up with.  As for eye-witness testimony…can most people say for sure what they are seeing in a body of water from a distance?

For the record, I want the Loch Ness Monster to exist.  Nothing would be cooler.  Yet, nothing that I've seen even remotely proves to me that the monster does indeed exist.  And then to hear the "oh, we can't find it so it must be dead" theory is just…*shakes his head*…so incredibly weak, it's mind-boggling…   

alicat said:

I guess to answer your question about why Nessie is more viable than the gnome is because it's history can be traced back to the writing of sightings as far back as 565 a.d.  The gnome, not so much.

I was at Skepticblog the other night and was reading a book review written by Michael Shermer.  The book is called "Confessions of an Alien Hunter" by Seth Shostak.  Here's the link:

http://skepticblog.org/2009/08/25/how-to-talk-to-a-ufologist/

Shermer writes the following paragraph about UFO's, but I believe that the concept can also apply to "Nessie."  He wrote "UFOlogists claim that they have tens of thousands of UFO sightings, as if this is a good thing, but Shostak notes that this actually argues against UFOs being ET, because to date not one of these tens of thousands of sightings has materialized into concrete evidence that UFOs = ETIs. It’s counterintuitive, but more sightings equals less certainty because with so many saucers zipping around we would have captured one by now, and we haven’t."

Tons of sightings of Nessie…yet, never a shred of physical evidence.  More sightings equalling less certainty is definitely counterintuitive, but if you think about it…it does make sense…