01x03 - Loch Ness: Fathoming the Monster
Posted: 10/03/23 15:27
Heart of Darkness and most importantly
Conan Doyle's The Lost World which
portrayed isolated islands of jungle as
potential Habitat For A Relic reptile
Survivor
in the 1920s the lost world became the
first of the ever popular dinosaur
movies and in 1933 just three months
before the spicers broadcast their story
on BBC Radio the Blockbuster King Kong
was released
it's not hard to see why the media was
so Keen to turn the spices Nessie into a
living dinosaur
and whatever they actually saw took on
the classic identity of a plesiosaur
and as for the proof
well they didn't have to wait long the
very next swing in April of 1934 proof
was provided in the form of this
Photograph hard evidence taken by an
apparently honorable Harley Street
surgeon and immediately the animal was
defined long neck tiny head the
plesiosaur Theory took hold
foreign
we know that up until 65 million years
ago reptiles Ruled the Earth dominating
the land the Seas and the skies
the dinosaurs were just one group
the plesiosaurs another
plesiosaurs were marine reptiles the
classic one that most people know about
had a very very long neck with a fairly
small head and fairly slender quite
delicate teeth
it had a barrel-shaped body with four
very large flippers and a fairly short
pointy tail
reptiles are not fish these were
air-breathing animals physiosaurs were
definitely air breathing animals they
were related to the likes of lizards and
dinosaurs they weren't like fish they
didn't have gills they had a proper lung
system and they were dedicated to the
surface for air breathing
now aside from being marine animals is
there any chance at all that any of them
strayed into fresh water it is possible
that they went into fresh water to have
their babies
they could have been doing that to give
birth to life young or they could have
been going there like turtles and
crocodiles to lay eggs that is a
possibility
and it's the possibility that is the
Monster Hunters scanning from the shores
of Loch Ness
but is or was Loch Ness ever a habitat a
lost world where a population of monster
reptiles might have survived
well imagination is one thing biological
feasibility is probably quite another
so could there be an unknown species of
giant reptile anywhere in the world and
could there really be a Loch Ness
Monster
[Music]
surprisingly to answer these questions
we need to travel 10 000 miles
sadly not to any real-lost world
but to Australia
you see in a way this is our most recent
Jurassic Park
here a great range of reptiles has
continued to rule Supreme
and I've come to find out why
to see if any monsters are still out
there
pick up any clues to
tell that Loch Ness mystery
[Music]
in the UK we'd expect squirrels and
foxes or dogs and cats to root through
the trash or Raid the picnic basket
but not here no in Australia mammals are
left waiting in the wings whilst
reptiles like these monitor lizards take
Center Stage
[Music]
too to find out exactly why reptiles are
so successful here I met Greg chakura
from Queensland Museum
Australia has basically a very poor
environment a lot of our habitats and
ecosystems here are very low in
nutrients and what that means is for the
reptiles is not the massive competition
with mammals and birds that you you know
find in other continents
the life of a reptile Predator is easier
than yeah a mammal Predator simply
because they don't have the high
metabolic rates they don't need the
massive intake of food all the time so
you know you can be a bit more laid back
being a reptile
they may feed you know once every couple
of days if it's a largeish predator
where a mammal produce got to be feeding
nearly every day
we never really developed the big mammal
Predators we never have had an animal
equivalent to a lion or a tiger in
Australia but the reptiles took the
challenge up and we wound up with some
very big monitor lizards
oh magnificent big ladies there are
undoubtedly new species of reptile to be
discovered here in Australia and every
once in a while reports filter in from
the Outback of lizards a little on the
large size
Steve and Tanya oxbower won't forget
their encounter
we come along here
and I heard what I thought was a cow
walking towards me sort of behind me up
here and I didn't take much notice at
first and as I got closer I turned to
look at it
and it was a big lizard
sort of walked along here went up there
and sort of sat up where that log was he
was
scary
well I reckon he would have been as big
as me counting his Tails his legs would
have come out here and his legs would
have been as thick as my legs as well
his back was probably about that off the
ground I reckon
the way it was walking down the track
here towards me it obviously didn't care
that I was at the end of the track it
was just going to walk through me or
around me
I felt like it was probably further up
the food chain than I was
[Music]
see
was it a relic a reptile Survivor
because there were real monsters here
and the greatest was called Megalania
[Music]
it's massive a truly formidable reptile
and it was living here just a few
thousand years ago which relatively
speaking in evolutionary terms was just
yesterday
Megalania was a very large monitor
dessert probably reaching a length of
somewhere between five and seven meters
you can see the vertebrae of Megalania
and vertebra of a large Australian
monitor so you can see substantially
larger than any of the ones living today
in Australia what about the world it
lived in what would it have shared it
with I mean were humans included well
human beings apparently entered
Australia about forty thousand years ago
and Megalania and the other large
Australian animals were thought to have
become extinct about 20 to 18 000 years
ago so Megalania would have been sharing
Australia so to speak with humans for
about 20 000 years it's much more recent
than things like dinosaurs which became
extinct 65 million years ago
million dollar question could it still
exist in in modern Australia
it could but I wouldn't wager any money
on it I don't think that it does and I
think that because Megalania probably
lived in areas that were open grassland
areas Prairie areas and all of these
have been converted to agriculture
nowadays in Australia so one would
expect that there would be a lot more
reports of Megalania than there have
been that you would find recent
carcasses recent bones that sort of
thing and we haven't
yourself
so what have I learned so far
well firstly in this nutrient-pore
environment eating a living is very hard
so this has favored the energy efficient
reptiles over us mammals
secondly I don't know what the Oxford
saw but it appears that even the great
lizard of Oz Megalania is extinct
so does this mean that here in our best
chance location in reptile Paradise
there are no prehistoric survivors
no it doesn't
one thing's for sure there's already an
animal here which we're very aware of
it's an animal survived the extinction
of the dinosaurs
it's the largest reptile left on Earth
[Music]
the estuarine crocodile
to fall saltwater crocs once reached
over eight meters in length that's 28
feet
that's monster
at the Darwin crocodile farm I met Anne
Palmer
I think the success of the crocodile
really has a lot to do with the
environment that it lives in they live
in semi-aquatic fresh water and salt
water swamps of the Northern Territory
they don't tend to have many predators
certainly no competition for the big
animals they can survive for long
periods of time without food but they
are very opportunistic for you to taking
horses cattle even human beings if they
wander into that territory
what about their hunting strategy
uh crocodile is very efficient Predator
a large crop will stalk their prey dive
underneath the surface
the last minute lunge out take the
animal off and roll and just form the
death roll and drown it
there's no doubt that this qualifies as
a very real monster reptile but then
also as one of the most successful type
of animals ever to evolve on Earth
clocks like this appeared about 150
million years ago and they filled a
niche and got it right they're
semi-aquatic opportunistic predators and
because their habitat and the job they
do in it is virtually unchanged then
they remain virtually unchanged
themselves
foreign
you see they are survivors not in a lost
world but in an environmental Niche
where they've reigned Supreme
so if we have an aquatic prehistoric
reptile living here
then why not in Loch Ness
[Music]
Loch Ness sits in a steep-sided valley
cut out by a succession of glaciers over
the last few million years
in fact only 10 000 years ago this was
one of the biggest ice cubes on Earth
so the origin of any species living here
now has to be more recent for instance
it was only after that ice melted that
the ancestors of today's fish swam in
from the sea
so what about those plesiosaurs
in the 1970s these photographs taken by
Dr Robert Ryan's attracted worldwide
attention they appeared to show a
flipper of a plesiosaur type animal and
in the fly of excitement the unknown
creature was even given a scientific
name by the eminent naturalist sir Peter
Scott
appeared in the highly credible journal
Nature and it means Ness Wonder with a
diamond-shaped fin however it didn't
take long for some skeptical word wizard
to point out that the name had a rather
intriguing anagram
and it was later revealed that the
images themselves had been computer
enhanced
but what of the other photo evidence
they were still the most famous image of
all the surgeon's photo from 1934.
NASA those Astro scientists took an
intense look at the photograph and they
gave it the thumbs up
but oh dear in 1994 the last of the
original g*ng finally broke their
silence and revealed the whole thing as
a hoax the most famous Loch Ness monster
ever was no more than a model mounted on
a toy submarine so much for mission
control the old surgeon was a scoundrel
after all
[Music]
but of course people do see some pretty
weird things
[Music]
Loch Ness is famed for baffling
phenomena
curious waves and boat wakes atmospheric
Distortion Mists and novel reflections
of the light
these can all confuse and convince the
Casual Observer
but what about the low course people who
live with the log and are used to its
fickle trickery every once in a while
they see something and maybe their
accounts are a little bit more difficult
to dismiss and when you consider their
stories on mass there's a clue
I thought
I have to keep this quiet was my first
thing nobody believed that I've actually
seen this I can't have publicity for
this I can't tell anybody about it
[Music]
out in this area here I saw
what can best be described as a boiling
of the water not a dramatic boiling just
a little bubbly
something
caught my eye
in the middle of this disturbance there
were three shiny black humps I mean till
the day I go to my grave now I'll tell
you there were three black humps here I
don't care what anyone else says
at the edge of the jetty I could see
that there was definitely something in
the water
and then it surfaced
and it was large
looking into the Setting Sun it was 10
o'clock at night it was a silhouette
effect
and I can recall distinctly the chap
saying it's eels and I said it's not
bloody eels it's too big and his wife
said well I've not been in the bar
I approached it and it was only just a
couple of feet away from me in the water
I was looking down on it
and it started to move
there was this week coming from it just
little ripples of water coming from it
for such a big object I was amazed that
it didn't make more of a splash no
doubtful thing no for that but nothing
that you would relate to say like a
k*ller whale or or any of that sort of
things or a fluke or a tailor another no
I thought I hadn't
seen what we think to be a humpback Loch
Ness monster but I thought I'd seen
a crocodile
oh no I have no idea I have no idea
there's something living in there more
than one and I can't relate it to
anything that I've ever seen in any part
of the world
crocodile or some sort of fish I would
say
quite a fascinating experience
[Music]
you see the clue is they're all seeing
completely different things
Adrian shine came to the lock in the 70s
he's been a monster hunter but now he
has a different agenda
at Loch Ness really you've got two
thousand people you've got about a
thousand eyewitnesses who say they see
unusual things and they do see things
that they don't understand
on the other hand you have scientists
who've studied the lock and who say
there is not enough food in Loch Ness to
sustain large creatures
rather than tour for Nessie Adrian has
spent a productive decade examining the
life in this PT pool to establish a
better understanding of the food chains
that support the Lock's distinctive
ecosystem
Loch Ness is a cold water environment
the last thing that happened here was
the ice age and when we get right down
to 200 meters it's an ice age world that
we're entering
so we are a lost world at the bottom of
Loch Ness
but it's not Jurassic Park
[Music]
so there a cold ice age Lost World not
very promising for a sun-loving animal
what about that food supply
Loch Ness is a very impoverished Lake
several surveys are suggesting that
there's only about 20 tons of fish in it
which would rarely only support about
two tons of top predator in Lochness and
that's a problem for a resident
population of large Predators so I
wouldn't myself believe in any sort of
reptile Jurassic or otherwise viable and
living here
so for a whole population of Big Fish
Eaters it doesn't look great
especially for ones from the prehistoric
past
[Music]
inclusive but I wanted a final expert
opinion
Dave why couldn't the Loch Ness monster
be a please use
for one reason we have a 65 million year
gap between the last fossil record and
the present day there is no evidence for
any pleasure source
Loch Ness can only have had animals in
it in the last 10 000 years therefore
there would have to have been a
population of plesiosaurs in the sea
somewhere that got in to longness ten
thousand years ago we have no evidence
for them also the physiology would have
to have changed they would have to have
gone from being Marine aquatic animals
to being a freshwater animal in a very
very short period
also a viable population would have to
have got in this population would have
to have been really quite large for it
to be viable over the last 10 000 years
and I don't think that the productivity
in Loch Ness is sufficient to have been
able to feed all of those relatively
large animals
another thing is of course that remember
that plesiosaurs were air-breathing
animals and for a large population to a
viable population to have been there you
would have been seeing please your sores
at the surface breathing every few
minutes sadly the Loch Ness phenomenon
is not a plesiosaur
foreign
[Music]
firstly
there's not enough food in this lot to
support a population of large Predators
reptiles or otherwise
in fact Loch Ness in human terms is like
a great big Supermarket with three
lettuces and one can of salmon left on
the otherwise empty shelves
secondly the spices even if they had
seen the last monster on the morning
when it died we now know that for a
population of plesiosaurs who have
survived into historic times they would
have needed to be at least five thousand
individuals
now people have been pressing up and
down the side of this lot for hundreds
of years keeping detailed records and
yet there's no mention of a veritable
Forest of long necks and Tiny heads
so I'm sorry to say
there is no Loch Ness Monster
for the very simple reason that there's
never been a population of them but hey
just because there's no monster doesn't
mean that there's never been anything in
here
there has and there always will be
because the lock is open to the Sea
there's a way in the riverness
salmon swim and leap into the lock to
spawn and sometimes larger animals such
as seals follow them in
there's also the Caledonian canal and
although there are locks to negotiate
animals could make it through and as far
as Adrian shine is concerned at least
some of the historic sightings could be
explained by one particular visitor
Loch Ness is a body of water that's open
to the Sea and that's where all our fish
came from and a local tradition says
that a strange fish was in Loch Ness so
what about strange fish
and you know there is a very rare
visitor to Britain would enter
freshwater only to spawn
there's really the largest fish you
would ever see in fresh water in fact
it's the it's a Baltic sturgeon
and they've run up British Rivers 70
miles or so past locks and Weirs and
what I'm suggesting really is that the
original tradition could have begun with
the occasional entry of a sturgeon
vainly seeking a maid and then leaving
leaving no Trace save an enigma
[Music]
I'm pretty convinced that sturgeon
account for at least some of the ancient
encounters
it can grow to seven meters often swim
near the surface creating long wakes and
with their prominent scales they do look
very reptilian
but a fish wouldn't be crossing the road
did the spices actually see well real
animals do visit the lock and they
probably did so with a much greater
regularity when these folks were around
and I've no doubt they saw something
[Music]
perhaps I don't know perhaps they've got
an unusual really distorted view of a
couple of otters running across the road
disappearing down the bank into the
water who knows seals porpoises all
kinds of unexpected animals probably pay
fleeting visits to the lock
foreign
[Music]
there's not one Loch Ness Monster
there are many
amongst the jumble of hoaxes and media
hype there are different people
interpreting different things in
different situations
at its cynical worst the Loch Ness
Monster
often a boy to the local tourist
industry but even that wouldn't work if
it wasn't such a fantastically romantic
idea we'd all like to think that Nessie
was out there even I would but it isn't
for the very simple reason that there's
never been a population out there
population is the key word what there is
a curious lot phenomena visiting animals
and too many people looking too hard but
hey I know exactly whatever I say won't
ever stop any visitor to the lock from
slowing down taking a look over the
water and hoping to see something a
little bit too strange to be true
foreign
[Music]
next week's ex-creature was the famous
film for real or a hoax Chris
investigates at the same time seven
o'clock next tonight on BBC One a new
series of Tomorrow's World with the
technology that could save your life
Conan Doyle's The Lost World which
portrayed isolated islands of jungle as
potential Habitat For A Relic reptile
Survivor
in the 1920s the lost world became the
first of the ever popular dinosaur
movies and in 1933 just three months
before the spicers broadcast their story
on BBC Radio the Blockbuster King Kong
was released
it's not hard to see why the media was
so Keen to turn the spices Nessie into a
living dinosaur
and whatever they actually saw took on
the classic identity of a plesiosaur
and as for the proof
well they didn't have to wait long the
very next swing in April of 1934 proof
was provided in the form of this
Photograph hard evidence taken by an
apparently honorable Harley Street
surgeon and immediately the animal was
defined long neck tiny head the
plesiosaur Theory took hold
foreign
we know that up until 65 million years
ago reptiles Ruled the Earth dominating
the land the Seas and the skies
the dinosaurs were just one group
the plesiosaurs another
plesiosaurs were marine reptiles the
classic one that most people know about
had a very very long neck with a fairly
small head and fairly slender quite
delicate teeth
it had a barrel-shaped body with four
very large flippers and a fairly short
pointy tail
reptiles are not fish these were
air-breathing animals physiosaurs were
definitely air breathing animals they
were related to the likes of lizards and
dinosaurs they weren't like fish they
didn't have gills they had a proper lung
system and they were dedicated to the
surface for air breathing
now aside from being marine animals is
there any chance at all that any of them
strayed into fresh water it is possible
that they went into fresh water to have
their babies
they could have been doing that to give
birth to life young or they could have
been going there like turtles and
crocodiles to lay eggs that is a
possibility
and it's the possibility that is the
Monster Hunters scanning from the shores
of Loch Ness
but is or was Loch Ness ever a habitat a
lost world where a population of monster
reptiles might have survived
well imagination is one thing biological
feasibility is probably quite another
so could there be an unknown species of
giant reptile anywhere in the world and
could there really be a Loch Ness
Monster
[Music]
surprisingly to answer these questions
we need to travel 10 000 miles
sadly not to any real-lost world
but to Australia
you see in a way this is our most recent
Jurassic Park
here a great range of reptiles has
continued to rule Supreme
and I've come to find out why
to see if any monsters are still out
there
pick up any clues to
tell that Loch Ness mystery
[Music]
in the UK we'd expect squirrels and
foxes or dogs and cats to root through
the trash or Raid the picnic basket
but not here no in Australia mammals are
left waiting in the wings whilst
reptiles like these monitor lizards take
Center Stage
[Music]
too to find out exactly why reptiles are
so successful here I met Greg chakura
from Queensland Museum
Australia has basically a very poor
environment a lot of our habitats and
ecosystems here are very low in
nutrients and what that means is for the
reptiles is not the massive competition
with mammals and birds that you you know
find in other continents
the life of a reptile Predator is easier
than yeah a mammal Predator simply
because they don't have the high
metabolic rates they don't need the
massive intake of food all the time so
you know you can be a bit more laid back
being a reptile
they may feed you know once every couple
of days if it's a largeish predator
where a mammal produce got to be feeding
nearly every day
we never really developed the big mammal
Predators we never have had an animal
equivalent to a lion or a tiger in
Australia but the reptiles took the
challenge up and we wound up with some
very big monitor lizards
oh magnificent big ladies there are
undoubtedly new species of reptile to be
discovered here in Australia and every
once in a while reports filter in from
the Outback of lizards a little on the
large size
Steve and Tanya oxbower won't forget
their encounter
we come along here
and I heard what I thought was a cow
walking towards me sort of behind me up
here and I didn't take much notice at
first and as I got closer I turned to
look at it
and it was a big lizard
sort of walked along here went up there
and sort of sat up where that log was he
was
scary
well I reckon he would have been as big
as me counting his Tails his legs would
have come out here and his legs would
have been as thick as my legs as well
his back was probably about that off the
ground I reckon
the way it was walking down the track
here towards me it obviously didn't care
that I was at the end of the track it
was just going to walk through me or
around me
I felt like it was probably further up
the food chain than I was
[Music]
see
was it a relic a reptile Survivor
because there were real monsters here
and the greatest was called Megalania
[Music]
it's massive a truly formidable reptile
and it was living here just a few
thousand years ago which relatively
speaking in evolutionary terms was just
yesterday
Megalania was a very large monitor
dessert probably reaching a length of
somewhere between five and seven meters
you can see the vertebrae of Megalania
and vertebra of a large Australian
monitor so you can see substantially
larger than any of the ones living today
in Australia what about the world it
lived in what would it have shared it
with I mean were humans included well
human beings apparently entered
Australia about forty thousand years ago
and Megalania and the other large
Australian animals were thought to have
become extinct about 20 to 18 000 years
ago so Megalania would have been sharing
Australia so to speak with humans for
about 20 000 years it's much more recent
than things like dinosaurs which became
extinct 65 million years ago
million dollar question could it still
exist in in modern Australia
it could but I wouldn't wager any money
on it I don't think that it does and I
think that because Megalania probably
lived in areas that were open grassland
areas Prairie areas and all of these
have been converted to agriculture
nowadays in Australia so one would
expect that there would be a lot more
reports of Megalania than there have
been that you would find recent
carcasses recent bones that sort of
thing and we haven't
yourself
so what have I learned so far
well firstly in this nutrient-pore
environment eating a living is very hard
so this has favored the energy efficient
reptiles over us mammals
secondly I don't know what the Oxford
saw but it appears that even the great
lizard of Oz Megalania is extinct
so does this mean that here in our best
chance location in reptile Paradise
there are no prehistoric survivors
no it doesn't
one thing's for sure there's already an
animal here which we're very aware of
it's an animal survived the extinction
of the dinosaurs
it's the largest reptile left on Earth
[Music]
the estuarine crocodile
to fall saltwater crocs once reached
over eight meters in length that's 28
feet
that's monster
at the Darwin crocodile farm I met Anne
Palmer
I think the success of the crocodile
really has a lot to do with the
environment that it lives in they live
in semi-aquatic fresh water and salt
water swamps of the Northern Territory
they don't tend to have many predators
certainly no competition for the big
animals they can survive for long
periods of time without food but they
are very opportunistic for you to taking
horses cattle even human beings if they
wander into that territory
what about their hunting strategy
uh crocodile is very efficient Predator
a large crop will stalk their prey dive
underneath the surface
the last minute lunge out take the
animal off and roll and just form the
death roll and drown it
there's no doubt that this qualifies as
a very real monster reptile but then
also as one of the most successful type
of animals ever to evolve on Earth
clocks like this appeared about 150
million years ago and they filled a
niche and got it right they're
semi-aquatic opportunistic predators and
because their habitat and the job they
do in it is virtually unchanged then
they remain virtually unchanged
themselves
foreign
you see they are survivors not in a lost
world but in an environmental Niche
where they've reigned Supreme
so if we have an aquatic prehistoric
reptile living here
then why not in Loch Ness
[Music]
Loch Ness sits in a steep-sided valley
cut out by a succession of glaciers over
the last few million years
in fact only 10 000 years ago this was
one of the biggest ice cubes on Earth
so the origin of any species living here
now has to be more recent for instance
it was only after that ice melted that
the ancestors of today's fish swam in
from the sea
so what about those plesiosaurs
in the 1970s these photographs taken by
Dr Robert Ryan's attracted worldwide
attention they appeared to show a
flipper of a plesiosaur type animal and
in the fly of excitement the unknown
creature was even given a scientific
name by the eminent naturalist sir Peter
Scott
appeared in the highly credible journal
Nature and it means Ness Wonder with a
diamond-shaped fin however it didn't
take long for some skeptical word wizard
to point out that the name had a rather
intriguing anagram
and it was later revealed that the
images themselves had been computer
enhanced
but what of the other photo evidence
they were still the most famous image of
all the surgeon's photo from 1934.
NASA those Astro scientists took an
intense look at the photograph and they
gave it the thumbs up
but oh dear in 1994 the last of the
original g*ng finally broke their
silence and revealed the whole thing as
a hoax the most famous Loch Ness monster
ever was no more than a model mounted on
a toy submarine so much for mission
control the old surgeon was a scoundrel
after all
[Music]
but of course people do see some pretty
weird things
[Music]
Loch Ness is famed for baffling
phenomena
curious waves and boat wakes atmospheric
Distortion Mists and novel reflections
of the light
these can all confuse and convince the
Casual Observer
but what about the low course people who
live with the log and are used to its
fickle trickery every once in a while
they see something and maybe their
accounts are a little bit more difficult
to dismiss and when you consider their
stories on mass there's a clue
I thought
I have to keep this quiet was my first
thing nobody believed that I've actually
seen this I can't have publicity for
this I can't tell anybody about it
[Music]
out in this area here I saw
what can best be described as a boiling
of the water not a dramatic boiling just
a little bubbly
something
caught my eye
in the middle of this disturbance there
were three shiny black humps I mean till
the day I go to my grave now I'll tell
you there were three black humps here I
don't care what anyone else says
at the edge of the jetty I could see
that there was definitely something in
the water
and then it surfaced
and it was large
looking into the Setting Sun it was 10
o'clock at night it was a silhouette
effect
and I can recall distinctly the chap
saying it's eels and I said it's not
bloody eels it's too big and his wife
said well I've not been in the bar
I approached it and it was only just a
couple of feet away from me in the water
I was looking down on it
and it started to move
there was this week coming from it just
little ripples of water coming from it
for such a big object I was amazed that
it didn't make more of a splash no
doubtful thing no for that but nothing
that you would relate to say like a
k*ller whale or or any of that sort of
things or a fluke or a tailor another no
I thought I hadn't
seen what we think to be a humpback Loch
Ness monster but I thought I'd seen
a crocodile
oh no I have no idea I have no idea
there's something living in there more
than one and I can't relate it to
anything that I've ever seen in any part
of the world
crocodile or some sort of fish I would
say
quite a fascinating experience
[Music]
you see the clue is they're all seeing
completely different things
Adrian shine came to the lock in the 70s
he's been a monster hunter but now he
has a different agenda
at Loch Ness really you've got two
thousand people you've got about a
thousand eyewitnesses who say they see
unusual things and they do see things
that they don't understand
on the other hand you have scientists
who've studied the lock and who say
there is not enough food in Loch Ness to
sustain large creatures
rather than tour for Nessie Adrian has
spent a productive decade examining the
life in this PT pool to establish a
better understanding of the food chains
that support the Lock's distinctive
ecosystem
Loch Ness is a cold water environment
the last thing that happened here was
the ice age and when we get right down
to 200 meters it's an ice age world that
we're entering
so we are a lost world at the bottom of
Loch Ness
but it's not Jurassic Park
[Music]
so there a cold ice age Lost World not
very promising for a sun-loving animal
what about that food supply
Loch Ness is a very impoverished Lake
several surveys are suggesting that
there's only about 20 tons of fish in it
which would rarely only support about
two tons of top predator in Lochness and
that's a problem for a resident
population of large Predators so I
wouldn't myself believe in any sort of
reptile Jurassic or otherwise viable and
living here
so for a whole population of Big Fish
Eaters it doesn't look great
especially for ones from the prehistoric
past
[Music]
inclusive but I wanted a final expert
opinion
Dave why couldn't the Loch Ness monster
be a please use
for one reason we have a 65 million year
gap between the last fossil record and
the present day there is no evidence for
any pleasure source
Loch Ness can only have had animals in
it in the last 10 000 years therefore
there would have to have been a
population of plesiosaurs in the sea
somewhere that got in to longness ten
thousand years ago we have no evidence
for them also the physiology would have
to have changed they would have to have
gone from being Marine aquatic animals
to being a freshwater animal in a very
very short period
also a viable population would have to
have got in this population would have
to have been really quite large for it
to be viable over the last 10 000 years
and I don't think that the productivity
in Loch Ness is sufficient to have been
able to feed all of those relatively
large animals
another thing is of course that remember
that plesiosaurs were air-breathing
animals and for a large population to a
viable population to have been there you
would have been seeing please your sores
at the surface breathing every few
minutes sadly the Loch Ness phenomenon
is not a plesiosaur
foreign
[Music]
firstly
there's not enough food in this lot to
support a population of large Predators
reptiles or otherwise
in fact Loch Ness in human terms is like
a great big Supermarket with three
lettuces and one can of salmon left on
the otherwise empty shelves
secondly the spices even if they had
seen the last monster on the morning
when it died we now know that for a
population of plesiosaurs who have
survived into historic times they would
have needed to be at least five thousand
individuals
now people have been pressing up and
down the side of this lot for hundreds
of years keeping detailed records and
yet there's no mention of a veritable
Forest of long necks and Tiny heads
so I'm sorry to say
there is no Loch Ness Monster
for the very simple reason that there's
never been a population of them but hey
just because there's no monster doesn't
mean that there's never been anything in
here
there has and there always will be
because the lock is open to the Sea
there's a way in the riverness
salmon swim and leap into the lock to
spawn and sometimes larger animals such
as seals follow them in
there's also the Caledonian canal and
although there are locks to negotiate
animals could make it through and as far
as Adrian shine is concerned at least
some of the historic sightings could be
explained by one particular visitor
Loch Ness is a body of water that's open
to the Sea and that's where all our fish
came from and a local tradition says
that a strange fish was in Loch Ness so
what about strange fish
and you know there is a very rare
visitor to Britain would enter
freshwater only to spawn
there's really the largest fish you
would ever see in fresh water in fact
it's the it's a Baltic sturgeon
and they've run up British Rivers 70
miles or so past locks and Weirs and
what I'm suggesting really is that the
original tradition could have begun with
the occasional entry of a sturgeon
vainly seeking a maid and then leaving
leaving no Trace save an enigma
[Music]
I'm pretty convinced that sturgeon
account for at least some of the ancient
encounters
it can grow to seven meters often swim
near the surface creating long wakes and
with their prominent scales they do look
very reptilian
but a fish wouldn't be crossing the road
did the spices actually see well real
animals do visit the lock and they
probably did so with a much greater
regularity when these folks were around
and I've no doubt they saw something
[Music]
perhaps I don't know perhaps they've got
an unusual really distorted view of a
couple of otters running across the road
disappearing down the bank into the
water who knows seals porpoises all
kinds of unexpected animals probably pay
fleeting visits to the lock
foreign
[Music]
there's not one Loch Ness Monster
there are many
amongst the jumble of hoaxes and media
hype there are different people
interpreting different things in
different situations
at its cynical worst the Loch Ness
Monster
often a boy to the local tourist
industry but even that wouldn't work if
it wasn't such a fantastically romantic
idea we'd all like to think that Nessie
was out there even I would but it isn't
for the very simple reason that there's
never been a population out there
population is the key word what there is
a curious lot phenomena visiting animals
and too many people looking too hard but
hey I know exactly whatever I say won't
ever stop any visitor to the lock from
slowing down taking a look over the
water and hoping to see something a
little bit too strange to be true
foreign
[Music]
next week's ex-creature was the famous
film for real or a hoax Chris
investigates at the same time seven
o'clock next tonight on BBC One a new
series of Tomorrow's World with the
technology that could save your life