I am using the news media and all media outlets to apply stress to this individual's situation and our collective group of scientists, investors, and museum "board members" have anted up a $100,000.00 reward for the recovery of the relic. We are prepared to launch a legal challenge to the current custodian's right of possession and to the manner in which he obtained it from Del. Del wants me to recover the relic, determine its authenticity, and sell it to the highest bidder so he can attend law school with the extra money (splitting the difference with his former roommate, both boys have since graduated).
My own motive is to see if it is a real animal relic, document it thoroughly, and see that the eventual owner is bound by a contract to maintain the tooth's availability to scientists and universities with legitimate research interests.
Kill Zone
One of the reasons I am certain this tooth is real is the location the deer carcass was found. In my interviews with locals in December 2004 I heard, on more than a few occasions, about a location of Loch Ness known as a "kill zone." My contact who worked at the Foyers hydroelectric plant system was the first to mention a large predator "kill zone" where a Glendoe forest waterfall feeds into Loch Ness between the jagged Craig Corrie and the Horseshoe Craig. He described the fishing there as "God sent," and that crushed skulls, pelvises, and bones which looked like they had been pulverized to the size of match sticks were scattered about the waterfall, amongst the shoreline boulders, and the oaks and moss. He stated that the bones, near as he could tell, were from hapless deer and sheep. As to what was killing them, the fisherman was observed smiling and waggling his eyebrows.
"Nik," the Glenmoriston Arms hotel's co-owner, stated that the fisherman was being totally serious. The fisherman stated that the "kill zone" attracted major schools of fish from all over and that in that portion of the loch, the shoreline drops off from twelve feet to nearly eight-hundred feet of depth in less than thirty feet laterally from the waterfall's mouth. It is an area of extremely steep mountains where old oaks fall directly into the loch. The fisherman stated that the dying things in that zone made the fishing there extremely productive. He compared it to shark fishermen "chumming" the waters out in the firths (Morey 8c Lome).
The area described by Del and his roommate exactly matches the location of this kill zone. There is no possible way these two students would have referenced such a site.
What is the Loch Ness Monster?
To properly answer this question one must first eliminate what the creature is NOT. The Loch Ness Monster is first and foremost NOT a plesiosaur, an ancient marine reptile that died off 65 million years ago. Yet this is exactly what the Highlanders want us to believe, and it is the reason the tooth was confiscated from the two American students. Why? Tourism.
As "outsiders" we must understand the Loch Ness "myth" generates millions of dollars in annual income to the Scottish Highland economy, and no one wants that jeopardized. Verifying this is Adrian Shine, Curator of the Loch Ness 2000 Exposition, who I met with on 20 December 2004 in the cafeteria of the adjacent Drumnadrochit Hotel. The Curator expressed his desire for me to produce art illustrations of a number of fish candidates of "Nessie," to be distributed around the loch. Shine stated that there might be some "resistance" by the local Scots to non-plesiosaur versions of "Nessie" but that the originals would be welcome at his museum.
That same day I met with a woman who had married a local after immigrating to Scotland from Dublin, Ireland. Verbally admitting to having overheard portions of the prior conversation this agent had with Adrian Shine, she stated in a protracted conversation that there were two and only two kinds of people in the Loch-Side towns: Life-long residents born in the county, and "outsiders." She stated that while being treated well, both she and southern Scot Adrian Shine were both considered "outsiders for life." Having resided in Drumnadrochit for many years she stated that it was her opinion that many of the "locals" knew all about the real monster, whatever "fish or creature" it might be, but that the "town fathers" deliberately maintained the tradition of conveying the dinosaur/serpent image of the monster in all public and published conveyances. She stated that local residents employed in the hotels, pubs and gift shops were all well aware of the "unwritten law and traditions" of not discussing "Nessie" or the Loch Ness Monster as being anything other than the water dinosaur (plesiosaur). She further confirmed that the Loch Ness Monster generated enormous tourist income for the region, and that the official position was not to make any changes to the existing businesses.
Another local I interviewed stated that while he preferred slugs and eels to plesiosaurs and sea serpent "Nessies," officials from the local Chamber of Commerce and the Scottish Tourism Board "encouraged" him and all other local artists to do the plesiosaur and sea serpent versions of the monster to maintain a united "image" to the tourists and non-Glen "outsiders," who tour the lake towns.
The plesiosaur theory began in 1934 with the famous "surgeon's photo," a surface shot of a long-necked animal resembling a breaching plesiosaur, taken by an English gynaecologist, R. K.Wilson. The photo's a fake. The photographer claimed the animal had been several hundred yards from shore when he shot it. An analysis of the angle of the shot and its ripples, completed decades later, proves the photographer was only about thirty yards away. Wilson actually confessed to using a miniature model before he died, yet people still swear the photo is real. Such is the power of myth.
An underwater photo of a supposed plesiosaur fin was taken by Robert Rines decades later. But the fin-like object everyone "sees" was digitally-enhanced by a computer technician and could be anything. We just want it to look like that plesiosaur fin. Plesiosaurs were large, marine reptiles that reached about 46 feet long (2.5-14 m).'Ihey had four flippers, sharp teeth in strong jaws, and short, pointed tails. They lived in the Mesozoic Era, 248 million to 65 million years ago.
It would take a huge colony of plesiosaurs to leave us one lone relative today. Loch Ness doesn't have enough fish to support a colony. And again, a plesiosaur must rise to the surface to breathe. As such, the lone plesiosaur of Loch ness would be forced to breach hundreds of times a day, yielding thousands of quality of photographs a year. Obviously this is not the case.
Alten's novel (The LOCH) does a superb job of separating the Loch Ness myth from the real science, far better than I could ever do. As such, I will not bother to undertake what my friend has already written.
Enhanced Robert Rines photo
So What Is The Monster?
The monster is a relative, perhaps even a mutation, of an eel-like species that currently lives in Loch Ness. This species is not born in Loch Ness, it is born in the Sargasso Sea. It hatches, then rides the currents of the Gulf Stream to Britain and Europe and migrates through the Moray Firth and down the River Ness into Loch Ness. It feeds off of salmon and other fish, but in the winter months when food is scarce it ventures closer to land and feeds off land animals such as rats, otters, and yes, even deer.
When the females grow big, and they grow very big, they leave Loch Ness and return to the Sargasso Sea to spawn. It is the act of spawning that triggers death.
Unaccounted For Biomass In The Deep Oceans
In the open ocean in the abysso-pelagic regions, eels abound. Most continental freshwater spawning species do their growing and maturing in the coastal or mid oceanic regions. All are predatory, canniblistic and shoaling-not loner species. Immense sharks, cephalopods (Octopi 8c Squid species), and cetacean species hunt each other in these depths but a huge gap in the food chain species exists in the marine zoological books. I believe that gap is filled by immense shoals of successively larger eel species who live their entire lives in the ocean depths.
Dead eels sink. Their carcasses rot fast. Occasionally a population became entrapped in glacially carved freshwater lakes during the successive ice ages and this would explain the Lake Monsters of Europe, Asia, and North America. Several six foot larval stage eels were found in the open ocean near the Sargasso Sea
. In most known species, the larval stage rarely exceeds one to six inches. If the growth ratios for all species are similar, then a six foot larval stage eel would grow into a sixty to ninety foot adult.
Access Into Loch Ness
Loch Ness is connected to the North Sea byway of the River ness and Moray Firth. However this represents a somewhat shallow water access, conducive to Anquilla Eels, but not an immense theorized cousin. Theories abound in regards to a deep- water underground river (aquifer) that once connected the two waterways (Loch Ness and the North Sea), but was sealed off during the dynamiting phases of the A-82 roadway, back in the early 1930s.
If true, then any members of said large eel species would have been trapped since the 1930s. Captive eels have been known to live for more than 100 years, and with large females being unable to vacate Loch ness to spawn, our "Nessie" would have only grown larger.
It is this theory that is woven into Steve Alten's thriller, The LOCH, and the author goes far in presenting the evidence and explaining what our creature(s) looks like. The following is a rendition, created by artist Erik Hollander (who also designed the cover to Alten's last two novels) which will give the reader a good idea what this monster would look like. The scene is taken from The LOCH in which the hero, Zachary Wallace, actually confronts the beast for the first time.
Conclusions
From this investigator's original 1993 trip to Loch Ness for the client, Paramount Television, and from this current trip paid for by TSUNAMI BOOKS, I believe an undocumented Genus of Anguilla eel exists in Loch Ness, one that may reach lengths of fifty to sixty feet.
A conditional "Conspiracy of Conservation" exists within the business and political infrastructures of the Loch-side towns of Inverness-Shire which maintains a rigid code of adherence to conveying the image of the plesiosaur as the only public images concerning the Loch Ness Monster, both as a tourist attraction and as a possible real cryptozoological animal specimen or population. This code applies to all official publications, public statements and personal conversations authored or generated by any Loch Ness "local" with any and all Loch-side non-residents. This code extends to the local Chambers of Commerce, real estate boards, and the Scottish Tourism Board, all of whom subtly approve a policy of delay and official discouragement to any and all non-residents of the Great Glen whom might attempt to purchase land, build new homes, businesses or property developments, anywhere in the vicinity of Loch Ness. Officials from the fire rescue teams, police departments, power company, and emergency medical units are in agreement and full compliance with this unwritten community policy which is a long-term multi-generational tradition.
The area of the Foyers Power Station appears to be the most viable location for obtaining physical or photographic evidence of the Loch Ness Monster. Ambient static electrical charges in the adjacent environment and immediate vicinity of the power station may attract adult and juvenile life-phase eels, especially at night. A second possible prime location may be at the mouth of a waterfall in the steep mountainous terrain on the southeastern shores of the loch in the Glendoe region southeast of the Horseshoe Craig and northeast of Craig Corrie (Due south of Invermoriston on the opposing side of the loch). Traditional literature and historic hearsay claims the area where Urquhart Bay opens into the main channel of Loch Ness as a prime location due to a major geologic shelf plunging nearly 900 feet into the center midline fault at the bottom of Loch Ness.
Prior to Midnight ZULU, late in the evening of Saturday, 18 December 2004, two tourists from central London encountered a possible water animal at close range as it hauled itself out of the water for a brief period. Headlamps on bright from on-coming automobile traffic may have startled the large, bulky animal into returning to the water. While the ambient air temperature was perhaps five degrees below freezing and falling, the water temperature was 42 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperatures were tolerable to a host of known water animal species. The animal left a long, "humping" track, similar to what might be seen in beach sand after a large fur seal dragged its stomach, or what a large snake or eel might leave behind in wet sand or soil respectively The animal left a "fishy" smelling exuded slime mixed in with and frozen along with the mud and rotting leaf material covering that section of the abandoned road track.
This investigator recorded testimony regarding location to be the "track" of the animal, on film emulsion and digital media.
The claimed cryptid "Track" appeared to be newer than the recent vehicle track that it overran on the abandoned access road. It was frozen when found, negating the possibility that it had been hoaxed any time that morning. The overnight temperatures were stated by the local BBC news stations to have dipped to 21 degrees Fahrenheit, making any night-time hoaxing with any appreciably heavy objects, highly unlikely, especially given that the area is in total darkness, nearly a mile away from any artificial night-time light source in any direction. Neither witness had any heavy arctic or winter gear. Only their normal jackets and sweaters worn in England, in winter. Neither wore boots. The abandoned access road area was heavily unstable and consisted of soft mud, frozen-over.
An inspection of the rental trailer of the two witnesses revealed no outdoor tools, heavy winter clothing, or any evidence of mud, dirt or debris from the dilapidated access road area.
Four families of four separate members of the military forces of the United Kingdom have individual family members willing to communicate descriptions of the Loch Ness Monster on land and in the water, to a forensic reconstruction illustrator who knows fish, provided they remain unidentified and their contact information remains out of the hands of the news media and all television programs. They want nothing to do with the press.
A number of persons and locations are listed in this ROI as confidential in order to protect the identities of these same local witnesses, informants, family members, business operators and locations with which their identities can be reverse-traced. By honoring their privacy and protecting them from public scandal or media involvement, this agent may again be able to access information from them at a future time.
It is a known fact of psychology in the investigations trade that persons claiming extraordinary events and encounters, who do not want to be identified publicly, who do not desire media exposure, who have not asked to be paid for information; are considered far more valuable in regards to the veracity of their testimony and personal honesty than persons who seek public or community attention.
Why No DNA Was Collected At The Eel Slide Track:
I caught written “hell” via the blogs and one of the most often- asked questions was did I collect slime samples for DNA analysis and if not, why not?
While this author is a field investigator, I was not expecting to see anything related to the Loch Ness Monster in person for myself and was not prepared for evidence collection of the Loch Ness Monster's body slime in the dead of winter. Even before I finished filming, a heavy rain began to fall, and before we returned to my vehicle, the area was drenched. As such, my window of opportunity for returning to the site with proper collection materials after dropping off my two eyewitnesses was gone.
More On Eels
As a detective, I have always known that listening to the locals is the key to any mystery. While working on a Loch Ness segment with Jonathan Gerald for Paramount Television's "Sightings," I was able to view video testimony from several local Scots who live on the lake and in Inverness. All four local residents described "Nessie" as a series of one to three "Humps" which moved in a specific direction while something akin to a roundish pectoral fin rotated briefly into view then vanished. This series of statements allowed me to recall several exotic aquarium "pets" I personally owned from my early teen years working for the Russo's pet chain in South Orange County, CA.
I personally owned and hand raised three North American freshwater (Anguilliforme) common eels, One salt-water Conger eel forcibly "converted" to fresh water, four electric eels (not true eels but fishes more akin to a car
p with the juice to kill a horse), one African lung fish, several of those nasty walking catfish that so thoroughly infested the southern states, and one very rare specimen of giant Salamander from Japan. All at different times and all along with far more valuable and exotic species; but these are worth mentioning as they all have specific characteristics that when composited together make a perfect "Nessie, Ishi, Champ" and so forth. As they grew larger, the eels ended up in 500 gallon tanks, divvied by species as they are voracious predators of goldfish, cockroaches, crickets, grasshoppers, baby mice, baby rats, baby chicks, ducklings and so forth. Both the Anguilliforme eels and the non-eel electric eels rolled around in their tanks generating near stationary humps as they rotated at the surface and dove again while their entire lengths rotated through the humps. As they grew larger they generated two and three humps at a time. My electrics grew to be six foot apiece before being sold to a corporate-type eccentric client at an outrageous profit. This rolling and humping glide of theirs was my first clue. While not as long, the lungfish was just as voracious and also mimicked some of this rotating and humping swimming motion. All above mentioned species gulped air and could breath air for limited periods. All were predators who could go six months without eating if necessary.
From the Conger Club, United Kingdom
Steve Alten Page 3
