History regurgitated

Readers of Roland Watson's Loch Ness Monster blog have drawn my attentions to an article about Nessie cartoons. A quick visit revealed the usual sprinkling of errors and tilts at previous investigators. Two of the stories are worthy of comment. The first concerns the Attractant experiments of 1970.

 The blog author states "From the Daily Sketch of 11th September 1970. A piece of newspaper lies beside Nessie with the headline, "Sex Potions in Loch to lure Nessie". This was a gift to cartoonists as the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau began to use the ground up reproductive organs of various animals such as eels as bait introduced into the loch. It didn't work."

The implication that we - the LNI team - ground up reproductive organs is rather misleading, as we merely hosted and supported experiments designed and funded by the Academy of Applied Science. Here is a draft press release from the time.

Note the organisations involved in the project; Miami Seaquarium. Harvard Medical School, Dept of the Army, International Flavors and Fragrances, etc. As for the dismissive comment "It didn't work.", the document suggests otherwise. If I am the organ grinder at the LNI, who is the monkey at lochnessmystery.blogspot.co.uk?

The second cartoon refers to the International Loch Ness Monster Search Party of 1973 and the blogger comments as follows:

 "On the 11th September 1973, The Sun parodied the arrival a few days earlier of a Japanese expedition to find Nessie. Despite having a miniature submarine at their disposal, the search was an unqualified failure as they headed back two months later having found some non-descript bones and recorded a strange noise."

Despite having a miniature submarine at their disposal? Someone is rewriting history here. Myself and Holly Arnold accompanied three Search Party officials on a day trip from Drumnardrochit to the Vickers Oceanics base at Barrow in Furness, some 350 miles away. We toured the workshops and had a look inside a few submersibles, but the Search Party bean-counter was unable to negotiate a satisfactory discount and we set off home empty handed. After about 200 miles of the return trip Team Leader decided that Dick-san was tired after driving for 550 miles and so Captain Diving Leader took the wheel of the hired Ford Granada and not long afterwards spun off into a bridge parapet.

That is the real history. DR