The rhomboid fin photograph, the "flipper" photograph. The image is known to have been retouched from the original. The Museum of Hoaxes shows the original unenhanced photo.

utorak, 16. listopada 2007.

Photographs and films


The 'Surgeon's Photo'

One of the most iconic images of Nessie is known as the 'Surgeon's Photograph' which many consider to be good evidence of the monster, although doubts about the photograph's authenticity were expressed from the beginning. The image was revealed as a hoax in the 1990s. The photographer, a gynecologist named Robert Kenneth Wilson, never claimed it to be a picture of the monster. He merely claimed to have photographed "something in the water". The photo is often cropped to make the monster seem huge, while the original uncropped shot shows the other end of the loch and the monster in the centre [39]. The ripples on the photo fit the size and circular pattern of small ripples as opposed to large waves when photographed up close. Skeptics in the 1980s argued the photo was that of an otter or a diving bird, but after Christian Spurling's confession agree it was what Spurling claimed - a toy submarine with a sculpted head attached.
Analyses of the original uncropped image have fostered further doubt. Just a year before the hoax was revealed, the makers of Discovery Communications's documentary Loch Ness Discovered did an analysis of the uncropped image and found a white object evident in every version of the photo, implying that it was on the negative. "It seems to be the source of ripples in the water, almost as if the object was towed by something", the narrator said. "But science cannot rule out it was just a blemish on the negative," he continued. Additionally, analysis of the full photograph revealed the object to be quite small, only about two to three feet long.
Spurling was the son-in-law of Marmaduke Wetherell, a big game hunter who was deceived into searching for the storied Loch Ness monster based on evidence which turned out to be a children's prank. Wetherell was publicly ridiculed in the Daily Mail, the journal which employed him. Spurling claimed that to get revenge, Marmaduke Wetherell committed the hoax, with the help of Chris Spurling (a sculpture specialist), his son Ian Marmaduke, who bought the material for the fake Nessie, and Maurice Chambers (an insurance agent), who would call to ask surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson to display the pictures. Some doubt Spurling's confession because of the involvement of several people not connected to Wilson.
Believers are not discouraged by the fact that this is a hoax. In fact, one of the researchers who actually uncovered the hoax is sure the monster is real. Alastair Boyd saw small moving disturbance that went up and down, doing a turn underwater. The he told his wife Susan about it and they both saw a huge hump, just static in the water. They tried to get a camera but the hump sunk into the water. Boyd is sure what he saw was a living creature.

The Taylor film (1938)
In 1938 Mr GE Taylor, a South African tourist, filmed something in the loch for three minutes on 16 mm colour film, which is now in the possession of Dr. Maurice Burton. However, Dr. Burton has refused to show the film to Loch Ness investigators (such as Peter Costello or the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau). A single frame was published in his book The Elusive Monster; before he retired. Dr. Roy P Mackal, a respected biologist and cryptozoologist, declared the frame to be "positive evidence".

The Dinsdale film (1960)
In 1960, aeronautical engineer Tim Dinsdale filmed a hump crossing the water in a powerful wake unlike that of a boat . JARIC declared that the object was "probably animate". Others were sceptical, saying that the "hump" cannot be ruled out as being a boat and claimed that when the contrast is turned up too high a man can be clearly seen in a boat.
In 1993 Discovery Communications made a documentary called Loch Ness Discovered that featured a digital enhancement of the Dinsdale film. A computer expert who enhanced the film noticed a shadow in the negative which was not very obvious in the positive. By enhancing and overlaying frames, he found what appeared to be the rear body, the rear flippers, and 1-2 additional humps of a plesiosaur-like body. He said that: "Before I saw the film, I thought the Loch Ness Monster was a load of rubbish. Having done the enhancement, I'm not so sure". Some have countered this finding by saying that the angle of the film from the horizontal along with sun's angle on that day made shadows underwater unlikely. Believers (and some nonbelievers) claim the shape could have been undisturbed water that was only coincidentally shaped like a plesiosaur's rear end . But the same source also says that there might be a smaller object (hump or head) in front of the hump causing this. Nonetheless, the enhancement did show a smaller second hump and possibly a third hump.

The Holmes video (2007)
On May 26, 2007, Gordon Holmes, a 55-year-old lab technician, captured video of what he said was "this jet black thing, about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water." Adrian Shine, a marine biologist at the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, has watched the video and plans to analyze it. It is said to be "among the finest footage ever taken". BBC Scotland broadcast the video on May 29, 2007.
Holmes's credibilty has been doubted by an article on the Cryptomundo website, which states that he has a history of reporting sightings of cryptozoological creatures, and sells a self-published book and DVD claiming evidence for fairies. His video has no other objects by which to discern size, and is considered useless in some quarters.

The Yongsheng video
On September 6, 2007, Zhuo Yongsheng (director of a TV station's news center run by the administration office of the nature reserve at Mount Changbaishan, Jilin), shot a 20-minute video of 6 seal-like, finned "Lake Tianchi Monsters", near the border with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). He sent pictures of the Loch Ness-type creatures to Xinhua's Jilin provincial bureau. One of them showed the creatures swimming in 3 pairs, in parallel. Another showed them together, leaving ripples on the volcanic lake.

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