July 29, 2011
| 
23
Oh no.
UPDATE [added August 1st 2011]: The Telegraph have apologised, and have removed the offending article. Various versions based on the Telegraph’s piece are still out there of course.
Since all the hubbub associated with that recent Zoological Society of London cryptozoology meeting, I’m intending to leave the subject of cryptozoology well alone for a while: better to stick with frogs, obscure birds, Mesozoic dinosaurs and other stuff. But I’ve just had my attention brought to an article that appeared yesterday in the online version of The Telegraph. It states that “Loch Ness monster is more fact than fiction claims paleontologist” and “The Loch Ness monster may be more fact than fiction, one of the UK’s top dinosaur experts has claimed” (quite why a British newspaper decided to go with American spellings is a bit of a mystery). This article now seems to have been taken up by other news outlets, all quoting the same stuff.
Aww, crap.
Here is why talking about cryptozoology is so often a bad idea: journalists are often looking to twist your words to make a more sensational story. No matter what it says in the article, while discussing cryptozoology at the ZSL I never said anything positive about the ‘Loch Ness monster’, nor do I think there is anything substantive to the Loch Ness monster legend, nor do I think that the eyewitness evidence for the Loch Ness monster stacks up to much.
Rendition of the creature allegedly seen from the yacht Valhalla, off the coast of Brazil, in 1905.
If you read the quotes in the Telegraph article, you’ll see that I (and Dr Charles Paxton) are both talking about sea monster accounts. In fact, the article specifically quotes me as saying “The huge number of ‘sea monster’ sightings now on record can’t all be explained away as mistakes, sightings of known animals or hoaxes”. Yeah: sea monsters. And I stand by what I’ve said: sure, a great many ‘sea monster sightings’ represent hoaxes and mistakes of various kinds (people have mis-reported natural phenomena like waves, wakes and water spouts, and they’ve also misidentified known animals like seals, whales, turtles, crocodiles and so on), but at least some (SOME) of the sightings are good enough and reliably reported enough to indicate that (1) a real animal was seen, and (2) that real animal didn’t correspond to anything we know of. One of the great classic examples is the Valhalla encounter of 1905, where biologists Edmund Meade-Waldo and Michael Nicoll observed an unusual long-necked, tall-finned animal through binoculars. Nicoll wrote of his conviction that the animal was a mammal, but noted that he based this conclusion on the overall look of the animal and its soft, ‘rubbery’ dorsal fin. Maede-Waldo and Nicoll were so impressed and perplexed by their encounter that they wrote it up for the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (Maede-Waldo & Nicoll 1906) (see also Nicoll (1908)).
So I’m very unhappy with the Telegraph’s assertion that I have positive feelings about Loch Ness monster accounts. I don’t. My thinking on Loch Ness is that – while people have seen and do see all manner of weird stuff on the loch – they are basically seeing assorted phenomena and objects, and naively identifying those phenomena and objects as ‘monsters’ because they visit the loch loaded with preconception. Here I will quote myself from a 2007 article that I published on Tet Zoo ver 2…
The Loch Ness muppet photo, taken by Tony 'Doc' Shiels in May 1977. Hoax.
I shall begin with a bold proclamation: there is no good evidence supporting the existence of any large unknown animal in Loch Ness, and I am of the opinion that sightings and photographic and sonar evidence can be satisfactorily explained as mistaken or embellished encounters with known animals (including swimming deer, water birds, seals, and small cetaceans), waves, or other phenomena. I say this, not because I’m a knee-jerk debunker who cannot accept the idea that a big unknown animal might exist in a big body of water, but because I am familiar with the evidence, such as it is, and find it wanting. The expectation that there is an unknown animal in Loch Ness almost certainly explains the recent history of sightings from the loch – in other words, any weird bump or lump or shape that emerges from the loch is identified as a monster – but, contrary to some sources, there is no tradition of sightings, nor are there old historical reports pre-dating the 1930s (Magin 2001).
So, shame on you, The Telegraph, you’ve made me look silly (or more silly than I already do, anyway). By the way, I do recognise the possibility that the bit about ‘Nessie’ was added by someone other than the journalist who wrote the piece.
There are a few other annoying things in the article, besides the Loch Ness stuff. Describing me as “one of the UK’s top dinosaur experts” might be a bit of a stretch and, while I may or may not be a “boffin” (wtf?), I don’t lecture at the University of Portsmouth (rather, I’m a research affiliate there, not – alas – a lecturer). What was that I was saying about “Cryptozoology: avoid at all costs”?
For previous Tet Zoo articles on lake monsters, sea monsters and such, please see…
Refs – -
Maede-Waldo, E. G. B. & Nicoll M. J. 1906. Description of an unknown animal seen at sea off the coast of Brazil. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 2 (1906), 719-721.
Magin, U. 2001. Waves without wind and a floating island – historical accounts of the Loch Ness monster. In Simmons, I. & Quin, M. (eds) Fortean Studies Volume 7. John Brown Publishing (London), pp. 95-115.
Nicoll, M. J. 1908. Three Voyages of a Naturalist. Witherby & Co., London.
About the Author: Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK). He mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs but has an avid interest in all things tetrapod. He has been blogging at Tetrapod Zoology since 2006.
23 CommentsAdd a Comment
You must log in or register as a ScientificAmerican.com member to submit a comment.
Incredible Hulk Anatomy
The "Valley of Death" Looms for 8 Kids with a Rare Disease
iGEM in space: a Q&A with the Brown-Stanford team
Introducing: Kathleen Raven
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The Guam and Calayan Rails
Following the Ice: In the Beginning
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
Share
Email
Print
>while I may or may not be a “boffin” (wtf?),
Wait, you’re British and don’t know that word? I knew it! I used to see that word all the time when I read El Reg, but I always thought it was too silly even for British English.
Link to thisThe Telegraph should be ashamed of itself.
Link to thisBoffin, wasn’t that one of the dwarves in The Hobbit? Or is it a Harry Potter creature?
Link to thisAt least they didn’t hack your cell phone in an attempt to find what lakes you were secretly watching in Romania…
I must admit, the picture they associated with Loch Ness is pretty fanciful too. I didn’t realize the water was so clear, nor that salmon came in those colors.
Link to thisI think that boffin is slang for scientist. It’s not a word we use in America. Darren, if you believe long necks may be an undiscoverd pinniped, what about more serpentine sea serpents. I doubt that they are really reptilian, but they seem to flexible for whales.
Link to this“What was that I was saying about “Cryptozoology: avoid at all costs”?”
I think that should be “Journalists: avoid at all costs” Accuracy in reporting is a rare and precious thing these days. You would think that, with recent events in the UK newspaper world, they’d be a little more careful to make sure of what they’re saying. At least for a while.
Link to thisBut this is how journalism is done these days whether it’s about cryptic animals, or weapons of mass destruction, it seems to be crafted primarily to provoke us rather than inform us, which can be a subtle difference but can also be a significant difference. Keep up the great work and ‘non carborundum illegitimus’ or whatever the pseudo-latin is. cheers
Link to thisI’ve always thought that the drawing from the Valhalla looks like the top end fin of a giant squid with one of the tentacles extended up out of the water. I think that I saw that originally in Richard Ellis’s Sea Monster or Giant Squid books.
Link to thisI suspect many people, and probably the Telegraph’s journo, don’t distinguish between “Sea” and “The Loch Ness” monsters. Which is about as charitable an interpretation as I can think of as to why they reported your views in this absurdly erroneous way!
Illustrating the article with a piccie of a Plesiosaur shows that at least the editor responsible has not taken to heart your strictures about “the prehistoric survivor paradigm”!
—
But the bottom line is that this is really appalling.
Link to thisI do keep checking to see if The Telegraph has removed the article, or modified it or something but, nope, nothing yet. I don’t know who to contact. I figure that anyone important will know that it’s hack journalism of the worst kind and will ignore it anyway. Still, lesson learnt: don’t talk about this stuff, people will twist your words…
ekocak: yes, Richard Ellis suggests that the Valhalla creature might have been a giant squid. You’d have to ignore the details reported by Maede-Waldo and Nicholl to accept this, and would have to assume that giant squids can swim along with fins and arms held aloft above the surface of the water. I’m not sure that this is possible – they’re tremendously ‘floppy’ animals. So, I dunno, the sighting remains enigmatic.
Darren
Link to this‘Enigmatic’ is the perfect way of summarizing the first Valhalla encounter (yes, there was another). The object was observed a couple hours after sunrise (if I’m using NOAA’s calculator correctly) and at a distance of only 100 yards (91 meters) with a “powerful” pair of field-glasses, probably 9x. This makes the giant squid identification really hard to stomach – the turtle-like head would have to be a total invention, suckers and additional tentacles would have to be overlooked along with jet-locomotion and a reddish coloration. Yet at the same time, the reported creature doesn’t resemble any known creatures and doesn’t even resemble many other sea monster reports. So yes, it is an enigma for certain.
Link to thisOof, this irritates me more than it seems to irritate Darren, who is taking it good humoredly. I’m sorry to say but this is another example of how the British press is absolutely horrible at science journalism, Nature news and New Scientist withstanding, and as recent events made clear, this lack of professionalism and scruples is certainly not limited to science journalism. Yet even respectable newspapers like The Independent just will mangle things beyond belief for sensationalism or simply because they didn’t bother to verify if what they think is true, is true.
I’d say the US is pretty bad when it comes to TV portrayals of science, as exemplified by Darren’s own experience in being selectively edited for the most recent Disco Channel dino docu. But at least as far as shoddy print journalism goes, the British take the cake- perhaps because ‘tabloids’ haven’t influenced the US journalism market nearly as much.
Link to thisWell, I’ll add something else that doesn’t particularly fit the Valhalla critter: a turtle, and they goofed up the range of the sighting.
Link to thisApparently, one can write to the editors of the Tolegraph via a form at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/about-us/form/
My inclination would be to politely draw attention to the facts and the possible damage to your reputation and ask the Telegraph to remove or revise to your satisfaction the article accompanied by an expression of desire that you can settle this privately, `between ourselves`.
Link to thisGood advice Mike, thanks.
Darren
Link to this“Settling privately ‘between ourselves’”.
Does that mean pistols at dawn?
LeeB.
Link to thisIt is done. I’ll let you know if they get back to me.
Darren
Link to thisJust got a phonecall: The Telegraph apologised and have pulled the article.
Darren
Link to thisOK, but what about the monster of Loch Lochy?
Link to this“Just got a phonecall: The Telegraph apologised and have pulled the article.”
Whoo hoo!
Now you won’t need to engage on of those firms that deals in ‘reputation management’.
Link to thisOh dear, that really is most unfortunate. But, in defence of my own trade, I rather doubt that the headline was written by the journalist who wrote the article. It tends to be the job of the anonymous subeditors, whose job it is to check and generally improve copy after it is edited. Errors that are introduced at this stage are often not picked up.
But that hardly makes up for the offence and inaccuracy.
Link to thisExcellent news, Darren!
Link to thisMonster sightings remind me of the time I saw an illuminated disk low down and approaching me, just after sunset on a dark rainy evening..Undoubtedly a flying saucer – and I know several people who would have stuck with that diagnosis – but a minute later it shifted angle or I drove round a bend, and it reappeared as a low-flying lit-up smallish yellow blimp. Advertising chocolate, it seems. First sighting had been head-on. In other words I believe most water-monsters are living creatures utterly misdiagnosed by observers. Sodden logs and branches surfacing in deep lakes as marsh gas comes up will account for deep Loch monsters – also known in Scandinavia I believe.
Link to this