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Massive Weekend Hunt for Loch Ness Monster: Drones, Infrared Cameras, and Underwater Microphones (msn.com) 99

Posted by EditorDavid from the in-Scotland-afore-ye dept.
"Hundreds of monster hunters equipped with drones and infrared cameras have gathered in the Scottish Highlands with a singular goal," reports the Washington Post: "to be the ones to finally find the Loch Ness monster." But it won't be easy. On Saturday, the rain was lashing and the skies were gray, hampering visibility in the search for the folkloric creature, affectionately known as Nessie. The mythical monster, which legend says lives in a freshwater lake in Scotland, has eluded capture, or any definitive proof of existence, since its first recorded sighting in the 6th century.

But trying to find Nessie is an age-old tradition, and the volunteer hunters who showed up Saturday are dedicated — and better equipped than those who came before. The search for the monster, organized over two days by the local Loch Ness Center in Inverness, is the biggest in a half-century, and certainly the most high-tech. Some people drove hours to be here, while others flew in from overseas... The Loch Ness Center launched the event — which it called "The Quest" — in partnership with Loch Ness Exploration, a research group that studies the lake and other unexplained phenomena. It put out a call for volunteer hunters "fascinated by the legendary tales of Nessie" and with "a passion for unraveling mysteries and exploring the extraordinary."

The center was later forced to close online registrations for volunteers "due to an overwhelming surge in demand," according to the website...

Some hunters with drones are equipping them with infrared cameras to seek out heat spots in the lake — as well as sending them underwater. They've also come armed with a hydrophone to pick up acoustic signals 60 feet below the loch's surface — although nobody really knows what the monster would sound like. Other participants can join several surface-watch locations staged by organizers or cruise the 23-mile-long lake by boat. They have been asked to document everything they see — from surface movements to weather changes — and are getting lessons on how to capture potential sightings on their phones.
The BBC notes that "Almost 300 have signed up to monitor a live stream from the search, which is taking place on Saturday and Sunday."

NPR has some audio excerpts of past witnesses who said the've seen the monster — and some of the current crop of monster hunters. (While Wikipedia has its own detailed debunking of the famous Loch News monster "Surgeon's Photo".) But the Washington Post sums up the whole story with this two-word quote from a woman who'd traveled from France for a Loch Ness vacation.

"I believe."
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Massive Weekend Hunt for Loch Ness Monster: Drones, Infrared Cameras, and Underwater Microphones More

Massive Weekend Hunt for Loch Ness Monster: Drones, Infrared Cameras, and Underwater Microphones

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  • The lake isnt that big (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Saturday August 26, 2023 @08:49PM (#63800262)
    The lake just isnt big enough to be hiding a dinosaur.

    Everyone knows about the one in lake Champlain tho.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by xlsior ( 524145 )
      Good thing that ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs are not dinosaurs, then.

    • I think you're wrong. I know for sure that an ageing bald actor has had at least three megalodons in his swimming pool just for the sequels.

      And they often get in the way when that silicone-adjusted mom-next-door hops over for a quick adventure dressed in the slimmest swimsuit possible.

    • Will they leave them poor cryptids to enjoy their superposition in peace and quiet? Their wave function reflects the probability of their existing and not existing at any given point in space. They "exist" in superposition of existing and not existing until the event is measured and then the wave function collapses. Spooky action at a distance. That is called "quantum biology", not to be confused with quantum sexology, the discipline that studies the love life of Fermions and Bosons.

      This is ridiculous. Wh

    • The lake just isnt big enough to be hiding a dinosaur.

      The lake is over 20 miles long in a thinly settled area.

      How big does a lake have to be to hide a dinosaur?

      • 21 miles long.

      • The lake just isnt big enough to be hiding a dinosaur.

        The lake is over 20 miles long in a thinly settled area.

        How big does a lake have to be to hide a dinosaur?

        Hiding it is not the problem. It needs to support it with enough food for a breeding population. The total estimate of the amount of fish in the lake by biologists is about 22 tons - it is not a body teeming with dense schools of fish.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by spudnic ( 32107 )

          It would be if Nessie and her kin weren't eating them all!

          This is enough proof for me right there.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cats-paw ( 34890 )

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      extending for approximately 37 kilometres (23 miles) and flowing from southwest to northeast.

      Seems big enough to hide one dinosaur.

      Also, if you are in Scotland I highly recommend visiting it, the Loch and the surrounding area are quite beautiful.

    • Nesse, Champ and i have been had a great vacation togetther in Lake Erie this week.

    • Yeah the one in Loch Ness would have reproduced by now, at least sometime in the last few million years.

    • >The lake just isnt big enough to be hiding a dinosaur.

      It certainly is big enough. But it isn't hiding a dinosaur.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      > The lake just isnt big enough to be hiding a dinosaur.

      Not with the amount of attention and scrutiny it has received in the modern era, no.

      It's entirely possible that a few centuries ago there was something interesting there. But at this point it is doubtless long since decayed. Nothing lives forever, and there's absolutely no way the lake is big enough to support a viable genome's worth of cryptid megafauna breeding population without someone getting MUCH clearer video of it by now, than anything we'

  • Tech has become so cheap and accessible these days, a few ordinary people could probably map every square inch of the lake's floor.

    But, hey, maybe the monster is actually a water dragon, and digs its way back to China when the foggy season is over. It's just trying to get some peace and quiet from the kids back home.

  • Meanwhile... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Saturday August 26, 2023 @09:08PM (#63800304)

    Nessie quietly retreated to its summer home in the 5th dimension and will come back when the "hunt" is over.

  • Doesn't this say a lot more about hu-mans than possible animals in lakes? Why not leave well enough alone?

  • Fuck this, I support the search but I can tell you there's no Loch Ness monster. We have iPhones, but nobody has gotten a clear picture of it?

    • Setting the silly aside for a moment....

      If such a creature existed we'd know nothing about it. For all we know it hibernates in 20 year stretches and hasn't surfaced since before the iPhone. And assuming there is a single creature in a 20+ mile long lake in a thinly populated area makes the odds of both a sighting and a clear cell phone photo of that sighting pretty low.

      We're not talking about the odds of spotting a rat in NYC.
       

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
        For it to have survived this long requires a breeding population of dozens. You should be practically falling over them.

  • I thought scientists demonstrated that a creature the size of Lochness would need X amount of daily biomass to survive. And X amount of biomass doesn't exist there. So unless Lochness is nuclear powered an animal of that size is unlikely to exist.

    • Are you, perchance, also a Godzilla denialist?

      You should reconsider your avoidance of the psychologically uncomfortable truth that monsters do exist and embrace reality.

      • Plenty of monsters, it is just that they are all human (or at least appear to be).

        • Here you are again, trying to turn away our attention from the real horror onto something that sounds like fiction.

          What next, you'll blame people and not the Devil for all crime, torture and wars? And for the global warming, too, right?

          • The Devil, if he exists because different religions have different views on the subject, can only work through human hands, so yes, it is the fault of humans.

      • Godzilla isn't confined to Loch Ness, he lives in the ocean.

    • I would figure the more likely argument against the existence of "Nessie" is that you'd need enough of the creatures to sustain a breeding population, otherwise the species would simply die off. Same deal with Bigfoot.

    • So, reading between the lines, what you are telling me is that nuclear waste is powering a infamous monster. It has precedent - apparently Tokyo Bay is similarly afflicted

    • Are you perchance "big-boned" yourself, and projecting?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      I was thinking that as well, but I'm a bit wary of those kinds of back of the envelope calculations. They are often founded on a number of assumptions that are just pulled out of thin air. Like what the metabolism of such a creature would be like, what size it actually is, etc.. Here [youtube.com] is a video of a very large gator that lives at a golf course in Florida. That alligator probably masses close to 400 kilos and lives in quite small bodies of water that are a tiny fraction of the size of Loch Ness. Simple extra

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
        Alligators can also hunt on land. Can Nessie?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          Alligators can hunt on land, but they're primarily ambush predators designed to ambush prey when concealed in water. Alligators, especially ones of that size, are going to do almost all of their hunting in the water. As for whether or not Nessie could hunt out of water that's unknown since the nature of the probably fictional creature isn't really known. It's not even known if we're discussing a carnivore or an herbivore.

          One thing I can say is that if anyone living around Loch Ness saw something like that a

    • Not only that but in 2019 they did a complete DNA analysis of the entire lake and there are no traces of any such creature. Lots of eels though.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
        Are any really, really big?
        • Get what you are fishing for :) but such DNA analysis can not tell the size of a single individual in the lake. That said there are physiological limits to how large an eel can be before it have to be redesigned and once that happens the DNA should be different so that should have turned up I believe.

    • "Scientists"?

      What the fuck do your so called experts and their "math" know?

      If a huge lake can't support a single creature then explain the abundance of giant creatures on Monster Island!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      It's not X it's kX where k=number for a viable breeding population. kX... Not that much food there

    • I thought scientists demonstrated that a creature the size of Lochness would need X amount of daily biomass to survive. And X amount of biomass doesn't exist there. So unless Lochness is nuclear powered an animal of that size is unlikely to exist.

      If we want to go down the path of least resistance, the supposition that X amount of biomass would be required per day would be on the assumption that Nessie is of standard recognized animal metabolism. Consider the possibilities of altered and/or subdued metabolic rates.

      ONE: Since the theories of Nessie already include a bit of the fantastical, perhaps there is some form of metabolic suppression at play? Perhaps Nessie once passed through an unnatural anomaly that altered his/her sync with real time. Perha

  • I despair (Score:3)

    by ratbag ( 65209 ) on Saturday August 26, 2023 @10:18PM (#63800422)

    I was getting used to post-truth. Now I've got to embrace post-intelligence as well?

  • Nessie is in the south of England around now, making crop circles.

  • The previous sightings were made without Infra-red, drones or underwater microphones, the technology is a hinderance

  • I'm travelling in Scotland this week and need some gear for a... therapeutic swimming pool.

    Does anyone know where I can rent a set of underwater speakers and IR lamps?

    • I'm travelling in Scotland this week and need some gear for a... therapeutic swimming pool.

      Does anyone know where I can rent a set of underwater speakers and IR lamps?

      Even its peak summer surface temperature of 15 C (59 F) is pretty chill.

  • ...Linux on the Desktop? It's just as elusive!

  • Just build the tourist attraction - Giant Nessie (Score:3)

    by Canberra1 ( 3475749 ) on Sunday August 27, 2023 @12:15AM (#63800566)
    Most towns have a big whatever. Australia even has the big Banana and a three story tall sheep! Vietnam has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Disneyland can make a dragon. So why can't these Scotts build an underwater pipe monorail and a fiberglass Nessie with diesel fire tubes to give performances like clockwork. Back to Vietnam, they made a Godzilla out of an building excavator , added a head, teeth to the bucket, and lights for eyes. The crowd roared when the Godzilla picked up a parking inspectors motor scooter and crunched it, and spayed it with diesel alight. What they need to catch the real Nessie is bottles of Scottish Whiskey on a fishing drag line.

  • They have been looking for Nessie before and they couldn't find her because they used conventional means.

    If they are serious about finding the Loch Ness Monster then it's time to call a real Monster Hunter. It's time to call Natalie Artemis or even The Hunter.
  • They are not taking the search seriously. First you drain the loch...

  • In August, nothing is happening, half the planet is on vacation, so the news are different:

    "World's Largest Tomato Found in Local Garden!"

    "Scientific Study Reveals Cats Prefer Laser Pointers over Feather Toys"

    "Breaking News: Local Squirrel Takes Up Painting!"

    and in the UK:
    "Unicorn Sightings on the Rise: Experts Weigh In"

  • I'm too lazy to search...
    Haven't "they" done basic environmental DNA searches? Seems to work well.
  • because we need Bigfoot, el Chubacabra, the figi mermaid, a unicorn, mermaid, and a leprachan while were at it.

  • Boost the local economy (Score:3)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Sunday August 27, 2023 @05:58AM (#63800946)
    Way to go people of Drumnadrochit! They're attracting a lot of wealthy, giddy, excitable people to visit their village to spend their money on looking for something that they all really understand, deep down, they'll never find. It's a gold mine!

    BTW, Loch Ness contains more water than all the rest of the lakes in the UK combined. It's also the second deepest so there's a lot of area to cover & so maintaining the charade of "Oh we couldn't find it but better luck next time!" is pretty feasible.

  • Legends (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Sunday August 27, 2023 @07:34AM (#63801030) Homepage Journal

    Loch Ness isn't an existential science problem to be solved.

    It's a legendary mystery to be enjoyed, discussed, and experienced.

    Catching and stuffing Nessie would ruin everything.

    Leave the legends alone. Don't be a dork.

  • Nearly impossible is my guess. If you redefine Loch Ness monster, you have a better chance of finding it.

  • This would be a great opportunity to document the loch on the mm scale and maybe learn something useful.

    Somehow I expect it's more of a 'extract tourist dollars from idiots' exercise, though.

  • There are many reports in the 4th century BC that a large glowing object, obeying no known laws of physics, fell into Loch Ness.

  • They probably won't find anything. But with the latest technology we can scan the whole lake down to the cm with every detail, so why not do that. If you have scanned and mapped the whole lake there can't be a possibility for the 'monster' to not have been found. As with mapping any cranny and creek will be found, so any hole to a not yet found underwater passage will be found. Maybe it will then even find big bones of old dead creatures. So if they are really serious they would use the mapping technology,
  • I have it on good authority that Nessie has turned off her cell phone so she can't be tracked.

  • Hunt for a population of fish or other food sources that could sustain a breeding population of large whale sized animals in a small cold, highland lake.

    Bonus points for explaining why nobody has spotted baby nessies.

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