Saturday, 2 September 2023
Friday, 1 September 2023
Thursday, 31 August 2023
Pictured: New Loch Ness monster ‘sighting’
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/pictured-loch-ness-monster-sighting-101146049.html
For a celebrity creature sought for nearly a century by an army of investigators it has proven annoyingly elusive.
But now new images of what has been claimed to be the Loch Ness Monster have emerged with one investigator hailing them as the “most exciting ever”.
The photographs were taken in 2018 but were kept secret as the photographer feared public ridicule.
Chie Kelly, who took the images and claimed the creature was moving at “steady speed”, was persuaded to go public following a high-profile search for the monster last weekend.
Mrs Kelly, a translator, said she and her husband Scott had been taking photographs of the area after having lunch in the Dores Inn, on the banks of the loch, while on a family holiday on August 13, 2018.
“I was just taking pictures with my Canon camera of Scott and our daughter Alisa, who was then five, when about 200 metres from the shore, moving right to left at a steady speed was this creature,” the 51-year-old said.
“It was spinning and rolling at times. We never saw a head or neck. After a couple of minutes it just disappeared and we never saw it again.
“At first I wondered if it was an otter or a pair of otters or a seal, but we never saw a head and it never came up again for air. It was making this strange movement on the surface. We did not hear any sound. There were these strange shapes below the surface. I could not make out any colours - the water was dark.
“I could not accurately assess its length, but the two parts that were visible were less then two metres long together.”
She added: “I don’t know what it was but it was definitely a creature - an animal. At the time I did not want to face public ridicule by making the photographs public.”
She showed the pictures to Steve Feltham, who has spent more than 30 years trying to solve the mystery, having quit his job and sold his home in Dorset in 1991, and he persuaded her to release the photos.
There was disappointment at the weekend when hundreds of people took part in what was hailed as the biggest search for the creature in 30 years.
Bad weather hampered efforts to launch heat-seeking drones, and after underwater microphones picked up four “strange” sounds, investigators realised they had forgotten to turn on recording equipment.
Mr Feltham said: “These are the most exciting surface pictures [of Nessie] I have seen. They are exactly the type of pictures I have been wanting to take for three decades. It is rare to see something so clear on the surface.
“They are vindication for all the people who believe there is something unexplained in Loch Ness. They are remarkable. I have studied them and still do not know what it is.”
While the first recorded sighting of the Loch Ness monster was recorded in the year 564, the legend rose to prominence in the 1930s, following a flurry of supposed encounters and huge media interest.
It followed hotel manageress Mrs Aldie Mackay reporting seeing a “whale-like fish” in the waters of Loch Ness, On April 14, 1933, and making the Inverness Courier. The story was quickly followed up by the national press.
The following year, the most famous image of the monster, known as “The Surgeon’s Photo”, was captured and published in the Daily Mail. For decades it was seen as evidence of the monster’s existence.
However, it was described as a fake by The Telegraph in 1975, and is now believed to have been created as part of an elaborate hoax.
Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Loch Ness Monster ‘might be real’ say scientists after DNA testing of water samples
The Loch Ness Monster “might be real”, a team of scientists has claimed.
Researchers made the claim after examining water samples from Loch Ness in Scotland.
They travelled the length of the loch on research vessel Deepscan taking water samples from three different depths.
The scientists collected DNA left by creatures in the loch from their skin, scales, feathers, fur and faeces.
The DNA samples were then sent to labs in New Zealand, Australia, Denmark and France to be analysed.
Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago, New Zealand, who led the study, said the results are “surprising”.
He says his team tested the data against most of the main theories about the Loch Ness Monster.
Professor Gemmell said that while the full details will be released at a later stage, one of the theories “might” be correct.
One theory is that the monster is a long-necked plesiosaur that somehow survived the period when dinosaurs became extinct.
Others believe the monster is a giant sturgeon or catfish.
Professor Gemmell said he hoped to announce the full findings of the study in Scotland next month - but would not confirm which hypothesis might be right.
He said: "Is there anything deeply mysterious? It depends what you believe. Is there anything startling? There are a few things that are a bit surprising.
"What we'll have achieved is what we set out to do, which is document the biodiversity of Loch Ness in June 2018 in some level of detail.
"We've tested each one of the main monster hypotheses and three of them we can probably say aren't right and one of them might be."
Hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to Loch Ness every year to try and catch a glimpse of the mythical monster.
Nessie is worth millions of pounds to the Scottish economy - and tourist bosses previously said they are "eagerly anticipating" the results.
Announcing the study last year, Professor Gemmell said: "Scotland is dear to my heart because my mother and her family are Scottish, I’m delighted to be here to undertake our environmental DNA investigation of Loch Ness.
"It’s a place of extraordinary natural beauty.
"We’re delighted with the amount of interest the project has generated in the science and, monster or not, we are going to understand Loch Ness, and the life in it, in a new way."
India’s moon rover confirms sulphur and detects several other elements near the lunar south pole
India’s moon rover confirmed the presence of sulfur and detected several other elements near the lunar south pole as it searches for signs of frozen water nearly a week after its historic moon landing, India’s space agency said Tuesday.
The rover's laser-induced spectroscope instrument also detected aluminum, iron, calcium, chromium, titanium, manganese, oxygen and silicon on the lunar surface, the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, said in a post on its website.
The lunar rover had come down a ramp from the lander of India’s spacecraft after last Wednesday’s touch-down near the moon’s south pole. The Chandrayan-3 Rover is expected to conduct experiments over 14 days, the ISRO has said.
The rover "unambiguously confirms the presence of sulfur,” ISRO said. It also is searching for signs of frozen water that could help future astronaut missions, as a potential source of drinking water or to make rocket fuel.
The rover also will study the moon's atmosphere and seismic activity, ISRO Chairman S. Somnath said.
On Monday, the rover's route was reprogrammed when it came close to a 4-meter-wide (13-foot-wide) crater. "It’s now safely heading on a new path," the ISRO said.
The craft moves at a slow speed of around 10 centimeters (4 inches) per second to minimize shock and damage to the vehicle from the moon's rough terrain.
After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India last week joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as only the fourth country to achieve this milestone.
The successful mission showcases India’s rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse and dovetails with the image that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to project: an ascendant country asserting its place among the global elite.
The mission began more than a month ago at an estimated cost of $75 million.
India’s success came just days after Russia’s Luna-25, which was aiming for the same lunar region, spun into an uncontrolled orbit and crashed. It would have been the first successful Russian lunar landing after a gap of 47 years. Russia’s head of the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos attributed the failure to the lack of expertise due to the long break in lunar research that followed the last Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.
Active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station next year, in collaboration with the United States.