Source : Perth Now news
A Loch Ness Monster expert has insisted the majority of witnesses who report sightings of the fabled beast are telling the truth.
Adrian Shine – who founded the Loch Ness Project and led the Operation Deepscan Nessie hunt in 1987 – has put pen to paper to write new tome A Naturalist’s View of the Loch Ness Enigma in which he explains the mysterious sightings that have been reported for decades. Adrian has insisted there’s a ration explanation behind the all but it doesn’t mean the witnesses are making their stories up.
He told the Inverness Courier newspaper: “Remember, the original Loch Ness investigation was called the Loch Ness Phenomenon Investigation Bureau.
“They were looking to find the cause of what people were perceiving. It was very scientific, a phenomenon. And that’s the point.
“I say the Loch Ness Monster does exist. I’ve just written a manual on how it can be seen, the various forms and manifestations of it. It doesn’t denigrate the eyewitnesses, it vindicates them because those forms of illusion truly happen.
“The people are describing, very accurately often, what they are seeing or what they are perceiving. I have not killed the Loch Ness Monster! I’ve written a manual. That’s it.”
He also insisted he’s not trying to kill off the tourism industry that’s grown up around Loch Ness, saying: “There are special things about Loch Ness. Some are geographical and some of them are human induced, with the canal bringing vessels to the loch.
“My plea to everyone is to remember this book is not going to harm the economy, although I realise that not everybody’s going to like it because it does provide explanations.
“Even the exhibitions embrace the whole spectrum of opinion. People who want to believe in the Loch Ness monster are going to believe in it as long as they want to.”
It comes after Adrian revealed he believes most Nessie sightings have a very simple explanation – insisting most people who think they see a huge creature in the water are actually looking at wakes from large boats which have passed by.
Adrian also thinks the construction of the Caledonian Canal in early nineteenth century to connect the country’s waterways is responsible for creating the wakes that led to the Nessie myth.
Speaking to Robson Green in his World’s Most Amazing Walks series, Adrian explained: “The persistence of boat wakes is one of the things that has created the multi-humped stereotype of the Loch Ness Monster and there the Caledonian Canal is the crucial factor because of course it runs through all the lochs of the great glen.
“But it is that canal which brought large vessels making big wakes and therefore big monsters.”
Host Robson went on to admit his conversation with Adrian didn’t leave him with any clear answers on whether Nessie does actually exist.
He said: “I remember the Deepscan Expedition like it was yesterday and what Adrian has just explained to me is that they can’t really prove that a creature exists under these waters but they can’t disprove it either.”
