Mystery of Loch Ness Solved? 118
ewhac writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Geologist Luigi Piccardi will present a paper in Edinburgh, Scotland, today which asserts that sightings of the Loch Ness Monster can be explained as surface disturbances caused by seismic tremors. Loch Ness sits on an active fault, and eyewitness sightings of the monster correlate closely with recorded seismic activity. Don't expect the search for Nessie to be called off any time soon, however. (Can anyone out there with a good fluid dynamics model run an earthquake simulation on Loch Ness and see what happens?)"
Maybe this makes more sense than the
temperature explanation,
but anyway you gotta love the
fake
photos.
Hmm (Score:1)
Or... (Score:1)
Another article (Score:5)
Re:Hmm (Score:1)
I can't imagine a better response to this concept!
Okay, so I don't necessarily buy the Loch Ness thing, but at the same time, I've had the same physics as everyone and I find the idea of that seismic activity produced some of these sightings (given how they were described) just a little bit counterintuitive.
Isn't there some less exotic "natural explanation" we can come up with?
But then that's just me.
Re:Or... (Score:1)
even the physical ones? (Score:1)
This proves NOTHING!!! (Score:2)
Exceptin' that maybe twas tha Loch Niss monstarrr that caused those seismic tremarrrs, what? We nevar claimed she was a quiet lass, now, did we?
Cause and Effect? (Score:4)
Nessie will live on. (Score:3)
All the news that snoozes (Score:5)
"Hey boss, I can't get ahold of any experts for a quote."
"Well then just find somebody who's awake."
New poll: Your favorite monster (Score:4)
No way! (Score:5)
Scary, isn't it?
 _
Um... (Score:1)
If you have a big freaking sea monster thrashing around, you're going to have huge-ass standing waves in the lake. Like, duh.
Why is it.. (Score:3)
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loch ness? its been over 50 years! (Score:2)
secondly, first sightings (apparent) were 50 years ago.. is this beast still alive? dont read anywhere the expected life-span of a lochness monster.. maybe it died :)
Actually Loch Ness EXISTS! (Score:2)
Re:Why is it.. (Score:1)
what else would explain it? an act of god? :) the press needs something to put on the front page :P the more bizzare, the more "cooler" it seems to the readers.. and, the more "distracted" from reality the more likely it'll have some believers. :P
Giant Squid Exist (Score:2)
Re:Nessie will live on. (Score:1)
But this scientists explaination seems a tad overstated. Yes, Loch Ness does sit slap-bang on top of the Great Glen Fault - but an earthquake in Scotland means about 1R... Hardly an event that's felt, never mind the frequency of these (non)events.
Still, it's been a while since the last madcap explanation!
It's a shame (Score:2)
Re:loch ness? its been over 50 years! (Score:4)
A Plausable Explanation ( was: Re:Hmm) (Score:1)
Tsk, tsk. The so called 'Loch Ness' phenomenon is caused by the interaction between neutrinos and drowned haggis.
Re:Why is it.. (Score:2)
My money is on an escaped pet Brazilian Giant Otter.
Re:loch ness? its been over 50 years! (Score:1)
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What a waste of 25 cents (Score:3)
I should have given my quarter to a person asking for change.
The Lottery:
Re:Specialist subject: The bleedin' obvious (Score:3)
This is one of the cool things about living today. We don't have to dedicate 100% of our time to surviving. We have some time that we can use for things that serves no other purpose than amuse us.
Of course this extra time sometimes produce very strange results, like links starting with g and ending with x, television, you name it. And then of course evil things like Napster(kidding
So it is ok not to be productive all the time. I have a problem with that, I can't sit and stare at the TV for hours, the least productive thing I can spend my time on, is posting here. I know that I should learn that it is ok to be bored from time to time and just relax, but its so hard to be bored in these xDSL days.
Anyway to sum it up, all these things that are not useful are often very fun, and we need fun.
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Re:loch ness? its been over 50 years! (Score:1)
Balance . . . (Score:2)
Ah well . . . at least it keeps them busy and off the streets.
Join the club, or watch the show (Score:2)
No, I'm not a member, just stumbled on the link whilst reading around the story.
You might also remember the cartoon series based around loch ness monsters... The Family-Ness [weavervale.co.uk] - classic stuff. I always liked silly-ness...
Re:It's a shame (Score:1)
I guarantee you, before Pasteur, no one thought that disease might have been caused by tiny beasties that live in food, air, skin, everywhere. Turns out, he was right. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Same thing with the cosmos. Look at what we used to think, 7 shells with tiny holes in them rotating around the earth. Now, it's a whole set of galaxies, stellar clusters, black holes, quasars, neutron stars.
Oh, boy I hope I aint gonna get a YHBT. Anyway. I still think that trying to figure things out only opens more mysteries to the human comprehension. I mean, what good are we if we don't wonder?
Throwing stones (Score:1)
"You know, the golf course is the only place he isn't handicapped."
Re:Why is it.. (Score:2)
NT Server crash may be a hoax. No one shows a picture of it, rather I saw lots of people showing pictures of UFO.
May be people are too shock to take picture at time of crashing.
 _
D'oh (Score:1)
Or maybe, just maybe, the whole world we live in and people we meet are all fake.
Re:loch ness? its been over 50 years! (Score:1)
Fake is Fun (Score:1)
please... (Score:3)
Have you an idea of how much energy is released in even a small quake (the one you don't feel but it's registered only by seismographs)? Either the monster is blowing nukes under that lake, or...
By the way, I don't think that this is the right explanation for the sightings. People easily see what they desperately want to see. Think of UFO abductions and things like that.
Re:It's a shame (Score:1)
I mean, what good are we if we don't wonder?
Good consumers?
Family-Ness (Score:2)
Re:It's a shame (Score:1)
Be your own judge.... (Score:5)
Go to the live Nessie-cam [lochness.co.uk] and wait patiently until you witness the Loch Ness Monster/seismic activity for yourself!
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Re:Why is it.. (Score:1)
root@earth/quake +connect lochness.uk
Re:A Plausable Explanation ( was: Re:Hmm) (Score:1)
Re:They have it wrong (Score:1)
Re:Be your own judge.... (Score:1)
Perhaps the monsters been fiddling.... ;-)
"Scottish" Picts? (Score:1)
Either Piccardi or sfgate.com wasn't paying attention some 1600-odd years ago. The Picts were a distinct race to the Scots.
actually ... its simple chaos theory (Score:5)
Re:please... (Score:1)
Are you implying that aliens don't exist? We see them on TV everyday.
Re:They have it wrong (Score:1)
Give Nessy a rest already! (Score:1)
Dude999
Member #1 Coalition for the freedom of possibly real sea creatures.
Which came first? (Score:1)
So are the seismic activity an explaination of the Lock Ness Monster or is the Lock Ness Monster an explaination for the seismic activity.
Re:No way! (Score:1)
There will always be mystery creatures (Score:2)
Re:Why is it.. (Score:1)
From what I understand, it's the same guy. I forget his name but I see him on the TV shows pushing his seismic theory on everything. IIRC, he's a geologist, and so sees the world through a geologist's eyes.
My take would be that seismic events caused some of the sightings. Logs and other debris caused some other sightings. Pranks are the root for yet more sightings. There is no one explanation.
Re:Why is it.. (Score:2)
Re:New poll: Your favorite monster (Score:2)
And once again... (Score:1)
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Nessie - the real story (Score:2)
Most people go to Loch Ness, drive around for hours, don't see anything, feel sad, go to a local pub and drink a lot of Scottish Whiskey.
This is not the right way, because Nessie is attracted to whiskey-fumes and when you're in the pub she can't smell them.
So you should go to the lake of Loch Ness, enter a local pub, drink a lot of Scottish Whiskey, walk to the lake, breath out and watch Nessie coming to you... The more you drink, the better your chances!
Whoa. (Score:1)
Drain the loch? (Score:2)
Good luck to any tycoons trying this to boost their popularity : )
Re:A Plausable Explanation ( was: Re:Hmm) (Score:2)
Mmm, Haggis. I once had a friend in Scotland tell me that Haggis is a small mountain animal where two legs are shorter than the others from running around the mountains all the time (to which I responded, "You tell all the tourists that, don't you?"). Perhaps Nessie eats the little Haggises that run too close to the water's edge?
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Re:Why is it.. (Score:1)
Gates (of project Blue Book): It's just swamp gas, no crash here folks. Or the planet Venus. Yeah, Venus, that's it! The glare of Venus made your screen look all washed-out and blue and stuff. Right.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:Family-Ness (Score:2)
I have to ask: are the space brothers always getting oppressed by the [deep breath] Pigs...In...Space...?
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:A Plausable Explanation ( was: Re:Hmm) (Score:1)
This is true - otherwise they would lean to one side - and may fall off the mountain. Natural selection and all that jazz.
--The Tatty McNeaps Museum of Natural History, near Glasgow (pron. glAz-gee), which is near Edinburgh (pron. ed-in-BERG), which is near London (pron. London), held a very interesting exhibit on the evolution from the sheep scrotum to the, now domesticated, common haggis. Just as a piece of interesting info - the furry thing on the outside of a kilt, which is called a sporan, is the pelt of a wild haggis. The furry thing on the inside of a man's kilt is called his bollocks.
Simcity 2000 (Score:1)
This article reminds me of possibly one of the coolest easter eggs ever included in a game. That of Nessie randomly appearing in some of you lakes in Simcity 2000. :)
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Pictures of Nessie faked (Score:1)
There's always Champ! (Score:2)
I've read more detailed, recent reports of Champ sightings than anything from Nessie enthusiasts. They've even figured out his (her?) taxonomic identity and given it a scientific genus (Champtanystropheus). If you go to the lakeside park in Burlington there's a statue commemorating all the sightings. Champ has even been commemorated by Uhaul [uhaul.com]!
And the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks are gorgeous this time of year. ;-)
Re:Why is it.. (Score:2)
/Brian
Re:Giant Squid Exist (Score:2)
The thing about Nessie: if there is such a beast, in all likelihood there are a number of them, with a decent-sized gene pool. If that's the case, how is it that we have never seen anything that fits the description? Surely the bottom of Loch Ness has been dragged a number of times -- how is it that we've never found anything resembling a Nessie skeleton? No mystery carcasses washed up on the beach (like, say, giant squids), no locals salting them down and eating them (like the above mentioned ancient fish).
I can't quite tell whether you're defending or discounting the Nessie hypothesis, so I can't say whether I'm strengthening or rebutting your point. But the idea that there are real monsters on Earth doesn't mean that we're going to find Nessie.
/Brian
Re:A Plausable Explanation ( was: Re:Hmm) (Score:2)
A: Nothing, it's all in perfect working order
da dum dum
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Re:Nessie will live on. (Score:1)
I read a similar article yesterday that stated that the surface disturbances weren't caused by the movement of the tremor, but by gasses that escaped from fissues or somesuch during the quake.
Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups. [thedaythatcounts.org]
Re:Pictures of Nessie faked (Score:2)
Re:Which came first? (Score:1)
reminds me of my theory... (Score:3)
these "monster waves" were usually the result of an infrequent combination of boat wakes or one wake interfering with itself in an inlet. the odd triangular waves would perpetuate themselves, and travel across the lake until finally diminishing on the far shore, or by coming upon another boat's wake.
it was a fun pastime to track these guys down whilst on skis and jump them, but i thought nothing of the phenomenon until a few years later. that's when i read something (i think it was in popular science or discover magazine) about these large mysterious (and dangerous, as in iceberg dangerous) triangular waves in the north atlantic. study had proven that these were the result of converging currents and strong winds. until then, they were a mystery.
i thought, hey, if the same thing can happen in the north atlantic, and nobody knows until now how they form, maybe it's the same thing that's happening at my lake.. and maybe at other lakes - like loch ness - that have boat traffic on them.
anyhoo, i still want to see someone pull a live one out of the loch in a net, but until then i think a lot of the "humps" people see are just caused by wind, or temperature inversion, or seismic activity, or my monster waves...
Berkeley fortune (Score:2)
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it's time for everyone to..... (Score:1)
Murphy's Law of Copiers
good fluid dynamics model (Score:1)
Re:New poll: Your favorite monster (Score:1)
Don't forget...
Re:A Plausable Explanation ( was: Re:Hmm) (Score:1)
You forgot to mention that the male haggis has long left legs and the female has long right legs. Males go round the hills anticlockwise, females clockwise. This is how the males and females meet; they mate, and make haggis-bairns (also called haggis-kins or haggis-lings)
Re:There's always Champ! (Score:1)
Re:loch ness? its been over 50 years! (Score:1)
Re:A Plausable Explanation ( was: Re:Hmm) (Score:2)
Re:even the physical ones? (Score:3)
Personally I think people are just seeing other animals and just assuming it's a dinosaur. Remember, Loch Ness IS connected to the ocean through canals, and various ocean creatures such as seals, porpoises, eels, etc. do get in...
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Re:Giant Squid Exist (Score:1)
The cold water, coupled with the low pH due to runoff, causes all corpses to sink.
Re:Giant Squid Exist (Score:1)
And ecologically speaking, Loch Ness probably couldn't support any real population of huge predators.
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Re:Nessie will live on. (Score:2)
And those two reasons are why religion will never die. There will always be people who prefer to believe in gods over more prosaic explanations. As long as someone stands to benefit finanically, there'll be preachers of the faith-du-jour catering to that preference.
Step right up and git your levitating gurus, silver lizards and Nessies here! Don't push! There's enough for everybody...
Re:Be your own judge.... (Score:1)
Name (Score:1)
Or should I just stay away from this tv for some time?
Elvis in a UFO (offtopic) (Score:3)
Up here in Canada there's a national lottery called the 6/49. The odds of hitting the jackpot is approximately 1 in 14 million, yet thousands of people buy tickets every week.
Anyway, about 6 years ago I heard a story on the radio about how London bookies sets odds for weird things happening. I can't remember the exact odds but they went something like this:
Elvis being found alive - 400:1
Loch Ness monster being captured - 600:1
A UFO landing on the White House lawn - 1000:1
And the biggest of all
A UFO driven by Elvis crashing into Loch Ness and killing the monster - 14 million to 1
which are the same odds as hitting the 6/49 jackpot. Kinda puts things into perspective.
The sieche theory (Score:3)
What makes the theory more interesting is the fact that the same sort of wave has been identified in Lake Champlain in Vermont, which is, as all good Vermonters know, the home of Champy, the Lake Champlain monster. Both Champlain and Ness are deep, narrow lakes, of the sort given to producing sieches. Of course, on at least one instance, the monster in Champlain has been a gigantic sturgeon (it was shot and killed by a woman who saw it thrashing in the water behind her house), but a wave of this sort, periodically disturbed by seismic activity, would seem to be likely to produce the off shapes in the water that people have reported seeing.
And as someone may have mentioned, the best argument against there being a Nessie in the sense of a giant monster is the ecology of the lake. Several studies have been done of the lake, and every one of them finds that the food chain in the lake could not support a large predator, much less the breeding stock that would be neccesary to keep the sightings going for hundreds of years.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
Fluid Dynamics (Score:1)
What happens? I'd say that when someone uses fluid dynamic model to try to see the Loch Ness Monster, they waste an inordinate amount of time, that's what happens.
Re:Giant Squid Exist (Score:2)
/Brian
Re:A Plausable Explanation ( was: Re:Hmm) (Score:1)
And they breathe...how? (Score:1)
Seals and porpoises are mammals. What do they do, hold their breath for a couple of miles?
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
That doesn't disprove _anything_ (Score:1)
Yes, this is tongue-in-cheek, but when A correlates with B, it is just as possible that A causes B as it is that B causes A. It seems that very few people account for this in their reasoning about phenomenological studies.
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Re:Cause and Effect? (Score:2)
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Proves nothing! (Score:3)
Disclaimer: I live five miles from Loch Ness
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Re:even the physical ones? (Score:2)
I live just a few miles from Loch Ness, and I can tell you, it would be extremely improbable for seals or porpoises to get through the Caledonian canal. The canal isn't the problem, it is the ridiculously long set of locks that they'd have to navigate. They don't call it the "Highlands" of Scotland for nothing.
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Re:Giant Squid Exist (Score:2)
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Re:even the physical ones? (Score:2)
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Re:"Scottish" Picts? (Score:2)
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