Loch Ness Monster Explained

Chapter 17b - THE MONSTER - Forty Strong Sonar Contacts

The John Murray sonar patrols provided useful experience but there were problems with using the wooden vessel and, in 1982 a move was made to a Humber barge called Phyllis which was chartered for the summer.

Once again, the Feruno Scanning Sonar was the main tool and a number of strong sonar contacts were obtained of exceptional strength and range. They were, however, almost invariably in deep water. This did not seem to be the behaviour of an air breathing animal such as a plesiosaur. Hypothetical air breathing creatures with some sort of snorkel nasal extensions would also have been picked up in the sonar patrols in or around the surface, but this was not the case. Whatever these contacts were, if they were animals they were in the deep barren water column. Increasingly Adrian Shine's mind turned to a large fish of some description.

It was not all sonar patrols in 1982. Work continued from 1980 and 1981 on obtaining sediment cores from the bottom of the loch. These might provide evidence of salt water incursions after the last ice age and could also provide information on climatic change since the ice age.

Plankton was collected and fish sampling conducted. Gradually, in conjunction with collaborating universities, the Loch Ness and Morar Project was building up a far better understanding of the environment of Loch Ness. At every turn, large air breathing monsters slipped further into the realm of fantasy. The photograph below shows a plankton net being lowered from Deepscan, the Loch Ness and Morar Project's current research vessel during the nineties and up to 2016.

The Loch Ness and Morar Project also continued their work on the classic photographs and re-examination of previous positive sonar contacts. It was during the early eighties that it became clear that the Rines' flipper pictures bore no relation to the NASA computer enhancement and that the accompanying sonar results were even more valueless.

That same year, experiments were conducted in conjunction with the Goodyear Airship to see how far down in the inky water an aerial observation platform could see. There had often been suggestions by others that some permanent overhead camera platform could be used to look down at the loch. As Nessie approached the surface to breathe it could be observed beneath the surface and perhaps filmed.

As mentioned before, Loch Ness and Morar Project members aboard Phyllis lowered a galvanised dustbin lid on a rope while the blimp circled overhead. Measurements were taken and it was found that it had disappeared from view at a depth of less than 3 metres (9 feet). While no one actually checked the maximum visibility depth for a dark object, it was pretty obvious that this was not going to provide a worthwhile way of moving the search forward.

During the remainder of 1982 a sonar search vessel called New Atlantis was utilised. This had been specially equipped to Adrian's specifications by Jim Hogan, the owner of the largest fleet of cruise boats on the loch.

Jim's lifelong interest in the Loch Ness mystery and the possibility of good PR for his company inspired the installation. It carried Simrad Scanning Sonar and this was coupled to a paper trace echo sounder in the same combined system as the Feruno system on the Phyllis and John Murray. The only loss with the Simrad system was that the strength of the contacts was not as easy to ascertain.

In 1982, forty strong sonar contacts were obtained and they are sufficiently important to warrant detailed inclusion here.

Some of these are shown below:

Frame 1: a contact, on the weak side but still far stronger than the known fish in the loch. 

Frame 2: the same contact in a split screen being compared with the calibration sphere which appears far weaker. 

Frame 3: the same contact in a second split screen. The contact appears on the left of the screen. The right of the screen shows the area the contact occupies stretched. This is done to provide a clearer indication of strength, but also in order to see whether or not there are sequences of weaker colours at a marginally greater range. This is important because if a sonar beam hits a shoal of fish, some of the beam glances off the closer fish, inter-reflects among other members of the shoal and very weak echoes return from an apparently greater range than the original contact. This contact shows no sign of being anything other than a single contact and its strength is therefore more significant.

Frame 4: another, but even stronger contact. 

Frame 5: shows that the contact is very much stronger than the calibration sphere. 

Frame 6: shows a tiny hint of "tailing" and so it could be more than one object i.e. a shoal.

Frames 7 & 8: a contact of exceptional strength and range, many times stronger than the calibration sphere. 

Frame 9: clearly demonstrates that this strong contact shows no sign of "tailing" and is apparently a single object.

The diagram shows the scanning sonar method used.

Frames 10 & 11: the strongest contact obtained by the Feruno Scanning Sonar system. As well as being remarkably strong compared with the calibration sphere, this single contact was tracked for some considerable time through many changes of beam angle.

It is important to realise that the contact in frame 10 was not necessarily diving as the distance down the screen is a distance downrange.

Below you can see similarly strong contacts obtained using the Simrad system aboard New Atlantis. 

A is 400 feet deep.

B 371 feet and tracked for many minutes through several changes of beam angle.

C shows contacts again tracked for a long period of time.

D shows a single contact at about 170 feet and the patterns can be ignored as this is just interference caused when another echo sounder was used to monitor fish and plankton distribution.

E shows a very strong diving contact. The large dark block can be ignored as it is just a side echo, not the bottom or side of the loch. Unfortunately, it caused the contact to be lost as the images blended together.

So, all of these contacts were very positive evidence indeed, although the media did not enjoy seeing coloured blobs or paper trace marks as much as faked photographs. At this time I was going through a crisis of confidence over Loch Ness and these results boosted my own morale somewhat.

What should the next stage in the Loch Ness and Morar Project's research be?

(C) 2018 Tony Harmsworth