One hell of an otter
May 31, 2007 10:02 PM   Subscribe

Associated Press reports Nessie caught on tape! News rockets around the world! Surprise: Amazing footage of mythical creature turns out to be a blob. In that same link, the BBC interviews the guy who filmed the tape and saw the monster. Nessie spotter: "I surmise it's going to be 45 feet long." Interviewer: "Could it be an otter?" Nessie spotter: "It could be an otter."
posted by bicyclefish (36 comments total)
 
Incidentally, that breathless AP story, and the video that goes with it, cites the 1930's hoax photo that was very publically debunked in the 1990's as a genuine sighting. It also uses a cryptozoologist as its only expert authority.

Somebody screwed the sea monster on this one.
posted by bicyclefish at 10:05 PM on May 31, 2007


I saw Nessie. She was flying that UFO the other day that I read about here on MetaFilter. Just a second, I'll find that and link to it...

hmmm. Can't find it.

Oh well, I'm sure it was Nessie flying that one. No doubt about it.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:14 PM on May 31, 2007


They should drain the loch.

I doubt they'll find Nessie, but I'm sure they'll turn up lots of other interesting things. Rusted old Reliant Robins. Bodies. I'm sure it will be a valuable excercise.
posted by Jimbob at 10:17 PM on May 31, 2007



They should drain the loch.


Simpsons did it.
posted by blastrid at 10:19 PM on May 31, 2007


I like otters.
posted by trip and a half at 10:24 PM on May 31, 2007


Man, is there anything those crazy Simpsons haven't done?
posted by Jimbob at 10:27 PM on May 31, 2007


The Loch Ness monster is a giant otter? Will wonders never cease?
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 10:32 PM on May 31, 2007


That loch is something like 800 feet deep so draining it or finding anything it is pretty hopeless.
posted by puke & cry at 10:49 PM on May 31, 2007


I went out on the Loch when I was 12. There was a ships dog; it jumped in the Loch, freaked all the kids out. The Enigma of Loch Ness...
posted by acro at 10:51 PM on May 31, 2007


It's a streetlight.
posted by pruner at 11:06 PM on May 31, 2007


Did it ask for 3 fiddy?
posted by Ljubljana at 11:18 PM on May 31, 2007 [1 favorite]


(Assumes world-weary tone). Come on guys it's clearly viral marketing... probably for that new film Otter Attack: Tarka's Revenge. You're just playing into the hands of the film studio by posting it!
posted by greycap at 11:29 PM on May 31, 2007


Loch Ness Monster = one word: plesiosaur.
Hey, it could happen.
posted by zardoz at 11:53 PM on May 31, 2007



metafilter: it could be an otter.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:57 PM on May 31, 2007


What the fuck was that?
posted by sharpener at 12:59 AM on June 1, 2007


Was it holding hands with another giant sea monster otter?
posted by pracowity at 1:23 AM on June 1, 2007


Ahhh, Gordon. I love this bloke. He has a reputation for being, shall we say, less than directed. He works at the same University as I do doing IT support in a department. Doing much the same thing centrally for the same Uni I've spent a lot of time with him. When we found out he was off to do this earlier this week the speculation was that he was going to put a hook through his ribs, tie it to the back of his truck and lower himself into the water. We're pleased he went the video route and doubly pleased he's found something. I say doubly pleased because when the video pulls back you see the exact same phenomenon going on in the background. So, either there are two of them or, well, it's summat else entirely.
posted by vbfg at 1:59 AM on June 1, 2007


Scottish accents are pretty cute.
posted by moonbiter at 2:14 AM on June 1, 2007


Loch Ness Monster = one word: plesiosaur.

Not unless it's sixty-odd million years old and very good at holding its breath. Or there's a very stealthy breeding population of these large-lunged beasties down there.

But there have been very few (and no reliable) sightings of living or dead examples despite constant lake monitoring for a number of years by many people whose pots, though variously whole or cracked, are all intently focused on seeing this thing.

The odds that it will ever be found are only slightly greater than the odds that Bigfoot will be riding on its back at the time.
posted by pracowity at 2:17 AM on June 1, 2007


The fourth comment in our local paper seems to explain it.
posted by vbfg at 3:03 AM on June 1, 2007 [1 favorite]


If there is some gigantic, rare, beastie down there, doing no harm to anyone, we could always send the hero from this thread after it.
posted by MrMustard at 3:34 AM on June 1, 2007


Scottish accents are pretty cute.

Cool--Gordon has the same accent as the young Scottish Knox employee in Local Hero.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 4:23 AM on June 1, 2007


Maybe someone should ask John Landis what he knows about this.
posted by miss lynnster at 5:15 AM on June 1, 2007


Scottish accents are pretty cute.

Insert obligatory Trainspotting quote here.
posted by bwg at 5:43 AM on June 1, 2007


If this were Bigfoot, this footage would be known as "blobsquatch". Or, with reference to YouTube, "tubesquatch".

I kid you not.
posted by Tube at 5:48 AM on June 1, 2007


My guess is that it's an elephant out for a swim.
posted by Sailormom at 6:11 AM on June 1, 2007


Sailormom, if the Loch Ness monsters were revealed to be a hitherto unknown population of feral elephants, I would not be the slightest bit disappointed.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:30 AM on June 1, 2007


My home town of Crofton, MD tried to copy Loch Ness' tourism success by importing a lake monster of its own. The Chamber of Commerce spend weeks meeting to determine the best aquatic beastie to acquire and release into the wilds of suburbia.

Unfortunately, the picture on the box the snakehead fish came in made it look a lot bigger than it actually was. Caveat emptor, I guess, but the guy who broke ground on the theme park lost his shirt.

So he started the rituals and invocations invited a new monster to town: Wal-Mart.

That one didn't go over too well either.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:56 AM on June 1, 2007 [1 favorite]


Coincidentally, we (Virginia Quarterly Review) just posted a web-only article to our site by Tom Bissell on this very topic, "Loch Ness Memoir." On Monday I read Bissell's account of his trip to Scotland to learn about Nessie, leaving me primed to see (and utterly dismiss) this video. Basically nobody who lives around Loch Ness believes that there's any such thing as Nessie, but they sure do love the tourism, so they keep quiet about it. As one waitress says, "Nessie pays my mortgage."

The whole industry sounds really pathetic. Like Santa's Village in, again, The Simpsons. The whole place just coasts along on their '60s heyday.
posted by waldo at 7:18 AM on June 1, 2007


Here are the ground rules for claiming proof of extraordinary phenomena in 2007.

1. Any video must be shot with a tripod or with the camera supported on some fixed object. If you make me watch a video of some phenomena and the camera is shaking all over the place, you are, in my eyes, a subhuman piece of shit. You get a tripod or you'll have a video of your colon.

2. Everything must be in focus at all times. It's 2007, everything in the world has autofocus. Blurry video = punch in the face.

3. You video cannot show something that "could either be the Loch Ness Monster or an otter". That just means you videotaped an otter, and now you want to be famous for your otter video. That makes you an asshole. Otters are not at all interesting. They are the Wonder bread of the animal kingdom, just ottering around all day, like a buch of dumb otters. If you make me watch an otter video under false pretenses, I will fucking go Clockwork Orange on your ass. In the name of Science.

4. Photographs. If you claim a photo of something, it better be in focus, I'm not even kidding you. I see a blurry photo of a hubcap you claim is a UFO, and my fist will rocket across the surface of the earth of its own accord, dragging my limp and helpless body behind it, until it smashes into your face.

5. Photos must be 4 megapixel or above, and if you claim more than one photo, one of them had better be in TIFF or raw format, with the exif data intact. An alien craft travels thousands of light years to get to earth, it's going to stick around for the three seconds necessary for you to switch to raw. You show me a compressed JPG with visible artifacts, I throw you into a pit of otters, where you will be bored to death. See 3.

6. If you claim a photo of an alien spacecraft, and it has Klingon writing on it, I am going to force you at saberpoint to return to high school where you will attend gym class seven times a day, alternating between dodge ball and flag football. Klingon? Not on my watch.

7. Photos must be posted to flickr, videos to youtube, with the high res uncompressed originals available as torrents on the pirate bay. If you link to a geocities site or, God help you, an Angelfire site, I'm going to glass you.
posted by Pastabagel at 7:40 AM on June 1, 2007 [77 favorites]


I approve of Pastabagel's wrath, except for the hatred directed at otters. Otters are cute.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:49 AM on June 1, 2007


Dear paranormal nuts:

Here's the deal. It only counts if you find something you're not looking for. Claiming a blob you saw is what you were looking for is bullshit, yo. When someone out there who doesn't even believe in nessie catches the motherfucker on film, it'll be because what he saw has to be nessie, rather than this "It could be anything so I choose to say it's nessie" bullshit.
posted by shmegegge at 8:16 AM on June 1, 2007


oh man, I wish I could favorite Pastabagel forever.
posted by shmegegge at 8:18 AM on June 1, 2007


Adrian Shine, at about 2:10 in moonbiter's video: Best. Neckbeard. Evar.
posted by The Bellman at 8:58 AM on June 1, 2007


Pastabagel makes otters cry.

:-(
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 1:11 PM on June 1, 2007


Pastabagel's rules made me so happy that I cried a little.
posted by quin at 3:56 PM on June 1, 2007


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