h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A year or two ago a British TV channel did a series about 'mystery' animals including the yeti and Bigfoot. The Loch Ness monster was also included and the presenter's summing-up was along the lines of: 'The food content of the Loch is comparable to a large supermarket containing one lettuce and a tin of salmon. The chances of a large creature existing there for any period, let alone enough of them to breed, are minimal at best.'

I can't remember what other animals were included (there were 6 programs in total) but the yeti and Bigfoot were also scotched. There is insufficient food in the Himalaya for something the reputed size of the yeti to survive, and the most famous film/photographic 'evidence' of Bigfoot was proved to be faked.

Real or fake, they make good stories anyway. There is supposed to be a creature similar to the Lock Ness Monster living in Cadboro Bay on Vancouver Island, complete with rather fuzzy pictures, drawings, etc. As for Bigfoot, a mine manager I knew summed it up with a comment about how long you'd spent in the bar before you saw it!!

Apparently depending on which reports you read they is a big difference in the recorded food supply of the loch. Some analysts say that there is insufficient food and some say there is and with the loch being the size it there is a lot of room for speculation.
With regard to the creature in vancouver, lake monsters are very common around the world as are bigfoot reports, i.e bigfoot, yetis, sasquatch and the chinese wild man all from different areas around the world. Some say these reports stir something in humans from their past and thats why their so common. Makes you think.

*cheer*

We need more healthily-sceptical TV... there are far too many programs which actually work hard to make stories look more impressive than they are... to pull the wool over the viewers' eyes, so to speak.

26199

There was one program which looked at an archaeologists attempts to prove that the Sphinx is older than is generally believed. He said that the damage to the Sphinx could only have been made by water, even though the area was desert when the Sphinx was built. The program made the other archaeologists look like real stick-in-the-muds, unable to accept or even consider new ideas. Research since has shown that the erosion could have been caused by salts in the rock. I don't know who to believe, but I mentally switched off when he said that the builders must have felt that Sirius (I think) was an important star because the Sphinx would have lined up with it when it was built. Who are we to say what an ancient people would have believed? Why not check the alignment of the Sphinx's tail in case they felt his arse was important?

You can check out the forums on Atlantis for my opinion on that myth. I can't be bothered to re-write it here, but that was another shining example of 'healthily-sceptical TV'.

Loch Ness is connected to another loch as well as to a river (can't remember which one, was never good at geography) that flows out to the sea. It is believed that is is little food in the loch but there are organisms which do exists without food, namely a sea bass (I think) or something similarly named which has been suspected to be the reall creature behind the myth. Me, I'm a little sceptical, as a fish that is maybe around 4ft long (correct me if I am wrong) could look like the size of animal that many spectators have seen.

And by the way, I am Scottish and have deep love for mythology, but I do like to have a little bit of evidence to prove that such creatures can exist - and there is very little for Nessie. I mean, has Nessie ever been seen swimming up the aforementioned river??

Hello Bagpuss! You get around quite well for someone with no into on their page! Welcome to H2G2!

The "Nessie" myth is one which will never be proven either way. Too much lake depth to get an accurate survey. If something wants to hide indefinitely, it can. If nothing is there, one cannot prove that something does not exist...only that it does!

Same is true for the yeti, bigfoot, etc.!

Myths are necessary to us poor humans. We must have something mysterious to believe in, or we get bored!

NM

That's an interesting theory about a fish. Once when we were out fishing, I had a walleye tethered at the side of our boat - just a nice size for supper, perhaps 2 lbs. A northern pike (jackfish) swam under the boat just below the surface, along the side, turned on his side and took a huge BITE out of my walleye. He was roughly 4 or 5 lbs, and HUGE reflect through the water. Perhaps you are right.

Thnaks for tellin me Fairly Strange - I have added in some stuff now - whether it is interesting or not is another matter!

Anyway, as for Loch Ness - I'd love conclusive proof of its existence or not - it would be amazing to know that there was this animal that had managed to remain elusive amongst so much obsession for 1500 years!

Anyway, the more mysterious a 'something' is, the more curious we are about them. And what would humans be if we didn't have any curiosity??!

Very boreing creatures!!!! That's what we'd be!!!

Must check your new digs.......meantime...


Yeah, I wish they'd actually find something in Loch Ness myself. I have a fummy feeling there is something there!

NM

Yeah - saw a program on the loch a couple of weeks ago - this guy has been obsessed with the myth since the seventies (or something like that). His expedition last year was the biggest they had ever had at the loch, using radiowaves (?) to try and detect large masses that could not be determined as shoals of fish or logs etc. etc. Unfortunately technology is still not advanced enough as the loch is too deep for the radiowaves (or what technique they were using) to penetrate deep enough. They did find one large mass, but by the time they reached that area, the mass had gone.

makes you wonder...

I saw one on The Discovery Channel a few months back....sounds very familiar! Was that the older gentleman and a partner(I believe)

If so....that was an interesting outing! I believe they actually got close.....but not close enough(Darn it!!!!)!

NM

Basically this old guy and another guy, who worked at the Natural History Museum (I think) who didn't actually believe there was a Nessie who teamed up to either prove or disprove the myth. They got a big team together and went out in tugs trawling the loch. But they just didn't trawl deep enough. But yeah, they did get very close to finding something, whatever that something might have been.... :-0

As a matter of fact! That's the ones!

Made for some very interesting TV!

NM

Definitely - I love documentaries!

(By the way, I'm kinda a newcomer to H2G2, so hi everyone! ^_^)

Nessie has always been one of my favorite unsolved mysteries - although I don't really think it's possible for there to have been just one Nessie; if there is a real Loch Ness Monster, then there has to be at least one family of them.

Me, I was betting on the plesiosaur or zeuglodon theory...and whaddaya mean about not enough food? There are enough fish for 100 Nessies in that lake! That's one reason we can't find it - fish shoals show up as large masses on the instruments, so we think it's Nessie and therefore miss the real sightings.

Ciao!

There may well be 'lots of fish' in Loch Ness, that wasn't what the one guy said. He said there wasn't enough food in there to sustain a family of 'Nessies', which is what there would have to be for the beast to still be alive today.

Ah...ok.

Well, I still say he's wrong! ^_^

Hey, Raven!!!!! Put something on Your Space so folks can say "Hi!"!!

NM

Uhhh....I would, but I dunno how!! I just learned how to use smileys on this thing a few minutes ago!