Monster Mania I: The Loch Ness Monsters
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
As mentioned in the literary review section above, the most famous monster of modern times may well be the one swimming around in the waters of Loch Ness in Scotland. Rob Brezsny, a syndicated astrologer, mentions the beast in his most recent book Pronoia (2005). Brezsny informs us that “The odds that Elvis Presley will crash-land a UFO on the head of the Loch Ness monster are 14 million to one, according to a British betting agency.” This ridiculous statement manages to tie together three distinct aspects of the paranormal, namely: ghosts, superhuman technology, and monsters. Of the three, monsters might be the most acceptable to modern science. Well, some monsters anyway. The Loch Ness monsters, particularly, have been so extensively documented that there can be little doubt about the fact that very large, probably prehistoric animals are swimming around in that lake. As Roy P. Mackal states in his book The Monsters Of Loch Ness (1976), “I conclude that a population of modest sized, piscivorous aquatic animals is inhabiting Loch Ness. This seems to be the most adequate and reasonable interpretation of the data, even perhaps a conservative assessment—conservative in the sense that it is a single, simple hypothesis in accord with established physical and zoological scientific principles.” We are talking about a very reasonable case of a prehistoric animal surviving in an isolated place after being reduced almost to extinction millions of years ago. Though this might be highly unlikely in the minds of scientists and betting agencies, it certainly seems plausible and within the bounds of ordinary physical reality.
Just what kind of animal is the Loch Ness Monster? First of all, it ought to be understood that there simply must be more than one of these monsters. To quote from The Monsters Of Loch Ness (1976) again, “The data now available, such as observations at the surface of more than one animal, simultaneous observations at different locations around the loch, multiple sonar contacts, and basic zoological requirements, all make the idea of a ‘single’ animal absurd.” Observations of the animals’ behavior seems inconsistent with that of mammals. Certain extinct species of reptiles, amphibians, and even eels, however, can all be correlated (with relative degrees of consistency) with the Loch Ness Monster data. The plesiosaur seems to be the most likely reptilian animal found to match the behavior and description of these Scottish beasts. As Mackal tells us in The Monsters Of Loch Ness (1976), “The most popular theory suggests that the loch monster is a form of plesiosaur... Several features fit the facts: flippers, hump, fish diet, 20 ft. length; furthermore, some forms are believed to swim at considerable speeds and to give birth to live young in the water. One major problem with this reptile proposal is that the plesiosaur has been extinct for 65 million years. Their fossil record stops at the Cretaceous period.” Could scientists be mistaken about the date that certain animals became extinct? Previous experience informs us that scientists have been wrong about such things in the past. As Mackal says again in The Monsters Of Loch Ness (1976), “The coelacanth, a primitive fish believed extinct for 70 million years, was discovered off the coast of Africa; and neopilina, a small primitive mollusk believed extinct for 300 million years, turned up alive in 1957. Therefore, this gives the reasonableness of precedent to the claim that plesiosaurs, presumed extinct, might exist, perhaps in an evolved form, in Loch Ness.”
The materialist school of biology, based on Darwin’s famous book Origin Of Species, need not feel threatened by the existence of a few isolated plesiosaurs and coelacanths. Only the most fanatic of self-styled skeptics could be so bold as to dismiss out of hand the mountain of scientific data concerning the monsters of Loch Ness. Other monsters, however, might not be so amenable to being placed in an acceptable zoological category. Our next monster, most commonly known as Bigfoot, may be only slightly more threatening to the theories of modern biology than the fishy denizens of Scotland’s famous Loch.