Thank you for this opportunity to expose the couch potato scofticism that so pervades internet forums today.

I do not for one minute think that Tim Dinsdale took part in a kind of hoax or tried to fool anyone. The only mistake he made was not to recognise the boat he looked at for only 5 seconds through his binoculars. After this time he only saw the object through the lens of his Bolex camera. Somebody said to me I bet you've seen this monster, but you're not saying anything because it doesn't look anything like your models!" Does this actually mean anything that leads one to a solid deduction? The logic applied here clearly attempts to synergise separate objects into the concept of a larger whole (a hoax). However, the argument relies on these smaller items having clear, designated functions. Ok let's show mathmatically the minimum since 2005, because I have read a stat that 90% of adults since 2005 have carried a mobile phone with a camera, averaged over the last 10 years. This seems reasonable, certainly not far off the mark in terms of everyday observations. In 2015 it is higher than 90%, in 2005 it was lower. So for argument's sake we will both ignore the years before 2005, and we will not factor in the multitude of digital cameras and video cameras (inc night vision) taken to the loch additionally.Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Or perhaps there are unseen issues here? It's a no-brainer to print all these revelations, but instead we have to wait another eight years to see anything about it in print. Is this an " epic fail" to quote the vernacular? These sightings, like too many that are accepted into the 'official' record, are absolute junk. It gives this whole endeavour a bad name. It begs the question, who's in charge here, and what criteria do they apply to 'accept' a sighting? I was trained in science and research and know what is needed, although some people just have it, and some don't. This 'register' is not good, to put it mildly. In other words, it is a straw man argument and one easily spotted by myself (since I am the one being criticised), though others may think it valid. It is not. Reynoldson, T. B., 1981. A species of North American triclad new to Britain found in Loch Ness, Scotland. Journal of Zoology, 193, 531–539.

In July 1987, at the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh, The Society for the History of Natural History and the International Society for Cryptozoology held a symposium on "The Search for Nessie in the 1980s"; the reception given there to Dinsdale's election to Honorary Membership of the ISC testified to the wide-spread affection and respect that he had gained. Dinsdale had become synonymous with the quest at Loch Ness, respected universally for his sterling qualities even by those who had scant respect for the significance of the quest itself - as attested, for example by the obituary in The Times. Dinsdale's own words are perhaps his most appropriate epigraph:"The cost has been great - at a private level seemingly impossible to meet in time and money, and yet, in meeting it, by some strange alchemy I am the richer for it, and my family no less independent.

Photographs of the Loch Ness Monster

Naish, D. 2017. Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths . Arcturus, London.