OLL LEWIS: 5 Questions on… Cryptozoology - ANDREAS TROTTMANN

Our guest today is Swiss-based cryptozoologist Andreas Trottmann, an expert on central European lake monsters and also on Loch Ness. After being in touch via e-mail and post for over a decade, we finally met him in 2006 when he came to Woolsery for the Weird Weekend, and jolly good he was.

Andreas Trottmann, here are your 5 questions on… Cryptozoology:

1) How did you first become interested in cryptozoology?

Already as a teenager I had been highly intrigued by the cryptids of Loch Ness and sea-serpent reports. In 1971 - at the age of 13 - I spent my first night on the shores of Loch Ness (equipped with father’s binoculars and a small Instamatic camera). Nevertheless my active involvement in various cryptozoological researches began only around the age of 25.

2) Have you ever personally seen a cryptid or secondary evidence of a cryptid, if so can you please describe your encounter?

On May 11^th 1988 at 07.10 am I observed from Strone a dark grey hump with a large white spot at one end, lying motionless in Urquhart bay, Loch Ness. I estimated the size to be between 4 and 5 metres long and 60 to 70 cm high. The sighting lasted only for a few seconds as I was driving a car coming back from an early morning watch at the loch-side. Also at Loch Ness I had some sonar contacts of large animated objects as well as recording a strange noise – rather similar to the 'singing' of whales – taken with my underwater microphone.

In 1991 I had, together with my wife, a possible close encounter with a big cat in the Scottish Highlands. Having been informed by locals of a derelict hut where sometimes big cats seem to rest, I decided to install a voice-activated tape recorder there. Early one morning we both remarked a very strong smell of ammonia (such as by the big cat compound of a zoo) very near the hut. I cautiously approached and being about five metres from the entrance, tape-recorder ready, we were both surprised by two very powerful high-pitched shrieks coming from the hut. All nearby grazing sheep fled in panic and I (deeply regretted nowadays) forgot, due to the surprise effect, to switch on the tape-recorder. Understandably we made a retreat and observed the hut from a safe distance but no further reactions were noticed.

The next day I installed the tape-recorder on the first floor of the cottage and let it run for several days. Unfortunately it didn’t record any sounds specific to a big cat. Presumably due to our previous and also amateurish first visit the big cat had left the area.

3) Which cryptids do you think are the most likely to be scientifically discovered and described some day, and why?

Most likely unidentified big cats in Britain, but they aren’t proper cryptids in my opinion. Scientific interest in deep-sea exploration has recently reignited; therefore a chance discovery of cryptids such as the giant squid could be a possibility.

4) Which cryptids do you think are the least likely to exist?

As my interests are concentrated on only a few cryptids, I’m unable to reply to this question. Nevertheless I like also to pursue the question, if some reported cryptids belong really to our consciousness of time and space.

5) If you had to pick your favourite cryptozoological book (not including books you may have written yourself) what would you choose?

Many, but certainly all works of Bernard Heuvelmans.

IT AIN'T NESSIE-CERALLY SO...

It was only the other day that I found myself musing on the fact that although we have been doing the bloggo for nearly a month, there had been narry a mention of the most famous cryptid of all - the Loch Ness Monster. This morning all that has changed. Our old mate Andreas Trottmann sent us this. We are reproducing it unedited..

Mystery over new 'Nessie' sighting
By Donald Wilson
Published: 05 February, 2009 / Highland News

A COUPLE enjoying a romantic weekend in the Highlands believe they may have had a close encounter with the Loch Ness Monster. Experts are now investigating this latest photograph, which was taken by accident, to establish if it is in fact the Loch's most famous resident. Ian Monckton, from Solihull, took his fiance Tracey Gordon to a cottage in Invermoriston on the shores of the loch to celebrate her 30th birthday.

On their way back to the village at about 11pm they pulled into a lay-by. The driver's window was wound down and before the couple stopped their car they heard a commotion in the water. Using the car headlights and the flash from his camera to check their footing on the rocky shores of the loch, data analyst Ian unwittingly recorded this picture which he hopes could be the elusive monster.

"There is clearly a very large shape in the water that looks aquatic a few metres out from where I was standing and you just see the tips of the trees lower down the slope to the loch in the photo," said Ian who has passed the picture to naturalist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness Project to get his expert opinion. "Myself and Tracey were always quite sceptical about Nessie but after having had this experience I would say we now have a very open mind on the matter. It was the highlight of our trip. We'll definitely be back and we are struggling to get an explanation for what we caught on camera."

Ian said the pictures were taken from a small cliff overlooking the loch. But it was only when they got back to their country retreat and checked the images they realised they significance of the what they had on their digital camera.

Ian said it was his first visit to Loch Ness and the weather was reasonably clear with only a light breeze. "We decided to get away for a few days to celebrate Tracey's birthday and because it was off season we headed up to Drumnadrochit for a meal.

"On our way back to Invermoriston we stopped off at Urquhart Castle to take a few photos, but the lights that illuminate the castle were turned off, so there were no photo opportunities there. Then we pulled over at a parking point to let a car pass, as my fiancé doesn't drive as fast as the locals in the dark. I had the passenger window open as I was smoking at the time and as we pulled into the lay-by there was an rustling and a splash. It sounded as if a Mini had landed in the water. That's how loud it was.

"We both looked at each other and I said 'What the hell was that'? It wasn't a small splash like a piece of debris or a stone falling into the loch. It sounded like a car or a motorbike had rolled into the loch. I got out of the car and walked up to the edge using the light from the car headlights to see where the edge of the loch dropped away and taking snaps with the camera so the flash let me see we where to tread."

The couple called out to see if anyone was there, or in trouble in the loch but couldn't hear anything apart from the water splashing around in the loch.

"After a while we continued back to Homewood, both wondering what the hell we had heard and joking about Nessie," Ian added. "However, when we looked back at the photos I had taken up to and looking over the cliff we now genuinely believe there is something in this, there is clearly a very large shape in the water that looks aquatic a few metres out from where I was standing and you just see the tips of the trees lower down the slope to the loch in the photo."

Mr Shine, who has spent years researching the natural history of the Loch and the Great Glen and is the leader of the Loch Ness Project, commented: "We have been sent material and will be doing some on site investigations. There's not enough information on the image to hazard a guess what it could be. However, the account sounds not inconsistent with an animal such as an otter going into the loch."

Mikko Takala, who runs a webcam network for Nessie watchers worldwide, receives thousands of "Nessie sightings" every year as photos and videos.

He too has analysed the photograph and concludes it may be a dead fish.

"Obviously this photo is taken in the dark and camera flashes can accentuate details that would otherwise be barely noticeable in daylight conditions. "I think this is probably a dead fish – maybe a flatfish."

d.wilson@highland-news.co.uk

Flatfish? What flatfish? Although flounders do occasionally come into freshwater, there are no indigenous British non marine flatfishes. Anyway the picture doesn't look like anything much, let alone a flatfish of any description. I tend to agree with Adrian Shine that the description of the sound is not incompatible with an otter diving into the loch. Personally I think that the picture is too blurry to be of more than tangental interest.

But if it is not some weird lens flare anomaly (and I know to my cost that digital cameras can throw up some highly bizarre visual anomalies) I'd love to know what it is.