As a follow-up to the Lough Fadda sighting, I came across this in F. W. Holiday’s book The Great Orm of Loch Ness. It is on page 148-149 in the 1971 Faber edition:
The Rector of Clifden Mr Edward C. Alston told Ted Holiday of a strange creature, both he and a Mr Hunt, the fishery inspector, saw in the Killery Inlet near Clifden.
He said it was in November 1965 and he was going to a meeting about the fisheries when he stopped to look at some seals who were themselves watching something. Then he saw what they were watching. He described it as having a neck about as thick as a telegraph pole standing about 5 feet (about 1 and half metres) out of the water. The creature was quite still and seem to be intent on the seals and Mr Alston said it ‘s head resembled a large conger eel’s. He said there was the impression of a large body under the water. It disappeared after about 1 and a half minutes sinking vertically into the water and the seals also disappeared. He estimated it was a 100 yards ( 33 meters) from where he was watching.
Mr Hunt, saw the creature from his house and added he thought the creature was 20 – 25 feet long (6 to 8 meters approx) and he had seen it move quite fast exhibiting humps. There was also a report to him from a water keeper north of the point who asked for an identification of the same creature he had seen but Mr Hunt was unable to give one. The creature was fairly light in colour so stood out against the sea and Mr Hunt described it as being shaded, lighter underneath when it turned.
What makes this extraordinary is that Lough Fadda is only about 10 minutes drive from Clifden; therefore, could that distance ( approx. 10 or 11 kilometres) have been traversed by this creature? Could it or one like it have been the creature seen in Lough Fadda in 1954, nine years before? The area was not built up at that time and would be quite deserted in places. There were apparently fish farms in the Lough then as they were at Killery (possibly spelt Killary ) inlet and that could have been the attraction for a large creature. An interesting tale that leaves lots of unanswered questions to think about.
Probably not the same one exactly: the descriptions do not quite match up. And if there were two different reports close together in even Loch Ness, that does not automatically imply both reports are the same individual animal, or even necessarily of the same species.
ReplyDeleteThis is similar to the story about the Florida manatee with the three-part tail because it was slashed by a motorboat. Was it necessarily the same individual as the animal filmed by Monsterquest before that point? Assuming that is so without actually comparing the wakes is assuming that there is only one manatee in the world with a tail slashed by passing motorboats. Sadly, this is not the case. It is about like finding a bone box marked "James the son of Joseph" in a curio shop in holyland without any established provenance and with the letters "the brother of Jesus" added on later and in a contrasting type of writing, and assuming that the particular bone-box belonged to the brother of the specific Jesus mentioned in the Bible. There are also other such bone-boxes marked "Jesus"(Yehoshua)by the way, it was a common name at the time.
Fish farms are known to attract catfish, so why not other hungry critters?
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