An examination of the claims and pictures
taken by George Edwards
A Summary can be found at the bottom of
the page. Please reload the page at each visit to see any updates. Last update
18-06-2013.
1. Edwards Deep
2. The 1986 Photograph
3. June 2012 Verbal Testimony
4. The November 2011 Photograph
(For a recent complaint by George
Edwards to Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce, and a response by Tony Harmsworth,
etc scroll to the bottom of the page)
The story of Edwards Deep - I suggested the name -
originates with the skipper of a local tour boat George Edwards, who picked up
depth readings of 247 metres, or 812 feet on the fishfinder sonar on his cruise
boat "Nessie Hunter". The story is told in his own words on the "Legend of
Nessie" website, and a brief, edited version is given as Item 1 below.
The significant information is that the location is in the vicinity of
Urquhart Castle.
I worked as relief skipper on the "Nessie Hunter" for ten
years and agree that the boat's sonar does produce these signals from time to
time, but they are not a true indication of depth...it would be hard to
explain how a 60 foot deep crater in the otherwise incredibly flat bottom
sediment did not fill up. The equipment is showing a sidewall echo.
What is a side-wall echo?
In simple terms, it is an echo picked up from the side of the loch
when the side is still further away than the bottom directly below the boat.
I have recorded similar traces on other boat sonars and show here a
similar but deeper echo, also recorded in the vicinity of Urquhart Castle.
Copyright Dick Raynor 2009
Right-click on the image, then select "play"
The newest Admiralty Chart of the area is based
on data gathered during a joint Loch Ness Project / BBC Science
Unit survey in 2002. The maximum depth recorded in the survey was 227
metres, despite special attention being paid to the area of "Edwards
Deep". This depth is less than 3 metres different from that recorded by
Murray and Pullar in 1903.
If the Loch Ness Project / BBC data is good
enough for Her Majesty's Hydrographer it is good enough for me, and I
can be confident that Edwards Deep does not exist. On a tourist trip in June
2012 George Edwards told passengers the story of Edwards Deep but also said
it was "further down the loch" and no attempt was made to demonstrate it on
any of the on-board sonars.
2. The 1986 Photograph - "The Loch Ness monster?"
Passengers on George Edwards Cruise boat
"Nessie Hunter" between 1996 and 2011 will also be
familiar with the photograph he took in 1986, for sale on the boat as a postcard
for 50 pence. I remember him telling me at the time how hard it had been
to drag the offending object out of the back of a vehicle and down to the water
before it was towed out into the loch! The story changed, and George Edwards'
newer version can be watched below.
Right-click on the image, then select "play"
By the time of that interview he had seen "these creatures 16 or 17 times".
3. A June 2012 Boat Trip on Nessie Hunter IV
A passenger on a boat trip in June 2012 made a recording of
George Edwards discussing his sightings and the poster which I use here as a
background image. The soundtrack has a high level of engine noise inside the
cabin but records some important comments.
Right-click on the image, then select "play"
4. The "November 2nd 2011" Photograph, "Released" August 2012
At the beginning of August another photograph was released to the worlds
media in a flurry of publicity, said to have been taken at 9 a.m. on 2nd
November 2011, but not released until August 2012.
From the Daily Mail (see link at end of quote) " I
hung around for a good half-an-hour and used the deep scanning sonar to try and
pick it up, but I’m afraid I had no luck at all.'
Mr Edwards took the photo at 9am on 2nd November last year on a compact Samsung
digital camera that he always keeps on the boat.
Before releasing it publicly he sent it to the USA for analysis, though he can’t
reveal further details.
'I did not want to mention my sighting until I was sure that I had not
photographed a log or something inanimate in the water,' he said. 'I have
friends in the USA who have friends in the military.
'They had my photo analysed and they have no doubt that I photographed an
animate object in the water. I was really excited as I am sure that some strange
creatures are lurking in the depths of Loch Ness.'
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183094/Skipper-claims-finally-proof-Loch-Ness-Monster-exists.html#ixzz23R9PIXSd
So the photos "released" at the beginning of August 2012 were already
displayed and on sale in postcard form on the boat at the time of the June 2012
boat trip.
Obviously a mistake somewhere. Now let us look again at the poster Mr Edwards
is talking about in the audio file. Photo 3, the "new" picture, has a caption
"Taken by George Edwards on 5/10/11" ... but it was really taken on 2nd November
2011, wasn't it? A bit of a mix up. A lovely clear calm day, however...
(Data supplied by NNDC Climate Data at http://.hurricane.ncdc.noaa.gov)
the weather on both days claimed for the photography is
different from that shown in the picture. Furthermore, the Great Glen acts as a
funnel for the wind and surface wind speeds are often 50% to 100% greater that
those measured at Inverness airport. Even without this effect, the waves in the
photo are not those produced by a 13 or 16 mph wind.
NEW: Additional data
gratefully received from professional meteorological source on 01/09/2012:
5 Oct 2011 0900 BST
Brisk SW’ly warm sector over area (followed by cold
front passage late morning).
Wind: SW’ly 15 knots, gusts 25-30 knots.
Cloud: cloudy with some breaks (bases 1500-3000 ft).
Rain: upslope rain over the Western Highlands but very
little reaching the Inverness area.
2 Nov 2011 0900
Brisk S’ly airstream over area (strongest in the west).
Wind: S or SE’ly 10-15 knots (but 70-80 knots over the
top of Cairngorm), locally SW’ly where funnelled through
Great Glen.
Cloud: much layered cloud but thin and high base with
some breaks.
Rain: none in Inverness area (some much further west and
north).
In the words of the BBC Weather Centre, these two days were described as
follows:
BBC Weather Report for 5/10/2011:
Review of UK weather on 05/10/11
Much of the UK was cloudy overnight through
to the early hours but there were a few clear spells in the southeast of
England.
There were outbreaks of drizzle in some
western parts of England and Wales.
Further north, outbreaks of rain pushed east
across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England and rain was heavy across
western hills in Scotland.
During the morning some sunshine broke
through across sheltered parts of eastern England but it was generally cloudy
and wet further north and west.
Rain across the north gradually slipped
southeastwards during the afternoon, turning heavy across Cumbria and then
Wales.
Southern and southeast England hung onto some
drier weather but rain reached here in the evening, this heavy at first.
Behind the band of rain, scattered sharp
showers developed with sunny spells.
Winds were strong for many throughout the
day, reaching gale force over many hills and exposed peninsulas from north Wales
northwards. Gusts at low levels reached 61 mph at Aberdaron in the late
afternoon.
Temperatures were generally above average,
becoming warm in the southeast ahead of the rain.
So the weather on 5th October
2011 is not as shown in the photograph. Let's try 2nd November
2011.
Review of UK weather on 02/11/11
Parts of northeast England saw some fog and
a local ground frost at first on Wednesday morning. However this soon
cleared to leave a good part of England, Wales and Scotland dry with
some bright or sunny periods.
Northern Ireland and the far west of Scotland were cloudier with
outbreaks of rain to start the day. As the day progressed, this cloud
and rain continued to spread eastwards and by lunchtime much of the
western half of the UK was cloudy.
Through the afternoon, outbreaks of rain
spread into southwest England and Wales, with some of this turning out
to be quite heavy.
By the evening, the rain had worked its way
into central southern England, the Midlands and southwest Scotland.
Areas across eastern England and Scotland
that had seen some afternoon sunshine also turned cloudier.
Across the country it was a windy day, with the southeasterly winds at
their strongest in exposed parts of the west.
It was a mild day, with temperatures
generally above average for the time of year again.
Not a good match either - "across the
country it was a windy day". Three separate sources record weather quite
different from that shown in the photograph, for both dates George Edwards has
claimed it was taken on.
A useful feature of the
Internet is that one can find various versions of a story, or a photograph. The
"November 2nd 2011" photograph on the website of the agency that handles George
Edwards' photo -
http://www.cascadenews.co.uk/site/node/33 - has the least cropped version of
it on the website linked above. The picture is below.
A close inspection of the photograph enables the camera location to be
established.
Keen observers have commented
that although Mr Edwards is quoted as saying the object was about half a mile
away from him in the "November 2011" photo, it looks much closer than that. In
the soundtrack above, Mr Edwards says " ... and you can see the castle in the top
right hand corner of the photograph so you will be able to work out for
yourselves that I was much farther down the loch near Lochend when I took that
picture."
I would respectfully disagree.
The top of the castle tower -
height 25 m above water level - aligns well with the summit of Carn Dearg 277 m
above loch level in the background, beyond Foyers. We can project a line from
the hilltop, through the castle tower and down into the loch. The camera must be
somewhere on that line. The closer to the castle, the higher it was and the
further away from the castle, the lower down it had to be.
The distance between the hilltop
and the castle is known to be about 10,790 metres so it is a simple matter
of solving similar triangles the get the range to the water surface, which comes
out at 11,860m. So the sight-line from the hill-top enters the water 1070 metres
past the castle, and the angle at the hilltop = inverse tan (11860/ 277)
is 88.66 degrees.
If the camera was shooting from
the fly bridge we can estimate a camera height above the water of 4.0 metres, so
the distance NH to Z becomes 170 metres, and the camera was 1070 - 170 = 900 m
from the tower.
Calculated
boat position is near the green square at the end of the yellow line, in the
middle of Urquhart Bay.
Now look carefully at the bottom
left hand corner to see something white at the edge of the frame.
What on Nessie Hunter IV
(above) could that white-looking part of the boat possibly be?
In earlier versions of this
study I was of the opinion that the object was inconsistent with any part of "MV
Nessie Hunter IV", shown cruising below.
Steve Feltham then publicised his discovery that the object shown in
George Edwards photograph, on sale as a postcard, was the glass-fibre
film-makers "hump" made originally for the 2005 documentary "Loch Ness: The
Ultimate Experiment" and later used liberally in the ZigZag Productions "The
Truth Behind the Loch Ness monster" made in early 2011
which was filmed from George Edwards' boat. It was only when I
was reviewing the latter video that I realised that at the time of the filming
the boat still had its aft davits fitted; these are the chrome plated arms that
stick out over the stern to carry and lower a dinghy. These are shown in the
advertising photo shown below, together with some other vertical handrail
elements, any of which might account for the white looking object.
A frame from "The Truth Behind the Loch Ness Monster" by
ZigZag Productions for which I claim Fair Use.
At this point it became clear
that the photograph could have been taken from somewhere high up on the new
boat.
On 21st August 2012 I visited Steve Feltham at Dores and
was shown the glass-fibre hump. My measurements showed it to be about 1.9 metres
long and 0.3 metres high, and clearly the same object as portrayed in George
Edwards postcards and press releases.
The glass-fibre hump at Dores Beach. Photo - Steve Feltham.
On 22nd August 2012 Mr Edwards told
STV News that he denied knowing anything about a fake hump.
On 23rd August 2012 I reviewed my recording of "The Truth Behind the Loch
Ness Monster", filmed at Loch Ness in early 2011. At 5 mins 48 sec into the
film, just after divers have entered the water, there is a shot of two men on
George Edwards boat - which he would have been driving - with the glass
fibre hump on the foredeck. I have enlarged the fore-deck object as an inset in
the frame below from the tv show.
A frame from "The Truth Behind the Loch Ness Monster" by
ZigZag Productions for which I claim Fair Use.
The finding of the boat davits and the handrails supports on the fly bridge
allows a recalculation of the camera height to about 4 metres, places the camera
about 900 metres from Urquhart Castle, and doubles the range to the hump to 17.5
metres. It now would appear to be about 2 times bigger than my original
calculation, and so 1.2 metres long on the water. Of course some of it's actual
length of 1.9 metres would be submerged so there is no significant conflict in
the data and as a bonus the weather conditions in the "November 2011"
monster photo match those in the documentary.
Early in my assessment of this photograph I pointed out that the camera
position could be determined quite accurately by the alignment of the tower of
Urquhart Castle with the hilltop called Carn Dearg in the distance. George
Edwards' photo is rather blurry, but at around 06 mins 55 sec into "The Truth
Behind the Loch Ness Monster" the camera pans down from a shot of Urquhart
Castle to the "hump". When frames over a few seconds are stacked together a
"bigger picture" emerges, with the castle and hump in the same image.
Image stack from time 06 min 57 sec, courtesy
Loch Ness Project.
In this image, filmed from the lower deck of the boat, the castle tower is
seen to align perfectly with Carn Dearg, showing that George Edwards boat was in
the same location (to within a few tens of metres) during filming as it was when
he took his monster postcard photograph.
In all hoaxes the simplest explanation is often the best, and it is hard not
to conclude that George Edwards simply took a digital snap from the fly
bridge during a filming cruise and decided to publish it as a postcard.
From my earlier versions of this
assessment I include the site investigation detailed below - flawed mainly by my
wrong camera height estimate.
Site Investigation 14th August 2012
On 14th August 2012 I had the opportunity today to take the Castle Cruises
tour boat to my calculated location for the Edwards photography. I had no
monsters to hand but I did have a 25 cm long Buxton Spring Water 1 litre bottle,
which I threw into the water and photographed it from a camera height of about
2.1 metres above water level. The results are shown below.
and when superimposed on the George Edwards photo, taken from "near Lochend"
(6 miles away), rotated and resized ...
(Right-click and select "play"
The similarities between the "November 2011" photograph and my own photograph
of a bottle suggested that the object in the former was only a matter of
metres away from the camera, and not "half a mile away". The apparent size
and distance away are directly linked to the height of the camera above the
water level.
Above are new merged photos of the plastic hump at the Loch Ness Centre and
Mr Edwards' 50p monster.
Bonus Material
Item 1 - included to demonstrate stated position of "Edwards Deep"
"This story begins back on 30th November 1989 whilst a friend of mine and
myself were taking part in a coastguard exercise on Loch Ness. … The exercise
involved all the main emergency services and most the other vessels which
operate on Loch Ness, including the cruise boat "Nessie Hunter", of which I am
the skipper. The exercise was due to begin at 12 noon, my remit was to be in the
position, that I would normally be, with Nessie Hunter at that time of day,
which in my case would be in the vicinity of Urquhart Castle. Unfortunately,
things did not go according to plan, a real situation had developed in the North
Sea and I was instructed to maintain a holding pattern in the Urquhart Castle
area, and await further instructions. We had settled down and were having coffee
and sandwiches when I happened to look at the sonar screen, and much to my
surprise, I noticed a depth reading of 787 feet, about 37 feet more than I had
previously recorded in this area! I pointed this out to my friend and
immediately all thoughts of the chocolate biscuits which we were to have with
our lunch were forgotten and we began to further investigate this area of Loch
Ness which is now known as "Edwards Deep". We began to retrace our route and
take compass bearings, at this time Nessie Hunter did not have GPS, and
eventually we recorded a depth of 812 feet, the greatest known depth ever
recorded in Loch Ness! In the 1960's a mini-submarine supposedly recorded a
depth of 975 feet, but to my knowledge, no evidence to support this claim has
ever been presented, I have the picture to support my claim, and since 1989 my
findings have been verified by several other vessels." (This text can
be found on various websites)
Item 2
Partial Transcript of
video file of George Edwards recorded in June 2012 on MV Nessie
Hunter IV
Statements of known inaccuracy highlighted in red
, those
which are of dubious reliability are in green.
Now Loch Ness is the largest body of fresh water in the
United Kingdom and one of the deepest freshwater lakes in Europe. It is
just under 24 miles long, it is one mile wide for
most of its length and at the widest part of the loch where we are at the moment
here in the Urquhart Bay area it is almost one and a half miles wide. It has a
surface area of 14,000 acres and an average depth of 759
ft. or 231 m. It has a volume of 263 million cubic feet of water, that is
57 million cubic meters of water. If you were to remove all the water
from Loch Ness and that is not really possible, you would have a hole big enough
to put the entire population of the world into three times over with space to
spare. Loch Ness contains more water than all of the lakes and reservoirs in
England and Wales put together. In the deepest part, which is further down the
loch, it goes down to 812 feet or 238 metres
and that part was found and recorded by myself in 1989 and was named
after me. My name is George Edwards and the deepest part of Loch Ness is called
Edwards Deep. I found it on the 1st of November 1989 whilst I was on a Loch Ness
Coastguard exercise. I am the former coxswain
of H.M.Coastguard’s Search and Rescue boat. The water temperature in
Loch Ness remains fairly constant at 5 centigrade, that is about 41 or 42
Fahrenheit. Loch Ness has never been known to freeze over,
not even on the coldest day in the wintertime would you
ever see a tiny piece of the ice anywhere near the loch. In the
summertime the thermocline - that’s
the top 3 or 4 feet of water - can go as high as
14 centigrade, about 57F but that is still very cold water; I don’t think you
would like to go for a swim in the there. Although having said that Loch Ness
has been swum from end to end and in on many occasions.
Loch Ness has got a variety of fish - migratory salmon,
sea trout and eels, brown trout, arctic char and pike. The biggest fish ever
caught was by a thirteen year old girl and it was a salmon which weighed
56lbs... Loch Ness is 52ft, 16m above sea level loch Oich is 110ft. 33m
above sea level and Loch Lochy is 78 feet above sea level.
Break - …submersibles, whether it be a submarine or an ROV
a remotely operated vessel, it is it is pretty much a waste of time putting them
down there you can’t see anything. It doesn’t
matter how bright a light you use under the surface because the light will just
reflect back off the peat particles in the water a bit like driving a car in the
fog or snow in the dark with the headlights on full beam. The light just
reflects back at you. The only way to get any visibility down there is to use
low wattage lighting and even then you are limited to seeing only two or three
feet around you. Very poor visibility down there as you will see you when I put
the underwater camera down. This has always been a problem when it comes to
investigating under the surface of Loch Ness. This has always been the problem
when investigating under the surface of Loch Ness. Lack of visibility and quite
simply lack of technology. Sonar, these gadgets up here, will certainly tell you
there is something down there, in but it could be an inch long or ten feet long
- sonar cannot tell the difference. All it does is measure a change of distance
and density. But there is no doubt at all in my opinion that the existence of
these creatures; far too many people have been seeing them for far too long to
be dismissed as just a legend or tourist attraction . Since the nineteen
thirties alone there has been about a thousand eye-witness reports, now all
these people cannot be telling lies or imagining things. And of course there has
to be more than one of them; the first recorded sighting was by Saint Columba in
565 A.D. And to suggest there is only one creature in almost one and a half
thousand years is stretching longevity and old age a bit far. On many
occasions two or three have been seen at the one time.
I am the longest serving boat skipper on Loch Ness I have
been doing this over 27 years but I have been boating on Loch Ness for 55 years
since I was five years old and I have had several sightings over the years if
you look at the composite postcard at various places around the boat I took
picture number one on the sixth of June 1986 at around 0715 in the morning and I
estimate that the black hump in the photograph is between six and eight feet
long and no more than 2 feet out of the water…. picture number three is
also showing a single hump in the water and you can see the castle in the top
right hand corner of that so in you will be able to work out for yourselves that
in that I was much further down the loch near Lochend when I took that
picture. The picture number four is showing Edwards Deep
in the deepest part of Loch Ness, number six is a zoomed-in version of
picture number three I have to say I have never seen anything that
looks remotely like a dinosaur with three humps and a long neck nor has anybody
else that I know; that is what we call the media monster. I think that when
people say they have seen three humps in the water they have seen three
creatures at the one time because there must be more than one of them. Most of
the sightings occur at dawn and dusk, early in the morning or late in the
evening the and the last genuine sighting as far as I’m concerned was made by
some of your fellow visitors on the eleventh of March this year, it was made by
some people who were sitting in a car in the car park
above Urquhart Castle. When I managed to speak to them a few hours later
up at the Nessieland Centre what they described to me was something like a
whale’s back breaking the surface, about 10ft. long - there was no three humps
or long neck sat on the water - and when I eventually showed them the
photographs I have taken they were fairly convinced that is what they had seen
as well. But you can almost guarantee that since March this year there have been
more sightings of these creatures …but many people who see these creatures are
very reluctant to talk to the media about their sightings for fear of ridicule.
My last sighting of these creatures was on the thirteenth
of May, 2003 over nine years ago. You will be aware by now that I am not
referring to the creatures as Nessie or Loch Ness monsters - in my opinion they
have never been called that – they have always been known as Each Uisge, that’s
their Gaelic name, the language of the Highlands and Islands since
(unintelligible). You may have heard stories of the bottom of the Loch Ness
being undulating, lumpy and bumpy with caves and tunnels linking Loch Ness to
the open sea and once again that is simply not true. If you look at the
posters around the boat showing the cross section of Loch Ness you will see that
the bottom of Loch Ness is absolutely flat and the side wall below the surface
is just a continuation of the hill on each side of the loch down into the water.
If you could remove one of the water from Loch Ness one day and that’s not
possible - you would be left with a hole that resembles a bath, - flat on the
bottom steep on the sides. Regarding caves and tunnels all
of the rock around Loch Ness is made of a kind of granite - an incredibly
hard rock and you will never find caves or tunnels in granite. You need to have
sandstone or limestone there is none of that around Loch Ness. And if there was
any tunnel linking loch ness to the open sea… we would be at sea level and this
would be salt water, and as I said earlier mark and this is 52 feet or 16 metres
above sea level, and it is the largest body of fresh water in the United
Kingdom. You have to go 75 miles off the southwest coast
of Ireland into the Atlantic Ocean to the edge of the continental shelf
before you will find water around the United Kingdom anywhere near as deep as
Loch Ness.
Question from passenger: So what sort of sonar…?
Answer from G.E.: Sound waves - this is called active
sonar, there is two kinds of sonar, you get active sonar and passive sonar,
passive sonar is what you use in a submarine when you are listening for ships.
Sonar was invented by the Royal Navy back in 1857 it was originally known
as ASDIC that’s an acronym for Admiralty Submersible Detection Investigation
Committee.
Q from passenger: What’s this one here?
A: These are exactly the same- all they are different types
…
Q from passenger : For the purposes of hunting Nessie …do
you have a way of scanning below the boat or to the side ?
A: That’s what it’s doing it is just scanning below the
boat right now the these types of sonar unfortunately give no indication
of size or shape all they do is measure distance and density to be honest
with you the kind of sonar that would show you the size and shape of a
moving object under water while the boat is moving it doesn’t exist.
This sonar here is called down scanning sonar imaging which I use in
conjunction with the underwater camera. Provided the boat isn’t moving and there
is something very close to the boat it will show the actual shape of it in the
water.
That’s down scanning sonar imaging – it will go down to
about 100 metres.
Loch Ness is not a glacial lake has such although there was
lots of glacial activity around here at the end of the last ice age 11,000 years
ago Loch Ness lies on what is called the Great Glen fault line, a cataclysmic
fault line that was caused by over 300 million years ago by a series of
earthquakes that split Scotland in half.
The camera’s down now as you can see the visibility is
absolutely atrocious now I’m going to switch on this gadget here called down
scanning sonar imaging; normal sonar will not show the size or shape of a
moving objects under water if the boat is moving as well but this gadget
here, DSI, if something comes within 30 metres of the underwater camera it
is using a multi scanning transducer attached to the camera and we would see the
actual shape of something on this one here but I would have to say the chances
of it happening are about 10 billion to one. The camera is only about 3m down
but whether it is 3m or 230 the visibility is exactly the same – nonexistent.
Q from passenger: Do you see the occasional fish going by
…?
A. Now and again you’ll get an eel
maybe when it sees the lights the eel will come towards you …I’ve never
seen salmon I’ve only seen eels.
Q from passenger: What do you think about the theory that
Nessie might be a gigantic eel?
A. Well, you can never say never about anything the thing
is European eels don’t grow any bigger than about 600mm
and that’s only the females the males are very very small…
…Anybody else can possibly tell you about these creatures
with the any degree of certainty firstly is that they must be totally aquatic -
they must have gills to breathe underwater otherwise they would be seen coming
to the surface to breathe on a regular basis. Nowadays we have web cameras
around Loch Ness so if there was anything breaking the
surface to breathe on a regular basis we would be picking them up on the web
cams. Secondly
they must be plankton eaters, you see at any given
time there is only about 35 tons of fish in the loch; now that is not enough
fish to maintain a population of large carnivores and of course the biggest
animals on this planet are plankton eaters, not that I am suggesting for one
minute that there are mammals - whales in Loch Ness and lastly whatever lives in
the loch must be cold-blooded meaning that like fish their body temperature is
the same as the water that they live in.
We know this because we’ve used thermal imaging in Loch
Ness so if there was anything in the water like mammals for example dolphins
whales seals….
End
Transcribed from video file recorded June 2012 on MV
Nessie Hunter IV
Summary
1/ Edwards' Deep - There is no evidence
today that Edwards' Deep exists, and George Edwards doesn't demonstrate its
location to passengers despite passing close to its claimed location on every
cruise.
2/ The 1986 Photograph - His earlier
photograph dated 1986 was admitted by himself at the time to be a staged
photo.
3/ November 2011 Photograph - This clearly
shows the glass-fibre film-makers "hump" used in the filming of "The Truth
Behind the Loch Ness Monster", which took place in February 2011. The waterborne
sequences were filmed from George Edwards' boat and a frame showing the hump on
the deck of his boat is presented here.
4/ November 2011 Photograph - The known
weather records don't match the conditions shown in the "November 2011"
photograph on either of the dates he has given, but do match those in the tv
documentary filmed in February 2011.
5/ November 2011 Photograph - George Edwards
claims the photo was taken "near Lochend" when it was clearly taken in Urquhart
Bay, some six miles away.
6/ June 2012 Audio commentary In his audio
commentary of June 2012 he states he last saw one of the creatures on
13th May 2003, clearly conflicting with his testimony in recent interviews.
Intellectual Property Rights Assertion and Copyright Dick Raynor
2012.
This work was created in August 2012 by Dick Raynor.
This page was created on 25/08/2012 with major revisions.
Additional weather records added on 01/09/2012.
The earlier version, which followed wrong leads and some blind alleys is
here, for information.
Many Thanks to the
Loch Ness Project and to
Steve Feltham for their generous
sharing of information.
New material relevant to this story but not part of it. All
the items below are in the public domain.
A complaint by
George Edwards to Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce on 30th May , and a response by Tony
Harmsworth - 3rd June 2013
LOCH NESS CRUISES
(G.L. Enterprises)
(Address deleted for privacy)
info@lochness-cruises.com
30/05/2013
Dear Fellow Members,
As a founding member of the Chamber and
a former vice chairman and treasurer, I am concerned about some of the
views being expressed by Adrian Shine and his cronies in the media about
the existence of Nessie.
Loch Ness Cruises is a Scottish Quality
Assured business and we have recently been awarded a Trip Advisor
Certificate of Excellence 2013 Winner for being in the top 10% of world
wide members who consistently score five stars in their business
reviews.
I carry thousands of tourists on Nessie
Hunter every year and I am concerned when passenger tell me that after
they have visited the self proclaimed Official Loch Ness Exhibition and
Centre they come out feeling disappointed after been told that Nessie is
a myth! They are then stunned when on leaving
the exhibition, they see hundreds of little green Nessies for sale –
talk about hypocrisy!
Mr Shine was chosen as a VisitScotland
”Face of Scotland” a few years ago and has represented our industry at
many functions and promotional campaigns. Last year it was reported in
the Inverness Courier that VisitScotland think that we should be making
more of Nessie and Loch Ness.
However, just about every time that Mr
Shine appears in the media he talks about Big Fish and Big Waves.
I know that we are all entitled to our opinion but I pose the question –
“How many people would come here to see the Loch Ness Big Fish or Loch
Ness Big Wave”?
To my knowledge Mr Shine has no
scientific qualifications; apparently he was a printer to trade? Like
many of his so called expert cronies who have turned out to be ex
milkmen and Betterwear salesmen. Whilst they are all entitled to their
opinions I believe that they are doing more harm than good in promoting
Loch Ness Tourism with their negative theories.
I wonder how people would react in California or Florida if they were to
go there and set themselves up as experts and then tell children
that Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and co were just adults dressed up in
costumes or move back to England and start dismissing Robin Hood and the
Knights of the Round Table as the fantasies of country bumpkins the way
he seems to view local people.
In recent years we have seen a decline
in tourism across Scotland and maybe it is time for Mr Shine to put up
or shut up.
Mr Shine and his cronies have been
making a nice living out of Loch Ness for the past 20 odd years and if
they cannot see the logic in promoting Nessie then maybe it’s time they
moved on, as they seem intent on destroying our industry.
I am sure the members would see the
financial rewards if we were to buy them one way tickets back to where
they came from and let Nessie breathe easy again! Unfortunately, it
would appear that to be an expert on Loch Ness you have to come from at
least 300 mile away.
George Edwards – Loch Ness Cruises
and a response by Mr Tony
Harmsworth on 3rd June 2013
I have just read the letter (dated
30/5/2013) circulated to every Chamber of Commerce member from Mr
Edwards. At first I was intending to ignore it, but when I read it a
second time I decided that it could not be allowed to enter the public
domain without being challenged. I apologise in advance to Chamber
members for having had to circulate this to you.
The prejudice the letter includes
borders on the illegal – inciting people to send me back to where I came
from, indeed! Not that it matters, but my mother’s family came from
Scotland and I am personally descended from Robert the Bruce through the
English side of my family.
Your Trip Advisor rating is something
for which you should be congratulated, Mr Edwards, and I do so and it
will appear in the local news, which I edit, next week. Trip Advisor is
vital to help people choose quality tourist businesses. However, it has
one great failing as it relies on the tourist to judge the accuracy of
information imparted. While I have no doubt that you entertain your
passengers well and in comfort, the information with which they leave
the area includes such nonsense as your invented deep trench called the
Edward’s Deep which has been comprehensively
dismissed at the recent Edinburgh Symposium. You also show Nessie
pictures which you faked-up from a documentary’s prop and pretend are
real. Your latest fake picture was exposed by Nessie hunter, Steve
Feltham, as a deliberate hoax and was raised by several speakers at the
Edinburgh symposium as an example of fakery.
This does not bring any credit
whatsoever to Drumnadrochit and Loch Ness and if I thought it
sufficiently important I would propose a motion of censure to have you
expelled from the Chamber of Commerce for bringing the business
community and the whole area into disrepute by your faking and hoaxing.
Your antics, Mr Edwards, reinforce the
view by the majority of people in the world, that Nessie is an invented
marketing tool used to hoodwink gullible tourists.
That is the very view that people like
myself, Mr Shine, Mr Menzies, Mr Minshull and Mr Raynor have been trying
to dispel for three decades and you, a known faker and hoaxer, who
appears in the Nessie rogues gallery, have the temerity to criticise us!
The Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition (the
‘Official’ was dropped more than a decade ago) provides a wonderful
insight into the limnology of the loch. Yes a vocal minority will arrive
with expectations that they will find a Disney-style monster-land within
its walls and might therefore leave disappointed. More fool them for not
grasping the opportunity to understand the real loch. The shop at the
centre is not run by the centre, by the way, and children do love to
take away fluffy Nessies. So do adults. The
two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Just look at the fluffy
dinosaurs in the British Natural History Museum shop – of course it is
permissible to mix science with mystery and fun.
It sounds, Mr Edwards, as if you want
everyone at Loch Ness to treat visitors like gullible fools. Palm them
off with fakes like your recent hoax and send them away with their heads
full of garbage. All that does is perpetuate the impression that the
locals are stupid yokels. In fact, there might well be something in Loch
Ness, but it is unlikely to be the plesiosaur Nessie image we all love.
That does not mean you should not introduce the possibility of something
more Nessie like to your trips, but taking it to the next stage –
actually faking and hoaxing, is demeaning, absolutely despicable and
certainly not the way to impress anyone.
Today’s tourists are more discerning.
They want to understand the culture, legend and natural history of the
places they visit. The Loch Ness Centre, Castle Cruises and Deepscan
Cruises give them that wonderful insight into the loch. Tourists
actually do expect to be conned by the Nessie industry and are often
surprised that they are not being conned … until they take your cruise,
of course. I wonder how many snigger behind your back.
Finally I must take issue with the
statement that business is falling off. Historic Scotland’s figures for
Urquhart Castle, Jacobite Cruises’ passenger
numbers and the business I have just retired from, Inverness Tours, show
growth. My tour company was more than 200% up on its 2010 figures when I
handed it over just two weeks ago. The Loch Ness Centre and
Exhibition has just had its most successful season ever. If you are
seeing a drop in tourist numbers you need to analyse what you are doing
wrong. The profile of tourist visitors and their needs change
continually. Businesses like Jacobite and
Historic Scotland have a huge effect on the demographics and it is up to
smaller businesses to rework, improve and adapt their product to fulfil
the changing needs of the visitor.
Mr Edwards, entertain your passengers by
all means, but do you really need to fake pictures and discredit the
whole legend in the process? Surely not. You
are a sufficiently accomplished raconteur to keep peoples’ attention,
educate, inform and keep it fun for them without resorting to fakery.
As for your letter criticising Mr Shine
and myself (assuming I am the milkman crony referred to) it is most
unworthy of any reputable businessman and I apologise to the members of
the chamber for my need to respond. I’m supposed to be retired.
Tony Harmsworth
In an online edition of
www.drumnadrochit.info dated 7th June 2013 Tony Harmsworth reported
that he had been told by
the Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce to remove critical editorial comment
regarding George Edwards of Loch Ness Cruises. He has complied with the demand
and resigned as Editor of the Chamber's website, as can be seen below.
So what had he been instructed to remove? The
previous days version is shown below, courtesy of the internet.
Please note - the above image is only a
photograph and not a functioning web page. This
STV News link should
tell you that Mr Edwards denied knowing anything about a fake hump, and
the this website.
link brought you to this page.
UPDATE 12TH JUNE 2013
Click on the image above to go to the blog. In case of link failure, try
Tonight while doing a radio show, someone asked if I had seen the
photos of George Edwards. I did not, but then I was suddenly surprised as I
remembered our weathered Scottish captain.
When I saw the pictures, my heart sank as I recognized it
immediately.
I remember George on the top deck of the boat, taking pictures of
our prop hump, used in sighting recreations for the program.
In their unending search for a "new angle" on a story journalists and other
writers sometimes fail to see the story straight on. The local media much
prefer to report events rather than investigate them and their job is after all
to write saleable copy. They cannot be expected to have the same depth of
understanding of the matters involved as someone who has been involved in it for
forty years. In the USA cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has published an extensive
piece with cartoons, photos and links on his
CryptoZooNews blog under
the title
North of Hadrian's Wall, War Rages Among Loch Ness Researchers"
I have submitted the following reply to the blog:
...."War rages among Loch Ness monster
researchers"
Actually, it doesn't!
George Edwards is not a researcher and never has been, despite his advertising
claims to be a "foremost authority" and skipper of "The Loch Ness Research
Vessel". He was loaned the real research vessel one day when his own boat
had broken down and rewarded the owner’s generosity by "borrowing" the onboard
underwater footage videotape and copying it to show on his own boat; that was
the closest he came. No, George Edwards is just a trip boat skipper and now a
well-known faker of photographs. I have seen no evidence of any research of his
own in the entire 25 years he has been running his boat trips. Yes, he allowed
me the use of his boat for my own experiments during the ten years that I worked
for him, and for that I am grateful, but I can recall no research of his own.
What has just recently happened is that he has criticised the real investigators
for NOT faking evidence like HE does, - for "not playing the game" and we are
responding purely to defend our integrity. We have put up with his nonsense
claims in (near) silence for years and have now had enough. His photographing of
the film-crew's plastic hump and passing it off to the world media as a Nessie
sighting should have set media alarm bells ringing, but didn't. Even the Film
Producer's blog about him seeing the photos being taken - link below - went
unnoticed.
Observations of strange phenomena at Loch Ness have attracted inquiring minds
for decades, and nothing irks the intelligent investigator more than a hoaxer.
They are a waste of time and effort. A few days ago one student of the subject
penned a perceptive article titled "Stop the Science - It's Bad for Business"
and self-published it. The article has gone global - just Google it; the author
is Steve Plambeck, and everyone interested in the Loch Ness story owes him a
beer.
In August 2013 a visitor to the Highlands recorded some
video and audio while on board George Edward's cabin-cruiser "Nessiehunter". Mr
Edwards is clearly heard to be claiming that he "recorded the DVD while diving
in Loch Ness", yet the video is indistinguishable from part of the VHS tape
carried on board MV Deepscan, from where it was recorded via the Loch Ness
Project's underwater tv camera around 2002. Mr Edwards was loaned the boat
for a day, gratis, once. Never again. The videos are at
http://www.lochnessinvestigation.com/deepscanvideo.html
