What are your thoughts on the Loch Ness Monster and other topics related to cryptozoology? (Such as champ, yeti/bigfoot etc).
I think it's mostly a hoax, but it's a fun topic for fiction!
What accounts for any report of an observation (of anything)?
- Accidental misinterpretation of what is observed
- Ill informed misinterpretation of what is observed
- Misinterpretation of what is seen governed by personal bias, or outside influence
- Hallucination
- False memory
- Hoax
- Lie
- Accurate, objective observation
Reports of any curious creature will potentially fall into many, perhaps all, of these categories. However, the demonstable unreliability of eye witness testimony, the extensive "reworking" of our senses before the signals reach the conscious, the limitations of those same senses, the convincing reality of hallucinations, the tendency of the brain to construct false memories and the dishonesty of segements of the population, all make unusual observations highly questionable.
I am not a fan of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", but it does carry some weight. And much of the evidence for most sightings are more readily explained by one of the other items in my list, bar the last one.
Take the Loch Ness Monster: build lucrative tourist revenue on the myth and the amateur tourists and professional "searchers for the weird and wonderful" are primed to interpret things in favour of a "real sighting". And yet, despite the many tens of thousands of eyes, and photographs, and films, and sonar scans, and submersible visits, and the like, we arrive with less than a handful of difficult to account for, but far from conclusive, observations. And set that against the calculations that point to insufficient food for a family (it has to be a family) of monsters.
I would not be at all surprised to learn that the Yeti was confirmed as the Himalayan bear. I would be astounded if it turned out to be a cousin primate. I would not be at all surprised if the reports of big cats such as panthers roaming the English countryside turned out to be true. I would be equally unsurprised if they all were explained in something like a recent case: reports of a small lion which turned out to be a very large dog with an unusual hair cut.
As you say, its fun to consider. Just don't take it too seriously until there is good reason to do so.
m.youtube.com
