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Saturday, May 08, 2010

LINDSAY SELBY: Loch Morar Monster

Loch Morar is a fresh water loch in Morar, Lochaber, Scottish Highlands. It is of glacial origin and contains five sizeable islands and is said to be eleven miles long and a mile and a half wide and 1000 feet (333 metres) deep at its deepest point. Like Loch Ness, reports of large unidentified creatures in the loch have been made, some said to date back to the 1880s. The monster has been named Morag by locals. Sightings of the creature were thought to be the warning of a death of one of the local clansmen.

Sightings date back to 1887 and include some 34 incidents, as of 1981. Sixteen of these involved multiple witnesses.

I found this transcript that Tim Dinsdale had in his book The Leviathans (1976 ed. Futura pub ltd, London page 239 ) from the tape of an interview with Mr Macllelan and Mr John Mac Varish who had an encounter with the creature of Loch Morar in 1975.
The fear from the men shows it was something they did not recognise; however, that does not mean it was an unknown animal, just unknown to them. Once again the sighting follows the pattern of so many other lake creature sightings throughout the world. The description of whale like, the size and the movement. One day we may find the answers.

More info:


Dale Drinnon said...

The Loch Morar Monster is another catchall name for anything unidentified that might be seen at the lake, in exactly the same way as The Loch Ness Monster refers to absolutely anything unknown that is seen in THAT lake.

In the case of the creature that collided with the boat, it would be a large creature with a broad back, three humps on the back, four large fins on the side, a tail behind, and a snaky head and neck in front. That is a classical Plesiosaur-shaped sighting. But others are different, including more fishlike or eel-like reports, the usual undefinable waves and sometimes another different creature with a short neck and distinct toes on the feet-possibly a very large otter.

But the creature which collided with the boat was neither whale nor seal, nor yet shark. Hence saying "Unidentified to them" in their case extends to "Unknown to most scientists as a currently-living species". That is if the reports are correct and it had all of those features all at once. And if it did have all of those features all at once, it is easily seen as similar to other such reports world-wide, although definite reports of such Plesiosaur-shaped Water monster are a good deal LESS common than most of the books would lead one to suppose. They ARE reported at Loch Ness, but infrequently: I estimate less than a quarter of reports opn that lake fall into that category, and the creature or creatures are not necessarily living there NOW.

If it is true that the identifiably Plesiosaur-shaped reports make up less than a quarter of the total reports at Loch Ness or Loch Morar, then the obvious collary to this is that such creatures are NOT what are most often reported as "The Loch Ness Monster" or "The Loch Morar Monster": such terms would be misnomers. "The Loch Ness Monster" and "The Loch Morar Monster" would refer more properly refer to the phenomena most often labelled by that name.

And THAT would refer to a standing wave action, not identifiable as any part of any living creature.

Marcy said...

On another blog, I just read an interesting point. The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could kill or disable one of the large ocean creatures. Cool! Who can we alert to watch for the bodies? I'm serious. I do not believe that our U.S. news people, or any of the 'authorities' will show us the photos, much less allow DNA tests or any other kind of verification if/when a large dead creature surfaces.