Episode 196: Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster (Myth Movie Night)
/Who would have guessed that Scooby Doo would have us go deeper than Loch Ness itself? Was the Loch Ness Monster just a marketing scheme? And what, exactly, is the definition of cryptid? We’re gonna answer these questions, without terrible Scottish accents.
Pick up Colin Dickey’s book The Unidentified for more amazing insights!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of drug use, drowning, animal/monster attacks, hoaxes in the press, animal remains, Covid-19, and cultural appropriation.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn. Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
Julia: And I'm Julia.
Amanda: And this is Episode 196: Scooby Doo and the Loch Ness Monster for myth movie night.
Julia: Oh, it's Scooby Doo time again, Amanda. Scooby Doo, the heart and soul of our podcast.
Amanda: You know, it's just a really fun excuse to watch a calming movie, talk a little bit about ridiculous shenanigans, and then get into the mythology of the Loch Ness Monster, which, if you enjoyed our Mothman episode, you're going to enjoy this one as well, because there's lots of quoting, lots of sources. We have a very good time.
Julia: This is less horny, though, than the Mothman episode. I just want to clarify. Much less horny.
Amanda: Markedly, less horny. Yes.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: Do you know who I would definitely invite on a Loch Ness Monster sighting trip to Scotland?
Julia: I bet it's our patrons.
Amanda: Our patrons. Thank you so much to our supporting producer level patrons: Philip, uhleeseeuh, Debra, Hannah, Jen, Jessica, Keegan, Landon, Meaghan, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Molly, Mr. Folk, Neal, Niki, Phil Fresh, Polly, Riley, Sarah, and Skyla, as well as our legend level patrons: Audra, Chelsea, Clara, Donald, Drew, Eden, Frances, Jack Marie, Josie, Lada, Mark, Morgan, Necrofancy, Sarah, & Bea Me Up Scotty.
Julia: I'm really glad that the Megan's have now become like a – like a triple goddess kind of aspect --
Amanda: Mhmm.
Julia: -- in our supporting producer level patrons. There's three of them now. And we love them all equally. And they also represent the virgin, the crone, and the mistress.
Amanda: Absolutely. I mean one Megan's last name is Moon. So, like, what else could you want from a trinity of extremely amazing femme goddesses?
Julia: Love it. Now, Amanda, speaking of things that we love and triple goddesses and whatnot, what have you been listening to, reading, watching lately?
Amanda: I started a fantastic new mystery series.
Julia: Wooh.
Amanda: It's called the Veronica Speedwell Series by Deanna Raybourn. And the first one is called A Curious Beginning. This is a Victorian woman natural scientist turned lady detective.
Julia: Aah.
Amanda: And it's fantastic. She is very modern. I learned a lot of new vocabulary words, which is very exciting for me. And my local library had all of them as e-books. So, I am just in heaven and I highly recommend it. If you like mysteries, if you like, you know, ladies, like, parading around and flaunting social norms, and if you like archaeology or history or natural sciences, it's amazing.
Julia: Oh, she's an archaeologist? Oh, sign me up.
Amanda: She kind of, like, gets into, like, renovating a museum. So, that's where the archaeology comes in. But, no, she is a lepidopterist. So, she studies butterflies.
Julia: Oh, of course, fantastic. What-what?
Amanda: It’s incredible.
Julia: Oh, what good things. And, Amanda, speaking of that, speaking of very, like, specified types of sciences, do you want to tell our listeners about the newest show on Multitude?
Amanda: Absolutely. So, when we recorded, a few episodes back. the Norse cosmology episode with Moiya McTier, we immediately ended the episode and said, “Oh, my God, we have to keep Moiya around.”
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: And, so, we are delighted to share that Exolore, her podcast, is joining Multitude. So, this is our newest member of the Multitude family. That means that she is joining the collective, where we can all aid in each other's growth and, hopefully, success. And Exolore is just a fantastic podcast. So, if you did not get convinced the first time around, you gotta do it. It is world building. It is reviews of worlds that already exist. Like, the first one was about crazy delicious, which is hilarious and very mythological. And then there are also interviewers with real live world builders, with authors, and other people who build worlds of their own. And there are so many fantastic episodes for you to dive into in the back catalogue. And, more than that, there's a new one coming up every other week. So, subscribe now to Exolore or go to exolorepod.com. The links are going to be in the description. But, Moiya, we're so glad that you chose to join us. And, listeners, you're really going to love her.
Julia: Yeah, if you love science, if you love fiction, if you love science fiction, Exolore is the podcast for you and that's E-X-O-L-O-R-E.
Amanda: Fantastic. We're also coming up on a sort of milestone, Julia. Episode 200 is nigh.
Julia: Yeah, I just – I just flashed back five years ago when we talked about making this podcast --
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: -- and had an existential crisis.
Amanda: Yeah, it's been – it's been a minute. But I think that means that it's a really good time to kind of look back over the body of work that we have assembled so far and do some follow up, do some questions, do some radical speculation about what will happen in the future. So, listeners, if you have any questions for us, or if you have any, like, personality test type – you know, like what tea blender you – whatever. We’ll consider anything. And, if you also have follow up to any episodes, if you have ways that you've been listening to Spirits episodes, while something spooky has happened to you, or things that you have learned, or personal experiences that you have to share about your family, or your traditions, or your life in response to episodes we've aired in the past, this is a great time to send them in. And we're going to be doing some listener follow up as well as a kind of mailbag Q&A Special Bonanza Extravaganza --
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: -- for Episode 200.
Julia: Yes. So, if you have those things, you can send them to us via our website. It's spiritspodcast.com/contact and put mailbag in the subject of your email.
Amanda: We cannot wait. It's gonna be super fun. And we'll ask, please, that you send that to us by September 14 so that we have plenty of time to organize those and record them and get it out for you by Episode 200.
Julia: Hell yeah.
Amanda: Well, without further ado, we hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed recording it. It's Episode 196: Scooby Doo and the Loch Ness Monster.
Intro Music
Amanda: Julia, we made each other a lot of promises throughout our friendship. If one of us dies, the other person will delete their search history --
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: -- and, like, fandom footprint.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And, also, I need to promise you now that, if I ever become a disgraced cryptozoologist, I'm not going to set up an elaborate fraud to try to regain my reputation. And, if I do, you have to check me.
Julia: Okay. That – you know what? That seems fair. Though, I would admire your ingenuity in that sense.
Amanda: Yeah, I think that impulse is best channeled into, like, a creative writing project, you know, or, like, a fun heist of a capitalist. So --
Julia: I like the latter for sure. But I think that is a great segue, Amanda, into our with Myth Movie Night, which is Scooby Doo and the Loch Ness Monster.
Amanda: But, don't fear, we have a lot to discuss. There's a lot of history here. There is a lot of, like, press history, which I always enjoy in a – in a modern myth. So, I'm stoked. But, first, we do have to recap the movie.
Julia: And I believe it's your turn.
Amanda: It sure is. Listeners, if you want to avoid spoilers of this tight 73-minute movie, you can also just pause and watch it, but go ahead and move forward about five minutes. And then we'll be ready to go.
Julia: Yeah, honestly, it's like $3 on YouTube. Do it.
Amanda: It's good stuff. All right, Julia. I am ready. Do you have the two-minute timer?
Julia: I got you going. Let's do it. 1, 2, 3.
Amanda: All right. So, we are in Scotland. One of Daphne's cousins, who is definitely queer coded and, like, has a pixie cut, is there. She and her family are doing, like, a bunch of Highland Games. There is a boat captain, who would definitely be played by David Tennant in a modern reboot. And, basically, Daphne's there to visit with the gang. But they very quickly get embroiled in, like, a Loch Ness Monster sighting and scandal. There are people who are also there. Like, the kind of classic, like, doppelganger in a Mystery Machine doppelganger-type situation, who are searching for the Loch Ness Monster. And there's a lot of fun shenanigans that we can get into later. But, essentially, they end up trying to investigate whether or not the Loch Ness Monster is really there. And there is a professor, Pembroke, who is cool and comes out of one of those rotating bookcase scenarios that I, I covet so hard. And she, at the end of the day, had engineered a bunch of hoaxes in order to kind of get back at her former mentor who owns the lake or thinks that he owns the lake. And there are kind of two different scenarios. One is, like, a balloon Loch Ness Monster puppet situation that was contrived by the cousins as a prank. And then the other one is, like, a submarine that was kind of mimicking a big monster in sonar. And, so, everyone's like, “Ah, classic.” You know, there's – there's capitalism. There's, like, professional revenge. Everybody had some intentions, but this is what happened. But, at the end of the day, when they are leaving Scotland, there's definitely little hints that there could be something real at the bottom of the lake. And we kind of get a glimpse of it as the movie ends. There’s also some haggis subplots with Shaggy and Scooby.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: There are some good Scottish sports. There's a clambake with clan Blake, which Eric Silver said probably was the thing that the entire movie was built around. And it was, overall, a very entertaining journey.
Julia: Perfect. Right on time. Good job, Amanda.
Amanda: Thank you. My other notes from the movie, Julia, included, “The roads look far too wide for Scotland.”
Julia: As a person who has not been to Scotland, I cannot say if that is true or not, but you have. So, I trust your judgment.
Amanda: Yes. And accents, of course, questionable at best or else this would not be a Scooby Doo movie.
Julia: Not, not a single real Scottish person in this film.
Amanda: Not – nary a one. And then, finally, the opening was so groovy.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And I was like, “Damn, I – you know, psychedelics are not my bag. But I am sad that I could not, like, take mushrooms and watch a Scooby Doo movie when these were really in their prime.”
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: I know it's available to anybody now. Not, not my particular bag, but I imagine that that would be very exciting.
Julia: Yeah, I will say this did come out in 2004.
Amanda: I mean --
Julia: So, not exactly the height of psychedelics, but --
Amanda: That's true. But I feel like – I don't know. If you're like a 90s kid being alt, who knows?
Julia: I get it.
Amanda: And, Julia, the first topic I wanted to discuss with you before we get into your research about the Loch Ness Monster – and we're out of spoily corner for any, any listeners who are here.
Julia: Oh, can we do a little more spoily corner? I have thoughts and opinions on the film.
Amada: Oh, sure.
Julia: Totally agree with you from your description that Shannon Blake, very hot, slightly more Butch-version of Daphne. All about that. I really did appreciate the, the creepy, old man that was there to warn the reckless children. Always, always good. This one rhymed, however, which just brought it up a notch in, like, creepiness and performance.
Amanda: Yes, 100 percent.
Julia: It’s very, very good. There is a part in the movie where Velma, like, kind of believes in the Loch Ness Monster. And I believe in everything that Velma believes in. That is just my mantra kind of moving forward in life.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: There's a very good part of the movie too that is just kind of, like, Scooby Doo lore that I appreciated, where Shannon is giving them a tour of the Blake Castle and there's kind of this joke that Daphne's clan has a tradition of being the damsel in distress, which is, like, very tropey if you've watched any Scooby Doo thing. Daphne is always the one that gets, like, kidnapped or captured and then the gang has to save her. And I thought that was, like, a very funny kind of twist on the traditional cannon.
Amanda: Totally.
Julia: Also, the Loch Ness Monster Design is truly scary. Like, it is not just like animated Scooby Doo scary, but genuinely scary looking.
Amanda: It is. They also have – it's also big. And, so, it's exciting to see a chase scene, you know, with Shaggy and Scooby and the gang that is not like a humanoid – you know, like in a sheet.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: So, it was – it was sort of invented and really got, like, geometrical and kind of abstract.
Julia: Yes, I really did like the music in this as well. And I went online to kind of check to see who did the music. And, on the Wikipedia page, it listed a man named Thomas Chase, which I was like, “Alright. Cool. I wonder what else he did.” So, I clicked through and his article led to Thomas Chase, who was “a fifth century judge and cleric who was Chancellor of the University of Oxford and, subsequently, held the Office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland.” So, I don't think it's that Thomas Chase that wrote the music for this.
Amanda: No.
Julia: I could be wrong.
Amanda: Not unless there is a sort of time travel situation at work.
Julia: It's very possible. You never know. It's a Scooby Doo movie. Also, this is not Meddling Adults, but I wrote down in my notes at 36 minutes and I'm like, “Professor Pembroke is definitely the bad guy.”
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Julia: Definitely. Just – they, they did the whole thing where the boat was locked and then the creature came after them, but it disappeared when it went under the boat. I'm like, “Well, obviously, the creature is underneath the boat. Come on, guys. Come on, guys. You got this.” Also, there's a part where Fred just starts driving a submarine through underwater caves.
Amanda: He sure does.
Julia: And my argument is like, “Just because Fred can drive a van, does not mean that he can drive a submarine. That is not a transferable expertise.”
Amanda: Yeah, he, also, at one point, orders Shaggy and Scooby to, like, go out onto the lake as bait.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And I was like, “Fred, your leadership is not proven enough for me to trust you with something like this.”
Julia: Well, he even makes a joke, because he always suggests, in every Scooby Doo episode and movie, that they split up and look for clues. And someone else suggested, “Why don't the two of you stay behind?” He's like, “Split up and look for clues.” They're like, “Yeah, Fred. Okay, I guess.”
Amanda: Yeah, it's very good.
Julia: Also, a final Scooby Doo note, I – my theory now is that Scooby Snacks taste differently to everyone who eats them --
Amanda: Ooh.
Julia: -- which is why it's enjoyable for Scooby and Shaggy.
Amanda: Interesting.
Julia: Otherwise, Shaggy is just eating like dog treats and that makes no sense.
Amanda: I mean there are treats that both humans and dogs can eat and taste of, you know, cinnamon or just biscuits or something.
Julia: Yeah, but I think this one in particular is, like, I'm pretty sure that's just a dog treat. And it's in a bar. It's not like, “Oh, we went to the bakery and the – they had these, like, safe for dog biscuits.” You know what I mean?
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: They're like, “Nah, this is a thing that we bought at the supermarket.”
Amanda: Or Shaggy just has very base tastes.
Julia: I guess. I think so. Now, Amanda, you told me you had some research for me.
Amanda: I do. I have been reading Colin Dickey’s fantastic new book, The Unidentified.
Julia: Ooh.
Amanda: He's also the author of Ghostland. Well, actually, Eric Silver was reading it before me and was like, “Hey, there's a whole bit about the Loch Ness Monster. You got to check it out.”
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: And, so, there is chapter about kind of the history of Loch Ness Monster sightings and the kind of real life facts and events behind the myth. So, Julia, do you have something similar to present? Or do you want me to kind of take us through?
Julia: No, take us through and I might add a couple of things as, as we go, but hit me with it.
Amanda: So, again, this is all research by Colin Dickey. You can pick up his book, The Unidentified, at your local independent bookstore or at spiritspodcast.com/books, where there are lists of all the books that we cite and recommend on the show. The story of Loch Ness Monster, Julia, begins in 1930 where three young men in Loch Ness in Scotland were seeing a kind of “great commotion” about 600 yards away from them in the loch. And they said, “The fish or whatever it was started coming toward us. And, when it was 300 yards away, it turned to the right. We've no idea what it was, but we're quite positive it could not have been a salmon.”
Julia: Okay. It wasn't the Salmon of Knowledge, which is good to know.
Amanda: Then they would have known what it was and everything else.
Julia: But only if they ate it.
Amanda: Yes, only if they ate it. And all of these sightings only happened to follow a newspaper article about the situation, which is something that you will see repeat over time. They were, like, dozens of witnesses and tons of people thought that they had seen Nessie. And, so, this is kind of where the, the myth of it begins.
Julia: Now, Amanda, do you know why that is the case that the sightings started to really grow in the 30s?
Amanda: I think I do, but I want to hear what you think.
Julia: The research that I did indicates that you're seeing more of the sightings in the 30s, because a road along the loch was built during that time period. So, you had more people in cars driving alongside or walking alongside the loch, rather than, you know, then only one entering the Loch area. So, you get more sightings, because you're driving around it.
Amanda: I really love that. And, of course, 1934 is when we have the real Flashpoint of gynecologist, Robert Kenneth Wilson's photograph, which is called the Surgeon's photograph.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: It really became, like, the thing around which Nessiedom, as Dickey calls it, is really – like, it's the tentpole of all of this myth.
Julia: Yeah. Have you seen the picture before, Amanda? It's like the quintessential Nessie photo if you haven't. That kind of, like, grainy gray and black photo of kind of, like, just the neck and the hump coming out of the water.
Amanda: I have. It’s – it's very striking. It was also taken, Julia, from three quarters of a mile away.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Isn't that fascinating? I didn't know cameras could see that far at that time.
Julia: Well, the picture that we usually see is a very enhanced version. Well, is a very zoomed in, cropped version of the actual photo itself.
Amanda: Right. There's no CSI zooming and enhancing going on.
Julia: No. No. No.
Amanda: I know the aspect ratio that we're used to.
Julia: It's 1934.
Amanda: And, during this initial frenzy of reports and even before the photo came out, the newspaper, The Daily Mail, sent this big game hunter named Marmaduke Wetherell --
Julia: Ooh.
Amanda: -- which sounds made up, to Loch Ness to “hunt for the monster.” And he announced, on December 20th, that he had indeed found massive footprints leading to the Lakeshore --
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: -- which kind of supported this idea that this might be a dinosaur or some kind of other, like, giant kind of, you know, land and sea type creature. It was very soon shown that he had just used a dried hippo’s foot.
Julia: Yup.
Amanda: Which was very common, at the time, for ashtrays and umbrella stands. Wow. People were terrible.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: And, instead, he just did it for – either for the paper, because they paid him or for show to kind of improve his own reputation.
Julia: Oh, Marmaduke, how could you?
Amanda: And that's kind of where the, the Nessie myth laid with. You know, different – with the photographic evidence and with different individual sightings until there was even more kind of activity in the 50s and 60s. But, Julia, do you know anything or can share anything about the sort of origins of, like, the big lake monster sighting phenomenon?
Julia: We've talked a lot about, like, monsters and stuff in earlier episodes. I'm not going to, like, really, like, get into that. But I would love to say, in the movie, Velma claims that, “There have been over 2,000 Loch Ness Monster sightings dating all the way back to 540 A.D.” And I personally couldn't find where they got that exact number of sightings from. And the number has definitely increased since the movie came out in 2004. But, according to the PBS Science Series, NOVA, the first sighting of Nessie can be traced all the way back to the first century A.D. when the Romans arrived in northern Scotland. So, the Romans noted that they saw depictions of an unrecognizable creature, “a strange beast with an elongated beak or muzzle, a head locket or spout, and flippers instead of feet.”
Amanda: All I can say, Julia, is that, “That's not a salmon.”
Julia: That's not – definitely, not a salmon. In fact, I 100 percent agree. So, the first actual written mention of the monster was somewhere between 500 and 650 A.D. Again, the movie says that it's 540. Another source that I saw was 565 A.D. But it was part of a biography of the Scottish St. Columba. So, in the story, St. Columba comes across people burying a man by the River Ness. And they tell the saint that the man had been attacked by a water beast as he was swimming. He was mauled and then dragged underwater, which sounds very kelpie-esque to me, you know.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: So, St. Columba does the very noble thing and sends one of his followers to swim across the river as bait. Much like Fred does to Scooby and Shaggy in this film. So, as the man swims, he is approached by the beast, but St. Columba does the sign of the cross and says, “Go no further. Do not touch the man. Go back at once,” and the monster does. It stops as if it were “pulled back by ropes” and then flees into the water not to be seen again.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: And, so, this is the earliest and most detailed account of the creature during this time period.
Amanda: Fascinating.
Julia: Yeah, isn’t that? I love – I love when saints do stuff and you're like, “I see you. I see you.” Cool. Cool.
Amanda: Also, an Irish saint, we have the kind of serpent tie in. So, very, very timely.
Julia: There you go. Yeah. There were two notable sightings in modernity that I think you kind of spoke to a little bit. And these were all before the, like, infamous George Spicer sighting, which was, like, that one in the 1930s which eventually led to the Surgeon's Photo. So, the first sighting that I could find at least was by D. Mackenzie in October of 1871. It is noted that what he thought was, like, either a log or an upturned boat he saw in the water of the lock. However, as he watched the object started ‘wriggling and churning up water” before disappearing into the water at, like, a fast speed.
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: So, it's like, hmm, that probably wasn't a log then if it's moving about and then disappears.
Amanda: No. And it's also quite ominous just to kind of see an animal in place, right? That either means that they're kind of hunting something under the surface, or, like, gathering up the speed to fly, or something along those lines. So, it's sort of not a – that’s a behavior that would strike me as, as ominous.
Julia: I feel, like, that's true. But then I also think of, like, crocodiles and stuff, who just kind of spend a lot of time floating around in the water. So – and hippos for that matter. Just like large creatures that are mostly amphibious or spend a lot of time in the water will just kind of hang out there for a while. But, anyway, the other one that I would like to note was in 1888. That was Alexander Macdonald, who saw “a large stubby-legged animal” appear in the lock and then approach the shore, got only to, like, 50 yards out from the shore before disappearing into the water again. And Macdonald would later describe the creature as looking like a large salamander --
Amanda: Hmmm.
Julia: -- which I think is an interesting – and we don't see that kind of image too often in modern examples of the Loch Ness Monster. So, I really thought that was an interesting perspective.
Amanda: And I'm always really curious about the sort of elongated nature of most of these descriptions.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Because there is, of course, the effects that when you – like, water distorts sightlines. And, so, when you look at something in the water, it will appear longer than it actually is. And your kind of sensor proportion is thrown off, which people have also kind of put forth as explanations for the kind of giant sea serpent or, you know, the giant sighting of something that ends up being a, you know, five foot long, like, amphibious actual creature.
Julia: Yeah. Perspective is weird as hell in the water. Exactly. I think about, you know, if you go sailing down in – I don't know – someplace with clear waters like the Caribbean or something like that. If you're to look at the bottom, it would seem like the rocks and the coral and the reefs are – I don't know – like, five feet down and really they're 20 feet down. So, water really magnifies a lot of things.
Amanda: I got to say that was one of my least favorite parts of AP Physics. It was calculating arcs in water. Whew.
Julia: That's why it didn't take that class. Pew, pew, pew. No senior Science class for Julia:. So, Amanda, like you said, the 1930s really saw the peak of Nessie lore. I supposed George Spicer is the first, like, marked sighting that I have written down. There's also the first photograph, which was taken by a man named Hugh Gray, also, in 1933. Though most believe it was either a stick that Gray’s Labrador dog was swimming after or if he caught, like, a picture of an otter rolling on its belly.
Amanda: Cute.
Julia: You know, probably not the Loch Ness Monster. Pretty, pretty clear that it's not. There's also Arthur Grant, who spotted the creature in 1934, which stands out to me because he claimed to have nearly hit the creature with his car as it was crossing the road to get back to the water.
Amanda: Fascinating.
Julia: I know. Grant was a veterinary student. And, so, he described the creature as being a cross between a seal and plesiosaur.
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: So, in the movie, Velma says, “Many people have claimed to see the Loch Ness Monster on land.” And I'm not sure if like many is truly actually the case. But this is, at least, one example of that. So, I really want to hunt that down since I had never heard of Nessie on the land before, which, Amanda, brings us up to kind of the modernity of the Surgeon's Photo. But let's get a refill first before we dive into that.
Amanda: Let's do it.
Midroll Music
Julia: Amanda, I have been decorating my new apartment for a while now. I feel like it's been a building process. And one of my favorite things to do is create my own artwork for my apartment. And, luckily, I stumbled across this class on Skillshare called Cyanotypes, an introduction to botanical art prints, create ready to hang art, and, oh, my god, it has been such a delight. One, I get to go, like, on hikes and pick out plants in nature. And, two, I get to make art out of them. And it's really, really beautiful and easy to do. And I wouldn't be able to do it without this Skillshare class. So, Skillshare allows you to explore new skills, deepen existing passions, and get really, like, lost in your creativity. You can learn about illustration, or design, or photography, or video, or freelancing, or, like, so many other things. Amanda recommended an incredible beer class that I took recently as well with the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, and it was delightful. But Skillshare is a great way to stay inspired to express yourself and to help connect to a community of creators, just like I did when I took the Cyanotypes class. So, you can explore your creativity at skillshare.com/spirits2, where our listeners get two free months of premium membership. Again, that's two months free at skillshare.com/spirits2.
Amanda: That is skillshare.com/spirits2.
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Amanda: functionofbeauty.com/spirits. And, Julia, we are finally sponsored this week by Fubo TV, which is powering the NBA Playoffs in my household. Cable, big – they have this phrase called cord-nevers instead of cord-cutters, people who switch from cable to streaming services. People like me who have never had cable and there's no reason to because we have stuff like Fubo TV to get live sports, news, and primetime TV without complicated contracts. They charge just $65 a month to watch the same channels as you could get for a monthly cable subscription of, like, $200 Plus. You also don't pay for a DVR, or installation, or, like, an exit fee. No kinds of gimmicks here. No contracts. And that is a definite plus. You can get everything you want in one place. They have over 100 channels. You can stream to your TV or any other smart device, including the major broadcast and cable networks, which can be surprisingly hard to find streams of if you don't have a service like Fubo. And you'll never miss primetime shows, including something like – I don't know – House Hunters, which I super enjoy. So, there is no risk to try it out. Get full access to Fubo TV for seven days for free at fubotv.com/spirits. That's fubotv.com/spirits for the seven-day free trial plus 15 percent off your first month. There are no contracts, and you can cancel anytime.
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Julia: Amanda, there are, obviously, a lot of cocktails about Nessie and the Loch Ness Monster and all of that. And I feel like none of them are truly a Loch Ness Monster cocktail though, unless, you have Scotch whisky in there.
Amanda: Sure. That makes total sense to me.
Julia: And, normally, that is not my type of thing, but I actually kind of like this one. I can appreciate a very good scotch whiskey if it is put in front of me and doesn't taste like banana bread. That's my personal opinion. But this one is the Nessie cocktail. It has a 12-year-old scotch whiskey. It's got a single malt Scotch whiskey. It's got a little bit of sweet vermouth in there, a little bit of sherry, and then a dash of whiskey barrel-aged bitters.
Amanda: Fascinating.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Or I think you could just have some scotch on the rocks.
Julia: I think that's also a good option. I do like to always provide a cocktail option in case people want to put something together. But, hey, if you got a 12-year scotch whiskey somewhere, just pour yourself a glass. Two – two little spring water drops and it'll open up the whiskey for you. That's what I learned from Jake.
Amanda: That's what Jake tells me, indeed. And, hey, you know, making cocktails and mixed drinks with Spirits is a great way to learn about new spirits and acquire new tastes for yourself. So, no, no hating on that at all.
Julia: Not at all.
Amanda: So, Julia, would you like to hear what we have learned in modernity about the Surgeon's Photo?
Julia: Yes, I, I think I know, but please tell me.
Amanda: So, in 1975, Marmaduke Wetherell’s son, Ian, admitted that he, his father, his stepbrother, and a few others together faked the Surgeon’s photograph.
Julia: How do you – sorry. How do you go from the name Marmaduke to Ian? You got to keep the tradition of wonderful naming alive. Come on.
Amanda: I mean Ian is a respectable Scottish name.
Julia: But it's not Marmaduke.
Amanda: I mean it's not Marmaduke. That's for sure. And the reason Wetherell did it is because he was so humiliated that his footprint hoax with the hippo’s foot was revealed.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: So, he, instead, then of releasing the photo himself because he felt like his reputation was damaged, because it was, he gave it to his buddy, the doctor, in order to confer legitimacy on the photo.
Julia: Robert Kenneth Wilson was the supposed name of the doctor.
Amanda: Yeah. And calling it the Surgeon’s Photo is such a, like, grasp that legitimacy. So, that makes sense.
Julia: Oh, complete. It’s like, “Oh, but he's a doctor.”
Amanda: In ’91, Wetherell’s step son, Christopher Sperling – Ian Wetherell’s step son that is – also kind of confirmed that again saying, “It's not a genuine photograph. It's a load of codswallop and always has been.
Julia: I love the word codswallop.
Amanda: But, Julia, this is not the only conspiracy that happened around the birth of the Nessie myth.
Julia: Tell me about it.
Amanda: In 1986, Nessie enthusiast, Henry H. Bauer, revealed that the monster itself was an invention.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: According to writer, David Garrity, he confessed to/claimed credit for conjuring up the monster in this book, Maurice. In the early 1930s, I, with two young partners, ran a publicity service in London. Then he continues to kind of summarize. They've been offered a small contract by a group of hotels near the loch to drum up more business.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: And, at the same time, another client of theirs, a realtor in British Columbia, mentioned that he, himself, had helped invent the legend of Ogopogo, a sea serpent --
Julia: Oh, yeah.
Amanda: -- supposedly living in Lake Okanagan.
Julia: Yes, which we've talked about in our Lake monsters episode.
Amanda: Yes. And, so, Garrity said, “This was corn in Egypt,” which I guess means it was successful.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: The Lossiemouth member of the firm told us that, for centuries, a legendary creature was supposed to dwell in Loch Ness. We've never heard of it. But, over several pints of beer, we became “midwives” of the reborn Loch Ness Monster. All we had to do was arrange for the monster to be sighted. This we did and the story snowballed. Thousands went north to see it and see it they did. It was, of course, pure hokum.
Julia: What year did he say that he did all of this?
Amanda: He said this in 1986.
Julia: Did he say what year though they did the kind of first sighting? Or --
Amanda: All they said was the early 1930s.
Julia: Hmm. Okay. So, it was the 30s. It wasn't --
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Interesting. Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. So, that sounds like somebody also claiming credit for being smart. So, it's possible that that is not the case, but I thought that that was totally fascinating.
Julia: I do like that idea. The concept of it being like, “Oh, okay. Well, we do want people to come here. Why don't we take a legend that not a lot of people have heard of and turn it into, like, a national sensation?” Like, that is a --
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: That's a good idea. That's a way to drum up tourism. Look at Point Pleasant in West Virginia.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Like, they have a literal Mothman Festival now every year.
Amanda: And, from 1962 to 1971, a group called the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau conducted paid sighting operations and tours --
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: -- and, like, photographic kind of expeditions. So, you know, it is bringing tourism to a region. And I'm sure people still stop by or, at least, you know, make a – make a stop off on their way to somewhere else to see the famous Loch Ness.
Julia: Yeah, it's – it's – like, I would go to Loch Ness. I know it's kind of --
Amanda: Me too.
Julia: -- like, out of the way and stuff, but I would 100 percent go.
Amanda: We need to see those giant kelpie heads first.
Julia: Yes, absolutely.
Amanda: But then we can definitely go to Loch Ness.
Julia: Yes. We can – we could make a trip. Make a whole road trip out of it.
Amanda: Ah, what a dream.
Julia: But, Amanda, does the book say what the – they think the actual photo was? Like, what they used to kind of pose that photograph, because I have information on that.
Amanda: No, please tell me.
Julia: So, like you said, it was kind of dismissed as a hoax in the 1990s. And that's the general consensus now among Nessie cryptozoologists and stuff like that. What the photo actually is is probably a toy submarine that they built kind of a sculpture on and then photographed as it moved through the water so they would get the ripples and stuff like that. That's why they always use the really zoomed in photo, because, if you look at the, like, whole photo, you can see the scale of the shore to the monster. It's actually very, very small.
Amanda: Got it.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: I mean pretty ingenious.
Julia: Yeah, it's – it's real --
Amanda: Especially in 1939.
Julia: I know. 1930s, that's a pretty solid deal.
Amanda: I bet the submarine would have been, like, steam powered then.
Julia: Or like clockwork. Like, just --
Amanda: Clockwork. Yeah.
Julia: -- you twist it and go through.
Amanda: I've seen lots of steam powered ships that you have to put, like, real kind of explosive material in on the British antique show that I love so much.
Julia: Really? Cool. I've never heard of it before.
Amanda: So, the purpose of this Loch Ness Monster chapter in Dickey’s book is to kind of talk about, like, the end of monsters. That was the, the name of the section. And this idea that, you know, as sort of the Victorians started adopting the Linnaean classification system, which having the genus and the species, it was easier to say like, “Oh, okay, this monster might be a member. Like, it might be a plesiosaur and might be related to the giant squid.”
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And it's not like a creature that we cannot place. This sort of like move toward taxonomy made it easier to relate images like this and legends like this to things that were, you know, scientifically accepted.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: And maybe inspiration for the professor in the movie. In 1957, a writer Constance Whyte, who lived along Loch Ness for 20 years, published a book called More Than a Legend, the story of the Loch Ness Monster.
Julia: I love it.
Amanda: She rejected the findings of the Linnean Society, which, 23 years earlier, had ruled, like, this is nothing.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And she wrote, “The Loch Ness story challenges beliefs, which are integral to the makeup of most established sociologists.” Her book, Dickey says, was written for a general audience and with a common folk wisdom and argued that the problem of trained biologists was their willful ignorance, their acceptance of dogma, and their refusal to accept observational evidence directly in front of them. And, so, this kind of goes into a really fascinating kind of account of the birth of cryptozoology that you would really find fascinating, listener, if you are enjoying the show. And there really is, like, one man who kind of typifies this rejection from traditional science of, like, the unexplained and kind of the birth of cryptozoology. His name was Dennis Tucker. He worked at the National History Museum in 1949 as its curator of fishes. He visited the Loch Ness area in March 22nd of 1959, which was two years after Whyte's book had come out. So, the sort of interest was rekindling and the myth of kind of having another surge. And there he saw a dark hump moving across the water that didn't match anything he knew about aquatic life.
Julia: Also, curator of fishes is an incredible title and something that I want to have.
Amanda: It really is. But, in surveillance state being bad. his employer, the National History Museum, their board learned that he was sort of, like, interested in Nessie or entertaining its existence. And they sent out a rude memo that reads --
Julia: What?
Amanda: “The trustees wish it to be known that they do not approve of the spending of official time or official leave on the so-called Loch Ness phenomenon. They take this opportunity of warning all concerned that, if, as a result of the activities and members of the staff, the museum is involved in undesirable publicity, they will be gravely displeased.
Julia: Wow. Fuck off.
Amanda: And, so, a few years ago, they had fallen for a supposed piece of Yeti scalp.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And that was actually from a pig.
Julia: [Inaudible 37:15].
Amanda: So, that kind of explains their, their hesitance. But Tucker was like, “No, fuck you, guys.” So, the museum fired him and it sucks. And he should have filed a wrongful termination suit, but unions had not yet negotiated the kinds of protections that some workers enjoy today.
Julia: That's so shitty. Oh, my god.
Amanda: Indeed. Dickey says the monster claimed its first victim, which I thought was very funny.
Julia: Good job, Dickey.
Amanda: And, so, by 1982, a bunch of other scientists and researchers, many of whom had also become pariahs in their fields for being interested in cryptids and water beasts specifically, came together to make the International Society of Cryptozoology. And they founded the magazine Cryptozoology. And I have to say, Julia, that, like, I had sort of previously seen cryptozoology as a sort of like, “Isn't that sweet? You know, people are applying the tools of science, which we know to be like, “real” to things that most people accept to be “fake.” But I think that that is a really kind of, like, bias toward the establishment view of things. And I think that, in general in Spirits, like, we're – we're open-minded. We're interested. We want to kind of see why people think things are important, whether or not they are important to me, myself. And I just thought it was really fascinating to read about the birth of cryptozoology as people saying, you know, don't shut off evidence before you entertain it. Don't refuse to see something because it's confusing or it doesn't, you know, like, adhere to your beliefs that you have already.
Julia: Absolutely. Oh, that's – that's such a great point. And I would love to talk about some modern searches by scientists and cryptozoologists for Nessie.
Amanda: Absolutely.
Julia: But, first, let's talk about sightings in the 2000s. Every year, so, there's probably, like, a new supposed sighting of Nessie, which I really, really enjoy. Every time one pops up, I love seeing the photos and looking at them. Plenty of enthusiasts and scientists alike and cryptozoologists dedicate their time and energy into investigating the existence and nature of the Loch Ness Monster. One of the most recent photos was actually taken in 2020, hell, the Loch Ness Monster was actually trending on Twitter only a few months ago. And I'm going to send you a photo, Amanda. And you're going to tell me what you think.
Amanda: Interesting.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: I’m zooming in.
Julia: Enhance. Enhance.
Amanda: It's a beautiful color. Looks probably like a seal in reality.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: But the, the shape of it, if it kind of adheres to, like, shapes of creatures that I know in my brain, I can definitely see this being, like, one hump of a sort of sea serpent, you know.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: It's probably just the seal and the head is just below water. And the edge of the tail is just below water and it's actually just that long. But it definitely is, like, evocative of a, a wider shape.
Julia: Well, Amanda, thank goodness for Twitter and the cryptozoologists and Nessie enthusiasts and scientists on there, because they proved that it's actually a Photoshop job. And this is a picture of a giant catfish. Let me send you that tweet real quick.
Amanda: Oh, no. Oh, my god, that catfish is so big.
Julia: It’s so big.
Amanda: That's the only cryptid that I need to know about.
Julia: It's horrifying that it's that big. Genuinely, it's horrifying.
Amanda: Oh, boy.
Julia: But, yeah, I think it's really interesting that we are able to pool our resources so much better. And people who aren't just scientists, like, with degrees at museums and at colleges and stuff like that are able to kind of pool their efforts and tell whether or not these are legit. But it's not as though scientists and those people working at colleges and museums are completely dismissing the idea of Nessie. There are plenty of people who are investigating it even if so many sightings and pictures have been proven false. A professor, Neil Gemmell, who is a geneticist from the University of Otago in New Zealand, led a team to take analysis of traces of DNA in Loch Ness. From their findings, they did not find any presence of any large animals like dinosaurs or lake monsters or anything like that. But they did find a lot of eel DNA.
Amanda: Ooh.
Julia: So, here's the quote from Professor Gemmell. He said, “Eels are very plentiful in the loch system. Every single sampling site that we went to, pretty much had eels and the sheer volume of it was a bit of a surprise.” So, Professor Gemmell and his team firmly believed that Nessie might just be a big old eel. So, here's the, the final quote from him. He says, “We cannot exclude the possibility that there are giant eels in Loch Ness, but we don't know whether the samples we've collected are from a giant beast or just an ordinary one. So, there's still an element of we just don't know.”
Amanda: Fascinating. I love that. And it's actually a very good segue, if I may --
Julia: Yes, please.
Amanda: -- into my, my last and goosebump-raising part of The Unidentified. The guy who coined the word cryptid in cryptozoology, Bernard Heuvelmans --
Julia: Heuvelmans.
Amanda: -- has a doctorate in zoology, but was kind of far more successful and known as a cryptid hunter than as a zoologist.
Julia: Love it.
Amanda: And he says that, in order to qualify as a cryptid, it's not just like a weird beetle or like a new tree frog. It has to be something “truly singular, unexpected, paradoxical, striking, emotionally upsetting, and thus capable of mythification.”
Julia: Oh, that is such a cool definition. I love that. I love that one of the qualifications is upsetting.
Amanda: I mean it is, right?
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Like, if we think about the commonalities, it's something that like, “Wow. A – you know, something that we think of as nonhuman shouldn't be as human as it is.” Like, that, to me, is what sticks out about the Yeti or, you know, the Loch Ness Monster. Like, the proportions are wrong. To me, it was always that the proportion of the creature to the lake was wrong.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And I was like, “Where are you hiding that? You know, like, how does that fit in there?”
Julia: It’s so big. Where's it going?
Amanda: And then, finally, George Simpson said that the aim of cryptozoology is “to demythify mythical beasts --
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: -- to search, hopefully, to find the objective, living animal from which the myth developed. And then Dickey just puts it so well. The search for cryptids is not just a search for a reenchanted wilderness. Cryptids are not fairies, unicorns, or leprechauns. They are mythical, but not mystical. Rather than a reenchanted wilderness, the cryptozoologist seeks a reenchanted science. A science of adventure and discovery, a romantic science of discovery that the cryptozoologist feels has been lost in an overly technocratic age.
Julia: I love that. Wow. What – ah, that's such a great passage. And it really does, like, kind of touch on why so many people are drawn to cryptozoology as a thing. It's this idea that there is still an unknown left in the world. Like, we feel like – at least, I feel like so much of the world is, like, still so explained away, you know. And, so, the idea that there is something big and mythical that we just haven't been able to prove is out there is out there. It's why I think, like, Bigfoot stories are so fascinating, why people dedicate their lives to trying to find Bigfoot, and why alien encounters are still very much prevalent in our media. It's just we want to believe that the world is a little bit more mysterious than it actually is.
Amanda: It is. And it's – it's why it rankles when people, you know, explain away the accomplishments of, like, Mayans or ancient societies --
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: -- as by aliens. Like, no, they just knew what they were doing. And the fact that you assume that they didn't, you know, shows something about you and why the co-option of some from indigenous stories into cryptids. Like, calling what is a – you know, a creature that people have known about and talked about that has a mythology and a place and a history as just like, “Oh, just another cryptid,” is also wrong, because it's not about re-enchanting a place that, you know, settlers once found enchanting and unknown. It's a completely different side of things, which is, you know, we know this landscape intimately. And these are, you know, stories that we have about the place that we are from. So, it's – it's just it's not simple. It's not just one thing. But this kind of origins of cryptozoology discussion and being more aware too of what we call a cryptid, what we call cryptozoology is just another way that we can, you know, better appreciate the world around us no matter how we classify the things that we see.
Julia: Yeah, to that point, we've had a lot of people ask for us to do, for example, a wendigo episode, which I would love to do if we could get a guest on who is from the indigenous traditions where the wendigo is a spirit. But the wendigo is, in particular, not a cryptid. It is a spirit of a living tradition. And we try our best to honor that as much as possible.
Amanda: We've reached out to some named American scholars who have talked about wendigo, but, if anybody has a specific suggestion or you, yourself, are from this tradition and would like to talk about it, our inbox is always open.
Julia: Yes. And that falls under the category of any indigenous living tradition that we talk about on the show. It is something that I try to be as aware of as possible.
Amanda: Yeah. And go for people who have first person experience whenever possible.
Julia: And to Dickey's point about the idea of reenchanted science, I think that the movie kind of leaves us on this note where they say, you know, some mysteries are just better left unsolved. And I think that, in, in the case of Nessie, I don't want someone to, you know, universally, prove it wrong, you know. I think it's better to kind of live in a world where it could be possible.
Amanda: Yeah. And, you know, again, Dickey comes through. He says, “Cryptids resist all attempts at categorization. To believe in them is to refuse the proposition that science can find a taxonomical place for every living thing. They are the remainders.” And then he closed the chapter in a way that I would not be so bold as to do as a writer, but I super respect. “The cryptozoology, in general, rejects not just Linnaean view of the world. So, again, that's, like, classifying and taxonomy, but of a religious one as well. A rejection of God's command to Adam --
Julia: Wooh.
Amanda: -- to take dominion over the natural world. How can we take dominion over a world if its corners remain murky?
Julia: Damn. All right.
Amanda: It's great. Listen, that is anti, like, God to Adam. That is anti-colonialist. That is anti-taxonomical. This book is great.
Julia: Damn, Dickey.
Amanda: The Unidentified.
Julia: Yes, we will – we'll put a link to it in the show notes.
Amanda: For sure.
Julia: Now, Amanda, I think that was a great discussion for a 72-minute Scooby Doo movie.
Amanda: We are rivaling the length of the movie in the length of this episode, which I usually make fun of movie recap podcasts that go longer than the movie. But, in this case, listen, we're bringing knowledge. We're – we’re complementing the movie with, with research and quotations and that – that Spirits je ne sais quoi of rejecting capitalism in the man, you know.
Julia: But not complimenting the terrible Scottish accents.
Amanda: Come on, Scooby Doo. There are voice actors who are Scottish and can do Scottish accents. I will also just say that I, I missed Scotland terribly. I have been reading a lot of books set in Scotland and all of you, listeners, who write to us about walking on misty moors while listening to Spirits, whether that's in Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, or somewhere else with, with wonderful cliffs, shoot us a picture. We would love to retweet it or repost on Instagram and show the spooky views to which you are hearing our voices.
Julia: Oh, actually, Amanda, that gives me a quick aside before we finish the episode.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Because a lot of this movie talks about the Highland Games, right?
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: That's kind of the whole, like, plot point that they're surrounding other than the Loch Ness Monster stuff. And it is a fun fact that you, Amanda, if you miss kind of Scottish tradition and culture, there is a Highland Games in Old Westbury every year.
Amanda: Really?
Julia: So, we can go one of these years.
Amanda: Fascinating. I will say I prefer Gaelic football to most any other sport that I have seen from Scotland or Ireland, but that's just me showing my loyalties, you know.
Julia: I'm a – I’m a big fan of the caber toss, which is basically, like, when they run and toss that, like, tree-sized log. That's my favorite personally.
Amanda: It is very impressive looking. Yeah.
Julia: And the first recorded games, Amanda, of the Highland Games is 1871, but, like, the tradition comes from the reign of Malcolm III around 1030. And the story goes that Malcolm III summoned a man to run an elaborate race in order to find the fastest runner in Scotland to be his royal messenger.
Amanda: Fascinating.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Tyrannical. You just – you can't make it up.
Julia: Yeah. And, now, they are held the final weekend of every August, the largest being the Cowal Highland Gathering.
Amanda: That sounds amazing. And, one of these days, I will make it up to, to Scotland in the summertime.
Julia: One day. One day, we'll make a whole trip out of it I feel like. I think that would be fun.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: I'm here for it.
Julia: Alright. Let's start pandemic ends.
Amanda: So, everybody, thank you for sticking with us. Please send us your photos of creepy views that you have seen while listening to Spirits. And remember.
Julia: Stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool. Thanks again to our sponsors. At skillshare.com/spirits2, you can get two free months of Skillshare premium. At functionofbeauty.com/spirits, you can get 20 percent off your first order. And, at fubotv.com/spirits, you can get a seven-day free trial plus 15 percent off your first month.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor Krizia Casil