The Loch Ness Monster - The ParaPod Series 2, Episode 1 Review

February 09, 2016 12:08 AM ‐ The ParaPod • Mythical Creatures

This article is more than eight years old and was last updated in March 2018.

The ParaPod returns for a second series and this time round Barry Dodds and Ray Peacock shift from ghosts to mysteries. So, instead of a 'featured haunting', this time round Barry will be bringing us his 'mystery of the week'.

For episode one, Barry tried to convince Ray that the Loch Ness Monster is real. Although Barry says it's not really a "monster," he says we've given it that title. Ray asks what it really is, "the Loch Ness fish?"

Barry says whatever it is, it's a "crypto... zoo..." failing to pronounce the word. He continued, "it's one of those animals that knocks around that nobody knows about and it goes back years." Has another crack at saying, "cryptozoological" but fails.

Ray asks does it exist? Barry says, "it might be dead now but it certainly was knocking about." Barry suggested that the monster could be a dinosaur, "the dinosaurs all dies, that's fine. We accept that. What about the underwater ones? What if it's one of them?"

Ray questions Barry's logic, "you're now saying one of them, because it was hiding underwater, survived? One?" Barry suggests that it might have been hiding in a network of underwater tunnels.

Barry wants the answer to a few basic questions about Nessy. Firstly, "where's the location? Loch Ness, where is it?"

Barry replied, "Scotland," but that's not really good enough. Ray asks, "where abouts in Scotland in Loch ness? Where is it near?" But Barry confesses, "I don't know where it's near. I've never been," but he takes a guess, "OK, Loch Ness is in... the Highlands of Scotland."

Ray's next question, "when was the first sighting of the Loch Ness monster?" Barry was again forced to guess, "this goes back along way the first ever sighting. Does this not go back to something stupid like 535 AD?" But he admitted, "I don't know who it was first sighted by."

Ray tells Barry, "AD is right, you got AD right" and then tells him the story of Saint Columba who visited Loch Ness in 565, Barry was close. The story goes that the saint encounter a tribe, who Barry assumed were African.

They were conducting a funeral for one of their numbers who had been killed by a monster in the loch. Columba sent one of his followers across the loch and the monster surfaced, Columba made the sign of the cross and said, "go no further. Go back at once." And, the monster went away. Barry asked if this was how Christianity started.

Ray's next question, "what proof is there?" Barry said, "there's loads of photos, loads of sightings. I know what you're going to say, photos are faked. And I'll agree with you to an extent on that."

And Ray's final question, "what's your experience on it?" Barry answered, "I've got no experience of it, I've read about it. I think it's interesting. I don't see why it's completely unfeasible that that exists."

Ray summarised, "the expertise Barry's bringing to the table today, he doesn't know where the lake is, he didn't know when the first sighting of the monster was, rhe proof is pictures, his personal experience is he's never been there and ergo he's never seen it with his own eyes."

Ray tells Barry that the whole thing is nothing more than a marketing ploy by the tourist board, Barry is skeptical, "no one owns Loch Ness."

Ray is right, about one million people visit Loch Ness and the surrounding area every year, with the value to the economy worth about £25m. More than 85% of these tourists are attracted to the area by the legend of the monster.

Barry tells Ray, "there's quite a few famous photos of Nessy." One of course being Surgeon's photograph, "it's a photo of what appears to be a big black shape coming out the water."

Ray says, "there is a counter argument to this that it is an elephant." Rays says that everything about that photo for an anatomical position indicates that it's an elephant, "the neck that comes out is the trunk, the head is the tip of the trunk, the hump behind is the top of the head of an elephant." He adds, "but you think it's a monster."

Barry sort of agrees, "no, I think it was faked and I don't think it was an elephant." But Barry then tells Ray his explanation for the photo, he says it was a sort of submarine that a man was controlling with a remote from the shore.

The Conclusion

Ray sums up the argument by saying, "there is no monster in Loch Ness, nor has there ever been and we've conclusively proved that today, with surprising easy as well. All I had to do was suggest to you it was an elephant, you got so angry about that but your counter argument wasn't 'it's a monster', your argument was 'it's a remote controlled submarine'."

Ray 1 - Barry 0.

Listen Now

You can listen to The ParaPod on SoundCloud, iTunes or visit theparapod.com for more from the show.

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