Is the Loch Ness Monster Real? Steve Alten Knows!



Steve Alten, who has already inflicted three giant shark novels on unsuspecting readers (see my review of Meg: Primal Waters) is going back to the water for his new novel, The Loch. With all the humility you’d expect from a guy who writes giant shark novels with a main character named Jonas, Alten has claimed that he came up with a solution to the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster that will revolutionize the subject. The promo materials for the book have been coy about what that solution is, and I won’t spoil what it’s rumored to be, at least not until later in this article. If you really don’t want to know, consider yourself warned.



Recent issues of Alten’s official newsletter have been telling an incredible tale. Just as Alten was preparing to release his book new discoveries have been made at Loch Ness that just happen to buttress Alten’s arguments! The following excerpts are from the March edition of Alten’s newsletter.

“Guys, there are things happening at Loch Ness as we speak that are mind-blowing. Some of it is leaking out over the internet, but the best stuff has been saved for the novel, thanks to some non-disclosure agreements I arranged.”

Science and non-disclosure agreements go together like peanut butter and chocolate!

"To be honest, at first I was very skeptical about doing a Loch Ness Monster book, simply because I didn't believe in the creature's existence. But then I began the research, and learned there is Loch Ness myth, and then there is some very real science that points to a mutation/creature that has been inhabiting Loch Ness over the last 70+ years. Yes, I know sightings date back 1500 years, but these were not the same creatures.”

This odd distinction between the “mythical” creature and the modern creature also figured into the movie Beneath Loch Ness. It would be a heck of a coincidence if the same remote lake was reputed to have a creature living in it in medieval times, and later (circa 1930) a real and completely unrelated monster just happened to move into the same lake. Yet that’s what Alten asks us to believe.

Alten then provides us with some background on Loch Ness. Some of the more salient points follow.

“There have been almost 10,000 sightings since the 1930s. Ninety percent are explainable. The rest are quite real.”

I wonder what kind of statistical analysis Alten did to come up with that percentage. Isn't it interesting that he admits that 90% of time people claiming to see a monster are wrong? I'm much more interested to know why people are misidentifying normal objects so often, and how you can trust the other 10% if that's the case.

"THE MONSTER IS NOT A PLESIOSAUR."

I can't really argue with that.

"The locals know what it is, but refuse to talk about it."

And here's where Alten's train of thought jumps the tracks and falls into Idiot Gorge. What possible reason could the people of Loch Ness have to cover up the existence of the creature? Alten seems to be suggesting that the people of Inverness are somehow invested in the idea that the monster is a plesiosaur and will do anything to discredit evidence to the contrary, even though the truth they know is extraordinary.

Alten continues.

"In late 2004, as I was finishing final edits on the novel, I received a call from a private investigator specializing in marine biology. I won't divulge who he is just yet, but his credentials are impeccable and he's worked with me before on two of my other novels. He knew I was writing a Loch Ness Monster thriller (he gets the newsletter too) and had his own theories about what the monster is, based on evidence he has been collecting since 1993."

I'm not sure what the deal is with keeping the "expert" anonymous. Real experts want credit for their findings. In any case the man he's talking about is Bill McDonald. Here's his website.

"To make an involved story short and sweet, he was calling me now, all excited, because several of his British contacts were him urging him to get to Loch Ness as soon as possible, that there were "things" going on. The investigator desperately needed money to make the trip, so he came to me with a deal: If I agreed to arrange his funding, he would give me the exclusive on the monster's identity, why it's hardly ever been seen, and the inside track on anything new that he found. I spoke with the people at Tsunami Books, and they wired him the funds.

"It was a big investment with a BIGGER pay-off.

"He went over in mid-December to meet with other investigators and speak to locals. On his very last day there, he heard about two frightened British tourists who had reported a rare land sighting the night before. He quickly tracked them down at a local eatery (easy to do in the dead of winter) and literally bribed them to take him back to where the sighting occurred.

"The investigator has urged me to ask YOU to spread this link [The link isn't in the archived copy of the newsletter] around so that others may weigh in on these incredible findings and assist him in his on-going research. (He needs funding to continue his research) Because of our non-disclosure agreement, I cannot divulge what species (or mutation thereof) left these incredible tracks in the mud, but after he called me (frantic) from Scotland, I immediately stopped the printing of the hardbacks and added almost 100 new pages to The LOCH just to blend this mind-boggling information into the story. The delay cost us 45 days and a lot of money to meet our deadlines with bookstores, but it was well worth it. (If you pre-ordered the book on Amazon.com at $25.95, you'll notice the price recently went up $2.00 to cover the additional pages)."

So now we get down to it. Alten's book is going to cost more because it's got the proof of the Loch Ness Monster's real identity, and wouldn't you know it, it's exactly what he thought it was!

So what does Alten think it is? From what I can find about The Loch, it's a monstrously large eel. (Oh yeah, I can see why the residents of Inverness would not to cover that up. Who cares about an eel ten times larger than the largest one ever found before?) What is this important evidence Alten is talking about?



First there's this website called Loch Movie which includes footage of an alleged trail left by the creature.

Then there's this website and accompanying video that claims to be from two Midwestern college students found a strange tooth in a deer carcass on the shore of Loch Ness. The tooth was confiscated by a local water baliff, and they were threatened by the local authorities when they tried to get it back. Damn, the Cigarette Smoking Man must have recruited Haggis Eating Man! In any case the video has all the signs of bad improv acting, and the tooth looks like an antler or maybe a thorn from some plant, not a tooth.



What's going on here? I'm 90% sure that all this stuff is just a publicity stunt to promote The Loch. McDonald even sent out press releases, though it only looks like it got picked up by the Guerrilla News Network and Fangoria. I'm not sure if Bill McDonald is in on the gag or not, but he was posting on some e-mail groups defending his "evidence," but since the book came out he's been silent. I ll probably pick up the book from the library and see if Alten comes clean.

Posted: Mon - May 2, 2005 at      

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