• LOCH NESS INFORMATION PROVIDED IN RECOMMENDED READING ORDER
• INTRODUCTION
• Familiarisation
• Climate
• Prehistory
• Eye Witnesses
• Surface Photographs
• Surface Film and Video
• Sonar
• Underwater Photographs
• Expeditions
• Personalities
• Anecdotes
• Fish and Other Vertebrates
• Folklore
• Invertebrates
• 156 Miscellaneous Facts
• Natural History
• Nessie Cake Recipe
• Nessie Hunt Board Game
• Other Monster Lochs and Lakes
• Nessie Candidates

	Web www.Loch-Ness.org

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When Dr Rines involved his Academy of Applied Science in the search at Loch Ness, there was great hope that the introduction of American technology would usher in a new era of Loch Ness research. Rines brought a new optimism to the search, a new enthusiasm to the search and a new attitude to the search.

When the late Carol Rines arrived for her first stay at Tychat above Urquhart Bay, the taxi driver stopped as they turned up the Tychat road and, according to Carol, pointed out that the Loch Ness Monster was making its way across the bay. Carol, impatient to get to the house said to the driver, "Oh, we'll be seeing it regularly so don't stop now, I want to get unpacked!"

So started the unbelievable saga of the Rines years. Another sighting was in the company of the Cary's from Strone, above Urquhart Castle. According to Dr Rines, he, his wife, Carol, plus Heather and Winifred Cary watched a back, "like that of an elephant" crossing Urquhart Bay. Interestingly even Mrs Cary, who regularly sees the monster herself, later said that the sighting could have been "anything". These amazing Americans, however, had sighting after sighting with their eyes, their sonars and their underwater cameras, but it now seems most unlikely that any of these "close encounters" had anything to do with Nessie as will become clear in the material shown on this site.

Let's have a look at the Academy's sonar results, because it is the failings here which expose the whole can of worms of the Academy's work at the loch.

Where to start with the Academy's sonar is the most difficult decision.

• Let's start with the 1972 chart. The facts are that it was obtained on an LNI/Academy joint expedition in August 1972. The sonar equipment used, a Raytheon echo sounder, was manufactured to be used vertically, but was mounted so that the beam would be sent out horizontally beneath the surface towards a camera mounted 120 feet in front of it under a boat. The sonar was mounted on a metal pole strapped to the back of a boat.
• On the night of the 14th August, at 1.40am, a dark sonar trace began to appear. It is interesting that the trace was similar to one which occurred earlier, but which is rarely seen in print. When one obtains contacts with the Loch Ness Monster with such frequency, perhaps it is normal only to publish the better ones? Maybe, however, the frequency of contacts was due to their not being Loch Ness Monsters. For now we shall move on.
• Although the bulk of the sonar pulse emitted by a transducer goes straight out, in this case horizontally, some of the beam actually pulses at 90 degrees like a kind of dish around the transducer. This pulse is called the side-lobe.
• In the case of a sonar beaming down into the water the side lobe is rarely of significance. In the case of a horizontally positioned sonar, however, the side lobe will produce a very strong sonar target as it rebounds from the very close loch bed and surface. This does not necessarily interfere with the experiment, but does produce a dark line on the chart close to the transducer. Looking at the above section of the chart, the grey edge to the printed section of the chart is the lowest feature. Directly above that is a thick black horizontal line which is the transducer itself. Immediately above that is a thin black line which roughly follows that of the transducer line. It is present across the entire width of the chart and is, in fact, the side-lobe reading off the bottom of the loch directly beneath the boat the unit is attached to.
• The fact that the side-lobe trace is not absolutely parallel with the transducer trace, demonstrates that, without the slightest doubt, the transducer was moving about and swinging around. (We do know, from Witchell's Loch Ness Story, that they were having trouble keeping the sonar pointing at the cameras). Crucially, the equipment is not as it is shown in the diagram ... fixed solidly and immovably to the loch bed and beaming horizontally. The diagram is inaccurate on this count at least.
• If we now look at another section of the 1972 chart we can clearly see that there are no ropes or cables linking any of the equipment with the shore or the boats above ... in fact there are no boats shown at all and the sonar is mounted on what appears to be a solid block which would be unlikely to swing about. The diagram is inaccurate on these counts, too.
• Finally, once we know that the sonar transducer is not solidly fixed in place, we can then no longer assume that it is even pointing towards the cameras at all. Again we must remember the Witchell account. On this count, again, the diagram is inaccurate.
• Now we need to turn to the comments made by the various experts, but it is important to be scrupulously fair and we must assume that these experts were armed only with the chart and the diagram when making their comments. They would not, for example, be aware that the transducer was strapped to a boat, unstable, spinning around and possibly waving up and down too. They would, in fact, probably be unaware that there were any boats present at all. They would also be aware of Rines' own enthusiasm and excitement for the event. See later quote from Meredith.
• "The animal(s) has(have) a dimensional extent of 20 to 30 feet as determined by the length of the echo ...", says P. Skitzki of Raytheon. Firstly it is one of the worst practices of pseudo-science to talk about animals or creatures before there is any proof that animals or creatures are being observed. Skitzki has no scientific right to assume that the chart shows a living thing. Secondly, Raytheon were the manufacturers of the equipment, yet their expert makes the basic mistake of measuring the width of the sonar trace and equating it with the length of the object being scanned. The vertical component of the chart, of course, is time passing, not a distance at all and if an object had stayed in the beam just a few seconds there would have been a short vertical trace; if an object stayed in the beam for an extended period then the trace would have been very long. Skitzki, however, appears to have measured the width of the dark trace and then compared it to the horizontal scale. This calculation is completely invalid and meaningless because the width of the trace only represents the strength of the contact and/or inter-reflections. Sonar of the frequency used cannot somehow see through to the back of the object being scanned. That would require low frequency sonar which has a longer wave-length and therefore the disadvantage of poor definition. Skitzki's comments here are therefore irrelevant.
• "... about 30 feet long ... with projections or humps", says R. Eide of Simrad. The former comment is exactly the same error as that of Skitzki. The latter comment appears to refer to either the parallel wavy lines or to the shape of the length of the object. If the former, Eide has made an error of interpretation through being unfamiliar with a transducer being almost stationary and used to beam horizontally. The parallel line effect is now known to be caused by the sonar detecting waves on the surface, particularly boat wakes. If the latter refers to the shape of the trace then it is invalid again because the shape is not the shape of any object detected since the vertical component is one of time, not length. Eide's comments are therefore irrelevant.
• "... real ... large ... moving ... trace indicating that the creature has several segments, body sections or projections such as humps.", says Marty Klein of Klein Associates. The trace is a real trace, it is a large trace, the trace is a moving trace ... that is true, but it is quite extraordinary that Marty Klein uses the word "creature" without the slightest evidence that the trace is even an actual object, let alone alive. As regards the segments, body sections or projections, this is a misinterpretation of the parallel wavy lines which are caused by boat wakes and waves. These comments of Klein's are therefore irrelevant.
• "... there are at least TWO large things moving.", says Klein again. At least he has reverted to "things" now, but after having used "creatures" in the previous comment, by implication these things are alive! It is true that there are two traces, but, with the sonar swinging about there is no proof whatsoever that these traces are anything more than the underside of more waves. These comments of Klein's are therefore also irrelevant.
• "... another large marine animal or a school of fish.", says Skitzki again. Perhaps he was not advised that Loch Ness is not a marine environment, but anyway, once again we have a reputable scientist talking about animals or schools of fish without the slightest evidence to support it. Skitzki's comments are therefore irrelevant again.
• "A sudden echo protuberance exists with a dimension of about 10 feet ... would appear to be an appendage ...", Skitzki continues. This really is sheer unadulterated rubbish. Even if we suppose, just for a moment, that the trace is of an animal, then if that animal were originally sideways on to the beam and then turned lengthways to it, the trace would behave exactly as we see it using Skitzki's interpretation methods, except that we know those methods are not valid because the thickness of the trace has no relation to the length or breadth of the object (again presupposing that it is an object at all). In fact, all that has occurred is that whatever is causing the trace has created a stronger signal closer to the transducer. Because the transducer is swinging, the closer trace could be a more violent oscillation or just the bottom of the sloping bay. It is also important to mention here that the beam angle is not as clearly delineated as shown in the diagram. A 5 degree beam only means that at the edge of that angle the strength of the beam has reduced to 50%. Nevertheless, a sonar signal does occur outside that range and still produces a strong echo if the target is strong enough ... i.e. the ropes to the cameras (not shown in diagram), or the cameras themselves, or the bottom of the boat (not shown in the diagram), or the bottom of the loch, or the shore if the sonar had swung through 30 or more degrees, or, of course, the Loch Ness Monsters which inexplicably decided to hang around beside the flashing cameras for over thirty minutes, perhaps fascinated by Dr Rines' charisma! In my section on underwater photography I will use Skitzki's comments again. As regards sonar interpretation though, these comments of Skitzki are once again irrelevant.
• ".. target projections ... are five feet or more apart", says I. Dyer of MIT. So are the waves of some boat wakes ... probably! Again the comments are irrelevant.

To sum up, the experiment which created the 1972 sonar chart was badly recorded, badly documented and then badly written up. The latter resulted in other scientists making unjustifiable statements about the chart which were then to be used to reinforce the chart as a credible piece of scientific data.

It all happened so long ago that it would now be difficult to ask these scientists to remember how the chart was presented to them. Were leading statements made like "We would like your opinion of a sonar trace which shows what we think are large animals in Loch Ness." or "We've shown this chart to a number of experts and we want to know if you agree that it shows large animals in Loch Ness."? This is exactly the technique used to "sell" something implausible to someone susceptible. Exactly how a lawyer would defend a client in front of a jury. Coincidence, isn't it, that Dr Rines is a very accomplished lawyer.

The chart itself can be dismissed as evidence because the sonar transducer was certainly swinging around and possibly tilting up and down. The trace could be showing any number of phenomena, but the most likely are that we are seeing the camera rig itself, the waves on the surface, the underside of the boat above the cameras or the loch bed. There is no reason to believe that animals were involved at all. Work on sonar phenomena by the Loch Ness and Morar Project in the eighties showed that the distinctive parallel wavy lines seen in the chart are characteristic of surface wave effects caused by boat wakes ... obvious when you think about it.

Dr Rines, however, sucked along by a wave of euphoria, did not think about the logical causes of the sonar trace, because he wanted to see monsters. Over a number of years he repeated the parallel wavy line traces and this led him to conclude that the wavy lines are the sonar characteristics of the Loch Ness Monsters! In fact, Dr Rines is quoted in Meredith's Search At Loch Ness as observing that these sonar signatures also occur when boats are passing, but he seemed incapable of taking the next step and drawing the obvious conclusion.

Quote from Meredith on the 1976 expedition, parallel wavy line sonar contact : "'Tell them the sonar blip had the same dimensional extent in 1972', Lothrop said excitedly. 'Tell them it had the same type of multiple trace echo, and the same type of approach to the camera from behind.'