Regular readers of this blog might be aware of my book Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths, initially published as an ebook in 2016 (Naish 2016) and appearing in hardcopy in 2017 (Naish 2017)…

**Caption:** at left, cover of the **2016 ebook version** of *Hunting Monsters*, and – at right – the **2017 hardcopy version**. I really like both covers. Because the two works differ in minor ways and have different publication dates, I’m treating them here as separate publications.

Hunting Monsters discusses hypotheses and cases relevant to six main subject areas: (1) the history, function, role and future of cryptozoology; (2) sea monsters; (3) lake monsters; (4) bigfoot and such; (5) mokele-mbembe and such; and (6) Australian cryptids. It’s mostly an exploration of a cultural, ‘post-cryptid’ view of cryptozoology. This posits that sightings of and encounters with monsters – while often or sometimes representing genuine events of some sort – mostly stem from the creation and maintenance of cryptids as objects within the ‘cultural landscape’ inhabited by the experiencer. As I’ve always tried to make clear, I’m not in the least bit original in stating any of this, and the sociocultural theory I promote has its roots in the writings of several who went before me (e.g., Binns 1983, 2017, Meurger & Gagnon 1988, Loxton & Prothero 2013).

**Caption:** noted books on mystery animal/monster research that are relevant to, or promote, the ‘post-cryptid’, sociocultural view of cryptozoology also endorsed in *Hunting Monsters*. I read or consulted most of the books shown here prior to writing *Hunting Monsters*, but not Samantha Hurn’s *Anthropology and Cryptozoology: Exploring Encounters with Mysterious Creatures* (published 2017). I’m currently re-reading **Meurger & Gagnon (1988)** because I need better notes on it.

Eight years after publication, I can say that the response to Hunting Monsters has been mostly predictable: people with a sceptical or scientific approach to cryptozoology generally like it and have said positive things about it, and people who want cryptids to be accepted as real, and dislike the critical approach employed by sceptics, mostly dislike it and have said how it represents a close-minded, blinkered, elitist mindset of the sort typical among nay-sayers. The former set of people are better at recording their thoughts than the latter, and it’s partly for that reason that Hunting Monsters has had a net positive reception, currently scoring 4.2 out of 5 at amazon. It’s hardly perfect, of course, and I accept that a good number of valid criticisms have been directed at it. Those are topics I’ll address at another time. Incidentally, the hardcopy version of the book (Naish 2017) is now out of print, and indeed hard to get and generally only sold at high price. The ebook version (Naish 2016) continues to sell well though.

**Caption:** several Nessie models exist around the edges of Loch Ness. This green plesiosaur – presumably based specifically on an elasmosaurid (if you want to know about plesiosaur diversity and evolutionary history, see my 2023 book *Ancient Sea Reptiles*) – is on show at the Clansman Hotel in Bracla, on the loch’s north shore, north of Drumnadrochit. The sign near the model says DO NOT RIDE.

Among those who’ve criticised the book is Loch Ness Monster advocate and independent researcher Roland Watson, author of several Nessie-themed books and the blog Loch Ness Monster. I’ve had reason to address Watson’s comments on previous occasions and am not a fan of his approach, most of which revolves around the idea that (1) Nessie’s existence should be considered more plausible than the opposite and (2) that Nessie sceptics can only be framed as biased, sloppy-thinking, pseudo-sceptical rejectionists.

Back in 2016, Watson published a review of Hunting Monsters at his blog, and at amazon. Much of what he said was contestable or just factually wrong, and as a consequence I felt compelled to write a long response, which I also shared on amazon on August 21st 2016. However, I’ve recently discovered that it’s no longer there. Why, I have no idea, but there’s no trace of it. That bothers me because it was my fair right of reply, and a worthwhile contribution that has been cited in the literature (Binns 2017, p. 203). So, what I’ve done is dig it out and republish it here. While some of the text below does require a bit of background knowledge, I think that it’s mostly easy to follow, even if you haven’t read Watson’s original review. Nevertheless, the picture captions should help add context when that’s otherwise absent. Ok, here we go…

**Caption:** here’s proof that my initial response to Watson’s review was published at amazon during August 2016. It’s a bit concerning that amazon then later removed it. Does the site routinely do that to comments written as responses to reviews? If so… yikes.

In a comment written in response to his review of my book Hunting Monsters, Roland Watson “[wishes] that these comments [pertaining to the Loch Ness Monster] … would actually address the issues I raise than rather than cast general aspersions which target nothing expect [sic] the person”. Fair enough, challenge accepted. Let’s look in detail at Watson’s various claims…

Claim number 1: Watson dislikes the contention that “the diversity of creatures described points more to human imagination than actual animals awaiting discovery” and argues that “Even though [witnesses] may have seen something large and alive, the finer the detail described, the greater the room for error”.

**Caption:** Nessie proponents like Watson want us to accept that Nessie sightings represent the same one animal species, whereas what we actually have is a disparate mess of basically any and everything you could imagine… a fact more consistent with the idea that people are interpreting observations of all kinds of things as ‘the monster’. The variety of reported monsters is reflected in efforts to imagine Nessie as real. Is it a friendly, small-headed plesiosaur, a shaggy, humped quadruped, a rough-skinned horror with an undulating appendage, or a twin-humped, snorkel-headed animal with great diamond-shaped flippers? In reality, it is all of these things, and also none of them. Images: Darren Naish.

Response: in promoting (via his blog and books) the view that the large number of Loch Ness Monster accounts might actually describe a genuine undiscovered large animal species, Watson is routinely guilty of both confirmation bias and a seeming inability to understand the principle of parsimony. In Hunting Monsters I stated repeatedly how the diversity of Loch Ness Monster accounts makes it likely that diverse animals and phenomena have been witnessed, reported, interpreted and misinterpreted within the context of both a folkloric belief and sociocultural expectation that monsters might be seen. This is a clearly stated hypothesis noted several times in the book. How does it stand up to the alternative: that people are reporting an unknown species but failing to describe it consistently? When we combine this with the impressive lack of compelling evidence of any sort, the literalist interpretation has to be considered a failure. To argue otherwise does have a wilful desperation and a tinge of romanticism, so good luck with it.

Claim number 2: Watson says that the proposal that the Spicer sighting was influenced by King Kong “is not a convincing theory”.

Response: well, it’s not a “theory” for starters. Nevertheless, it remains an interesting possibility worth noting (the exact wording used in Hunting Monsters is that “a case can also be made that the account was inspired by the release of King Kong” (Naish 2017, p. 86). In other words, this is put out there as an interesting possibility, and it remains so; not as a point that can be dismissed simply because it fails to accord with personal bias.

**Caption:** it’s now a well-known idea that the amphibious, aggressive brontosaur of 1933’s King Kong might have been inspirational to the Spicers, and somehow affected their recalling and retelling of their Loch Ness encounter. **Loxton & Prothero (2013)** are among several authors who’ve discussed this proposal, and it would be wrong – in a review that discusses the evolution of ideas on the Loch Ness Monster – to not mention it. I was kinder in *Hunting Monsters* than I am to this concept today though, since there’s an argument (made by monster researcher Charles Paxton) that we don’t know for sure that the Spicers saw the movie prior to their sighting.

Claim number 3: Watson says it’s a mistake to say that the Fordyce sighting is relevant to accounts of the early 1930s (to quote Watson: “that story was not made public until 1990 and had nothing to do with the mood "at the time"”).

Response: Fordyce’s sighting apparently occurred in 1932, and it is thus fully justifiable to say that it is relevant to things “afoot at the loch at the time”. Having said that, I have modified the choice of wording for the hardcopy version of the book, a disclaiming clause (“though note that this report did not come to light until 1990”; Naish 2017, p. 89) now added.

**Caption:** in July 1933, Mr and Mrs Spicer reportedly witnessed a large, unusual animal cross the road (General Wade’s Military Road, or the B852) adjacent to Loch Ness’s southern shore, between Dores and Inverfarigaig. It was said at times to have what looked like the head of a “lamb or small deer” neat its middle, a component that later morphed into a tail tip (in which case the body and tail were bent around to the side). Author Rupert Gould interviewed the Spicers, and eventually concluded that they’d seen a group of deer bounding quickly across the road. The interpretation of the event shown here comes from the third, 1976 edition of Tim Dinsdale’s *Loch Ness Monster*.

Claim number 4: Watson regards it as “an example of exaggerated narrative” to say of the Spicer sighting “Over the years, the description became increasingly sensational. It started out as 2–2.5 m in length but gradually increased to 9m”. Watson goes on to say that it “is completely wrong” to refer to this as a “monster [story that grew] with the telling”, and quotes Gould’s quoting of Spicer’s justification of this increase in length.

Response: Hunting Monsters states that “Over the years, the description became increasingly sensational. It started out as 2-2.5 m in length but gradually increased to 9 m” (Naish 2017, p. 85). The fact that Mr Spicer explained to Gould – within the space of 10 months of the initial sighting – how an initial leap in size occurred as a consequence of his direct measuring of the road is said by Watson to be an “omitted detail”. He then objects to my implication that the monster “gradually” increased in size with retelling. I concede that my idea of the monster “gradually” increasing in size was inspired by Ronald Binns (“Their estimate of the monster’s size also changed dramatically. From being between six and eight feet in length it grew and grew as Spicer retold his story until it was twenty-five, even thirty feet long”; Binns 1983, pp. 90-91), and also by the fact that there are sources where Mr Spicer stated the monster to be 30 ft long, and even 40 ft and 50 ft long. In short, it remains true that the Spicer’s monster did increase in length with the retelling of the story, and did so in step with an increasingly sensational interpretation of the account. Couple this with Gould’s conclusion that “I think the Spicers saw a huddle of deer crossing the road”, and it again seems clear that a pro-monster interpretation of the sighting appears to be the problematic one.

**Caption:** an artistically brilliant but very much hyper-sensationalized view of the Spicer sighting, now depicting their undulating, amorphous creature with a possible lamb-like head as a giant predatory plesiosaur. This is by the brilliant Gino D’Achille.

Claim number 5: Watson claims – contra Hunting Monsters – that the Hugh Gray and Peter O’Connor photos are not images of, respectively, a swan and an inverted kayak, and that he has ‘dismantled’ these proposals.

Response: I leave others to judge whether the proposals endorsed in my book (that the Hugh Gray photo depicts a swan and the O’Connor photo depicts an inverted Tyne Prefect kayak) are reasonable and likely and serve as superior alternative explanations to Watson’s use of these images as depictions of an unknown giant animal or animals. Further details on why the swan and kayak interpretations should be supported are included within the book (Naish 2016, 2017). The kayak hypothesis is discussed at length in Dick Raynor’s article ‘A Study of the Peter O'Connor photograph of the Loch Ness Monster’, available here.

**Caption:** the Peter O’Connor Nessie photo of 1960 (one version of which is shown at upper left) is of very dubious provenance. I agree with Dick Raynor that it likely shows a specific kayak (Dick’s photo of that boat is at lower left). At right are illustrations from my discussion of the photo and how its ‘anatomy’ matches that of the kayak. Images: © Peter O’Connor; **Dick Raynor**; Darren Naish.

Claim number 6: Watson opines, contra a suggestion in Hunting Monsters, that the Fordyce sighting does not resemble a pony (not a “donkey”, as per Watson) carrying a deer, and – says Watson – it would be “Better to say nothing and take a neutral position”.

Response: Watson might prefer it if the door were left as far open as possible as goes the proposed existence of large unknown animals at Loch Ness. Again he is, alas, all too keen to demonstrate his inability to adopt the principle of parsimony. The fact is, a pony carrying an antlered stag really does look suspiciously like the creature Fordyce reported. It might be difficult to find a photo that exactly matches what Fordyce described, but it is easy – based on the photos findable online – to imagine one, unless one is too biased, of course.

**Caption:** the Fordyce ‘camel’ sighting is one of the weirdest Loch Ness Monster sightings. So: what to do? Should we just ignore it as potentially fictional (in which case… why not do the same with most or even all other accounts? That hardly seems right), or should we aim to rationalise it? At left is the drawing of the creature as reimagined for Mike Dash’s *Fortean Times* article of 1991 (Dash 1991); at right is an 1873 painting by Richard Ansdell showing the technique whereby a pony is used to carry a deceased stag. Watson used a dirty trick in deliberately saying “donkey” (instead of pony) throughout his discussion of this idea. Images: Dash (1991); The Cheltenham Trust and Cheltenham Borough Council (**original here**).

Claim number 7: Watson argues that my “handling of the folklore of the Loch Ness Water Horse is unsatisfactory”, since I dismiss all pre-1933 accounts. Specifically, Watson notes that my dismissal of “Richard Franck's 17th century "floating island" at Loch Ness, as a man-made raft runs completely counter to what even Franck theorised about this strange object from 1658”.

Response: I have read Watson’s book on his interpretation of pre-1933 accounts and found nothing more than credulity and confirmation bias, as mentioned above. As noted in Hunting Monsters, my approach to the pre-1933 accounts is heavily inspired by Ulrich Magin’s 2001 article ‘Waves without wind and a floating island – historical accounts of the Loch Ness Monster’ (Fortean Studies 7, 95-115). I would encourage those curious to read Magin’s article and see whether it makes a more convincing set of arguments than Watson’s pro-monster claims and book.

**Caption:** views of Urquhart Castle as seen from the water. A few Nessie encounters have been reported from around the castle, some involving the creature supposedly crawling onto land. As you can see from these shots (taken in 2016), sufficient vegetation has grown up around the banks and the ruins to obscure them relative to how they looked in Nessie’s heyday (the 1930s, or the 60s and 70s, take your pick). Images: Darren Naish.

Claim number 8: Watson ends his review with a series of bizarre and childish suggestions that I might be being “groomed” (his term) as “the successor” to noted and respected sceptical investigators Dick Raynor and Adrian Shine. To quote: “Perhaps Darren is seen as "The One", but in my view, once Dick and Adrian get out their slippers and pipe, Loch Ness scepticism will go down the plug hole”.

Response: Firstly, it is an honour to be compared to these upstanding individuals who have done so much to carefully, thoroughly and diligently bring critical thinking and scientific analysis to the Loch Ness enigma. Secondly, there are weird and sinister overtones as goes the reference to ‘grooming’. Nevertheless, the opinion put forward here is nonsense: it implies that Raynor and/or Shine sought me out and wilfully modified my thoughts or intellectual approach for personal means. As is well documented in a paper trail that stretches back about 20 years (see my articles from the 1990s, published in cryptozoological periodical Animals & Men, my 2000 article ‘Where be monsters?’ in Fortean Times 132, my 2001 article ‘Sea serpents, seals and coelacanths: an attempt at a holistic approach to the identity of large aquatic cryptids’ in Fortean Studies 7, and other publications), I have followed a distinct individual pathway of cryptozoological investigation that has been evidence-led and sceptical for quite some time.

**Caption:** nobody cares enough to find out (why would they?), but an interested person could chart the changing of my cryptozoology views over time. I started out as substantially more credulous than I was in 2016/2017, or am today. The images here show publications of mine dating to 1995, 1996, 2000 and 2001.

For years now I have corresponded with Dick and Adrian and have found my views to match theirs. It is insulting and ridiculous to imply that there has been any effort on their part to influence or lead my own views and conclusions, and I put it that this proposal does the accuser no favours; in fact it indicates that he inhabits a worrying and idiosyncratic intellectual landscape. Thirdly and finally, there is no effort involving myself or anyone else to have me installed as “The One” when it comes to Loch Ness scepticism; as is obvious from everything we might glean about Loch Ness, the cryptozoological literature, and collective human knowledge in general, scepticism – if not rejection – of the Loch Ness Monster’s purported existence is the mainstream, widely accepted view for obvious reasons (these being the impressive lack of evidence and the unsatisfactory, clutching-at-straws nature of the arguments coming from LNM proponents). It is thus highly amusing to speak of “Loch Ness scepticism going down the plug hole”. Next you’ll be saying that the theory of evolution and the heliocentric model of the solar system are in danger too.

Again, I thank the reviewer for reading my book and for taking time to encourage others to read it too.

For previous TetZoo articles on the Loch Ness Monster, lake monsters, and cryptozoology more generally see…