Monsters and Myths

Grainy images of a large snake in Borneo’s Baleh river have some locals afraid the mythical Nabu snake is back. Is Borneo’s 100-foot river snake—reported yesterday by London’s Telegraph and captured in photographs real?

Like the Loch Ness Monster, countless UFOs and Bigfoot, it’s hard to say, says Hany Farid, a computer science professor at Dartmouth University, because it’s been captured in such low resolution. “It’s as if you took a blood sample,” he says, “threw away 99 percent of it and asked me to do a forensic analysis.”

An expert of digital photography forensics, Farid notes that with so few pixels to analyze, there’s much less evidence to weigh in one way or the other. At a high resolution—say, 1,000 by 1,000 pixels—tampering gets tougher. At that level, he says, “It’s really hard to do. You’ve got to get it all just right.”

The low level of resolution is precisely why viewers should be skeptical. To make a fraudulent photo, he says, one would want to work in high resolution, fake it as cleanly as possible and then compress it and make it a bit blurry. “That’s a good way of masking any artifacts that you’ve left behind,” he says.

Plus, Farid notes that although the fuzziness of UFO and Nessie photos might add a bit of desirable mystique, in this day and age of high-quality point-and-shoot digital cameras, there really aren’t many reasons why anyone’s daytime photos should be as blurry as those of the Borneo “snake.”

In addition to the resolution of the two snake photos, other characteristics of an easy fake pop up as well, he observes. Both images show the snake in a somewhat open area, not interacting with other objects. It would be a lot more difficult, Farid says, to fake a snake wrapped around a person.

Although Farid won’t opine whether the Borneo photos are real or manipulated, he suggests a handy rule of thumb: “When you look at images, you should think about, ‘How hard would this be to do?’”

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Recently in the news a few photographs were taken of a supposed one hundred foot long snake swimming up the rivers in Borneo. This snake is said to be Borneo’s version of the Loch Ness Monster but the photos themselves can actually be of anything, including a photoshop job. One photo shows the snake happily swimming in the Baleh River, while the other photo reveals the snake peering above the waters off the coast of Borneo near a small fishing village. If this snake is real, exactly what kind of snake might it be?

It is possible this snake can be a a real water serpent, as some reptiles tend to live in water such as the alligator. Or it could be an eel, mistaken for a sea serpent, as the natives believe to see every now and then. It can even be an entirely new species of snake, for all the scientists know. Not too long ago a fossil of a 45 foot long snake was discovered in Colombia in South America. Given the tropical climate of that part of the world, it is not unusual for a snake to attain such a gargantuan size. The Brazilian rain forests are known for their anacondas, even though these snakes are nowhere near a hundred feet long.

Those who live on the island of Borneo have even given the monster a name - Nabau - making it feel more at home and giving them a bit of notoriety. Every culture deserves to have some legend to call their own, even if it bears a similarity to a legend in a loch located in the United Kingdom.

Looking at the photos again and again, soon the reputed snake ceases to be real. It looks like someone manipulated the creature, if there was one, in the area when the photos were being taken. It looks to smooth to be a curved branch just flowing with the water current down the river and off the coast. The village doesn’t look too lively but it is of course possible everyone there was elsewhere or taking a nap.

If the photos were manipulated, the most likely creature that got stretched was an eel. Eels are common in warm bodies of water so it wouldn’t surprise me if some Indonesian eel had his photo snapped when he wasn’t looking. At least it gives the people in Borneo something to talk about and it puts the island on the map.

associatedcontent.com/article/1495839/the_borneo_monster_fact_or_fiction.html?cat=9

Have you ever wondered why the yeti and Bigfoot rumors continue to stay around? So did I until I spent over a year researching the field of Crypto zoology which is the study of animals which fall outs ide of contemporary zoological catalogs. This is the first article of many to come, in later articles I will go into detail on different well known specimens and others that haven’t cracked pop culture yet.

Why do humans love to believe things are real, is it our fascination with the unknown or our fear of not knowing something in the world around us? Crypto zoologists study what is often referred to as cryptids which was coined in 1983 by john Hall. This field is often given little to no attention by the scientific community because of the fact that crypto zoologists study animals that aren’t scientifically proved. Most of the time there isn’t a single photo to go along with these accounts just stories from local natives or eyewitnesses.

Most experts on the matter consider the Bigfoot legend to be a combination of folklore and hoaxes. Although occasionally of the crypto accounts aren’t left as stories. The Mountain gorilla was once thought of to be local folklore of native African peoples living among the mountainous region of Africa until it was physically discovered in 1902. This is a rare case where a previous cryptid was found to be a living breathing animal in the eyes of zoologists. Other examples include the coelacanth, the okapi and the giant squid.

It may be just our human instinct to question our surroundings but is there truth to these tales or have some previously thought extinct animals made their way back from the evolutionary graveyard. We fear what we don’t know and what we can’t understand and for many these animals or legends pose a challenge for our human instinct. We cannot allow our thoughts and opinions to shroud our judgment. When we allow our minds to freely think we obtain a greater amount of enlightenment.

associatedcontent.com/article/1406046/

crypto_zoology_the_study_of_the_unknown.html?cat=2

A COUPLE enjoying a romantic weekend in the Highlands believe they may have had a close encounter with the Loch Ness Monster.

Experts are now investigating this latest photograph, which was taken by accident, to establish if it is in fact the Loch’s most famous resident.

Ian Monckton, from Solihull, took his fiance Tracey Gordon to a cottage in Invermoriston on the shores of the loch to celebrate her 30th birthday.

On their way back to the village at about 11pm they pulled into a lay-by. The driver’s window was wound down and before the couple stopped their car they heard a commotion in the water.

Using the car headlights and the flash from his camera to check their footing on the rocky shores of the loch, data analyst Ian unwittingly recorded this picture which he hopes could be the elusive monster.

“There is clearly a very large shape in the water that looks aquatic a few metres out from where I was standing and you just see the tips of the trees lower down the slope to the loch in the photo,” said Ian who has passed the picture to naturalist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness Project to get his expert opinion.

“Myself and Tracey were always quite sceptical about Nessie but after having had this experience I would say we now have a very open mind on the matter.

“It was the highlight of our trip. We’ll definitely be back and we are struggling to get an explanation for what we caught on camera.”

Ian said the pictures were taken from a small cliff overlooking the loch. But it was only when they got back to their country retreat and checked the images they realised they significance of the what they had on their digital camera.

Ian said it was his first visit to Loch Ness and the weather was reasonably clear with only a light breeze.

“We decided to get away for a few days to celebrate Tracey’s birthday and because it was off season we headed up to Drumnadrochit for a meal.

“On our way back to Invermoriston we stopped off at Urquhart Castle to take a few photos, but the lights that illuminate the castle were turned off, so there were no photo opportunities there.

“Then we pulled over at a parking point to let a car pass, as my fiancé doesn’t drive as fast as the locals in the dark.

“I had the passenger window open as I was smoking at the time and as we pulled into the lay-by there was an rustling and a splash. It sounded as if a Mini had landed in the water. That’s how loud it was.

“We both looked at each other and I said ‘What the hell was that’? It wasn’t a small splash like a piece of debris or a stone falling into the loch. It sounded like a car or a motorbike had rolled into the loch.

“I got out of the car and walked up to the edge using the light from the car headlights to see where the edge of the loch dropped away and taking snaps with the camera so the flash let me see we where to tread.”

The couple called out to see if anyone was there, or in trouble in the loch but couldn’t hear anything apart from the water splashing around in the loch.

“After a while we continued back to Homewood, both wondering what the hell we had heard and joking about Nessie,” Ian added.

“However, when we looked back at the photos I had taken up to and looking over the cliff we now genuinely believe there is something in this, there is clearly a very large shape in the water that looks aquatic a few metres out from where I was standing and you just see the tips of the trees lower down the slope to the loch in the photo.”

Mr Shine, who has spent years researching the natural history of the Loch and the Great Glen and is the leader of the Loch Ness Project, commented: “We have been sent material and will be doing some on site investigations. There’s not enough information on the image to hazard a guess what it could be. However, the account sounds not inconsistent with an animal such as an otter going into the loch.”

Mikko Takala, who runs a webcam network for Nessie watchers worldwide, receives thousands of “Nessie sightings” every year as photos and videos.

He too has analysed the photograph and concludes it may be a dead fish.

“Obviously this photo is taken in the dark and camera flashes can accentuate details that would otherwise be barely noticeable in daylight conditions.

“I think this is probably a dead fish – maybe a flatfish.”

highland-news.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/5121