Warm and Tender Love (Remastered 2014)

On the track is a web TV show about cryptozoology, natural history, green issues and whatever else the team feel like making up as they go along. Enjoy! So, what do we have in this episode, Mr John? Well, Henness, we start off with Richard Freeman and me on the shores of Loch Ness as we examine the latest alleged Loch Ness monster video, which it has been claimed provides definitive proof of the existence of the mythical beastie. Does it? Well, you're just going to have to wait and find out. And then we go to Australia with our old friend Ian Squibbs to take a look at one of the most notorious sea monster photographs, the Hook Island Sea Serpent. I really like the old credits. Well, Rossiter, how's that holiday going that you sent the kids from the Brixton Youth Outreach Group on? You sent them off on holiday, didn't you? Oh, yes. I sent them camping in Copenhagen. And what's happening with them now? Oh, Barry, they are on their way back to Brixton. And I made sure their flight was on a DC-10. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name's John Downs. I'm the director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology. And here, asleep in the cook of my elbow, is Lilith Tinkerbell, and she's a cat. And every Saturday afternoon, and every Wednesday evening, we bring you, if you like, a mélange of hard science, weird ----, and surreality. What's surreality? Well, you're just going to have to wait and see. They're waiting time over. Attack of the Martian Hitlers! Attack of the Martian Hitlers! Attack of the Martian Hitlers! Attack of the Martian Hitlers! Believe it or not, there are people who say that because Richard and I do things like attack of the Martian Hitlers, that we are bringing cryptozoology into disrepute. What I think brings cryptozoology into disrepute is not two men in late middle age pissing about, but it's the people who continue to tout pictures of blobs in the middle distance that could be anything as conclusive proof that the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot or whatever exists. I know that over the years I've been fairly scathing about some of the pictures that have been produced by the indefatigable Owen Old Fadigan. And I'm afraid some people are going to think I'm going to be doing the exact same thing now. But I know, in fact I'm absolutely certain, that Owen is a good bloke and believes implicitly in the images he has managed to get from the Loch Ness web scans. This is the latest of them and this by any standard is far better than his usual average images. But is it good enough to be what the Daily Mirror said, conclusive proof of the reality of the Loch Ness Monster? Check this out. The image quality of this piece of footage is really rather good and it does appear to show something small and low in the water moving along. And it does seem to be moving probably under its own steam as it were, although it isn't clear whether or not there are currents in the lake here which could give an inanimate object the appearance of being animate. Bizarrely, it reminds me of the first of the images produced by the notorious Frank Searle, whom Ian Squibbs, who we're going to have on the show in a minute, did a great in-depth examination of only a few weeks or months ago. And the tail on the rear end of this moving piece of footage that Owen O'Fadigan has taken looks remarkably like that on the first picture from Frank Searle. But is it conclusive proof that there is a giant creature living in Loch Ness? Well, as far as I'm concerned, no. But I'm now going to wake up Richard Freeman who is cuddling up with the dog on the sofa and we're going to debate the matter like gentlemen. So Richard, what do you think of Mr O'Fadigan's latest? How anybody can say that's conclusive proof of the Loch Ness Monster is completely beyond me. It's conclusive proof of a shape moving in the distance that could be just about anything from a floating log to a wave formation. Do you see the similarity between that and the first of Frank Searle's pictures? Yes. The first of Frank Searle's piss-poor pictures. The one that was a log. Yes, I think it was probably only one of the pictures that he didn't retouch or bugger about with at all. That doesn't mean to say that it was a monster of any kind. So, what do you think of this? Do you think this shows an inanimate object like a log? It's impossible to say. It could show a log or some debris being dragged along by an undercurrent. It could show some animal swinging at the surface. It could be a wave formation. We don't know. I know. I've done it. I've been there and haven't been a member of Her Majesty's Press. I suppose it's His Majesty's Press now. It's not actually something of which I'm particularly proud. But, although I don't mind ripping the almighty piss out of the Fourth Estate, I do object to the idea of being rude about the efforts of well-meaning fellows like Mr. O'Fadigan, who obviously is fascinated with the Loch Ness mystery and spends more hours than I think anybody else in the world scrutinising the webcams to see if he can see the monster. And I would hate to rain on his parade. I would hate to put him off and have him think, oh, well, that bugger on the track, he doesn't think any of my pictures are worth anything, so I'm going to give up. I don't want to do that at all. But I don't think that yet Mr. O'Fadigan has managed to produce images which are conclusive proof of the existence of the Loch Ness monster. But if and when conclusive proof is found, especially if it's found on the webcam, nobody deserves to find it more than Owen O'Fadigan, so keep on watching that webcam, boy. So, ladies and gentlemen, here we are again with our old friend Ian Scripps, who, as I'm sure you remember, went all around the shores of Loch Ness finding some of the places where the famous Loch Ness monster sightings and photographs took place. And he filmed it all and told us all about it, for your dedication here on track. And he's back today and he's talking about something which, totally by chance, was my first introduction to cryptozoology. So, welcome, Ian. Tell us all about what we have today. Well, thank you very much, John, and it's good to be back on CFZ TV. Anyway, so today we're going to talk about what I consider one of the classic sea monster encounters, mainly due to the striking images and photos that come with the sighting. So, without further ado, let's look at the Hook Island sea monster. So, a bit of background first. So, Hook Island is one of the Whitsunday Islands off the coast of the Australian state of Queensland. The island is almost uninhabited, quite rugged, and almost completely contained within the Whitsunday Islands National Park. The island is noted for its colourful underwater coral growths, which is popular with diving and snorkelling enthusiasts. In the summer of 1964, French photographer Robert Le Serec and his family purchased a motorboat and decided to stay on Hook Island for several months, joined by their Australian friend Henk de Jong. So, it's not the classic plesiosaur-type creature or the many-humped undulating monster. It's a bit of a different take on the sea serpent there, but, you know, it's certainly a good image. So, what do you make of it, John? That was the story that you came across when you lived in Hong Kong in 1967. What was your thoughts when you first saw the image? And all these years, I'd had the image of something with a round body and a squiggly tail at the back of it with an injured head. But when I saw it, my first thought was, it looked like an eel. And even then, I knew that the creature that Hogan's called a super eel was one of the well-known types of sea serpent. I thought, this actually looks far more convincing than most of the sea monster or lake monster footage I'd ever seen. There's one called the yellow belly as well, part of Hoogerman's classification, which has a big head and then a long tail. And maybe that's the closest you can compare this to the classifications of sea monster. But even so, big head, long tail, I thought it was quite a good image. You don't see it as much as you would think you would in Fortean literature, though you do come across it. I didn't come across the image until later in my reading. But anyway, what we'll do then, let's continue with the encounter. As the group moved closer to the creature, Le Serac and De Jong decided to jump into the water with the intent of filming the beast. As they approached the monster, they estimated that it was more like 75 to 80 feet long. Initially, they assumed the animal was dead, but as they got closer, the serpent opened its mouth and started moving towards them. Obviously startled, they returned to their boat. By the time they had reached the safety of the boat, the creature had fled. They reported seeing a wound on the right side of the creature. They surmised that it may have been wounded by a ship's propeller and had taken refuge in the shallow lagoon. Le Serac described the creature as follows. It was only when we got within 20 feet of the serpent that we could see its head clearly. The head was large, about 4 feet from top to bottom, with jaws about 4 feet wide. The lower jaw was flat, like that of a sandfish. The skin was smooth, but rather dull, brownish-black in color. The eyes seemed pale green, almost white. The skin looked more like that of a shark than an eel. There were no apparent scales, nor were there any parasites around. We suppose the flexible tail would have shaken any off. There were no fins or spines, nor were there any apparent breathing openings, although there must have been some. The general color of the body was black, 1 foot wide brownish rings every 5 feet, the first starting just behind the head. The skin was smooth, but dull. So there, that's what Le Chirac described. If we look at that, taken from the side, a different angle there. Now, I find that not as impressive as the first image, the more famous image, which is taken head-on and gives the creature a more of a dynamic appearance. Now, I'll tell you something very, very strange, because you have just said that the third image is the lesser-known one. Well, that's the image I've seen, that one. And I don't think I'd ever seen the first one. So, yeah, there we go. Anyway, so there are the photos he got on the story that Le Chirac had, you know, taken within there. So, anyway, Le Chirac's story and photos were first published in the March 1965 edition of Australia's Everyman magazine. I think it's probably a fake, but I'd like to know more about Le Chirac and what happened to him afterwards. Do we know where he was in Asia? No, just in Asia. I suppose if you really try and look into it and find out, then you can probably find where. But I would think he's probably dead now. This was 1964. He took the photo. So... Well, not necessarily. If he was, I don't know, in his 30s or 40s, that means he's only going to be in his 80s. I suppose so, yeah. But it depends where in Asia, because Asia is the biggest of the continents, so it could be anywhere from Vladivostok to Turkey. But unfortunately, I won't be doing that this time, as the encounter took place in Australia, so it's a bit of a hike. And it's a shame, really, because I did used to live in Australia many moons ago, but it never crossed my mind to take the time out to visit Hook Island and see if the monster was sitting around. But, however, I was able to visit the scene using the magic of Google Maps. So what I did was I studied the background of the first photo, and I could see the two small islands in the background. So you've got the creature in the foreground, then you've got the guy in the boat, and in the background, two small islands. So I located Stonehaven Bay, and there, in the distance, were two small islands. So if you go to the next photo there, John, I just sent you. That's just the final photo. You can have a look there. You know, that's really the spot. And there you go. That's what I found on Google Earth. And to think that it was on that stretch of water that the Hook Island monster lay all those years ago. And there you go. Thank you very much. You've got something long and straight in the foreground. Is there? Yes, on the water. Let's see. Well, yeah, so there is. So maybe the Hook Island monster was real, and it's returned to its lair. But, yeah. And it's got some sort of chameleon-like power, because the object that it is impersonating looks like it's a long, concrete, man-made something, rather. Yes. Maybe it's the son of the original monster come back. The return of the son. The original. The Charette killed the original monster by putting a diving tank in its mouth and then shooting it and makes it explode it. I'm sure. I'm sure. If you want to support us and help us make more content like these, please press like, subscribe, follow our Facebook page and check out our Patreon. And as the ghost of Joe Strummer, who's an ever more regular visitor to my little studio, wants me to remind you, always press the notification bell. Otherwise you won't be told when there's a new show to watch. And that would be an awful pity, wouldn't it? Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for watching. Here we are at the end of another episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd like to say a big thank you to everybody but for whom the show would not have been made. That is my little dog Archie, who is rattling the bangly thing on his collar and making an annoying noise, which happens on and off all the way through the show. I want to say a big thank you to Richard Freeman and to Ian Squibbs for being my guests this week. I want to say a big thank you to my producer, Louis, and to my carer and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Portrait and Zoology, Graeme Inglis. And, of course, I'd like to say a big thank you to Miss Shelley and Miss Judy, my two long-suffering housekeepers, and Miss Karen, my long-suffering secretary, but for whom I really wouldn't be able to function. So thank you to all of you. And I also want to send my love and good wishes and get-well-soons to Miss Maxine all the way in Southend-on-Sea, who isn't very well at the moment. But we're all hoping and praying for a swift recovery so she can come down and see us in the spring. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'll be back on Wednesday. Do I know what's in the Wednesday show? No. Because we've run out of the films that Richard took for us at the ASAP conference. I've got no idea what's happening on Wednesday. But there will be something on Wednesday at 6.30. And next Saturday there will be another show for me at 3.00. And what's going to be in it? You're just going to have to wait and see. So, are you ready, Mr. Macquillan? If you guys are all going to be there to watch, I'll be seeing you.