Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World - Episod 6 - The Monsters of the Lakes
Tales of gigantic monsters lurking in more than 70 lakes around the world, such as: Nessie in the Loch Ness, Scotland, and Ogopogo in the Okanagan Lake, Canada. After considering the accounts and evidence, the question of believability concerning Loch Ness as well as the entire collection - he weighs the possibilities: Fact or hoax or merely mistaken identity. Originally broadcast in September 1980, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World brought an innovative approach to exploring natural and supernatural phenomenon.
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00:00Is there really a monster in Loch Ness? Does this film, shot in 1936 but lost until today,
00:27really show the creature? And does this film, shot 41 years later, mean the monster is still
00:33lurking there today? Is that what Alex Campbell has seen more times than anyone else alive?
00:43Mysteries from the Files of Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001 and inventor of the communication
00:49satellite. Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, after a lifetime of science, space and writing,
00:55he ponders the riddles of this and other worlds.
01:00The monster of Loch Ness is so famous that it's eclipsed all its rivals. Yet there are reports
01:07of strange and often very large creatures looming up out of at least 50 other lakes throughout the
01:13world.
01:43Lake Okanagan, western Canada, 130 miles long, 800 feet deep, and apparently abode of one of the
01:52world's most frequently glimpsed monsters, Ogo Pogo. Today Ogo Pogo's the star of a phone-in
02:06on local radio station CKOV in Kelowna.
02:16Good morning and welcome to Ovi's Open Line Program. I do believe that's what's going on
02:20in here this morning. Therese, how are you? I'm fine, thank you. We're talking about the Ogo Pogo
02:25today. A lot of people in the area have seen it. The legend goes on for many years and we'll be
02:31talking to some experts. I believe we've got Arlene Gall coming in. Arlene wrote a book on it.
02:35That's right. But we're going to go to the phone lines right now. Line two, good morning. Hello
02:40there. Mr. Pugliese. Yes, go ahead sir. You want to know about Ogo Pogo? I certainly do. Yeah, okay.
02:48I had a taxi and I took a passenger to the hospital and then I was coming down Abbott Street.
02:56And I got far as about here. I looked at the lake. I was surprised. I seen this thing come
03:03out of the water. Well, it's like a like a horse's head with the kind of horns on it.
03:10Well, he was huge, you know, standing up there. Oh my, just like a, you know, like a big serpent.
03:20Then another fellow come behind me and he says, what are you looking at? He says, I said,
03:23see no Ogo Pogo over there. And he says, where, where? Over there, he says. I had the door open
03:30the car and I stepped out just a little bit and he slipped back in the water, see. And he said,
03:38gee, look at the big, big waves there. And all we can see is big waves going back and forth.
03:44Big waves there. And all we can see is big waves going down there to Fred's place where he had the
03:51boat, boat rental. And they disappeared, see. And then, and then I got all excited. I got in the
03:59car and I pulled the willow in and I told the people, I says, they were having breakfast.
04:04I just seen Ogo Pogo. And they says, what the heck you been drinking, eh?
04:09Line four, go ahead, please. Hello, John.
04:11How are you? I'm not too bad.
04:13Good. Are you going to give me your name?
04:15No, I'm not.
04:16Okay. Tell me about the...
04:18I saw Ogo Pogo off of Sarson's about four years ago.
04:22Okay. You don't want to give your name on the air.
04:24No, I don't.
04:25You've told some people, obviously.
04:27Yes.
04:28Are you afraid that they might think you're a little bit of a...
04:31Well, I had some strange phone calls and...
04:35I get them every day. That's what they pay me for.
04:38Well, I don't get paid for them, so I don't really want any more, thank you.
04:43We were up in the beach having a picnic and my daughter was on the swings
04:47when I saw this creature underneath the wharf there.
04:53And when I turned around and saw it and realized that it was the legendary Ogo Pogo,
05:00I just freaked out. I just ran, I grabbed the baby and ran down to the beach and
05:06I guess I yelled over and over, that's him.
05:09She was screaming like anything, she just couldn't believe it.
05:12Her face was red and it was fishing or whatever it was doing
05:16and it was there for quite some time.
05:19Then it straightened out and went along those poles
05:23and as it traveled along, just the three humps were showing
05:29and they were from one end of those poles to the other in the space, the three humps were.
05:34It traveled along the beach till about the corner over there
05:39and then it turned and went straight across the lake.
05:46Now I would hesitate to go on the lake because it's such a huge thing
05:50that I think it could tip a boat over.
05:53And not being a swimmer, I would drown, so I don't, I haven't been on the lake since.
05:59All right, we're going to break from the phone calls right now
06:00and introduce to you someone that's well known in the Okanagan Valley, Arlene Gall.
06:04Arlene has written a book on the Ogopogo.
06:07Good morning, Arlene.
06:07How are you?
06:08Good morning, John.
06:08Morning, Trace.
06:09Morning, Arlene.
06:10How many sightings have you documented?
06:12Literally hundreds, literally hundreds.
06:14When was the first sighting?
06:16The very first sighting was in 1852, the first documented sighting in 1852.
06:21Okay, 1852 and it's now 1980.
06:25Do we take it to mean that there must be more than one Ogopogo?
06:29There definitely appear to be more than one.
06:31There has been a film that was made and I think it was back in 1968.
06:34It's pretty hard not to believe when you see it right in front of your eyes.
06:37Tell us about that film this morning.
06:39The Foulden film was taken in 1968 by a gentleman by the name of Art Foulden.
06:44He was returning from a trip to his home in Chase
06:48and as he neared Peachland area, he spotted an object out on the lake
06:52and he said to his wife, look, there's Ogopogo and she laughed at him
06:56and he got out and started filming the creature.
06:59And what we see in the film is a large animate object moving through the water,
07:05surfacing and submerging at various speeds and at various times.
07:10And it also shows the creature taking off at very high speed producing a massive wake.
07:17And this is the footage in the film that I like very much
07:20because you see a creature just pushing water something terrifically
07:24with a massive wake in front just creating a huge wave action.
07:29This is believability on my part.
07:32Have there been any recent sightings?
07:34We've had approximately seven to eight sightings this year,
07:37but we have one that has been the very best sighting.
07:40Why?
07:41It was the Rieger family.
07:44It was a beautiful day.
07:45The water was just as calm as glass and I just took a look across.
07:49I could see a big wave coming and at that time I just didn't take much notice of it
07:55and it kept coming closer and I thought to myself,
07:58why would there be a wave coming if there's no wind or anything?
08:03So I called to my son.
08:04I says, come on back here.
08:05And I says, take a look and see if you think what the heck's coming down the lake here.
08:11So he took a look at it and he says, gee, I don't know.
08:14So we had his grandson.
08:15My grandson was along too.
08:17And he said, hey, grandpa, he says, that's the Ogopogo.
08:21It would have ran right into us, but we had to wear the boat off alongside.
08:24And then we followed it alongside for about, oh, maybe 15 to 20 minutes.
08:30And I'd say the monster was possibly 14 to 16 feet long,
08:33which was above water, sticking above about three feet.
08:37And had quite a hump on the front shoulders and a hump on the back where the tail went.
08:41And I'd say the tail was approximately, oh, probably 30, 40, maybe 50 feet,
08:46because we couldn't see the end of it.
08:48But he did have a long tail.
08:49He had four legs.
08:50And I say the monster weighed approximately maybe 30 ton.
08:55And his head in the front was moving from side to side.
09:03It seemed like he was looking for fish or feeding or something like that.
09:10And he was steering up a tremendous amount of water.
09:14If I would have never seen it, I would have never believed it.
09:16And actually, I don't care if anybody believes me or not.
09:18But I seen this animal.
09:20I know it's here.
09:21I know it's a tremendous sized animal.
09:26That's it for today.
09:27Thank you so much for participating in the program.
09:29We're on tomorrow morning at 8.30.
09:30Have yourself a safe day.
09:32I'm John Michaels.
09:33Bye-bye.
09:39Across the world, the lakes that boast monsters also attract posses of intrepid pursuers.
09:45Ready to take to the water at the drop of a hat.
09:49In Loch Ness, Ivor Newby plus his Amphicar.
10:01In Lake Okanagan, a midnight vigil by 60 divers in search of Ogopogo.
10:06There have been red submarines, yellow submarines.
10:10A big game hunter, forearmed with a monstrous cage.
10:14In Sweden, a trap for the monster of Lake Storsja, baited with a pig.
10:19And in Japan, Sake to inebriate Issy, the monster in Lake Ikeda.
10:24And the reigning Miss Hibiscus to inaugurate an Issy observatory
10:29with round-the-clock surveillance.
10:35Oddly, almost all the world's known monster lakes lie away from the tropics.
10:40Even the shallow waters of Loch Ree in Ireland would appear to have a mysterious occupant.
10:46Witness the testimony of three men of the cloth in a boat out one evening in May 1960.
10:53Father Burke, Father Murray, and Monsignor Quigley.
10:58We were lulling about in the boat, doing nothing,
11:02hoping for a breeze to come up, that we could do a bit of fishing at the night rise.
11:07When suddenly, Father Quigley said,
11:09Father Quigley said,
11:11Do you see what I see?
11:14What do you see?
11:16Look over there, Sissy.
11:18So I looked.
11:22I think there's something on top of the water.
11:25Hump, head out of it.
11:31Moving slightly to our right, slowly.
11:35And I remember saying,
11:37What the hell is it?
11:40It wasn't, if it was a fish, you'd see some kind of commotion on the surface.
11:45Or if it was a needle-like thing, you'd see a kind of wriggle.
11:48But there was nothing at all.
11:49It could have been the periscope of a little submarine.
11:52My reaction was one of astonishment, because I knew that it was a very large creature.
12:01Larger than any fish that could have been in the lake.
12:05Afterwards, we discussed the matter, and, well, we agreed that it was something in the nature of a large serpent.
12:22They said we had been indulging too liberally or something, that we were seeing strange creatures on the water.
12:30Well, I can say quite honestly that we didn't have a single thing in the way of nourishment on that particular day.
12:38If it was a crocodile, an Irish crocodile.
12:42But the rarely seen beast of Loch Ree is China's personified, beside the granddaddy of all the lake monsters.
12:55Here is the most unusual film of recent years,
12:58for it proves the existence of a monster in Loch Ness.
13:02The loch is 21 miles long, one and a half miles broad, and 900 feet deep.
13:07The crosses on this diagram reveal where it is stated that the monster has been most frequently seen in the past.
13:12The arrowheads indicate where it has been seen on the road and shore.
13:15And this is the point our cameramen were stationed at when, after a long and arduous vigil, they actually filmed it.
13:22Through our telescopic lenses, we saw the grey water suddenly heave as the monster cut through them with lightning speed.
13:29Climatic conditions and exposure day and night to bleak and stormy weather affected our film, which accounts for the misty results.
13:40But this is unimportant in comparison to the achievement of filming the monster itself for the first time in history.
13:46This film was taken in 1936, two years after a London surgeon, R Kenneth Wilson, snapped the most famous Loch Ness picture of them all.
13:55Also in 1934, this strange photograph.
13:58Is it a flipper?
14:00Metal worker Hugh Gray took this after church one Sunday.
14:04And in 1951, Lachlan Stewart's classic picture of the humps.
14:08Does this dawn picture show a monster or a wave?
14:13Is this the monster's flank or just a fake?
14:17And does this 1977 picture show the monster's head and neck?
14:22Fifty years of photographs have served only to deepen the mystery, yet the eyewitnesses are insistent.
14:28In this boat, a handful of the 3,000 people who've now reported seeing the monster.
14:33Alex Campbell, water bailiff on the Loch for 47 years, who believes he's seen it 18 times.
14:39Peter McNabb, a banker from Irvine who took a famous picture in 1955.
14:44Accountant Peter Smith and his wife Gwen from Luton, who in 1977 took the most recent film.
14:50I was stunned.
14:51Taken aback.
14:52Shut my eyes three times to see that I wasn't imagining things.
14:56And then the head, neck.
15:01Huge hump body.
15:03Perfectly clear without any doubt.
15:06And I knew right away that that creature was scared because of its behaviour.
15:12The head was growing like that.
15:14Quite, well, fantastic.
15:18And then I realised, it realised itself.
15:22The trawlers were present.
15:24As soon as the bow of the first trawler came within my line of vision,
15:28naturally it was within its line of vision.
15:33Oh, heavens.
15:35Plunged.
15:37Out of sight.
15:38Gone.
15:39Well, I estimated the length of the body, 30 feet at least.
15:43The height of the head, neck above water level, six feet.
15:51And the colour of the skin was grey.
15:54I saw something beginning to surface.
15:58And in a state of very great excitement, took down the camera, fitted on the long focus
16:03lens without looking at anything.
16:04By the time I looked up, this creature was showing a black, undulating, or rather a dark
16:12coloured, undulating creature.
16:15A live creature.
16:16I lifted the camera, took this shot, which was naturally rather hazy because I had to
16:23hold this long focus camera.
16:25There was camera shake, excitement, and all the rest.
16:28In the picture is the tower of Urquhart Castle.
16:32I understand it's a 40 feet high tower, which gives an excellent impression of the
16:37overall length of the monster.
16:39It's been estimated at between loosely 30 and 40 feet.
16:43Before I could get a second shot or anything else, as far as I remember, because it's all
16:47hazy now with the excitement, it was gone.
16:52Well, we were standing on the south shore of the lock, somewhere up here, looking across
16:57the lock.
16:57Peter was looking down at an oil drum somewhere further down, and I was looking across at
17:02the castle, just having a look at it.
17:04And this thing suddenly came vertically up out of the water.
17:07My first impression was of a periscope-like object, which had a slight lean to it in the
17:12water, although the head part seemed to be held horizontally.
17:16It appeared to rise up a considerable height, at least the height of a man.
17:22And it was, I would say, a good foot thick.
17:25With the naked eye, it was just a black pillar shape with a rectangular shaped head on the
17:30top.
17:31At one point, I watched it actually turn its head through about 90 degrees, because normally
17:38it was in profile, but the head slowly turned round until it appeared as though it was either
17:43looking directly at us or directly away from us.
17:46And when it did this, it appeared to be the same thickness as the neck.
17:49It disappeared as a separate entity, and then it turned back again in the same way as before.
17:54I have no doubt that the eyewitnesses have seen and indeed photographed something quite
17:59real, but it could have been a school of fish, the wake of a boat, seabirds, a seal.
18:06Many possibilities have been suggested.
18:09The trouble is, it's very easy to be mistaken.
18:12For example, this looks like the most famous Loch Ness monster photo ever made, but actually
18:19it was taken right here.
18:20We're at the entrance of Trincomalee Harbour.
18:23Believe it or not, an elephant used to swim across this opening, and the island on the
18:28right is called Elephant Island for that reason.
18:31Now, I'm not for a moment suggesting that any of the Loch Ness sightings were due to
18:35swimming elephants, but this does show how easily it is to be mistaken.
18:42But for all that, for half a century, the lure of Loch Ness has inspired men to come
18:47Most dedicated of all the sleuths, Tim Dinsdale, once an aeronautical engineer, now a veteran
18:53of 20 summers living afloat on the Loch, with some classic monster tales in his locker.
18:58I saw an object about 250 yards away, as near as I can guess, which came out of the water.
19:05At first, I thought it was a cormorant's neck, but then, of course, you could see that it
19:09wasn't a cormorant because it was too big, and it came out like a black snake.
19:12Like a black anaconda, that's what it looked like.
19:14It came out of the water like that, and then it went down, and there was a boil of white foam.
19:19And then it broke surface once again with a boil, and went on.
19:23I didn't see it again.
19:24Very quick seconds, but it was real, and it had a startling effect on me, as it does, I think,
19:30when you get moderately close to these things, it suddenly becomes tremendously alive.
19:34And the first thing I did was put my life jacket on, and I went down, and I saw a black snake.
19:40And the first thing I did was put my life jacket on.
19:42You see, I don't normally wear one because you can't live in them, quite frankly.
19:45I've got them around, but the first thing I did was put it on.
19:49Dinsdale's lonely vigil on the loch began on April the 23rd, 1960.
19:53He was driving along the shore when something caught his eye.
19:56I saw this immense, extraordinary object, looked like a back of a huge animal.
20:01Reddish-brown, it stood two or three feet out of the water, four or five feet across,
20:06probably nearly as long as this boat.
20:09Quite motionless, reddish-brown, and a blotch on the left flank, which I could see very clearly.
20:15And then, while I was watching it, it started to move.
20:18Most electrifying moment.
20:19This huge thing started to surge away across the water.
20:23And I turned the camera, and I shot about 40 feet of black and white film at extreme range,
20:29but nevertheless, it was on film.
20:31This hump going across the water made a huge, glassy wake, no prop wash visible.
20:37And then it approached the far shore, and then turned to 90 degrees and progressed under the surface,
20:43throwing up a wave which has since been measured on the film at a height of about two feet.
20:47In 1966, the Royal Air Force long-range photographic experts studied the film,
20:53and they said the film is not faked.
20:56It's taken from the, approximately, the place stated at Loch Ness,
20:59which is about 300 feet up on the shore.
21:01The object seen is neither a surface boat nor a submarine.
21:05It moves up to a speed of 10 miles an hour, and a cross-section through it,
21:10a sausage slice, would be six feet in width,
21:13and as three feet of it is above the surface, they estimate it will be at least two feet below.
21:18And finally, they said, we think it is probably animate, alive.
21:23If there is a monster in Loch Ness, it now has much more than the camera to steer clear of.
21:29The high technology team, led by Roger Parker, leave their shoes on the shore to reduce noise,
21:34when they go stalking with their ultra-sensitive underwater surveillance gear.
21:39Their launch is stacked with 40,000 pounds worth of top-notch gadgetry.
21:43The camera is equipped with a high-tech camera system,
21:47Their launch is stacked with 40,000 pounds worth of top-notch gadgetry.
21:52Not just cameras, but microphones, hydrophones,
21:55machines for monitoring disturbances of the mud on the bottom,
21:59and most significant of all, sonar, as Roger Parker explains.
22:03It's quite famous, this particular instrument we have before us,
22:08as we did, in fact, on our very first visit to the loch,
22:11record a large animal in excess of 43 feet in length.
22:17And we had it, in fact, on this screen here for over one and a half hours.
22:23The particular animal that we detected, being, although it was large,
22:29had in its shadow what appeared to be a baby.
22:32And a baby, I mean a mere 20 feet.
22:35On the second sighting of two smaller ones, which was some nights later,
22:38we recorded these on 60 millimeter color film during the night.
22:45But on the sonar screen, they can be seen quite closely together,
22:49representing like a series of joined dots,
22:53which, of course, is the reflective pulses from the transmitted signal
22:58from the sonar transmitter.
23:00They are both fairly close together, as can be seen,
23:04and we firmly believe by the sheer echo and by the nature of the signal received,
23:11they must be large animate objects.
23:14In actual fact, the termination of that long-term and most interesting encounter
23:20was the fact that somebody in a local yacht, presumably on holiday,
23:25was unaware of the excitement we were having
23:28and decided to use the loo at around about sort of half past five in the morning.
23:34So you gather one thing from that, that Nessie doesn't like flushing toilets.
23:38But it's American lawyer Bob Rinds who has come closest
23:41to proving the monster exists using strobe cameras.
23:45When these cameras are suspended in the water and are taking pictures,
23:50normally they are rather steady
23:52because there aren't very many underwater currents in Loch Ness.
23:56And we did have a rare episode once in 1975
24:00when we think one of the animals started disturbing our whole rig.
24:05And it bumped into it, knocked it, turned it upside down,
24:08and the camera pointed up towards the surface, took a picture of the boat.
24:12And all of a sudden, in one frame, we took a picture.
24:15We think that is of the open mouth and head of one of these animals.
24:20That's a picture that's pretty difficult to say what it is
24:23because it doesn't look like what most zoologists expected
24:27from the kind of animal they think the Loch Ness monster may be.
24:31But that's the data.
24:32It's the true data.
24:33And that's the picture that was taken.
24:35Then came the startling head, neck, and flipper shots of 1975.
24:40We think we're looking at an animal that may be from 30 to 50 feet long,
24:45has a long neck, very powerful neck, probably a small head.
24:53Flippers, at least some of which are somewhat diamond-shaped and a powerful tail.
24:58And we'd like the zoologist to put the name on that.
25:03As a lawyer, I can quote what some of our British barristers have told us,
25:07that if the Nessie story had been a murder case,
25:10there'd have been a hanging long since.
25:17Frankly, I'm much more skeptical of lake monsters than of sea monsters
25:22because lakes, after all, are fairly small bodies of water.
25:26There are plenty of eyewitnesses around them.
25:28And if these creatures come up to breathe, why aren't they seen more often?
25:32And if even the Japanese can't catch them, can they really exist?
25:56So