Retired Detective Insists 50 Year Old Loch Ness Monster Footage Authentic
The footage, shot by Tim Dinsdale in 1960, is one of the best-known images put forward as evidence by those who insist on the existence of the mysterious creature.
Now the insistence of those who believe in Nessie that the film is genuine has been lent new weight after Mr Dinsdale claimed he had seen the monster with his own eyes on two occasions.
Mr Dinsdale Sr, an aeronautical engineer in the RAF who died in 1987, was one of the world's leading Nessie-hunters, making 56 expeditions to Loch Ness and writing a number of books on the subject.
When his footage was sent to the RAF for analysis, experts determined that the mysterious shape seen moving around in the water was neither a boat nor a submarine, but an "unknown inanimate object".
Simon, his son, is determined to convince the public the video is authentic and discussed his belief in the mysterious monster in an interview with the BBC, to be broadcast on Monday.
He said: "I saw this immense, extraordinary object, it looked like the back of a huge animal.
"It stood two or three feet (0.6m to 0.9m) out of the water, four or five feet (1.2m to 1.5m) across, reddish brown and had a blotch on the left flank which I could see very clearly.
"And then it started to move – a most electrifying moment."
Mr Dinsdale Jr, who spent his career examining evidence and was involved in tracking down serial killer Steve Wright in Ipswich, is adamant the film can not be a hoax.
He said: "I'm experienced at looking at evidence and I can tell you that on the balance of probabilities there is something large and unknown living in this loch."
Speculation over the possible existence of an enormous monster living underwater in the Loch began in 1933 when George Spicer reported the first modern sighting of the beast.
Mr Spicer claimed he and his wife saw "a most extraordinary form of animal" some 4ft (1m) high and 25ft (8m) long crossing the road 20 years from the loch.
Many people over the years have claimed to have conclusive evidence that the monster exists, only to find their arguments rejected by the public at large.
The most famous was a photograph published in 1934, supposedly taken by Dr Robert Kenneth Wilson, showed a head and long neck apparently belonging to a large animal in the middle of the lake.
It was the subject of feverish debate for 60 years before finally being exposed as a hoax in 1994, when Christian Spurling confessed to having fitted a toy submarine with a false head before photographing it and passing the picture to Dr Wilson.
**********
Mystery: Body Fell From Plane
NYTimes - A North Carolina teenager whose body was found in a Boston suburb last month had most likely stowed away inside a plane’s wheel well and fallen as it lowered its landing gear, the authorities said Friday.
The remains of the youth, Delvonte Tisdale, 16, were found in a quiet neighborhood in Milton, Mass., on Nov. 15, below a flight path to Logan Airport.
“It appears more likely than not that Mr. Tisdale was able to breach airport security and hide in the wheel well of a commercial jet airliner without being detected by airport security,” William R. Keating, Norfolk County district attorney, said at a news conference on Friday afternoon.
Mr. Keating said he had alerted federal authorities and the airport in Charlotte, N.C., where the teenager is believed to have gotten on the flight, about the events. While the case is a sad one, Mr. Keating said, it also underscores fears that someone with malicious intent could do the same thing.
“It’s a terrible tragedy what happened to this young man, but if that was someone with a different motive,” he said, “if that was a terrorist that could have been a bomb that was planted, undetected. This is very serious.”
Mr. Keating said the authorities had searched two airplanes that left Charlotte for Boston on Nov. 15, and found handprints in the left wheel well of a Boeing 737 that was scheduled to leave Charlotte Douglas International Airport at 7 p.m. that day.
“As they looked at the grease, they saw what I describe as lateral impressions that showed there was someone in there. There was a handprint in an area where it ordinarily wouldn’t be,” Mr. Keating said.
“I don’t pretend to tell you how he did it,” Mr. Keating said, noting that Delvonte was an Air Force R.O.T.C. student.
Clothing that matched a description that Delvonte’s family had given the authorities was found in Milton along the flight path, Mr. Keating said, and a plastic card — the type one uses to get into a hotel room — was found shattered.
“The altitudes were very high, and it gets very cold,” Mr. Keating said. “That card was shattered into such tiny pieces that it was consistent with something that had been frozen and shattered.”
The authorities initially believed that Delvonte had been murdered, and impounded two cars they thought to be suspicious. But in recent weeks, officials began investigating the possibility that the teenager had stowed away on an airplane.
“This was something that sounded quite remote, that someone could breach security aboard a commercial jet,” Mr. Keating said. “Again we look at every possibility.”
The authorities were at first flummoxed as to how the teenager had made it from North Carolina to Massachusetts so quickly. Delvonte was last seen around 1 a.m. Nov. 15 in Charlotte, and his body was found less than 24 hours later in Milton. A neighbor in the Milton neighborhood reported hearing a loud thump outside around 9 p.m.; the authorities said the plane landed minutes later.
Federal and state authorities continue to investigate the case, Mr. Keating said.
“I suspect,” he said, “that there will be a lot of scrutiny into this.”
**********
Declassified Papers Show U.S. Recruited Ex-Nazis
After World War II, American counterintelligence recruited former Gestapo officers, SS veterans and Nazi collaborators to an even greater extent than had been previously disclosed and helped many of them avoid prosecution or looked the other way when they escaped, according to thousands of newly declassified documents.
The Nazi officer Klaus Barbie escaped to Bolivia; he and others got American help.
With the Soviet Union muscling in on Eastern Europe, “settling scores with Germans or German collaborators seemed less pressing; in some cases, it even appeared counterproductive,” said a government report published Friday by the National Archives. Continue reading at Declassified Papers Show U.S. Recruited Ex-Nazis
**********
Falling icicles kill record numbers in St. Petersburg
telegraph - Apartment block roofs have caved in under the weight of snow with water seeping into people's homes and damaging books in the Russian National Library.
But it is the unusually large number of people who have been struck by icicles that has caused the most concern.
In recent days, a six-month old baby received serious injuries after a chunk of ice dropped on her pram, an eight-year old boy suffered serious spinal damage after an icicle struck his back, and at least two people hit by falling ice are now in hospital fighting for their lives.
Valentina Matviyenko, the city's governor, has fired eleven officials accused of doing too little to keep the city's streets and rooftops free of snow and ice.
"Icicles should be removed with lasers or steam," she said. "If St. Petersburg experts throw up their hands and say that icicles should be removed using crowbars, then we will use crowbars."
Russians risk their lives each year as winter becomes spring causing melting icicles and blocks of ice to fall from roofs, often from a great height, onto defenceless pedestrians below.
Regional figures show icicles kill dozens of Russians each year. Local authorities responsible for regularly clearing roofs of snow and ice are usually blamed.
**********
Mona Lisa Mystery: Experts Say Painting Contains Tiny Numbers, Letters
670kboi - Lovers of the famous Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece Mona Lisa have been wondering about the secret behind those sly eyes for hundreds of years, but few, if any, ever thought they could contain an actual code. But that's the latest theory put forth by experts who claimed they have uncovered tiny letters and numbers hidden in the nameless model's pupils.
"To the naked eye, the symbols are not visible but with a magnifying glass, they can clearly be seen," Silvano Vinceti of Italy's National Committee for Cultural Heritage, told Britain's Guardian newspaper.
In the left eye is a tiny L and V which Vinceti said could simply be a secret initial signature by Leonardo da Vinci. It's the right eye, however, that leave experts and conspiracy theorists scratching their heads.
"It is very difficult to make them out clearly, but they appear to be the letters CE, or it could be the letter B," Vinceti said. Vinceti also said the number 72, or possibly and L and the number 2, are also visible in arch of the bridge that is seen in the background of the painting.
Among the theories as to what the message could be in the symbols, Vinceti said it's possible they could reveal the painting's model, one of the art world's greatest mysteries.
Vinceti is among a team of historians determined to discover the truth about the Mona Lisa, even if it means exhuming da Vinci's body. One popular theory holds that the model for the painting is actually da Vinci himself. Skull measurements could help experts determine exactly how similar the model and da Vinci may have looked.
