Seed Post 8 - Lake monster: Illusion?

Mysterious lake monsters, are baffling human mind since our culture adapted to learn about our mother nature. skeptics say there are no lake monsters, these are only mere illusions but are really they? Here I will illustrate the whole case including sighting details. Lake monsters have been reported through all over the world including China and some other Asian and European countries.
Now what skeptics says that they are mere illusion nothing else. What does that mean? Killing of real science? See, what skeptics say?
Skeptic’s case Here is a report of Joe Nickell of Skeptical inquirer. Actually, I feel that if we erred it was on the side of being too open-minded. Ben’s essay, “Eyewitness (Un)Reliability,” appeared as an appendix and simply demonstrated the fact that eyewitnesses are often mistaken. If further evidence is needed, consider a case that transpired in Rotterdam in 1978. A small panda had escaped from a zoo, whereupon officials had issued a media alert. Soon panda sightings—around one hundred in all—were reported across the Netherlands. However, a single animal could not have been in so many places in so short a time; in fact, no one had seen the panda, because it had been killed by a train when it reached railroad tracks near the zoo. How do we explain the many false sightings? The answer is, people’s anticipations led them to misinterpret what they had actually seen—a dog or some wild creature—as the escaped panda. (The publicity generated by the case may even have sparked some hoax calls [Nickell 1995, 43].) If such misperceptions could happen with pandas, surely they could also occur with aquatic cryptids.

[Image Detail: composite drawing of Ogopogo (top) is compared with otters swimming in a line]
Consider, for example, the experience of a senior wildlife technician with New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, Jon Kopp. As he explained to me, it had been dark and he was in a duck blind on a lake in Clinton County. Suddenly, he saw, heading toward him, a huge, snake-like monster swimming with a sinuous, undulating motion. As it came closer, however, Kopp realized that he saw not one creature but half a dozen—a group of otters swimming in a line diving and resurfacing to create the effect of a single, serpentine creature. “After seeing this,” Kopp said, “I can understand how people can see a ‘sea serpent’”.

Of course, otters are not responsible for all lake-monster sightings, any more than weather balloons are the only instigators of UFO reports. In fact, in Lake Monster Mysteries, I mentioned many possible culprits, such as sturgeon, gar, and other large fish; swimming animals like beavers; deer; long-necked birds; bobbing logs; clumps of dislodged lake-bottom debris; and additional possibilities, including wind sticks and boat wakes. Hoaxes are also possible, and there have been faked monsters on pulleys as well as phony photographs, like the celebrated Loch Ness monster photo, which was publicly revealed as a hoax in 1994.

In fact I tend to agree with his argument. As shown in above illustration it might be possible to misinterpret herds of fish and such other creatures specially when there is already a folklore in that area. The big issue is that skeptics deny them since There is a folklore in that area. The most vulnerable argument!
The case of Blurry Photographs:
When witnesses are asked to show the evidence of their sightings of lake monsters, they show their blurry photographs. These reports may be truth although there no solid proof including blurry photographs, but science can’t dismiss all eyewitness as it is quite possible that at the instant equipments were not available to be photographed. I think it is very difficult to take high quality and detailed photograph when such unknown and mysterious creature ,about which we have never listen nor seen, is before us. There are previously such creatures are present between us which were thought to be rumor till they were found, like gorilla which was reported as big meat eating monkey like creature, until it was found alive in 1847. The another example is komodo found alive in 1912 in some islands of indonesia. It was first reported as big ,fierce, meat eating lizard and scientists were discarding its witnesses. The another third is Coelacanth found alive in in 1938. Now it is known as “living fossil”. Then how we can discard all witnesses of such monsters including Loch Ness monster? It is quite possible these creatures may still alive in deep sea and we have no access to them technically. How much we know about deep see? There are critters which have been found about 600 feet below ice , clearly suggesting we have to know more than we know till now. Why to confine yourself just to search for known creatures. Without exploring the real phenomenon, directly depicting such creatures as myth is idiocy.
Searching Tactics
I’ve watched the discovery channel’s show quest for lake monsters in which they have explored the lake Tally. There are various flaws which prohibit the detection of such creatures. Many cryptozoologist like James Kirk search for them with their sonar which is not reliable however. Just see the image attached in the left. The red spot is showing the area covered by sonar. You can see in the image how small it is? There is a lot of volume for the lake monsters to hide themselves. They search for lake monsters just for one month(maximum), expecting that they would see the lake monster. Well, how they could expect that they would definitely encounter the lake monsters? Even local residents find themselves unable to see the creature once a month. Most sightings includes 10 sightings per year or so. Since a researcher can’t see a lake monster in after one month exploration so lake monsters do not exist, won’t be a pretty good argument. There are more than 10 million people who report sightings including literate persons, all are just haunted by illusion and hallucination and some who are not, they are just hoaxing. Just a few say that lake monsters do not exist and you should accept without using your own logic since they are prestigious researchers?


Are they survived Reptiles?
It may be possible that lake monsters are survived sea reptiles. Plesiosaurs were sea reptiles which lived in late Jurassic period and CRETACEOUS PERIOD. They adapted to live deep in the sea and have more survival versatility than crocks and perhaps they were more intelligent than crocks since they were possibly warm blooded(between warm blooded and cold blooded). So, it is not hard to accept that some of them have survived from K-T extinction crisis like Coelacanth and crocodiles. Possibly, Homo Sapiens are sighting them and they are not myth at all.