Lake Monster Mysteries (24 page)

As the first line of the Associated Press report read, “A father mistook his teenage son's black cap for a wild boar during a weekend hunting trip and shot the boy to death with his rifle.” Hunting accidents are fairly common, and, not being a hunter, I didn't pay much attention to the story at first. A tragedy, yes, but it had nothing to do with me or anything I could relate to. Or did it? As I read on, I realized that this was an excellent example of the fallibility of eyewitness testimony—the backbone of much cryptozoological research and evidence.

It was an accident, a terrible mistake, but there was more to it than that. The elder Plucknett mistook his son's black toboggan cap for a boar. This longtime hunter couldn't distinguish a piece of cloth less than a square foot wide from a living, full-size animal. Dennis Plucknett had years of experience, good vision, and a rifle scope. He believed he had a boar in his sights, instead of his son's head. Because someone called out “Hog,” Plucknett's mind was searching for a hog, and his
expectations clearly guided his perceptions. A small black cap became a hog in his mind.

A similar process occurs in lakes and woods where mysterious creatures are said to lurk. Waves, large fish, and logs are thus turned into lake monsters; bear, elk, or other creatures are turned into Bigfoot. The process is well documented, but many cryptozoologists insist that eyewitnesses are more reliable than they are. Monster researchers and writers often mention that an eyewitness is an upstanding member of the community (or a reverend, or a police officer), as if that somehow ensures against misidentification. Would such cryptozoologists argue that Mr. Plucknett is not an upstanding citizen, or that he is more likely to be mistaken than others?

We also see another common element of eyewitness identifications: overconfidence. Plucknett was absolutely certain about his identification; we can assume that there was no doubt in his mind that he had a boar in his sights. If he had been uncertain, he wouldn't have pulled the trigger. If he hadn't shot his son, if he had missed or the gun had misfired, he would probably still be absolutely sure that he had seen a boar, because it wouldn't have been proved otherwise. Now transfer this situation to a Bigfoot sighting in a wooded area or a monster sighting on a lake: A person sees something large and dark move in the woods or in the water. He turns and, for a few seconds, observes an unknown creature disappearing into the brush or into the lake. He's absolutely sure of his identification and reports it with total conviction and confidence to a researcher. Yet without a body or photograph to compare the description to, we can't be sure what he saw. All we have is a sincere, believable, convinced eyewitness. Yet eyewitnesses can be absolutely honest and certain—and dead wrong.

Mistaken or hoaxed eyewitness reports had terrible consequences in 2002 when snipers terrorized the Washington, D.C., area. Based on eyewitness descriptions, law enforcement agencies alerted the public to be on the lookout for suspects in a white box truck or white van. Fairly detailed descriptions were offered, including a roof rack. Thousands of vehicles were stopped and searched, jamming highways for miles. The focus on a white van intensified after the October 14, 2002, shooting
outside a store in suburban Virginia, when a man claimed to have seen the shooter standing next to a white- or cream-colored van. It was later revealed that the man had lied to police and made up the story.

At least one “eyewitness” lied, and others got it wrong. The snipers, John Lee Malvo and John Allen Muhammad, were found in a dark blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice. “We were looking for a white van with white people, and we ended up with a blue car with black people,” said D.C. police chief Charles H. Ramsey. In the end, the emphasis on the white van by both the police and the public almost certainly cost innocent lives. According to the
Washington Post,
the police had stopped the Caprice on at least ten separate occasions in the area of the sniper attacks, but it had been let go because it wasn't the white van that eyewitnesses had reported.

If eyewitnesses can be mistaken in these life-and-death cases, they're probably no more accurate in monster sightings and descriptions. This doesn't mean that all eyewitness accounts are mistakes, though many probably are, as most reputable cryptozoologists agree. But the psychological literature is clear and uncontested: we are all subject to misunderstandings, misperceptions, and mistakes, and we are all overconfident in those beliefs and perceptions. These cases can serve as an important lesson for investigators of all types, and cryptozoologists in particular. Can you always trust your eyes and perceptions? How sure can you be about what you see? Sure enough to take a life if you're wrong?

There is also a bias that leads to what's called a “file drawer effect”: sightings that seem mysterious at first but are quickly proved otherwise are only rarely reported. With few exceptions, researchers and investigators don't hear about eyewitnesses who were confident in their initial reports yet proved wrong.

Cases like that of Dennis Plucknett are examples of verified misidentifications. But they are only a small fraction of such cases and are notable for the fact that they were proved wrong and exposed. Logically and statistically, it stands to reason that for every case that makes the news or gets written up, dozens or perhaps hundreds of similar misidentifications aren't reported. Witnesses may feel silly admitting they were fooled or they may believe that their sightings aren't worth
reporting, since nothing unusual was discovered. If I realize that I've been fooled by a floating log or a strange wave, why would I bother to mention it to monster researchers? And even if I did, would they be interested and recognize the value in my report?

This fundamental—but rarely recognized—bias in eyewitness (and investigator) reporting naturally leads to a focus on the unexplained sightings, while the explained ones are ignored or downplayed. But to accurately understand eyewitness accounts, researchers can't pick and choose. They must consider
all
reports, focusing not just on the unidentified but also on the misidentified. Only with this scientific and statistical understanding does a valid picture emerge, demonstrating how easily we can misunderstand what we see.

Sandra Mansi's photograph of the Lake Champlain creature renewed popular interest in Champ, and it has been studied and discussed for almost thirty years. Some critics thought that it might be a waterfowl, a jumping fish, or possibly a floating log. I favored the last theory, yet no one had actually shown how a floating log could look like the image Mansi had captured. I took on the task and created an animated sequence that shows how a floating log might, from a certain angle, look like a rising and submerging lake monster.
Figures A.1 to A.5
are stills from that animated sequence.

Figures A.1 to A.5
Model of a tree trunk sculpted from clay to show one possible explanation for the object in the Mansi photograph. (Photos by Benjamin Radford)

Our primary source for images of the Lake Okanagan creature, Ogopogo, was Arlene Gaal, an invaluable resource and a tireless researcher. Gaal has collected photographs, videos, and sighting reports since she moved to Kelowna, British Columbia, in 1968. During our investigation, she shared her photos and videos with Joe Nickell, John Kirk, and me, as well as with the National Geographic producers, explaining picture by picture what each image suggested to her.

In 2004 several Ogopogo films were professionally analyzed for the SciFi Channel show
Proof Positive.
Although it was the most thorough and sophisticated computer analysis done to date, each film failed to provide good evidence for the monster. In one case, when the image was stabilized and compared to fixed objects in the background, the investigator concluded that the dark humps that appeared to be moving weren't moving at all. In another, the Ogopogo humps were misaligned in the water and therefore couldn't be from the same creature—suggesting waves or several small animals (perhaps beavers or otters) instead of one large monster. One video was interesting because of the eyewitnesses' disagreement about what it depicted; what one person described as “three very distinct humps,” another saw quite plainly as
waves
created by “something pushing the water up.”

One widely seen Ogopogo video shot by a man named Ken Chaplin became a local joke, with viewers pointing out that the “mystery creature” was obviously a beaver swimming with its head raised—the tail slapping the water was a telltale sign. John Kirk was “flabbergasted at how Chaplin could possibly have thought he captured Ogopogo on
tape. He had categorically stated that the animal was between nine and twelve feet long, but what we were seeing on the screen was obviously nowhere near that size.” One Kelowna resident told me that many local folks were embarrassed when the film was broadcast because it made them look like they didn't know a beaver when they saw one. (I pointed out that it was probably an honest mistake, and besides, it was an
American
TV show,
Unsolved Mysteries,
that had paid $30,000 for the most expensive beaver footage in history!)