Hmmm well, we all knew that uploading a video of our experiences at the Lakes in Co.Kerry would attract comments of all different sorts, but I must admit that to read some of them has left me even more disgruntled with the human race than I was three days ago. Yes, we should all be able to take criticism, but I am not sure that we should take all insults lying down.
One comment accused Jon of being ‘just some old geezer rambling on and on and on’. Old? Is 50 years of age old? Several have stated, in a manner that can only be described as sarcastic, that we should try taking a tripod next time. Hmmm, well we were actually on holiday and had just stopped off at this well-known scenic view to take holiday snaps because our original plans had been thwarted by time overtaking us. We had not deliberately set out to take shots of strange goings on in the lakes – this was not a pre-arranged date with whatever it was – if we had arranged all this, yes we would have taken our tripod, lights and other filming paraphernalia. I can, perhaps, liken it to the trip to the supermarket Jon and I made yesterday, when we took a detour through a country lane rather than take the 'A' road, and came across a buzzard sitting on a telegraph pole which would have made an excellent photo and video as it flew away over the farmland. We both said out loud - darn I wish I had brought my camera. You simply cannot prepare for this kind of thing – it is impossible to do so because you are unaware that such a thing is going to occur.
There is the one who says the video is ‘booring!!!’ Was this a slip of the finger on the ‘o’ and ‘!’ on the keyboard or one of those weird modern extensions of a word that is supposed to make them more potent? Anyway, perhaps next time we will arrange a few car chases, explosions and some bikini clad young ladies doing a spot of juggling, accompanied, of course, by some mindless disco music in the background. Next time we go on holiday, we will hire a Winnebago and transport such extras just in case something like this happens again. Perchance then this viewer will find it ‘soooooooo much more excitinnnng!!!!!! LOL, PMSL’ . Imbecile.
However, out of all the mindless comments the one that incenses me the most is probably the ‘person’ that just had to introduce sex into the equation. ‘The only monster you saw old man was in Maxs pants, your so called 19 yr. old colleague’.
To insinuate that my husband is homosexual is – to my mind – actually not that funny. Call me old-fashioned, but that is certainly out of line. Don’t misunderstand me. I am, of course, not saying that being a homosexual is wrong. However, I am highly offended that this person seems to be suggesting that my husband is being unfaithful and is having some kind of relationship with Max. By the wording they are also suggesting that Max – the 19 year old we treat as a nephew - is a willing party to this suggested liaison.
I am not sure what such a small-minded vile creature thinks is so funny about intimating such a thing. Perhaps I shall ask him/her/it to explain the joke.
Corinna Downes spent much of her life as a headmaster's secretary and full time mother, bringing up her two daughters. Then she met the director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, and her world was never the same again.
4 comments:
I'd like to think it's just YouTube that brings the jibbering Beavis n' Buttheads of the Global Village out from under their stones (ROFLMAO !!! etc.) but it's not. Among the many silly comments on the Cryptomundo site is: I think Shiels played a mind game on an honest but eccentric and suggestible Jon Downes and a 19-year-old boy [sic]. And this amongst the usual guff about wobbly cameras etc. We all know that the youth in the West are being encouraged to be dumb and reactive, but I'm surprised at the explosion of tittle-tattle and tosh this modest video clip has caused in just a few days. I'm no cryptozoologist, but I do detect the whiff of sour grapes and score-settling by older cryptofolk who (presumably) should know better, scattered amongst the other fair and foul chatter on the Web.
Well, the comments about Tony Shiels pulling a spoof on Jon are, to my mind, about the biggest load of rubbish I have ever heard excepting current politics. Tony, as we all know, was and is a joker and lover of a good leg-pull, as well as being a very good artist. In the past all of his pranks have all had something of the surreal to them, and something to laugh at. Nessie-type photos from him have always shown artistry and always a little of the prankster in there.
The Owlman didn't, but this was probably because Tony had poked something else out there, and was merely hanging onto the phenomenon's coat-tails for his own purposes; back then his income was mostly as a showman and he needed the publicity.
And so, the video. First off we see a probable otter or pair of otters swimming over the lake. Jon is distant enough that he wouldn't have disturbed them, and the wakes are about the right size for an otter, plus the movement speed is about right for a semi-aquatic mammal. Otters float very low in the water; swimming fast about all you see is the top of the head and nose out above the surface.
Second, a cormorant takes off from the rock where it has been sunning its self, and being full of fish takes off heavily, hitting the water heavily. Note that it takes off towards the camera; cormorants are fairly shy birds and would not take off towards a person if they didn't have to. They also have short, slim wings and a fairly high wing loading, meaning that take off is difficult for them (especially if they just took a ducking jumping off a rock).
The cormorant here takes off clumsily and heads off flying in flare, that is to say very close to the water, so close that it touches a few times. It does so probably because it is heavy with food and cannot get the airspeed needed to get up off the water; note that it turns to its left towards the end of the sequence, and probably then does a left-handed turn over the water, away behind the island before it has room enough to get up into the air.
Clearly, there was nothing at the shore of that lake to frighten it, nor to spook those otters or they wouldn't have stayed on the surface.
The interesting thing is the big sub-surface objects. These are moving slightly, and don't look to be affected by a current; a lake like this one probably doesn't have much in the way of sub-surface currents in any case, so any movement on the part of the objects is interesting. Not conclusive proof of their being animate (rotting vegetation, turning as gas produced by fermentation bubbles out, can move a bit without being animate) but very interesting nonetheless.
Now, here's the really interesting bit: that lake isn't connected to the sea. The big objects aren't sea-fish, they're not seals, and they are not a fake put in there by a certain ex-Wizard. These things aren't doing anything amusing, they're not shaped like a classic Nessie, and we don't have a nice gullible BBC reporter on hand ready to be the paying part of a pub-crawl round the local town; just Jon Downes who has always said that he fears Tony Sheils' ability to run up a bar bill.
To conclude, it isn't a prank, it isn't a spoof, and whilst Jon may have over-egged the video initially, there IS definitely something in it which cannot be readily identified (and no, I'm not going to rush over for a look; the flesh is willing but the bank balance says no).
Hi Jon again as a fan. I would suggest you leave all the rubbish on u tube or wherever in your wake as in effect you are transporting it to your normally child friendly site! Giving bad stuff attention is often what nourishes it and if it is ignored it will likely wilt and die except in the minds of those to whome it is grist.
I do think you have to accept criticism with any rational basis even if it is a bit rough as I see it is now inclined to be on Cryptomundo. It does hone us.
You have got soo much good stuff going on here and hopefully you or your agents can look at the lake again, even if it takes years!
Of course one should listen to criticism, but what has erupted here from some quarters is not criticism at all - it is a string of vile and vituperative insults that have no place in civilized discussion or debate.
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