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Orgo-Life the new way to the future Advertising by AdpathwayThe article @Z.W. Wolf linked to in post #21 ("Empirical Analysis of the Hugh Gray 'Nessie' Photograph", Ronald Watson) is interesting (thank you).
However, Watson doesn't really inspire much confidence as an unbiased commentator; as well as having a poke at
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...insistent disbelievers who improperly call themselves 'skeptics'
he gives this rather condescending "advice",
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Accordingly, it is strongly recommended that skeptical commentators refrain from publishing or otherwise disseminating dogmatic explanatory statements about anomalies without (a) offering direct evidence in support, or (b) emphasizing caveats about their untested speculations. Anything less could well undermine public education in science. It also causes one to wonder if pseudo-skeptics truly believe their own rhetoric or whether it is all a matter of getting rid of troublesome photographs and therefore that troublesome creature in a distant loch.
While he refers to "believers"
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...difficulties include typically a highly polarized audience, i.e., confirmed believers versus insistent disbelievers who improperly call themselves 'skeptics.'
He has no useful tips for them.
Indeed, although he writes (without examples or evidence) that "It also causes one to wonder if pseudo-skeptics truly believe their own rhetoric..."
he had earlier written
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A form of skepticism often confidently presents untested speculations and sometimes even levies ad hominem attacks.
Hardly unbiased, arguably personal opinion masquerading as content in an article supposedly about photo analysis and, I feel, a tad hypocritical.
The first paragraph of Watson's article ("Highlights") says
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Detailed inspection of the best-quality version of an early photograph of the 'Loch Ness Monster' does not verify the presence of a swimming dog or other familiar object. This picture thus remains an intriguing piece of evidence that seemingly supports a biological mystery at this famed location in Scotland.
(My emphasis).
A more likely explanation would be that this picture "seemingly supports" a hoax. We know this unequivocally applies to the much more famous "Surgeon's photograph" of 1934 (see Wikipedia, Robert Kenneth Wilson) and "footprints" found in 1933 (of a hippopotamus; probably from a preserved foot used as an umbrella stand ("Birth of a Legend", Stephen Lyons, Nova website).
It must be very unlikely indeed that a large unidentified animal lives in Loch Ness, or did so in the 1930s, and with each passing year with no real evidence that possibility shrinks.
Though often described as remote, Loch Ness isn't remote in the sense that locations in e.g. the USA or Australia might be (or rural locations in Spain or Sweden for that matter). The northern end of the loch is approx. 6 miles/ 10km from the city of Inverness, population 63,730 (Wikipedia, Inverness). Inverness is the northern terminus of the A9, so its inhabitants have a direct road to Calvine if they get bored of Nessie.
Even ignoring the tourist industry that Nessie supports, small fishing/ pleasure boats are a regular feature, and other (modest) boats navigate the length of the Loch as it forms part of the Caledonian Canal (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness).
A small number of villages/ hamlets follow its shores, mainly on the west; there's no reason I can think of why telephone / camera ownership might be lower than elsewhere.
"Our" photograph was supposedly taken 12 November 1933 by Hugh Gray. Ronald Watson writes
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A further reference by Binns (1983) to an "A. Gray" from the 30 May 1933 issue of the Inverness Courier is also presented as evidence. This Gray was reportedly contriving to use hooks, fish bait, and a barrel to capture the monster at Foyers. Binns speculated that he may be the same Mr. Gray....
...so there was a story about a plan by a Mr. Gray to trap "the monster" in the Inverness Courier over 5 months before a Mr. Gray's photograph...
Ronald Watson's research leads him to conclude this doesn't imply that the photographer might have been a hoaxer,
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However, apart from being a Mr. A. Gray instead of a Mr. H. Gray, the matter can be laid to rest here. ...it is likely that the A. Gray in question was Hugh Gray's brother, Alexander Gray...
-So in May 1933 a newspaper reports on Alexander Gray's plan to trap the creature, and in November his brother Hugh photographs it.
Ronald Watson doesn't seem to consider this as particularly unlikely (and coincidences do happen) 
When writing, in his "Highlights", that Hugh Gray's 1933 photo is a "...piece of evidence that seemingly supports a biological mystery", Watson must have been aware of the BBC-sponsored search undertaken for a TV program, Searching for the Loch Ness Monster (2003);
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In 2003, the BBC sponsored a search of the loch using 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking. The search had sufficient resolution to identify a small buoy. No animal of substantial size was found and, despite their reported hopes, the scientists involved admitted that this proved the Loch Ness Monster was a myth.
He must also have been aware of the findings of a DNA survey of the loch's water conducted by researchers from the universities of Otago, Copenhagen, Hull and the Highlands and Islands (Scotland), 2018:
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...no DNA of large fish such as sharks, sturgeons and catfish could be found...
... Prof Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago, said he could not rule out the possibility of eels of extreme size, though none were found, nor were any ever caught. The other possibility is that the large amount of eel DNA simply comes from many small eels. No evidence of any reptilian sequences were found, he added, "so I think we can be fairly sure that there is probably not a giant scaly reptile swimming around in Loch Ness".
-The two quotes above are from Wikipedia, Loch Ness Monster.
Watson's "Empirical Analysis of the Hugh Gray 'Nessie' Photograph" was published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration (subheading, "Anomalistics and Frontier Science").
This is the same Journal of Scientific Exploration that published Jacques Vallee's "Physical Analyses in Ten Cases of Unexplained Aerial Objects with Material Samples" (in vol. 12 (3), 1998.)
Wikipedia, Loch Ness Monster says of Hugh Gray's photo,
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The original negative was lost. However, in 1963, Maurice Burton came into "possession of two lantern slides, contact positives from the original negative" and when projected onto a screen they revealed an "otter rolling at the surface in characteristic fashion."
Annoyingly I don't think we've got checkable evidence that might support Burton's account.
(I'd never heard of Burton, he was a zoologist at the Natural History Museum in London and a popular science writer).
At first glance I thought the Hugh Gray photo looked a bit like a squid's mantle; squid are often used as bait by anglers, but the "fins" (left of photo) seem to be slenderer and proportionately much longer than I've seen on squid (but I'm no expert!)
(Self-explanatory).
Or maybe it's a decapitated fish.
Gray worked for an aluminium company- maybe they made outdoor signs/ models for e.g. fishmongers, angling supply stores, fish-and-chip shops? This was just before fibreglass was in widespread use for that sort of thing. Perhaps the photo is of an incomplete (or redundant) showpiece.
Unlikely I guess (though more likely than a plesiosaur).
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