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told how the prank had been conceived by his stepfather, Marmaduke Wetherell, with Dr. Wilson agreeing to take the photos (Genoni 1994).

    Figure 1.3 The famous “surgeon’s photo” of Nessie, taken by London gynecologist Robert Wilson in April 1934, has been revealed as a hoax. (Photo by Robert
K. Wilson)
    Subsequently, Richard D. Smith (1995), writing in Fate (a magazine that promotes belief in the paranormal), claimed that the hoax itself was a hoax, that Spurling’s story did not ring true. Smith insisted that the uncropped photograph shows that it was not taken in “an inlet where the tiny ripples would look like full-sized waves,” as alleged, and he raised other objections. For example, he noted that an estimate of the scale based on the presumed size of the ripples argues that the creature was larger than the model Spurling described. He also cited the implausibility of the explanation of why the model no longer exists:“Supposedly because the water bailiff [Alex Campbell] appeared and Wetherell quickly stepped on the toy, sinking it.” Smith’s credibility was not helped by the placement of his article—sandwiched between a testimonial, “My Glimpse of Bigfoot,” and an article suggesting that “alien technology” was responsible for the strange hybrid creatures of Greek mythology.
    It seemed to me that Smith’s points ranged from the weak to the dubious, but I decided to solicit a more expert opinion. I therefore wrote to Ronald Binns in 1995, and he responded with a detailed three-page letter. He began by conceding that Smith’s perceived faults with Spurling’s story might suggest that the hoax was bogus. However, he noted:
    On the other hand, as Spurling was an old man when he was interviewed maybe he was just confused. After more than half a century anyone’s memory would surely be unreliable. Maybe he was right about how the model was made but wrong about the dimensions. Maybe the model sank accidentally (as did the hugely expensive model monster made for the Billy Wilder film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes).
    Even if the object was 1.2 metres high, so what? It could still have been a model. My own fake Nessie (Plate 3 of The Loch Ness Mystery Solved ) was a tiny cardboard cut-out head and neck stuck in the neck of a mineral-water bottle and covered in black plastic from a garbage bag (about 12” out of the water). It took ten minutes to make. I don’t doubt the Wilson model was better constructed. In the Wilson photo the dark shapes to the left and right of the head and neck could very well be the top portion of a toy submarine.
    The second Wilson photograph obviously portrays a different object photographed in different weather conditions (and I suspect from a different angle). It may have been a cruder model, or it may have been a bird. If it is “rarely seen,” as Smith claims, that is because it is a bad photo of a very dubious object. Since it obviously isn’t the object shown in the more famousphoto, the obvious question is how did Wilson manage to photograph two monsters?
    Binns (1995) continued:
    Black and white photographs are so much easier to fake than colour photographs, and still photographs are so much easier to fake than home-movie or video film. The fact that the object shown in Wilson’s photograph is very close to the shore is itself very suspicious, as this is just what one would expect from a model thrown into the loch. There is also almost what amounts to a basic rule about Nessie photos and films. The photos, being fakes and/or models, are always of an object relatively close to the photographer. The movie film, being genuine footage of an object which is not a monster, is always too far away to be properly identifiable.
    Richard D. Smith is wrong about the object not being photographed in an inlet. The part of the loch where Wilson said he took his photo consists of a series of inlets and