YOU MIGHT RECALL that in the summer of 2016, the media got fairly excited about an alleged "monster" photographed in the River Thames, at Greenwich. Well, it's back -- at almost exactly the same spot. Look closely at the river in the photo at the top of this Steemit post, and you will see something intriguing.
The photo was taken today (21 July 2018) by a passenger who was admiring the view from London's Docklands cable-car service, which crosses the Thames at a height of around 90 metres (pictured right).
The big white tent-like structure is the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena). Like the cable-car, it is a monument to the visionary enthusiasm of London planners, rather than to their common sense. But I digress.
Here is the significant bit of the photo, altered for best contrast and with the mysterious shape picked out for clarity. (I've left a bit of a margin around the shape, so you can see that I'm not artificially creating its outline.)
It does look rather like the classic shape of a "sea serpent"-type creature, one of the legendary animals dismissed by science that therefore inhabit the twilight zone known as cryptozoology. For perspective, the Millennium Dome is 365 metres in diameter, which would make this creature (if it is a creature) around 500 metres in length from end to end. That colossal length is probably enough to convince most people that this is not any kind of animal.
Here is an animated gif, sliding between the original photo and the enhanced version, so you can judge for yourself.
SO, WHAT DOES THIS picture really show? I'll level with you. I am stumped. It's a rare pleasure to come across something as outrageous and as genuinely inexplicable as this photo. But, with my boring old "sceptic" hat on, I think that my money goes on it being an optical illusion.
On Reflection...
I've "ringed" them in this contrast-enhanced photo (pictured right).
The area inside the red ring-mark shows traces of some kind of grille-like structure, with closely-spaced slats at an apparent 45-degree angle. The area inside the blue ring-mark shows some kind of bizarre torus-like shape.
Neither of these shapes is anything to do with the area of London depicted in the photograph. And since this photo was taken from a cable-car, it seems sensible to conclude that those shapes are bits of the interior of the cable-car cabin, reflected in the window through which the photo was being taken. And since those shapes are optical artifacts, the chances are that the "monster" is some kind of artifact too.
But...
... WE HAVE TO ADMIT that the shape is suggestive of giant serpent-like sea-creatures that have been reported for centuries (an example from 1555 is pictured left).
We also have to admit that its alignment and apparent foreshortening are a good match for the photographic alignment and perspective seen in the landscape.
Finally, and significantly, it seems as though (n.b.) the waves on the river are between the camera and the "monster", meaning that the mystery object itself really would be underwater (this could be an illusion, but it's hard to say).
Verdict
IT'S ALMOST CERTAINLY not a creature at all, let alone a monster, but it's an intriguing photograph. I hope it has sparked your curiosity as much as it has sparked mine. If you have ideas about what this photo really shows -- whether it's a monster or something else -- then please do have your say in the replies section below.
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I have the photographer's permission to approach the mainstream media with this picture, so perhaps you'll be hearing more about this story in coming days... watch this space (but don't hold your breath).