Dinsdale, Tim
DINSDALE. TIM (1924- 1987)
Tim Dinsdale was born into a British family in China. When his parents returned to England, Dinsdale attended and graduated from King's School, Worcester. During World War II he served as a Royal Air Force pilot in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and afterwards worked as an aeronautical engineer.
He is remembered, however, because of his research on the Loch Ness Monsters. His interest was sparked in 1955, after he read a magazine article on the subject. Unable to get the mystery off his mind, he prepared a “master plan for a campaign of observation,” which began in April 1960. In the course of his life, he went on fifty-six treks to the loch.
None of them would ever match what happened to him during his first month as a Ness-watcher. On April 23, 1960, he made a four-minute film of the fast-moving hump of “some huge living creature,” apparently twelve to sixteen feet of it underwater, with three feet of it visible. A subsequent analysis of the film by Britain's Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Center rejected the skeptical theory that the object was a boat. JARIC declared the object “probably … animate”-in other words, a large, unidentified living creature.
Dinsdale's books on Loch Ness's mysterious inhabitants are considered some of the best in the literature of cryptozoology. His first, titled simply Loch Ness Monster; went through four editions between 1961 and
1982. In July 1987, a few months before his death, the International Society of Cryptozoology made him an honourary member, noting his “dedication to the investigation, and the honesty and integrity with which you have proceeded.” After his death, chemist and cryptozoologist Henry H. Bauer wrote, “Tim Dinsdale was a profoundly good influence on many of us. ”
SEE ALSO:
SOURCE:
The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters,Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature
Written by Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark – Copyright 1999 Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark
