Page 28 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • May 8, 2013 neck and tail weren’t too terribly long.” Shortly the word came back from other scientists: The tissue sample Yano had brought back had a concentration of tyrosine that was similar to that of a blue shark. For every 1,000 units of amino acids in the monster tissue, 40 were tyrosine. The structure of blue shark fin averaged 44 per 1,000. People who wanted the New Zealand Monster not to be a plesiosaur decided the beast was the carcass of a shark. “Even if the tissue contains the same protein as the shark’s, it is rash to say that the monster is a shark,” said Professor Tokio Shikama, a paleontologist at Yokohama National University. “The finding is not enough to refute a speculation that the monster is a plesiosaur.” Some other Japanese scientists agreed, while Obata, the most skeptical of the Yano interviewers, concurred that it was probably a shark and definitely not a mammal like a whale or seal. Most Anglo-Saxon experts had brushed off the plesiosaur theory and had not needed the tyrosine to write off the monster. However, they differed as to what it might have been. The aquarium coordinator of the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland said the photograph was “at once recognizable to a zoologist as that of a dead sea lion...the estimate of length and weight must be an exaggeration.” Obviously, he thought a Japanese scientist could earn a doctorate without knowing how to use a tape measure. Glen Kuban of the National Center for Science Education argued in 1997 that the monster was almost certainly a shark, probably a basking shark, and noted that even some creationists had dropped the plesiosaur theory. The National Center for Science Education, be it noted, is a private group dedicated to keeping religion out of scientific education in such ways as offering alternatives to the standard teaching of evolution. It is not a “national” group in the sense that it is part of the federal government. Kuban poked a few holes in Yano’s description and did not deal with a couple of the others. His basic argument focused on the tyrosine and the appearance of the monster in Yano’s photographs -- these could have been interpreted as a shark whose lower jaw had dropped off during the decomposition process. The article is rich in chemical analysis of the monster’s tissue, which correlates closely, though not precisely, with that of a basking shark. The article, however, is sparse in Yano’s description of what he found when he personally examined the carcass. Yano mentioned examining a specific head, four fins of about the same size, a well-developed spinal column and a specific tail. Japanese fishermen and marine scientists know what a shark looks like. They eat them. This did not look like a shark. Yano thought, based on the 45-centmeter vertebrata, that it was a mammal. “For seeing only these pictures, it’s possible this could look like a rotten seal,” Yano said. “In the Antarctic they have the southern elephant seal, which grows to 3.5 meters, but the size doesn’t fit.” The puzzle was profound. The chemistry showed the monster was not a mammal. The physical structure suggested it was not a fish. Using the dread word “appears,” the Kuban article showed that based on the photographs alone, the monster could have been a shark -- but Yano’s verbal description quoted elsewhere made that improbable, if his description was accurate. The article under sanction of the National Center for Science Education was parried by a 2001 article by John Goertzen of Creation Research Quarterly. Goertzen argued that based on the photographs and the description, the monster might well have been some sort of sea-going reptile. Goertzen points out that the Japanese denied any dorsal fin -- as a shark would have -- and that the photos do not reveal any evidence of a dorsal fin. One photograph shows a nostril at the front of the head, as a reptile would have, but as a shark would not. The body was also longer than that of any known large fish species. Wikipedia, interestingly enough, came down on the skeptical side, but not completely. Wikipedia responsibly included opinions from both sides and did not throw the plesiosaur theory over the side. Again, while there were also Japanese skeptics, the skeptics quoted mostly came from outside Japan and never saw the carcass. One Swedish team compared the New Zealand Monster to the Stronsay Beast, found in the Orkneys off the coast of Scotland in 1808. First described as a sea monster, the Stronsay Beast was later considered a basking shark. The Swedish experts never saw the Stronsay Beast either, and the drawings look nothing like Yano’s sketch and photographs. Those who are convinced that the plesiosaurus theory is easily disproven appear to have the preconceived notion that a surviving plesiosaur was impossible or at least embarrassing and that anybody who endorsed one could lose his or her teaching ticket. Twenty years ago, most psychologists denied even the possibility of extrasensory perception in the face of 50 years of testing. More recently, even the CIA has hired psychics. I personally was delighted to find that no article about the New Zealand Monster seems to have run, pro or con, which did not cite the translations my wife did which later appeared in “Oceans.” I am not about to sign off on either viewpoint. Where science is concerned, I try to remain objective -- so much so that I note with some dismay that “scientists” on both sides of the question sometimes tend to write more like lawyers than scientists. They argue cases rather than weigh evidence. The creationists hope the New Zealand Monster was a plesiosaur. The National Center for Science Education hopes it was not a plesiosaur. Each faction retains enough objectivity to say the case is not completely closed. There are sharper minds at work here than some I encountered when I made a pretty strong case for a survivor of Custer’s Last Stand and crashed through e-mail screams and outright misrepresentation. One point is that, where their own interests and viewpoints are challenged, nobody is ever completely objective. The other is that my wife and I got more mileage out of that monster than we did out of a couple of full-length books -- and the case is still not closed. The New Zealand Monster is alive on the Internet. Can it really be a third of a century since I helped the world discover the New Zealand Monster and give parts of the scientific community a colossal case of information indigestion? In 1977, a Japanese fishing boat, the Zuiyo Maru, snagged a marine carcass and pulled it aboard. The carcass stank and the crew dumped it overboard to avoid contaminating their catch of fish. Before they dumped it, a Japanese marine biologist named Michihiko Yano took five color photographs of what some experts declared was a recently deceased plesiosaurus. Recently, my wife and I were watching a Nova show called “Australia’s First Four Billion Years” and I saw it again -- this time as a computer-animated animal that was incontestably depicted as a plesiosaurus, but also incontestably an electronic image functioning in the remote past and not a real dead beast from 1977. The plesiosaurus as depicted had a rather short neck. The model could have been what the Japanese press called “Nessie” when Yano developed his color photographs. My venture into plesiosaurus hunting was due to a crassly commercial motive. When my wife and I plunked our mutual life savings into our first house, a new car, a piano, and a set of appliances, we saw what had been a very comfortable bank balance turn into four figures. Two of them were on the wrong side of the decimal point. The UPI news article on the New Zealand Monster -anybody remember UPI? -- was inconclusive, but the photograph was startling. As bad as the decomposition was, the thing really looked like a dead sea-going dinosaur. My brother-in-law in Japan sent us a Japanese-language newspaper that provided a far more detailed account of the discovery than anything that had been printed in English. My wife translated it. All I really had to do was transcribe and embellish without fabricating. I sold the story of the New Zealand Monster three times: Once to “Oceans,” once to “Argosy,” and once to “Cricket,” a children’s magazine. The core of the article was a translated interview that Yano, the marine biologist, had with three qualified Japanese scientists. The Japanese scientists’ conclusion was inconclusive. “From the data we have collected, we seem to be able to come only this far and no farther,” Professor Ikuo Obata of Japan’s National Science Museum said in 1977. The Japanese scientists, after talking to Yano, said the monster did not appear to be a seal, a turtle, or a fish, and that some details suggested that it was a mammal, while others pointed to a reptile. “If it were a shark, the spine would be smaller,” said Professor Toshio Kasuya of Tokyo University’s Marine Research Center. “And the neck is too long as shown in the picture. I think we can exclude the fish theory.” “It must be either a mammal or a reptile,” said Professor Hiroshi Ozaki of the National Science Museum. “But with the materials we have, we can’t judge which one.” “If it’s a reptile, it looks like a plesiosaur,” Ozaki said. “The plesiosauri had fins in the front and back, and the The New Zealand Monster as informational indigestion Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: On behalf of the Waldwick Council and myself, I would like to thank the Waldwick Chamber of Commerce for doing a fantastic job on the 5K Run and 1 Mile Walk. This is the sixth year the Chamber has brought pride and honor to our community with this event. A special thank you goes to Christine and Stan “The Man” for all the hard work they have done to make this event a great success. Their love for Waldwick is unending. Thank you to all the sponsors for the support they give the community. Their continuous generosity and friendship to Waldwick will never be forgotten. Thank you to the volunteers from the Chamber, police department, fire department, CERT, the ambulance corps, and from all the organizations in Waldwick who helped that day. Their work made this event special to our community. Thank you to all the runners and walkers, especially those from the surrounding towns, for being a part of the event. I hope you had a great time and hope to see you again next year. As mayor, I am so proud of our community that joins together when needed to make Waldwick the community that is built on dedication and service to each other and Mayor expresses gratitude family. May we continue to be a community that is there for each other and a community that we are all proud to call our home. Tom Giordano, Mayor Waldwick