Loch Ness Monster Sightings with Sandy Gray, Scotland Highlands Inspector, Part 2

sandy gray Scotland Part 2

[00:00:00] Sandy Gray: something going through the water and a V shaped wash coming on either side of something swimming through the water.

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After embarking on a two and a half mile walk to the grocery store, Mike and I decided to treat ourselves by taking a taxi from Portree, Scotland back to our camp where our cozy little Highland camper van awaited us.

What an adventure just to be in a camper van driving around Scotland. Well anyway, I always appreciate discovering positive influences in every single place that I visit. Our taxi driver, the intriguing former inspector Sandy Gray from Portree, Scotland, is now is a retired police officer from Police Scotland, Highland, and Islands.

Well Sandy not only displays bravery, courage, and empathy, but also possesses a wonderful sense of humor and numerous positive qualities. Apart from being known as Portree's prankster and taxi driver, he has an intriguing family background,

Today Part 2, Sandy reveals the rest of his story about his own sighting of the Loch Ness Monster, and we'll delve into details about his great uncle, who was the first to capture a photograph of Scotland's famous Nessie.

It's the picture that we all have seen that was snapped by Hugh Gray on November 12, 1933, that is credited as being the first photographic evidence of the Loch Ness Monster. I just find it so intriguing and absolutely fascinating that that photograph christened the name the Loch Ness Monster.

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Affectionately known as Nessie.

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[00:03:33] Catherine: Sandy has so much to share and I'm so excited to have him on the show. Sandy, welcome, welcome. It's so good to see you again.

[00:03:44] Sandy Gray: My pleasure to meet up with you again, Catherine. My pleasure.

[00:03:47] Sandy Gray: 70 years is a lot to get condensed into 30 minutes.

[00:03:50] Catherine: So now as we move, we're going to go to your, your family, you have this, wow, just this history and to have a, it was great uncle, correct?

[00:04:04] Sandy Gray: Yeah, well, set the scene. I was born and brought up in Inverness. My father and my grandparents were born and brought up in the shores of Loch Ness in a village called Foyers. Foyers is a small township and the only thing that was famous for was high grade aluminium, a high grade aluminium factory in the shores of

Loch Ness. When we got married in 74, uh, our first married Peace Quarters on Peace Station was Fort Augustus at the south end of Lochness. Now, I was . Brought up knowing that my great uncle Hugh, my grandmother's brother, was credited for taking the first ever photograph of the Lochness Monster.

[00:04:44] Catherine: I'm

[00:04:46] Sandy Gray: November, 1933.

Now, for those who are interested. And find a picture of the Loch Ness Monster, and there's one in a book written by Constant White. You could clearly claim that it was a Labrador dog with a stick in its mouth. But that was the first ever recorded photograph. And I saw the original as a child.

and I remember my

Uncle Hugh quite vividly , when I was a child.

So,

Loch Ness has been in

my heritage, you can say, since birth. So when we moved to Fort Augustus in 1944, my sergeant of the day, Donald Nicholson, was a firm non- believer of the Loch Ness Monster. He poo hooed the Loch Ness Monster. He rubbished it, despite the fact that there had been a monastery in Fort Augustus in these days, a Benedictine Abbey and Monastery, where Benedictine monks claimed to have seen the monster.

But Donald Nicholson refuted there was such a thing. He changed his mind on the 13th of April 1976, when he and I were on patrol of the west shore of Loch Ness, about two miles south of a village called Invermoriston, and we were in an elevated position above the loch, driving south, when we saw this commotion in the water.

And I've always described this commotion as looking down in a pot of boiling water, regurgitating away. He looked at me, and I looked at him, pulled up the patrol car, and he's out of the car like a shot. I grabbed the camera from the glove compartment of the car and you've got to remember back in these days there was no such thing as digital cameras and or digital phones.

So I ran after him through the trees about 20 or so yards, till we were on the shore of the loch, and this commotion still continued in front of us. But now we were seeing two fins, 20 25 feet apart, 2 -3 feet out of the water, silvery grey in colour, heading north towards Inverness. And behind the commotion there was a wash that you would get from a boat.

And the sergeant was saying, shoot it, shoot it, shoot it, meaning with a camera. So I got off, six, eight shots, I don't know, but the adrenaline was rushing through me like nobody's business.

He then instructed that I get back up onto the road and stop the first vehicle in me along so we could get some corroboration to what we were witnessing.

So I ran through the trees like a raving lunatic and flagged down the first vehicle that came along, which happened to be the service bus between Inverness and Fort William. The driver and three passengers came off and unfortunately they had not witnessed the disturbance that we had seen. Just then Sergeant Nicholson came up through the trees and he says it's gone, it's submerged.

But his feet were wet from the wash that had hit the shore. He says, but never mind, we've got photographs. It was only then that I looked down and saw that I left the dust cap on the lens of the camera. And it's a wonder you never heard him bawling and shouting across the other side of the pond, so to speak.

So between us, we decided we were going to say nothing to nobody in fear of ridicule. But unbeknownst to us, the bus driver's brother in law was a reporter. The bus driver told his brother -in- law, his brother- in- law told the world. And the next thing, the one telephone line into Fort Augustus Police Station was a meltdown.

From press agencies, news agencies, radio stations, film crews, etc, etc. Our bosses in Inverness got to hear about it and instructed that we record our sighting in the station logbook. There was no such thing back in 74 as computers in rural stations. Everything that we did, whether it be a road accident, a theft, a mountain rescue, a missing person, was recorded in handwritten script in the station logbook.

So that was recorded, and about three weeks after the event, a letter arrived at my desk in Fort Augustus Police Station. The letter was a handwritten note, a noted head paper, and included with the letter was a photograph of yours truly, standing in the middle of the road, in a full uniform, with his hat at his back, with his head holding the camera, looking rather dejected.

The letter read, this is to remind you of the one that got away. Sorry, the quality is not very good, but at least I took the dust cup off the lens of the camera. And I can only assume that that letter was written by one of the three passengers that was on the plane. Our story ended up in Local press, national Press, the New York Times, and the National Geographical Magazine of June 77. Uh, all we got out of that, our sighting, our, our claim to have cite, well, we did cite, it was a half bottle of whiskey and a cheap Japanese cigarette lighter from a Japanese film crew. That was a sum total, but whatever we saw was big.

I'm convinced there's something big and mysterious in that loch, and I would only like before I leave this. planet is for somebody to take a definitive photograph so it would stop the ridicule that I have suffered for the last 48 years from former colleagues. But the story doesn't end there. Um, during lockdown a correspondent by the name of Paul Brown contacted me and he'd been commissioned by an American magazine to do an article on my great uncle Alexander, Hugh's brother. And now I'd never met Alexander. I knew that he had drowned in Loch Ness and doing my ancestry, I visited his grave and he'd been buried with his parents, having drowned in Loch Ness.

When I visited his grave, it was the only headstone in the cemetery that has fallen over. So with a friend, we returned to the graveyard and we resurrected and put it back in its place. I knew little about him other than he was a keen fisherman, and he had drowned in Loch Ness, and he had tried to catch the Loch Ness monster.

But this Paul Brown had access to

many newspaper archive material that I didn't, couldn't lay hands on. And

Paul Brown did a fantastic story on . Alexander John Gray, who in fact I'm named after. Alexander is my Sandy name as the name is on my birth certificate. But during last year, Paul Brown came back in touch with me asking if he could divulge my email address to a film producer and film director from Los Angeles who wanted to do a film on the story that Paul Brown had created from this article.

So they came across last November. I got them accommodation with my former sergeant's daughter-in-Law. My former sergeant had passed away and I showed them round Loch Ness. I showed them various parts and showed them where I had my sighting from as well, you know, so they have got this film director and producer.

I've got a number of years, a couple years to consider whether they want to make this film or not. The story of Alexander John Gray and Hugh Gray.

. Hugh was out in his own on a Sunday afternoon when he took the first photograph.

Hugh, like me, did not want to be ridiculed by his colleagues about photograph. And he left this film in the camera, in his room, until I think it was found by my grandmother, who subsequently had it developed.

[00:12:16] Catherine: and there was, let me see if I can find it I think it was from the National Geographic. It. Interesting, because people have seen a monster for centuries. It just never had a name until your great uncle filmed it with a picture and then it was given the name by the press there in Aberdeen.

[00:12:42] Sandy Gray: There was a lot of hype back in the thirties and the forties, I think the, the thirties up until the stage of the second World War, and then it went quiet again.

But it's, yes, it's a tourist attack. Yes, cuddly toys, there's, there's this, that, and the next thing, t-shirts with a monster on it and things.

Uh, and it's, it's fantastic for the area, but as I said, I am quite convinced that there's something there. And I'm just blessed that I was lucky enough to. to get a sighting of it,

[00:13:15] Catherine: I believe it was your friend who wrote this, the one that contacted you back in 2022, I believe.

[00:13:22] Sandy Gray: This is Paul Jones.

[00:13:24] Catherine: Okay. It was late May 1933, and Loch Ness was experiencing an early glimmer of summer, with lilac heather blooming across the craggy hillsides, the fresh scent of Scott's pine hanging crisp in the air, and the warm sun casting a shimmering glow on the loch.

Sandy was driving his bus along the shore road when he saw a large, dark shape moving across the water's surface. He tried to gauge its considerable speed as he jammed on the accelerator to match the object's course along the loch, but he said he was unable to overtake it. Sandy's sighting was the first to be reported in newspapers beyond Inverness.

The Aberdeen Press and Journal in its headline on May 23rd. christen the mysterious creature, the Loch Ness monster, which would become , it's enduring everlasting name. I don't know the way it's written. And I read through all of these articles. It's, they're just so well written and just lots of excitement in there about how your great uncle went out and he literally tried to, uh, yeah, to catch it.

And he Drowned in the 1940s, I believe.

[00:14:41] Sandy Gray: 1947 I believe it was, and you know, he was credited with being an excellent fisherman and knowing the loch inside out, and it is a bit of a mystery as to how his boat, how he drowned and how his boat capsized, , I've been catching up of late on a number of deaths on Loch Ness where the bodies have not been recovered.

And it's just a blessing that Alexander, or Sandy as he was known, or San as he was known, his body was recovered. You know,

[00:15:16] Catherine: When we were there, we could not believe the stretch of that lake going so many miles.

[00:15:24] Sandy Gray: lock is 22 and 2 3rd miles long and maybe a mile, a mile in some places, two miles in other places across 800 to 900 feet deep in places. Now they tell me, and this is not from the horse's mouth, but they tell me that there's more water in Loch Ness than what there is in the whole of England.

That's how large it is, you know, and,

for those who managed to get a sighting, and I was given two books at Christmas time, one I wouldn't, I used to light my fire, the other was excellent and it illustrated and told and showed basically what we had witnessed from other people back in the 30s and the 40s, you know,

[00:16:14] Catherine: Yeah, now there was a sighting in August of 2023 by two people, I think, two tourists. Do you remember reading that?

[00:16:25] Sandy Gray: There have been a number of sightings and I take note of them, uh, but there's nothing Being specific. The last one that I saw was something going through the water and a V shaped wash coming on either side of something swimming through the water. Yeah, but I can't recall the one in 2023.

[00:16:48] Catherine: Now, You said that you're ridiculed because of your beliefs in the Loch Ness monster are you still ridiculed today?

[00:16:57] Sandy Gray: If I meet former colleagues. And it's, when I say ridiculed, it's, it's, it's in jest, it's in jest. They're, they're, they ask how many whiskies you had before you, you, you saw the, the, the, your sighting and things like that, you know, but it's, it's, it's all in jest that, eh, eh, I take it in good heart.

[00:17:19] Catherine: Yes. Well, Nessie certainly brings in quite a bit of money for Scotland's economy.

[00:17:26] Sandy Gray: There's no doubt about that. There's no doubt about that.

[00:17:29] Catherine: You have so many visitors going in, to look for the monster. And then you also have your bike marathon that goes around the lake ,

how did it go?

[00:17:42] Sandy Gray: , it was run by a police officer, believe it or not.

[00:17:46] Catherine: that's awesome. That's great.

[00:17:48] Sandy Gray: was run by a police officer. I never met the young constable but credit to him for winning it.

[00:17:53] Catherine: Oh, fabulous. Yeah, we read about those because we, we are always interested in the different biking around the world because we're always trying to find some place to bike, and when we were out in Scotland, my husband and I looked at each other and said, Oh my gosh, we cannot bike out here. The roads are too narrow.

We were just too

[00:18:13] Sandy Gray: I would, I wouldn't recommend cycling on, road cycling on the highway, but there are some fantastic off road cycle tracks throughout the Highlands and you could cycle from Glasgow to Fort William, cycle from Fort William to Inverness, which I've done, and it's forestry tracks and it's not, you know, it's, it's not overly arduous.

You know, it's, it, it's within anybody's capabilities, you know, and the scenery is, is to die for,

, particularly the great glen, if you to the great Glen from Fort William to in and it takes in the caledonian. It's behold,

[00:18:54] Catherine: So, is it asphalt or is it dirt?

[00:18:58] Sandy Gray: no, it's forestry tracks. It's, it's dirt.

[00:19:00] Catherine: Oh, good, because that's, we prefer, and we couldn't find because we were so new. To Scotland, we just kind of, it was a, literally, it was a trip that we put together very suddenly after we lost our dog, after 18 years, and Mike just said, let's get out of here, let's, let's go to Scotland. I said, okay, let's go. So.

[00:19:26] Sandy Gray: you could cycle Fort William Timber in three days. It would take you six days walking. And that would take you up, as I said, from the sea loch at Loch Linnie, past Loch Lochie, past the Caledonian Canal, the locking system for the canal, past Loch Oich, to Fort Augustus, then onto the shores of Loch Ness at an elevated position, and then back down to shoreline again before you raise again to an elevated position up to Inverness.

[00:19:57] Catherine: So, is it crowded during July and, I mean, is it crowded biking during July and August?

[00:20:02] Sandy Gray: Not, not necessarily, not necessarily biking back. My advice to you and any of your listeners. If you're hoping to travel to Scotland, make your plans early, and book accommodation well in advance, and book, if you can, restaurants and cafes, so that you're not left hungry at night.

[00:20:23] Catherine: Yeah, good advice.

Well, your family history, just meeting you and, and knowing that, that this mysterious monster was seen by your great uncle and photographed, and then the name, I mean, just think about it. It's. It's so interesting that because of that sighting back in the 1930s, we now know that being, that creature that is being seen as the Loch Ness Monster.

[00:20:57] Sandy Gray: As I said, I just wish somebody to take a proper photograph of it so it doesn't become the mystery it is and it becomes a reality. Um,

So on my podcast, we like to end with your last inspiring words. So as you just think about those, I want to just thank you, Sandy Gray, for everything that you do for your community, for the international community, and for, oh my gosh, the many, many decades of service that you provided. In the CID there over in Scotland and working with the people and, and your humorous stories and, and just the joy you have in life is truly, truly, transferable as you meet people.

[00:21:44] Catherine: So I, I appreciate that.

[00:21:46] Sandy Gray: Well, when I say that you're a long time dead, so make the most of it while you're here. It's not a dress rehearsal.

[00:21:52] Catherine: Yeah, yes, that's, yes, so, um, retirement, we're going to retire because those

[00:21:59] Sandy Gray: Don't use that word. Don't use that word because everybody want a bit of you. They think if you're retired, you've got so many hours in the day to give to this. Just go about your business as if you're working full time. I know that to my cost. I wouldn't have changed a bit of it. You wouldn't have changed a bit of it.

[00:22:16] Catherine: , so we'll end with Sandy Gray's last inspiring words

[00:22:23] Sandy Gray: as I said, live for today. Make people happy, and leave people with a smile on your face. Don't, don't leave them angry.

[00:22:33] Catherine: Oh, Sandy Gray, you don't leave people angry. You are so wonderful. So awesome. Mike and I appreciate the friendship and we appreciate your smile.

[00:22:45] Sandy Gray: in touch, Catherine, keep in touch.

[00:22:47] Catherine: Absolutely. Thank you so

[00:22:49] Sandy Gray: if you're back this way again, I'll buy you a dram.

[00:22:52] Catherine: Oh, Sláinte mhath..

[00:22:54] Sandy Gray: Sláinte mhath.

Sláinte mhath. Sláinte mhath.

One of my other hobbies is collecting malt whiskies. And I've got a collection in here in my office, in my garage here of 186 bottles, so it convinces me that I'm not an alcoholic when I've got this sitting here looking me in the face.

[00:23:13] Catherine: Do you have a favorite?

[00:23:14] Sandy Gray: There's no bad whiskies, there's just some better than others, but my favourite is Dalmore, 15 year old. You'll

A silver stags head on the bottle

[00:23:22] Catherine: . Well, Sandy Gray, thank you so much, and , sláinte

[00:23:26] Sandy Gray: mhath.

[00:23:27] Sandy Gray: Care, Catherine.

[00:23:28] Catherine: alrighty,

[00:23:28] Sandy Gray: All the very best.

[00:23:29] Catherine: yes, bye.

Learn more about Sandy Gray by googling him, Sandy Gray, S A N D Y, G R A Y. Well, there's a plethora of Loch Ness books, articles, movies, children's stories, young adult stories, and toys out there. The love of Scotland's Nessie is so real. Well, I want to mention some of the books and articles and some of the shows.

Well, of course, the Constance Whyte books. and that's W H Y T E. Also, Constant Whyte. You can check out Loch Ness Monster Legends on PBS. And Science Looks at Mysterious Monsters. This is a book authored by Thomas G. Aylsworth, which can be found on Amazon. And, of course, National Geographics throughout the years, and History Channel's in Search of with host Zachary Quinto, aired two episodes on the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster. Check those out as well. And children's books, The Water Horse by Dick King Smith and Nessie by Richard Brassie. Of course, there's hundreds out there for you to choose from.

There has been fourteen hundred years of sightings, and in Leonard Nimoy's words from In Search of, Season 1, Episode 20, The Loch Ness Monster, he said, None of the investigators dispute the probability that a creature exists in Loch Ness.

This is Part 2 of The Loch Ness Monster. You can listen to Part 1, Episode 216. Sandy Gray, a Highlands Inspector who spotted the Loch Ness Monster, reminisces.

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