Dr. Robert Rines:
Dr. Robert Rines asked me (Cliff Paiva) to apply some image processing to the 1975 frame of the animal caught on Dr. Edgerton's submerged strobe camera.
The results of that analysis revealed an elasmosaur type animal reacting (see the bubble "wake" frames) to the strong flash. Reflection is seen off of the animal and in the surrounding medium. The animal differs from the Zuiyo Maru's catch two years later by Michihiko Yano of Taiyo Fisheries in that the animal in Loch Ness, and apparently other animals in the various Lochs of Scotland, in that the animal Yano's animal is of a short-necked plesiosaur
Zuiyo Mary Catch:
The assessment of BSM Research Associates is that the animal caught on the morning of 25 April 1977, about 50 km. east of Christchurch, New Zealand by the Japanese fishing boat Zuiyo Maru, and brought up from a depth of about 300 meters by April meters. Mr. Michihiko Yano (Section Chief for the Taiyo Fishery Company), is a short-necked variety of plesiosaur. REASON: As the enclosed BSMR frames show, the so-called displaced "dorsal" fin is not displaced from the centerline spine of the animal. Neither blood nor torn flesh is between the flipper and centerline spine. Since basking sharks possess dorsal fins and the Zuiyo Maru catch does not, then the animal brought up from 900 feet depth is NOT a basking shark. Further the eyes of the Zuiyo Maru animal are very large in diameter; basking sharks have (seen enclosed frames) small eyes.
Goertzen Article:
Inspection of the Zuiyo Maru pictures reveals that the aquatic cryptid had a symmetrical pair of small upper fins on each side above the anterior flippers. If this observation is correct, then the identification of this animal as a basking shark is false. Previously, the fin of just one side was observed and wrongly identified as a shark's dorsal fin that had slid sideways from the mid-dorsal ridge. Examination of the original scientific report reveals that Yano, along with all the fishermen, observed a pair of upper fins. They specifically stated there was not a shark’s dorsal fin. That statement caused considerable discussion among the scientists who questioned them. Without a dorsal fin the proposed basking shark model is dismissed. Another confirmation for the marine reptile understanding, and falsification of the shark idea, is a picture revealing the nare at the lower front of the skull. It is right where Yano sketched it, though that is not where it should be for sharks. Although this animal may not currently be identified with either living creatures or specific known fossils, it possessed characteristics like those of marine reptiles, perhaps similar to the Sauropterygia.
The idea that a dorsal fin existed, however, is disputed by eyewitness testimony as well as the pictorial evidence. M. Yano, who conducted the primary examination of the carcass, insisted that there was no dorsal fin (Omura et al., 1978). No one else present on the ship’s crew thought there was a (sharks) dorsal fin either (Obata and Tomoda, 1978; Omura et al., 1978). Evidently Yano’s testimony (along with that of the other fishermen) was rejected in favor of the dorsal fin theory...for obvious reasons.
Yano was questioned by Obata and Tomoda (1978, p. 45) regarding the upper fin(s) (B). Obata and Tomoda observed that the fin was considerably smaller than the anterior ventral propulsion flippers, and suggested that it was somehow the broken posterior ventral flipper (a hypothetical break accounting for its smaller size; B of Figures 2 and 3) overlaying an almost complete right anterior ventral flipper (C) of Figures 2 and 3). That judgment was denied by Yano, who stated that the supposed broken posterior ventral flipper of Obata and Tomoda was actually one of the paired upper fins which had an unusual array of exposed rays near its base as well as on its edge. This fin (B) is the same fin that other scientists thought was the dorsal fin of a shark that had slid sideways from the center. Those scientists correctly stated that it was located too far forward and displaced left of the center line on the body to be the posterior ventral flipper.
Clifford A. Paiva_BSMRA: Rines and Zuiyo Maru.pdf
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Post Deluvian Animals:Elasmosaurs/Plesiosaurs/Pterosaurs
Cliff: As Yano indicated to the science community, the photos taken by himselft on the Zuiyo Maru confirm the flipper is, as it should be, some distance from the animal's spinal column. Tissue is NOT torn as some folks assert, and as my image processing confirms. The tissue between the flipper and centerline of the animal is undisturbed. The animal does not possesses a dorsal fin and of course is not a basking shark. Also the diameter of the plesiosaur's eyes are vastly different than the very limited diameter eyes of a basking shark. (05/29/08)