Timothy Dinsdale, ARAeS (1924 – 14 December 1987) was famous as a seeker of the Loch Ness Monster. He attended King’s School, Worcester, served in the Royal Air Force and worked as an aeronautical engineer. He was survived by his wife, Wendy Dinsdale and four children.
Tim believed Nessie was real, and he was eager to prove it. Dinsdale traveled to Loch Ness and went four days with no proof of any unidentified animals in the Loch. By the fifth day, 23 April 1960, he was used to disappointment, but while he was having breakfast, he saw a large creature rolling and diving in the loch. Amazed by what he saw, he grabbed his camera and his near fifty feet of film. By the time Dinsdale got out there, though, he only saw the hump swimming across the water with a powerful wake unlike that of a surface vessel. For nearly a minute, Dinsdale filmed the monster swimming across the loch. The grainy film is believed by some to be proof of the existence of the monster. The Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (JARIC) analyzed it and believed it was an animate object. Some analyses have been done which suggests the footage is of a boat travelling across the loch, with an artifact that some claim is a man standing on the boat. He dedicated his life to obtaining further evidence, taking part in a total of 56 expeditions, many of them solo. Although he claimed to have later seen the monster’s head and neck on two occasions, he failed to obtain any more video footage. He also published several books on the subject.
He is commemorated in the Dinsdale Memorial Award.
Publications
1961 Tim Dinsdale Loch Ness Monster (Routledge & Kegan Paul)
1966 Tim Dinsdale The Leviathans (Routledge & Kegan Paul)
1972 Tim Dinsdale Loch Ness Monster, 2nd ed (Routledge & Kegan Paul)
1973 Tim Dinsdale The Story of the Loch Ness Monster (Target) ISBN 0-426-10591-5
1975 Tim Dinsdale Project Water Horse. The true story of the monster quest at Loch Ness (Routledge & Kegan Paul) ISBN 0-7100-8030-1
1976 Tim Dinsdale The Leviathans (revised edition) (Futura) ISBN 0-86007-365-3
1977 Tim Dinsdale The facts about Loch Ness and the monster (Johnston & Bacon)