Mike Conley's Tales of the Weird: Rines never found his 'Nessie'

Many years ago as a boy, I once saw a murky, grainy photograph in a magazine that showed the face of a horned, dinosaur-like creature that lived underwater. Another dark grainy photo showed the creature's flipper.
The magazine (I believe it was Reader's Digest) stated that these pictures were of none other than the famous Loch Ness Monster. At the time, I did not know anything about the remarkable man who took these photos and his tireless efforts to prove that the creature existed.
That man was Robert H. Rines, a brilliant lawyer, inventor and composer who spent 37 years looking for the mysterious creature that supposedly lives in the deep, dark waters of Scotland's Loch Ness. Rines died Sunday at his home in Boston. He was 87 years old.
A native New Englander, Rines had more than 80 patents for his inventions. Some of his inventions helped create the technology used to guide Patriot missiles during the 1991 Gulf War and produced new early warning missile-detection systems. Some of his other work would be used in the ultrasound imaging of internal organs.
As an attorney, he founded the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire and specialized in patent and intellectual property law. He taught at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He even composed music for 10 Broadway and off-Broadway productions, according to a Web site.
But it was his efforts to find the Loch Ness Monster that really brought Robert Rines to the forefront. He first investigated the loch in 1970 and returned in 1971 using refined sonar equipment. Rines more than anyone else made the Loch Ness Monster a household word. And he did it using proven scientific techniques.
His efforts paid off on June 23, 1971 when he and his wife, Carol, saw a 20-foot-hump moving in the loch's waters. They were at a friend's house on the shores of Loch Ness when they happened to look through the window and see it.
"It looked like the back of an elephant," said Rines in a 1997 interview. "I know there was a big unknown thing in that lake. That's why I haven't let go."
Indeed, he did not let go of his pursuit for the elusive creature. He would go back to the Scottish lake every few years, each time with better equipment. In the 1970s, Rines took some strange underwater photographs that he believed were of the Nessie itself.
On Aug. 8, 1972, Rines and his team from the Academy of Applied Science of Belmont, Mass. were taking photographs in one bay of Loch Ness using an underwater camera. Two of their images show a triangular flipper or fin against a rough body. A third photo they took that day shows two blobs.
Later, another underwater photo taken by Rines appears to show the body, flipper, neck, and head of some kind of large animal swimming in Loch Ness.
And on June 20, 1975, Rines took two more underwater photographs in the dark mysterious waters. One of them shows a "gargoyle" head with apparent horns. The other shows the head, neck, and body of an animal in Loch Ness that looks like a plesiosaur. The plesiosaur was a large marine reptile that lived 65 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. The photos taken by Rines led many cryptozoologists to wonder if the Loch Ness Monster and other lake creatures like it are really plesiosaurs that somehow survived extinction and could be alive today. Rines himself often said he thought the Loch Ness Monster looked like plesiosaurs, according to a Web site.
"There are few of us willing to risk our reputations on something as improbable as this, judged with such ridicule," he said in 1998. "Scientists think there are other things to do for fame and fortune than something this crazy. So we do it quietly as a private venture and don't have to hear that we're 'crazy people chasing monsters and wasting public funds.'"
But last year, Rines returned to Loch Ness for the last time. He became concerned that the creature might be finally dead and gone after all, due to the lack of significant sonar readings and a sharp drop in eyewitness accounts. He took part in one last expedition to look for remains of the creature using the latest sonar and photographic equipment. It was done in conjunction with the History Channel's series, "Monster Quest."
Even a week before he died, Rines was still working, still searching for answers to the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster.
His memorial service is set for Saturday. All those who risk their reputations in search of the world's mysteries owe a huge debt to the late Robert H. Rines.