Wilton author explores ‘golden age’ of monster hunting in latest book – The Daily Gazette

Joseph Zarzynski’s years of searching for shipwrecks and mysterious creatures all started with a book.

It was called “Monster Hunt” and had a brightly colored seductive spine that jumped out at him as he corrected homework in the library at Skidmore College in 1974. The title, referring to the Loch Ness Monster, promised the ‘adventure.

Decades later, the Wilton resident has written a few books on monster hunting, including “Lochend – Monster Hunting on the Run,” which was published last year.

He covers what he calls the “golden age” of Nessie research, which spans from the 1960s to the early 1980s, when advances in technology allowed scientists and cryptozoologists to delve deeper into the mystery of Nessie, which Zarzynski witnessed on several trips to Scotland.

Much of “Lochend” is told through the lens of Zarzynski’s experience at the age of 34, after completing a 28.5-mile self-traced ultramarathon along the shores of Loch Ness in 1984, a feat that Zarzynski believes was the first to accomplish in this field. area (there is now a Baxters Loch Ness Marathon).

Zarzynski made his first trip to Scotland as a cryptozoologist in 1975, a year after he began teaching social studies in the Saratoga City School District.

“I became completely captivated and intrigued by it and would go back to it summer after summer or on our spring break,” Zarzynski said.

Inspired by what he witnessed on later trips there, he continued to study archeology and heritage, earning a second master’s degree from the University of Leicester in the UK. He used these skills to search for “Champ”, a legendary Lake Champlain creature, and performed thousands of dives for wreckage. From 1987 to 2011, he was executive director of Bateaux Below, a nonprofit team that studied Lake George shipwrecks, primarily French and Indian war vessels. In 1990, he helped discover the wreck of 1758 Land Tortoise from Lake George, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

With his diving days behind him, Zarzynski decided it was time to chronicle his monster-hunting experiences in Scotland, where he was able to meet top-notch engineers and scientists who developed instruments sonar and other equipment as Cold War tensions spurred innovations in remote sensing. to probe the deepest oceans.

“I was a social studies teacher, so I wasn’t a techie, but I was a good news logger and enjoyed history. I literally wanted to live the story. It was a way I could be a part of that. Eventually they brought me in to help,” Zarzynski said.

One of these scientists was Marty Klein, who developed side scan sonar technology. Another innovator on the scene was Charles Wyckoff, who specialized in the development of high-speed photography and is credited with capturing the first hydrogen bomb detonation.

“We’re talking about some of the greats and they were here at Loch Ness trying to solve this mystery and I happen to be one of those guys watching them try to solve this mystery,” Zarzynski said. .

Although Nessie never surfaced, they discovered historical artifacts. In 1976, while using his side scan sonar instruments, Klein found a rare WWII-era Wellington bomber. About 11,000 were produced and only two survived; one was displayed in a museum and the other landed in Loch Ness.

Nearly a decade later, Zarzynski wrote about the bomber’s recovery in about 230 feet of water for General Aviation News.

Another discovery, this one coming several years after the golden age of Nessie research, was the location of a gigantic “Nessie” movie prop, which was built for Billy Wilder’s 1970 film “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”, but was lost during filming.

“It was about 30 feet long. . . It was being towed by a 19-foot-long submarine and the thing sank,” Zarzynski said.

In 2012, the author worked with Peter Pepe of Glens Falls-based Pepe Productions and approached the Discovery Channel to produce a documentary about the search for the lost prop.

“It was never lit green, but four years later it was discovered using an autonomous underwater vehicle with side-scan sonar. They found it was still intact in several hundred feet of water in Loch Ness,” Zarzynski said.

During his time hunting monsters at Loch Ness, what stuck with Zarzynski was the attitude of the scientists working there.

“One of the things I appreciated about these people putting their name on the line was that they knew you might find something that would contribute to common human knowledge. I always appreciated that particular attitude and I hoped that while we [were] progress and so on that we can find other things that will enrich humanity,” Zarzynski said.

‘Lochend – Monster Hunting on the Run’ recently received the award for ‘Best Loch Ness Historical Book of the Year’. [2021]by CryptoZooNews and the International Museum of Cryptozoology in Portland, Maine. It is available from Amazon, BookBaby and other bookstores.