Rines, Army Scientist and Monster Hunter, Dies at 87

First, he jammed with Albert Einstein. Then, he designed early warning systems for the U.S. Army, founded a law school, wrote a tune for Broadway, and secured dozens of patents. But Dr. Robert H. Rines will be best remembered for his longest, last project: his 37-year pursuit of the Loch Ness monster.

Rines died on November 1, at age 87. And these twin obituaries of the musician-turned-physicist-turned-inventor-lawyer-turned-pursuer-of-mythical beasts are not to be missed. Here's a sample of the *New York Times' *remembrance:

Dr. Rines took the most convincing underwater pictures of what might or might not have been the Loch Ness monster [see above], so convincing that in the mid-1970s scientists from Harvard and the Smithsonian Institution expressed serious interest. Others were intrigued by his innovative search tactics: He hired a perfumer to concoct a scent to attract the creature and trained dolphins to carry cameras.

In the end, Dr. Rines, a lawyer, said that though he had failed to meet the standards of science, he was sure he could persuade a jury of the monster’s existence.

“They can just call me crazy, and that’s O.K. by me,” he said in an interview with Boston magazine in 2008. “At least I won’t go to jail for it, like Galileo.”

Dr. Rines was far more than a garden-variety monster hunter. He was spectacularly polymathic.

*He developed electronic gear to improve the resolution of radar and sonar images that is used in Patriot missiles, found the wrecks of the Titanic and the Bismarck and helped pave the way for ultrasound imaging. His patented hinge for chopsticks is less noticed but quite clever. *

*[Photo: **Robert Rines via Technology Review]
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