The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster #shorts

Stories of the Loch Ness monster, or Nessie as she is more fondly known, goes back all the way to some of Scotland’s earlier inhabitants – the Picts. Since then, the monster has been seen by both locals and tourists, scientific explorations have been launched, and every sighting, with various degrees of credibility, is recorded by the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register. Monster of the deep or mass hallucination?

Protector of the loch or money-making gimmick targeting hapless tourists? Whether you’ve seen her or not, whether you believe in her or not, Nessie has become as much a part of the Scottish highlands as kilts, Haggis, and bagpipes.

Now, before we dive into the loch to find Nessie, I do need to ask our readers to bear with me should I get a little sentimental. You see, Nessie was where it all started for me – my interest in mysteries, the desire to travel, and the excuse to spend the better part of my life making up stories, so I have a deep fondness for the anti-social monster in a far off lake in Scotland. Do I think Nessie exists? Well, since this is a publication for skeptics, I’ll keep that to myself.

Instead, I’ll tell you the story and you can make up your own mind.

Loch Ness

As far as lochs go, Nessie picked her loch with care. While Loch Ness is not the deepest loch, that honour goes to Loch Morar, it’s the biggest loch by volume in Scotland. It’s 22 square miles with an official depth of 754 feet (that’s 229.8 metres for the rest of us); however, a local skipper, Keith Stewart, claims that he found the deepest part of the loch to be 889 feet (270.9 metres).

The depth and darkness of the loch have played a big role in keeping the mystery alive. Due to the high peat content in the water, it’s nearly impossible to see much deeper than the surface: a deep, dark loch – what more could a monster ask for?

Now, I can describe Loch Ness – rolling green hills, an icy blue loch, and a dark castle ruin. But that’s a bit mediocre. Instead, how about the first impression of Loch Ness from someone who comes from a country of abundant sun and limited water?

Winter in the Scottish Highlands was a bit of shock on the system. It was very wet, so very cold, and so damn green. We have green spots in South Africa, but nothing like that. I grew up next to one of the bigger dams in the country, so a large body of water practically on my doorstep – I’m used to that. Monsters in the dam … well, that’s a story better suited to one of the other publications.

Despite all this, I was not prepared for Loch Ness. The sheer size of it was astounding. We visited Urquhart Castle that looked out on the deepest part of the loch. The waters of the loch is not just dark, it’s the colour of the night sky in the Kalahari.

The sky was overcast, not unusual, shocking green everywhere I looked, and the ruins of an old castle sacked by the McDonald clan multiple times in its long history behind me. It was a scene straight from Jane Eyre. If Nessie had suddenly decided to entertain the crowd with a back flip, I wouldn’t have been in the least bit surprised. I’m a bit of skeptic when it comes to cryptozoology.

But in that moment, I wasn’t so sure.

The first sighting

The story of the Loch Ness monster goes way back. The earliest record of something in the loch is a stone carving of an unknown animal, left behind by the Picts.

The Picts, called by some the “lost peoples of Europe”, are a bit of a mystery themselves. An ancient people living in Eastern and Northeastern Scotland around the time of the Romans, very little is actually known about them and they seem to have disappeared around the first millennium AD, probably incorporated into the Gaelic cultures. The one thing they left behind is a wealth of carving stones – a topic of archeological study to this day.

The ancient carving in question was found built into a highland farm building, not far from Loch Ness. It depicts an unidentified aquatic creature described as a swimming elephant or perhaps a horizontal seahorse. Essentially it has flippers, a curled tail, and an elongated beak or trunk. The carving stones mostly depict recognizable animals, such as snakes, ravens, and wild boar, but the Pictish Beast is the one animal that has not been fully identified.

There have been a few attempts at an explanation. Some consider the possibility that the beast is a dolphin or porpoise. I found one suggestion that it might, in fact, be a swimming elephant though what an elephant would be doing swimming in Loch Ness in the heyday of the Picts is a mystery all on its own. Of course, it could also be depictions of the Kelpie or Water horse, creatures from Celtic legend.

Regardless, archeologists and historians consider Urquhart, on the shores of Loch Ness, to be the site of a Pictish settlement of some significance, so they would’ve had a great view of the loch and its inhabitants – be they seahorses, kelpies, swimming elephants or sea monsters.

The first written account of a meeting with the Loch Ness monster happened around 565 AD and comes from the biography of St Columba. On a mission to Scotland, to convert as many heathenish Picts to Christianity as possible, the good saint found himself on the shores of the river Ness that flows from Loch Ness, pondering how to get to the other side.

Walking along the shore, he came upon a group of Picts, burying a friend who had been killed by a water beast. This is the only time the monster appears to have killed anyone. St Columba laid his staff across the dead man’s chest and, lo and behold, the man came back to life.

Still wanting to get to the other side, Saint Columba ordered Brother Lugne Mocumin to swim across the river and bring back a boat moored on the opposite shore. Not to criticize a saint but seeing as how he just brought a man back from the dead that had been killed by a water beast, this seems a little short-sighted.

Regardless, the monk leapt into the waters and started swimming to the other side. The monster, alerted to the man’s presences, came roaring to the surface, going for the monk with the enthusiasm expected of a hungry water beast. Saint Columba stepped forward, made the sign of the cross, invoked the name of the Lord, and commanded the beast to leave the monk alone.

The monster either fled in terror at the saint’s power or simply decided to avoid all the unnecessary shouting and find an easier meal elsewhere. The Picts, upon seeing the monster obey the saint, fell to their knees and converted to Christianity on the spot.

These are not the only sightings. There are quite a few more before we reach the 1900s when the great sensation that was the Loch Ness monster finally hit the tabloids.

A Scottish chronicler mentions sightings of a monster in the loch around 1520. In 1694, Richard Franck writes about a floating island spotted in Loch Ness. However, there are no floating islands in Loch Ness so we have to wonder, what did he see? A writer called Daniel Defoe mentions “Leviathans” in Loch Ness that were disturbed by General Wade’s men blasting a road in 1726.

In the 1800s, there were several sightings of monsters or just strange things in the loch. However, the 1800s was a busy time for Nessie as she was seen not just in the water, but on the shores and roads around the loch. Descriptions during this time vary wildly. Everything from a serpentine animal, to something resembling a sturgeon, to an animal with tusks and even one that barks – apparently Nessie was experiencing a bit of an identity crisis at this time.

However, there are a few descriptions that seem to be in line with what we have today – large in size, humps, a long neck, and darkly coloured. Considering the sheer number of people who claimed to have seen something, I have to wonder. If not a monster, was there something peculiar frolicking around Loch Ness?

Nessie hits the charts

The Nessie phenomenon really took off in the 1930s. In April 1933, according to an Inverness Courier article published in May, a well-known local business man and his wife (a university graduate), living near Inverness, was travelling along the north shore of Loch Ness when they spotted a disturbance in the loch, less than a mile from the shore. The creature’s body resembled that of a whale and it was rolling and plunging, generally having a jolly good time, water cascading from its enormous size.

When taking its final plunge back into the depths of the loch, the waves were big enough to have been caused by a passing steamer. The couple waited for about half an hour, to see if the creature would surface again, but nothing reappeared. The creature was gone, but the legend of Nessie was introduced to the world at large and in the last 89 years or so, hundreds of sightings have been reported.

Considering all these sightings, there has to be something in the water, right? Gary Campbell is convinced and, with his wife Kathy, runs the Loch Ness sightings register where anyone who spots Nessie can report their sighting. Not every sighting is simply accepted at face value. Some sightings can be easily explained, for example logs or the wake of a boat, and then there are some obvious fakes, so only about 1/3 of sightings actually make it onto the registry.

All in all, the registry currently has 1136 sightings recorded up date. In 2021, there were 5 sightings from the loch and 10 webcam images reported. So, despite what science has to say on the matter, Nessie fever is still going strong!

More eyewitness accounts

In 1979, Alastair Boyd, an art teacher, and his wife had their own Nessie encounter. Boyd claims that as an art teacher, his job is to teach people to observe and what he saw in the loch that day was not a log, an otter, or the wake of a boat. It was a large animal, heaving out of the water, similar to a whale. According to him, the observable part of the animal, when it stopped rolling, was around 20 feet (6 metres).

This account is similar to many others reported from the 1930s up to present day. We’re not going to go through all of them or we’ll be here till tomorrow, but what is interesting is that many of them describe similar features:

According to most accounts, the creature is either black or a very dark colour. One person described it as “sludgy” brown or dark green. There were some accounts describing Nessie as light brown, like a camel, but considering that this Nessie was seen on land, and possibly barking at the time, I think we can safely ignore the camel-coloured Nessie. Now, the skeptics in the audience might say, all marine animals are black or dark brown, it doesn’t prove there is a monster in the lake.

That is true, but if all marine animals are black or dark brown, why would Nessie be any different?

All accounts agree that Nessie is big. In fact, a word that gets tossed around a lot in the Nessie circles is “whale”, and some descriptions of Nessie resembling a whale goes back to the 1930s.

Apparently, Nessie is also a rather fun-loving monster. Plenty of witnesses say the monster reminded them of a whale rolling around in the water causing waves. A few also mention the water looked like it was boiling.

Now, once again, the skeptics out there would say that of course everyone describes the same thing; they’re all reading the same books! While that might explain all the recent sightings - it’s the age of the internet so nothing is really secret or mysterious anymore, it doesn’t explain the original sightings in the 30s. After all, there were no books or delightful articles presented by bespectacled gentlemen on the Loch Ness monster back then.

Hoaxes a-plenty

No story about Nessie would be complete without the hoaxes – and there were many. One man in particular seemed to be in the eye of the storm.

The first hoax happened in December 1933. The Daily Mail commissioned Marmaduke Wetherell, a self-assured big-game hunter and film maker, to hunt down and find proof of the monster causing such a ruckus in the Highlands. He returned to London with footprint casts of what he considered to be “a very powerful, soft-footed animal, about 20 feet/6 meters long”.

However, after being checked thoroughly, zoologists at the Natural History Museum found that the footprints were those of a soft-footed animal alright, but not a monster, rather a hippopotamus, similar to one Whetherell had shot in Africa. Since there are no hippos in Loch Ness or surrounding area, the tracks were obviously faked.

Now some sources claim that Wetherell was the one who faked the prints himself while other sources seem unsure of the exact role of Wetherell in the deception. Did he fake the prints himself to prove his prowess after realizing what a near impossible task it would be to find Nessie, or did someone else wish to take him down a notch and played a prank on him? Either way, the bluff was called, the hippo revealed, and Whetherell returned to London in disgrace.

Probably the biggest hoax was the “surgeon’s photograph” that appeared in the London Daily Mail on April 21, 1934. If you have internet, you’ve seen it. It’s that black and white photo showing the small head and long neck of a beastie in the loch, clearly taken from a distance.

The photograph had been taken by Dr Robert Kenneth Wilson, who had a London-based practice in general surgery and gynecology. Dr Wilson had fought in both world wars, where he reached the rank of Lt Colonel. He was also an expert in firearms, and wrote a definitive text on automatic pistols that had been published in 1934. Not exactly the type of person who you’d consider to be guilty of faking monster pictures.

As it turns out, the fraud was actually perpetrated by Wetherell – remember him? Apparently, Wetherell wanted revenge for the footprint debacle. Now, honestly, I’m a little fuzzy on this. Who or what exactly Wetherell blamed for the shot to his reputation, and what he hoped to achieve with this entire plot, is not clear.

With his son Ian, and stepson Christian Spurling, Whetherell built a model of Nessie, attached it to a toy submarine, and took photos of the toy monster in the loch. They then, somehow, managed to convince Dr Wilson to submit the photo and claim that it was one he had taken while on vacation at the loch. Why the good doctor would’ve gotten involved in all this is still unknown.

The whole plot only came to light in 1994 when researchers found a 1975 article in which Ian Wetherell gave up the gig. By that time, both Wetherell Snr and Ian were deceased, but the researchers did manage to track down Christian, aged 93 at the time, and he confessed to the whole thing. There was no monster, only a toy, but for around 60 years, many believed there was a plesiosaurus living in the depths of Loch Ness. In fact, some people still do.

The flipper photo

Taken in 1972, some sources are quick to paint the flipper photo as another hoax, but I’m not convinced. If it was a hoax, quite a lot of people with quite a bit to lose in the academic community would’ve had to be in on it. Rather, I think it’s more a case of finding what you want to find. Either way, it’s an interesting story, so here goes.

In 1972, Prof Harold Edgerton of MIT, an expert in high-speed strobe photography, equipped the vessel, Narwhal, with sonar equipment and a second boat, Nan, with an underwater camera and attached a strobe light. This was for a combined Academy of Applied Science and Loch Ness Phenomenon Investigation Bureau effort to prove, once and for all, that Nessie existed.

The camera was rigged to take a photo every 45 seconds. Between 1.40 am and 2.10 am, the sonar on the Narwhal picked up targets that were interpreted to be big animals of some kind. 2000 photographs were taken and rushed to the US to be developed by Eastman and Kodak under strictly controlled conditions. Three photos came back, two clearly showing a diamond shaped flipper. Excitement was high. Nessie had been found and this time there was scientific proof. Or was there?

To make a long story short, there was some mention of computer enhancement on the photos – you know, just cleaning up the images. It all sounded very scientific so, at the time, everyone involved with the project accepted that the labs in charge of developing these photos acted in good faith. In fact, the photos were considered to be so scientific that an official name was proposed by the researchers who had taken the photo.

They were convinced that a new species of animal had been discovered in the loch and wanted to name it Nessiteras Rhombopteryx. There are rumors going around that the proposed name was an anagram for all kinds of things, but I have very little faith in the value of “anagrams as secret messages and inside jokes”, so I’m just going to skip over that.

Early on, there were some concerns. This was before the surgeon’s photo was proved to be a hoax, so there was still some belief that Nessie was a plesiosaurus. However, plesiosaurus never had a diamond shaped flipper. In fact, the smart people argued that a diamond shaped flipper would not be an effective means of propulsion, so it’s not found on any animal in nature relying on flippers for swimming. I didn’t take the time to compare flippers, so we’ll take their word for it.

Another concern was that the enhanced photos didn’t show any pixilation, which would definitely have been present in the 1970s. However, those involved with the project remained firm. Proof of Nessie has been found.

Finally, researchers and scientists started asking for the original photos without the enhancement. And here is how we know this was not an intentional hoax. Every single researcher asking for the original photos received copies of the original photos.

At this point, the whole hunt started falling apart. The original photos were blurry, grainy, and didn’t actually show anything. The enhancement, creating the clear, crisp lines of the diamond-shaped flipper was not entirely done by computer. Rather, some sources claim it was done with a paintbrush.

The person responsible for this master piece has never come forward, and I don’t blame them. After all the money and time spent on this endeavor, odds are, the culprit would’ve been tied to a post and sacrificed to whatever monster lived in the loch.

Was this an intentional hoax? Probably not. Someone looked at the photo, sincerely believed that they saw a flipper, and simply enhanced it a little so everyone else could see what was, according to our Picasso, already there.

Nessie – the boring culprits

Plenty of explanations has been put forth to explain what exactly people are seeing out on the loch. So here are a few of the most boring possible explanations from a monster-hunting point of view.

Mirages – A bathymetric survey in 1904 found that, because of its depth, Loch Ness is slow to react to temperature changes. This means that distortions, and especially elongations, of reflections, like say, that of a bird, could make the object seem up to three of four times its actual size. Interestingly enough, when researchers started using sonar, they ran into similar problems with sonar readings. So what appears to be a reflection, or sonar reading, a large aquatic animal could simply be a regular old bird or a large fish.

Seals – Another possible case of mistaken identity is seals. Common seals prey on salmon, among other things, and, while they are primarily salt water mammals, they will occasionally enter the loch hunting salmon. In November 1984 to June 1985, scientists kept tabs on a Harbour or Common seal that lived quite happily in the loch for seven months.

There’s no real indication that Nessie sightings go up during seal season when the seals come into the loch to chase after fishing boats trawling for salmon. However, visitors to the loch, especially tourists who don’t expect to see a seal in fresh water, have mistaken the seals for Nessie.

Many Nessie believers, however, feel that it would be difficult for anyone to mistake a small animal, like a seal, for an aquatic beast the size of a plesiosaurus, but remember those mirages we talked about? I’d be rather surprised to see a seal three times larger than a regular seal in a fresh water lake so, really, can we blame folks for thinking that giant seals might be the Loch Ness monster?

Boats and boat wakes – If you’re convinced you’re not seeing a mirage or a seal, you could be seeing a boat. Often, visitors would only see the wake of the boat and assume that a large creature under the water is creating the wake. An underwater camera in the 1960s originally filmed an unidentifiable object. At first, Nessie enthusiasts were convinced they had finally captured an image of the elusive monster but, unfortunately, it was just a passing boat.

As with the seals, Nessie believers feel that a small fishing or pleasure boat wouldn’t leave such a large wake behind it, or that people are unlikely to mistake a boat for a large sea creature. But, once again, remember the mirage issue – a regular wake left by a small boat could appear much larger when seen from a distance.

Mundane objects, such as floating logs, are also often misidentified as Nessie. Other possible culprits are simply creatures you’d expect to find a lake, such as sturgeon (though these are almost extinct now) or catfish (the Wels Catfish to be specific).

These explanations probably cover the majority of the Nessie sightings out there. However, the image of a large catfish really puts a damper on the whole romance of a mysterious monster. So I say, let’s skip forward to something a little more exciting.

Is Nessie a plesiosaurus?

The idea of the Loch Ness monster being a Plesiosaurus probably started with the surgeon’s photo that turned out to be a hoax. Most sightings report humps or something big. The long neck and small head don’t really come up all that much. While the idea of Nessie being a dinosaur is appealing, it’s also very unlikely.

Plesiosaurus was a large marine reptile from the early to middle Jurassic period. That’s quite a while ago. It’s noteworthy for its long neck that was almost about the length of the body, and its small head. It had four flippers and a tail that it used for mobility which is why the notorious flipper photo caused much so excitement.

Now, much as I would love for Nessie to be a 65 million year old reptile that is unlikely. No animal could live that long. On top of that, scientists have found that, during the time of the plesiosaurus, Loch Ness would’ve been frozen solid so it would’ve been impossible for any creature to make its way into the loch.

The die-hard plesiosaurus believers however posit another theory – they agree that it’s unlikely for Nessie to be a plesiosaurus. However, they feel that it’s entirely possible for the Loch Ness monster to be a creature that evolved from a plesiosaurus. So, perhaps Nessie is a descendent from the Jurassic period occasionally splashing around the loch to keep the memory of her predecessors alive and well. After all, the Coelacanth, considered extinct since the Cretaceous period, made a come-back in 1938.

Why not a descendent from plesiosaurus?

What has been found so far?

Let’s get back to reality now. There have been plenty of projects and expeditions looking for Nessie. So what exactly has been found?

Well, for one thing, Nessie.

The Loch Ness Project and VisitScotland worked with Kongsberg Maritime to use its Munin AUV, or sea drone, to survey the lakebed. The intention wasn’t really to find the Loch Ness monster but simply to gather some information in the depths of the loch.

To understand what they found however, we need to go back a little bit.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, a 1970s movie on, well, Sherlock Holmes, was filmed around Drumnadrochit and Urquhart Castle. In the movie, Nessie makes an appearance. However, the prop sank (I bet someone got fired for that), so the Nessie sequences had to be filmed in a studio instead. But, thanks to Kongsberg’s UAV, the 9m prop has finally been located. Not quite the Nessie we were hoping for, but at least someone found something.

The biggest hunt for Nessie must be Operation Deepscan. In 1987, a flotilla of 24 boats equipped with about 1 million pounds worth of sonar equipment did a 3 day sweep of the loch. They could still only cover around 60% of the loch surface, so some areas close to shore were excluded. However, considering the size of Nessie, she probably wouldn’t be hiding in shallower waters close to shore.

On the first day, sonar readings detected 3 sonar contacts in the waters below Urquhart castle, the deepest part of the loch. While it couldn’t be identified, researchers at the time considered the readings to be indicative of something large. Unfortunately, when returning to the spot on the second and third day, nothing could be found. Apparently, Nessie had moved on.

While there was some excitement at the time that Nessie’s existence had finally been proven, the project leader, Adrian Shine, changed his opinion later, admitting that it could have been a stray seal or a large school of fish. This suggestion is much more plausible, but I like to think that the Loch Ness monster had simply outwitted believers again in a game of cat and mouse that has been going on for centuries.

In 2018, Neill Gemmell, a leader in environmental DNA research, gathered a team, calling themselves the Loch Ness hunters, and set about using environmental DNA to solve the mystery of Nessie once and for all. The team consisted of experts in various fields including marine biology, evolution, archaeology, molecular ecology and aquatic species.

The idea was to collect water samples from the loch and analyze the cellular material in the water. By extracting DNA traces, the team would be able to determine what species could be found in the loch. All in all, 250 samples were collected.

The results, published in 2019, identified 3000 different species in the loch. Many of these species were found at a microscopic level but bigger species were also identified, including 11 fish species, 20 mammals and 3 amphibians. However, one thing was missing: reptile DNA. So if Nessie exists, she most certainly is not a dinosaur.

What they did find, in abundance, were eels.

So is Nessie a very large eel?

Gemmell is not convinced. While it’s certainly possible that there are some unnaturally large eels in the loch, he doesn’t think there would be enough food in the loch to sustain a population of oversized eels.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind if Nessie is not an eel. Eels are not exactly cuddly creatures and I can’t imagine plushy eels would sell particularly well.

Of course, as with all scientific studies, there are limitations and doubts, leaving a few holes big enough for a mythical monster to squeeze through.

DNA breaks down in water over 7 days so while the study was extensive, migratory animals, like seals and some fish species, that is known to visit the loch but wasn’t present in the water for 7 days would not be detected. If Nessie had gone to visit a cousin in Loch Morar, no trace of her would be found. There is also the fact that around 20% of the DNA collected didn’t match any known species. The scientists of course explain this away with words like “incomplete sequences”, “missing strands”, and “anomalies”, which we all know is code for Big Foot, Loch Ness monster, and aliens.

Non-monsters

So this last bit isn’t so much about the monster but about Operation Groundtruth, run by the Loch Ness Project, to find out more about the loch itself. While they’ve not had an encounter with Nessie yet, they have found quite a few interesting remnants from days past.

The Pansy

On August 3rd, 2002, Operation Groundtruth discovered the intact wreck of the Pansy, an 80 foot, that’s around 24 metre, Zulu class sailing fishing boat near Foyers. She had originally been built in 1903 and, in 1909, was one of the first boats to be fitted with an auxiliary motor. Unfortunately, there is no record of when or why she sank, but she was afloat at least until 1911 when a photo was taken of the owner and his crew aboard the vessel.

The Crusader

In 1952, John Cobb brought his jet powered “Crusader” to Loch Ness. He held the land speed record of 390 miles p/h (that’s around 620 k p/h) and planned to attempt a water speed record as well. On September 29th, Cobb made his first attempt. Sadly, while travelling at around 200 miles p/h (320 k p/h), the Crusader hit an unexpected boat wake and disintegrated, killing Cobb whose body was later recovered. On July 5th, 2002, the remains of the Crusader were finally found, lying peacefully under 200 m of water.

The Wellington Bomber

On New Year’s Eve in 1940, a World War II Wellington Bomber (N2980) ditched into the loch after experiencing engine failure. The 6 trainee navigators on board had been ordered to eject by parachute leaving only the 2 pilots on board. Unfortunately, rear gunner Sgt Fensome died when his parachute didn’t open but the rest of the crew landed safely. After surviving the crash into the loch, the pilots paddled ashore in their inflatable dinghy.

Doing the only reasonable thing to do under the circumstances, the pilots then got a ride from a lorry to Inverness to join in the New Year celebrations.

Why the search for Nessie

We’ve looked at the stories, the hunts, and the discoveries. But, one question remains – Why? Why do we keep looking for a monster that, by all scientific reasoning, probably doesn’t exist? A study in the 1990s determined that there was simply not enough food in the loch to support a large mammal.

DNA testing of the water concluded that there are no reptiles or big mammals in the loch. And yet, despite this, the Loch Ness monster was spotted 16 times in 2021 – the highest number of sightings since Nessie’s golden age in the 60s and 70s.

It seems like humankind is determined to find something in the loch.

I’m no philosopher or psychologist, but as I look at the world around me I see so many changes, some good, some bad, and some downright terrifying, but Nessie – Nessie remains constant. A mysterious monster guarding us from the depths of her watery home.

Conclusion

And so the hunt for Nessie continues – and not just among tourists. An article by the Smithsonian states that the Loch Ness monster was one of the topics they get asked about most and, while there is no proof and they have no monster-specialist on staff, they are willing to keep an open mind until the existence is disproven, or proven, beyond a doubt. As for the Scottish economy, Nessie might be their most profitable export. The Loch Ness monster adds about 40 million pounds to the Scottish coffers every year.

She may not be proven, but she sure is profitable!

So, is the Loch Ness monster real? I have a better question for you – does it matter? In a world with technology and science, where almost everything can be popped under a microscope or explained away in one way or another, we need Big foot and Nessie to remind us that, once upon a time, the world was innocent and magic was real.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Loch Ness Monster?

The Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, is a legendary creature said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. Stories of Nessie date back to ancient times, with various sightings and scientific explorations recorded over the years.

How deep is Loch Ness?

Loch Ness is officially 754 feet (229.8 meters) deep, although a local skipper claims to have found a deeper part at 889 feet (270.9 meters).

What is the earliest record of something in Loch Ness?

The earliest record is a stone carving of an unknown animal left behind by the Picts, depicting a creature with flippers, a curled tail, and an elongated beak or trunk.

What was the first written account of a meeting with the Loch Ness Monster?

The first written account is from the biography of St Columba around 565 AD, where he encountered a water beast and commanded it to leave a monk alone.

When did the Nessie phenomenon really take off?

The Nessie phenomenon really took off in the 1930s, with a significant sighting reported in an Inverness Courier article in May 1933.

What is the Loch Ness sightings register?

The Loch Ness sightings register is maintained by Gary Campbell and his wife Kathy, where anyone who spots Nessie can report their sighting. Only about 1/3 of sightings are accepted, with 1136 sightings recorded as of the latest update.

What are some common descriptions of Nessie?

Nessie is often described as large, black or darkly colored, and resembling a whale. Many accounts mention Nessie rolling and causing waves in the water.

What are some possible explanations for Nessie sightings?

Possible explanations include mirages, seals, boat wakes, floating logs, and large fish like sturgeon or catfish. These explanations cover the majority of Nessie sightings.

What was Operation Deepscan?

Operation Deepscan was a 1987 expedition using 24 boats equipped with sonar to search for Nessie. It detected three sonar contacts, but the findings were inconclusive.

What did the 2018 environmental DNA study find in Loch Ness?

The study identified 3000 different species in the loch, including 11 fish species, 20 mammals, and 3 amphibians. However, no reptile DNA was found, and eels were abundant.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster #shorts
• Hero image source by Brandon Zhang / openverse, cc0.