Loch Ness Monster (cryptozoology)

Within cryptozoology, the study and search for legendary or mythic animals, the Loch Ness monster is an aquatic, dinosaur-like creature rumored to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands in north-central Scotland. Loch Ness is the largest body of freshwater in the United Kingdom by volume, and the lake’s impressive size (22.5 miles long, 1.5 miles wide, and 812 feet deep) and notoriously dark and murky waters have enhanced its reputation as the purported home of the legendary aquatic beast for nearly a century. Numerous alleged sightings and encounters of the Loch Ness monster (or "Nessie," as it is also affectionately known) have been reported since the 1930s, various scientific expeditions to verify and document the creature have been undertaken since the 1960s, and dozens of photographs claiming to serve as visible evidence of the Loch Ness monster have been put forth over the years—although the vast majority of these pictures have been dismissed as frauds and hoaxes. Nevertheless, public fascination with the Loch Ness monster continues well into the twenty-first century. Nessie is, by far, the most famous cryptid (an animal-like creature rumored to exist within folklore, but whose existence is not scientifically confirmed) associated with the British Isles, and large numbers of tourists from around the world visit the Scottish Highlands each year out of personal fascination with the Loch Ness monster.

Background

Although the Loch Ness monster, as it is popularly understood today, is a relatively recent cryptozoological phenomenon that dates to the 1930s, some archaeological evidence and religious literature from ancient times have made references to the idea of a large marine beast residing in Loch Ness. Around approximately 500 AD, the Picts, an ancient Scottish tribe, etched images of a unique sea creature into rocks located near Loch Ness. During the seventh century AD, the first written reference to an aquatic creature in Loch Ness appears in a biographical account of Saint Columba, an Irish priest who is credited with spreading Christianity to Scotland. The biography mentions that in the year 565, Saint Columba intervened when he witnessed a gigantic creature in Loch Ness attacking a man. This creature allegedly had attacked and killed many other innocent locals. Columba challenged the creature by making the sign of the cross and ordering the beast, in the name of God, to return to the sea. According to the biography, the creature never returned to attack humans at Loch Ness again.

Allegations of a mysterious beast inhabiting Loch Ness did not resurface until 1933, when a new road was constructed along the shore of the loch that exposed the body of water to large numbers of travelers. In May of that year, a local newspaper published a story claiming an alleged sighting of a creature in Loch Ness. Shortly after, others claimed to have witnessed an unknown creature crossing the newly constructed road. Newspapers throughout Britain responded to the growing frenzy by dispatching journalists to Loch Ness in hopes of capturing evidence of the monster. The Daily Mail took perhaps the keenest interest in the story and sent an expert big-game hunter, Marmaduke Wetherell, to capture the Loch Ness monster. Although he did not succeed in capturing the creature, the hunter claimed that he had uncovered footprints of a giant, four-footed beast within a few days of arriving at Loch Ness; in response, the Daily Mail published a front-page feature that claimed, "Monster of Loch Ness is Not Legend, But a Fact." Analysis of casts of the footprints by the British Natural History Museum later concluded that they belonged to a hippopotamus, not a mysterious aquatic beast.

An August 1933 article in the Inverness Courier claimed that a local resident named George Spicer witnessed a large creature that appeared to be a dragon or dinosaur crossing the land near Loch Ness while heading towards the water. This article triggered a wave of new alleged sightings, and in December 1933 the British newspaper Daily Express printed a photograph alleging to show the Loch Ness monster swimming in the water. As reports of sightings and alleged photographs of the aquatic beast continued to mount, the Loch Ness monster increasingly came to be viewed by Scots as an important symbolic of ethnic and cultural identity. Scottish nationalists feared that English scientists and museums wanted to capture or kill the beast for their own purposes, and concerned Scottish residents lobbied Sir Godfrey Collins, the Scottish secretary of state, to take action to protect the Loch Ness monster from being hunted or attacked.

Overview

As technology has provided more ways to detect the monster, mounting evidence that the Loch Ness monster does not actually exist (or a lack of evidence of its existence) has not deterred the creature’s "true believers" from abandoning their hope that Nessie is real. The most famous alleged image of the Loch Ness monster was a 1934 photograph, popularly known as the "Surgeon’s Photograph" (because it was taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London gynecologist). The grainy, black and white photograph appeared to show an aquatic, dinosaur-like creature with its body submerged underwater and its neck and head protruding from the water. In 1994 the "Surgeon’s Photograph" was finally revealed to be an elaborate hoax when Christian Spurling, the son-in-law of Marmaduke Wetherell, the big-game hunter hired by the Daily Mail to capture the Loch Ness monster in 1933, admitted that Wetherell staged the picture by using a toy submarine covered with a fake monster head and had Wilson send the photo for publication. Spurling confessed that Wetherell staged the faux photograph in order to bolster the credibility of reported sightings of the Loch Ness monster.

In April 2016, Kongsberg Maritime, a Norwegian aquatic research firm, discovered a movie prop of the Loch Ness monster that was used to film the 1970 motion picture The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The prop was thirty-three feet long and featured two humps. Kongsberg Maritime found the prop at the bottom of Loch Ness through the use of an underwater robotic drone. To date, more than a thousand alleged sightings of the Loch Ness monster have been reported since the 1930s, and according to the Telegraph, visitors to Loch Ness number at about one million a year, which brings in about £25 million (nearly $33 million) a year.

Other theories explaining the Loch Ness Monster have included swimming elephants, a prehistoric plesiosaur, large fish, or roaming sharks. In 2018, researchers from several universities in New Zealand began gathering water samples from Loch Ness in order to document marine life in the body of water. The researchers extracted DNA from the water samples to identify the different species living in the loch. After analyzing the DNA found, they discovered no DNA present from large fish species or sharks, however, they did find an abundance of eel DNA. The discovery led some to believe that the Loch Ness Monster could be a giant eel.

Bibliography

LaFrance, Adrienne. "Google Joins the Search for the Loch Ness Monster." Atlantic. Atlantic Monthly Group, 20 Apr. 2015. Web. 8 July 2016.

"1933: Loch Ness Monster Sighting." History. A&E Television Networks, 2016. Web. 8 July 2016.

"First Phase of Hunt for Loch Ness Monster Complete." University of Otago, 28 June 2018, www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/releases/otago690003.html. Accessed 2 Oct. 2019.

"Loch Ness Monster May Be a Giant Eel, Say Scientists." BBC, 5 Sept. 2019, www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-49495145. Accessed 2 Oct. 2019.

Palci, Alessandro. "Why Are We Still Searching for the Loch Ness Monster?" Conversation. Conversation, 25April 2016. Web. 8 July 2016.

Radford, Benjamin. "Loch Ness Monster: Facts about Nessie." LiveScience.Purch, 22 Apr. 2015. Web. 8 July 2016.

Victor, Daniel. "Loch Ness Monster Is Found! (Kind of. Not Really.)." New York Times.New York Times, 13 Apr. 2016. Web. 8 July 2016.