Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, Scotland's infamous lake monster. Scottish myths and legends, images, facts and pictures

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The Loch Ness Monster / Nessie

The Loch Ness Monster, sometimes called "Nessie" or "Ness" (Scottish Gaelic: Niseag) is a creature or group of creatures said to live in Loch Ness, a deep freshwater loch (lake) near the city of Inverness in northern Scotland. Nessie is generally categorized as a lake monster.

The Loch Ness Monster is a mysterious and unidentified animal, claimed to inhabit Scotland's Loch Ness, the most voluminous freshwater lake in Great Britain.

The local Scottish highlanders, and indeed many people around the world, have affectionately referred to the animal by the feminine name of 'Nessie'.

Carvings (see above) of this unidentified animal, made by the ancient inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands some 1,500 years ago, are the earliest evidence that Loch Ness harbors a strange aquatic creature. This resembles the stone carvings of the Chupacabra.

Rumors of a monster, or animal, living in the loch are claimed by believers to have been known for several centuries, though others have questioned the accuracy and reliability of such tales, which were generally unknown before the 1960s. The earliest known report occurred in the Life of St. Columba by Adamnan, written around the 7th century. It describes how in 565 Columba saved the life of a Pict, who was being supposedly attacked by the monster. Adamnan describes the event as follows:

"...(He) raised his holy hand, while all the rest, brethren as well as strangers, were stupefied with terror, and, invoking the name of God, formed the saving sign of the cross in the air, and commanded the ferocious monster, saying, "Thou shalt go no further, nor touch the man; go back with all speed." Then at the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified, and fled more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes, though it had just got so near to Lugne, as he swam, that there was not more than the length of a spear-staff between the man and the beast. Then the brethren seeing that the monster had gone back, and that their comrade Lugne returned to them in the boat safe and sound, were struck with admiration, and gave glory to God in the blessed man. And even the barbarous heathens, who were present, were forced by the greatness of this miracle, which they had seen, to magnify the God of the Christians".

Plesiosaur

Plesiosaurs, by Heinrich Harder, 1916 (Click on photo to enlarge) The most common eyewitness description of Nessie, is that of a plesiosaur, a long-necked aquatic reptile that became extinct during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. Supporters of the plesiosaur theory cite the survival of a fish called the coelacanth, which supposedly went extinct along with the plesiosaur but was rediscovered off the coast of Madagascar in 1938.

Kelpie

According to the Swedish naturalist and author Bengt Sjögren (1980), present day beliefs in lake monsters such as "Nessie" are associated with the old legends of kelpies. He claims that the accounts of lake monsters have changed over the ages, originally describing a horse like appearance, but in recent times describing a stronger resemblance to dinosaurs or plesiosaurs. Sjögren concludes that the kelpie legends have developed into more plausible descriptions of lake monsters, reflecting awareness of plesiosaurs. In other words, the kelpie of folklore has been transformed into a more "realistic" and "contemporary" notion of the creature.

Loch Ness

Loch Ness is located in the North of Scotland and is one of a series of interlinked lochs which run along the Great Glen. The Great Glen is a distinctive incision which runs across the country and represents a large geological fault zone. The interlinking was completed in the 19th century following the completion of the Caledonian Canal.

The Great Glen is more than 700 ft (213 m) deep and ice free. It is fed by the Oich and other streams and drained by the Ness to the Moray Firth. It forms part of the Caledonian Canal. By volume, Loch Ness is the largest freshwater lake in Great Britain.

(Click on photo to enlarge) 

Seiches and boat wakes

Loch Ness, due to its long, straight shape, is subject to some unusual occurrences affecting its surface. A seiche is a large, regular oscillation of a lake, caused by a water reverting to its natural level after being blown to one end of the lake. The impetus from this reversion continues to the lake's windward end and then reverts back. In Loch Ness, the process occurs every 31.5 minutes.

Boat wakes can also produce strange effects in the loch. As a wake spreads and divides from a boat passing the centre of the loch, it hits both sides almost simultaneously and deflects back to meet again in the middle. The movements interact to produce standing waves that are much larger than the original wake, and can have a humped appearance. By the time this occurs, the boat has passed and the unusual waves are all that can be seen.

However, there are wake sightings which appear to contradict the theory, as there are wakes that occur when the loch is dead calm with no boat nearby. A bartender named David Munro claims to have witnessed a wake which he believed to be a creature zigzagging, diving and reappearing. (There were 26 other witnesses from a nearby car park).

Some sightings describe the onset of a V-shaped wake, as if there were something underwater Moreover, many wake sightings describe something not conforming to the shape of a boat.

Land sightings

Although sightings of the creature on land around the loch reputedly date back to the sixteenth century, modern interest in the monster was sparked by a 22 July 1933 sighting, when Mr George Spicer and his wife saw 'a most extraordinary form of animal' cross the road in front of their car. They described the creature as having a large body (about 4 feet high and 25 feet long), and long, narrow neck, slightly thicker than an elephant's trunk and as long as the 10-12 foot width of the road; the neck had a number of undulations in it. They saw no limbs because of a dip in the road obscuring the animal's lower portion. It lurched across the road towards the loch some 20 yards away, leaving only a trail of broken undergrowth in its wake.

On 5 January 1934 a motorcyclist called Arthur Grant claimed to have nearly hit the creature while approaching Abriachan on the northeastern shore, at about 1 am on a moonlit night. Grant saw a small head attached to a long neck; the creature saw him and crossed the road back into the loch. Grant dismounted and followed it to the loch, but only saw ripples where it had entered.

(Click on photo to enlarge)

In another 1934 sighting, a young maidservant named Margaret Munro supposedly observed the creature for about 20 minutes. It was about 6:30 am on 5 June, when she spotted it on shore from about 200 yards. She described it as having elephant like skin, a long neck, a small head and two short forelegs or flippers. The sighting ended when the creature reentered the water.

Loch sightings

In May 1943, CB Farrel of the Royal Observer Corps was supposedly distracted from his duties by a Nessie sighting. He was about 250 yards away from a large-eyed, 'finned' creature, which had a 20-30 foot long body, and a neck that protruded about 4-5 feet out of the water.

In December 1954 a strange sonar contact was made by the fishing boat Rival III. The vessel's crew observed sonar readings of a large object keeping pace with the boat at a depth of 480 feet. It was detected travelling for half a mile in this manner, before contact was lost.

Three sightings in one night

On June 17, 1993, Edna MacInnes and David Mackay, both of Inverness, reportedly saw the monster which they described as forty feet long, pale brown, and with a long neck held high above the water. After swimming along the surface, it sank into the water. Although the monster was a mile from the shore, MacInnes claimed to have run along the shore to keep up with it. "I was scared when the wash from its wake lapped on the shore, but I just kept running behind it. By the time it plunged below the surface I was running as fast as I could go," She added. Forty minutes later they saw it again, and Mackay attempted to take a photograph, but only managed to get a picture of its wake.

Later the same evening it was reportedly seen by James MacIntosh of Inverness along with his son James. Young James saw it first, saying "Dad, that's not a boat." They described a pale brown, long-necked creature heading away from shore.

The final sighting of the night was reported by Lorraine Davidson, who saw a large wake in the loch, when no boats were visible for miles. The wake appeared to be different from a typical boat wake, in a manner not described in the report.

Photographs and films

The 'Surgeon's Photo' (Click on photo to enlarge) 
One of the most iconic images of Nessie is known as the 'Surgeon's Photograph' which many consider to be good evidence of the monster, though doubts about the photograph's authenticity have been expressed. The photographer, a gynecologist named Robert Kenneth Wilson, never claimed it to be a picture of the monster. He merely claimed to have photographed "something in the water". The photo is often cropped to make the monster seem huge, while the original uncropped shot shows the other end of the loch and the monster in the centre. The ripples on the photo fit the size and circular pattern of small ripples as opposed to large waves when photographed up close.

The Taylor film (1938)

In 1938 Mr GE Taylor, a South African tourist, filmed something in the loch for three minutes on 16mm colour film, which is now in the possession of Dr Maurice Burton. However, Dr Burton has refused to show the film to Loch Ness investigators (such as Peter Costello or the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau). A single frame was published in his book 'The Elusive Monster'; before he retired. Dr Roy P Mackal, a respected biologist and crypto zoologist, declared the frame to be "positive evidence." (Janet and Colin Bord, 'Alien Animals' (Granada 1986).

The Dinsdale Film (1960)

In 1960, aeronautical engineer Tim Dinsdale filmed a hump crossing the water in a powerful wake unlike that of a boat. JARIC declared that the object was "probably animate". Others were skeptical, saying that the "hump" cannot be ruled out as being a boat and claimed that when the contrast is turned up too high a man can be clearly seen in a boat. Some have questioned this, because the version they were watching was a pirate copy. This copy may itself have been a fake attempt to imitate the original.

In 1993 Discovery Communications made a documentary called Loch Ness Discovered that featured a digital enhancement of the Dinsdale film. A computer expert who enhanced the film noticed a shadow in the negative which was not very obvious in the positive. By enhancing and overlaying frames, he found what appeared to be the rear body, the rear flippers, and 1-2 additional humps of a plesiosaur-like body. He said that: "Before I saw the film, I thought the Loch Ness Monster was a load of rubbish. Having done the enhancement, I'm not so sure". Nonetheless, the enhancement did show a smaller second hump and possibly a third hump.

Searches for the monster

The LNPIB sonar study (1967-8)

Professor DG Tucker, chairman of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, England, volunteered his services as a sonar developer and expert at Loch Ness in 1968. The gesture was part of a larger effort helmed by the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau (LNPIB) from 1967-1968 and involved collaboration between volunteers and professionals in various fields. Tucker had chosen Ness as the test site for a prototype sonar transducer with a maximum range of 800 meters. The device was fixed underwater at Temple Pier in Urquhart Bay and directed towards the opposite shore, effectively drawing an acoustic 'net' across the width of Ness through which no moving object could pass undetected. During the two-week trial in August, multiple animate targets six meters (20 ft) in length were identified ascending from and diving to the loch bottom. Professor Tucker reported that his fixed beam sonar made contact with large moving objects sometimes reaching speeds of at least 10 knots. Analysis of diving profiles ruled out air-breathers because the targets never surfaced or moved shallower than midwater. A brief press release by LNPIB and associates touched on the sonar data and drew to a close the 1968 effort.

Andrew Carroll's sonar study (1969)

In 1969 Andrew Carroll, field researcher for the New York Aquarium in New York City, proposed a mobile sonar scan operation at Loch Ness. The project was funded by the Griffis foundation (named for Nixon Griffis, then a director of the aquarium). This was the tail-end (and most successful portion) of the LNPIB's 1969 effort involving submersibles with biopsy harpoons. The trawling scan, in Carroll's research launch Rangitea, took place in October. One sweep of the loch made contact with a strong, animate echo for nearly three minutes just north of Foyers. The identity of the animal remains a mystery. Later analysis determined that the intensity of the returning echo was twice as great as that expected from a 10 foot pilot whale. Calculations placed the animal's length at 20 feet.

Submersible investigations

Earlier submersible work had yielded dismal results. Under the sponsorship of World Book Encyclopedia, pilot Dan Taylor deployed the Viperfish at Loch Ness on 1 June 1969. His dives, though treacherous and plagued by technical problems, were routine, and produced no new data. The Deep Star III built by General Dynamics and an unnamed two-man submersible built by Westinghouse were slated to sail but never did. It was only when the Pisces arrived at Ness that the LNPIB obtained new data. Owned by Vickers, Ltd., the submersible had been rented out to produce a Sherlock Holmes film featuring a dummy Loch Ness Monster. When the dummy monster broke loose from the Pisces during filming and sank to the bottom of the loch, Vickers executives capitalized on the loss and 'monster fever' by allowing the sub to do a bit of exploring. During one of these excursions, the Pisces picked up a large moving object on sonar 200 feet ahead and 50 feet above the bottom of the loch. Slowly the pilot closed to half that distance but the echo moved rapidly out of sonar range and disappeared.

The Big Expedition of 1970

During the so-called "Big Expedition" of 1970, Roy Mackal, a biologist who taught for 20 years at the University of Chicago, devised a system of hydrophones (underwater microphones) and deployed them at intervals throughout the loch. In early August a hydrophone assembly was lowered into Urquhart Bay and anchored in 700 feet of water. Two hydrophones were secured at depths of 300 and 600 feet. After two nights of recording, the tape (sealed inside a 55 gallon steel drum along with the system's other sensitive components) was retrieved and played before an excited LNPIB. "Bird-like chirps" had been recorded, and the intensity of the chirps on the deep hydrophone suggested they had been produced at greater depth. In October "knocks" and "clicks" were recorded by another hydrophone in Urquhart Bay, indicative of echolocation. These sounds were followed by a "turbulent swishing" suggestive of the tail locomotion of a large aquatic animal. The knocks, clicks and resultant swishing were believed to be the sounds of an animal echo locating prey before moving in for the kill. The noises stopped whenever craft passed along the surface of the loch near the hydrophone -- and resumed once the craft reached a safe distance. In previous experiments, it was observed that call intensities were greatest at depths less than 100 feet.

Robert Rines's studies (1972, 1975 and 2001)

The rhomboid fin photograph, the "flipper" photograph. (Click on photo to enlarge)
In the early 1970s, a group of people led by American patent lawyer and founder of an organization which he named the Academy of Applied Sciences, Robert Rines, obtained some underwater photographs. One was a vague image, perhaps of a rhomboid flipper (though others have dismissed the image as air bubbles or a fish fin). On the basis of this photograph, British naturalist Peter Scott announced in 1975 that the scientific name of the monster would henceforth be Nessiteras rhombopteryx (Greek for "The Ness monster with diamond-shaped fin"). This would enable Nessie to be added to a British register of officially protected wildlife (but compare). It has been noted by London newspapers that Nessiteras rhombopteryx is an anagram of "monster hoax by Sir Peter S." Monster-hunter Robert H. Rines replied that the letters could also be rearranged to spell "Yes, both pix are monsters--R."

The underwater photos were reportedly obtained by painstakingly sonaring the loch depths for unusual underwater activity. A submersible camera with an affixed, high-powered light (necessary for penetrating Loch Ness' notorious murk) was deployed to record images below the surface. Several of the photographs, despite their obviously murky quality, did indeed seem to show an animal resembling a plesiosaur in various positions and lightings. One photograph appeared to show the head, neck and upper torso of a plesiosaur. (Close examination would show a specific head shape and even an eye).

In 2001, the Academy of Applied Science, known for Robert Rines' photographs, videoed a powerful V-shaped wake traversing the still water on a calm day. They also found what looked like a decaying carcass of an animal.

Discovery Loch Ness (1993)

In 1993 Discovery Communications began to research the ecology of the loch. The study did not focus entirely on the monster, but on the loch's nematodes (of which a new species was discovered) and fish. Expecting to find a small fish population, the researchers caught twenty fish in one catch, increasing previous estimates of the loch's fish population about nine fold.

Using sonar, the team encountered a rare kind of underwater disturbance due to stored energy (e.g., from a wind) causing an imbalance between the loch's warmer and colder layers. While reviewing printouts of the event the next day, they found what appeared to be three sonar contacts, each followed by a powerful wake. These events were later shown on a program called Loch Ness Discovered, in conjunction with analyses and enhancements of the 1960 Dinsdale Film, the Surgeon's Photo, and the Rines Flipper Photo.

GUST Expedition (2001)

A controversial expedition by the Global Underwater Search Team (GUST) was conducted with advanced sonar equipment to search for the creature. One night, a small sonar contact moved on the screen. On another occasion, a vague disturbance was captured on film.

The expedition was shown on a program called Loch Ness Monster: Search for the Truth.

Hoaxes

The Loch Ness monster phenomenon has seen several attempts to hoax the public, some of which were very successful. Other hoaxes were revealed rather quickly by the perpetrators, or exposed after diligent research. A few examples are mentioned below:

In the 1930s, a big game hunter named Marmaduke Wetherell went to Loch Ness to look for the Loch Ness Monster. he claimed to have found some footprints but when the footprints were sent to scientists for analysis, they turned out to be hippopotamus footprints. A prankster had used a petrified hippopotamus foot umbrella stand to make the footprints.

In 2004, a documentary team for Channel 5 (primarily consisting of special effects experts from movies) deliberately tried to make people believe there was something in the loch. They constructed an elaborate animatronics model. Despite setbacks, it was a success, and numerous sightings were reported on the day, in the very places they conducted the hoaxes.

In 2005 two students claimed to have found a huge tooth embedded in the body of a deer on the loch shore. They publicised the find widely, even setting up a website, but expert analysis soon revealed that the "tooth" was the antler of a muntjac.

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