Loch Ness Monster
The Loch Ness Monster, known affectionately as Nessie, is a mythical creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or more humps protruding from the water. Popular interest and belief in the creature has varied since it was brought to worldwide attention in 1933. Evidence of its existence is anecdotal, with a number of disputed photographs and sonar readings.
The scientific community explains alleged sightings of the Loch Ness Monster as hoaxes, wishful thinking, and the misidentification of mundane objects. The pseudoscience and subculture of cryptozoology has placed particular emphasis on the creature.
Origin of the name
In August 1933, the Courier published the account of George Spicer's alleged sighting. Public interest skyrocketed, and countless letters were sent detailing different sightings. The letters described a "monster fish," "sea serpent," or "dragon." Ultimately, the final name settled on was the "Loch Ness monster." Since the 1940s, the creature has been affectionately called Nessie.Sightings
Early precursors
Saint Columba (565)
The earliest report of a monster in the vicinity of Loch Ness appears in the Life of St. Columba by Adomnán, written in the 7th century CE. According to Adomnán, writing about a century after the events described, Irish monk Saint Columba was staying in the land of the Picts with his companions when he encountered local residents burying a man by the River Ness. They explained that the man was swimming in the river when he was attacked by a "water beast" that mauled him and dragged him underwater despite their attempts to rescue him by boat. Columba sent a follower, Luigne moccu Min, to swim across the river. The beast approached him, but Columba made the sign of the cross and said: "Go no further. Do not touch the man. Go back at once." The creature stopped as if it had been "pulled back with ropes" and fled, and Columba's men and the Picts gave thanks for what they perceived as a miracle.Believers in the monster point to this story, set in the River Ness rather than the loch itself, as evidence for the creature's existence as early as the 6th century. Skeptics question the narrative's reliability, noting that water-beast stories were extremely common in medieval hagiographies, and Adomnán's tale probably recycles a common motif attached to a local landmark. According to skeptics, Adomnán's story may be independent of the modern Loch Ness Monster legend and became attached to it by proximity and by believers seeking to bolster their claims. Ronald Binns considers that this is the most serious of various alleged early sightings of the monster, but all other claimed sightings before 1933 are dubious and do not prove a monster tradition before that date. Christopher Cairney uses a specific historical and cultural analysis of Adomnán to separate Adomnán's story about St. Columba from the modern myth of the Loch Ness Monster, but finds an earlier and culturally significant use of Celtic "water beast" folklore along the way. In doing so he also discredits any strong connection between kelpies or water-horses and the modern "media-augmented" creation of the Loch Ness Monster. He also concludes that the story of Saint Columba may have been impacted by earlier Irish myths about the Caoránach and an Oilliphéist.
D. Mackenzie (1871 or 1872)
In October 1871, D. Mackenzie of Balnain reportedly saw an object resembling a log or an upturned boat "wriggling and churning up the water," moving slowly at first before disappearing at a faster speed. The account was not published until 1934, when Mackenzie sent his story in a letter to Rupert Gould shortly after popular interest in the monster increased.Alexander Macdonald (1888)
In 1888, mason Alexander Macdonald of Abriachan sighted "a large stubby-legged animal" surfacing from the loch and propelling itself within of the shore where Macdonald stood. Macdonald reported his sighting to Loch Ness water bailiff Alex Campbell, and described the creature as looking like a salamander.Aldie Mackay (1933)
The best-known article that first attracted a great deal of attention about a creature was published on 2 May 1933 in The Inverness Courier, about a large "beast" or "whale-like fish". The article by Alex Campbell, water bailiff for Loch Ness and a part-time journalist, discussed a sighting by Aldie Mackay of an enormous creature with the body of a whale rolling in the water in the loch while she and her husband John were driving on the A82 on 15 April 1933. The word "monster" was reportedly applied for the first time in Campbell's article, although some reports claim that it was coined by editor Evan Barron.The Courier in 2017 published excerpts from the Campbell article, which had been titled "Strange Spectacle in Loch Ness".
"The creature disported itself, rolling and plunging for fully a minute, its body resembling that of a whale, and the water cascading and churning like a simmering cauldron. Soon, however, it disappeared in a boiling mass of foam. Both onlookers confessed that there was something uncanny about the whole thing, for they realised that here was no ordinary denizen of the depths, because, apart from its enormous size, the beast, in taking the final plunge, sent out waves that were big enough to have been caused by a passing steamer."
According to a 2013 article, Mackay said that she had yelled, "Stop! The Beast!" when viewing the spectacle. In the late 1980s, a naturalist interviewed Aldie Mackay and she admitted to knowing that there had been an oral tradition of a "beast" in the loch well before her claimed sighting. Alex Campbell's 1933 article also stated that "Loch Ness has for generations been credited with being the home of a fearsome-looking monster".
George Spicer (1933)
Modern interest in the monster was sparked by a sighting on 22 July 1933, when 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 and a long, wavy, narrow neck, slightly thicker than an elephant's trunk and as long as the width of the road. They saw no limbs. It lurched across the road toward the loch away, leaving a trail of broken undergrowth in its wake. Spicer described it as "the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life," and as having "a long neck, which moved up and down in the manner of a scenic railway." It had "an animal" in its mouth and had a body that "was fairly big, with a high back, but if there were any feet they must have been of the web kind, and as for a tail I cannot say, as it moved so rapidly, and when we got to the spot it had probably disappeared into the loch." Though he was the first to describe the creature as a plesiosaur-like dinosaur, evidence suggested by researchers at Columbia University in 2013 proved his story to be fake. The university and Daniel Loxton suggested that Spicer's sighting was fictionalized and inspired by a long-necked dinosaur that rises out of a lake in King Kong, a film that was extremely popular in cinemas in his home city of London during August 1933, when Spicer reported the sighting. Loxton and Donald Prothero later cited King Kong as evidently an influence on the Loch Ness Monster myth.On 4 August 1933 the Courier published a report of Spicer's sighting. This sighting triggered a massive amount of public interest and an uptick in alleged sightings, leading to the solidification of the actual name "Loch Ness Monster."
It has been claimed that sightings of the monster increased after a road was built along the loch in early 1933, bringing workers and tourists to the formerly isolated area. However, Binns has described this as "the myth of the lonely loch", as it was far from isolated before then, due to the construction of the Caledonian Canal. In the 1930s, the existing road by the side of the loch was given a serious upgrade.
Hugh Gray (1933)
Hugh Gray's photograph taken near Foyers on 12 November 1933 was the first photograph alleged to depict the monster. It was slightly blurred, and it has been noted that if one looks closely the head of a dog can be seen. Gray had taken his Labrador for a walk that day and it is suspected that the photograph depicts his dog fetching a stick from the loch. Others have suggested that the photograph depicts an otter or a swan. The original negative was lost. However, in 1963, Maurice Burton came into "possession of two lantern slides, contact positives from th original negative" and when projected onto a screen they revealed an "otter rolling at the surface in characteristic fashion."Arthur Grant (1934)
On 5 January 1934 a motorcyclist, Arthur Grant, claimed to have nearly hit the creature while approaching Abriachan at about 1 a.m. on a moonlit night. According to Grant, it had a small head attached to a long neck; the creature saw him, and crossed the road back to the loch. Grant, a veterinary student, described it as a cross between a seal and a plesiosaur. He said he dismounted and followed it to the loch, but saw only ripples.Grant produced a sketch of the creature that was examined by zoologist Maurice Burton, who stated it was consistent with the appearance and behavior of an otter. Regarding the long size of the creature reported by Grant, it has been suggested that this was a faulty observation due to the poor light conditions. Paleontologist Darren Naish has suggested that Grant may have seen either an otter or a seal and exaggerated his sighting over time.
"Surgeon's photograph" (1934)
The "surgeon's photograph" is perhaps the most famous alleged photo of the creature, and the first to portray its head and neck. It is attributed to Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London gynaecologist. On 20 April 1934, multiple British newspapers reported Wilson's claim to have seen the monster while driving near Loch Ness the day before, but the stories do not mention the existence of a photograph. "Dr. Wilson described the monster as having a small head and a swan-like neck protruding three feet above the surface of the water," the Western Morning News reported.The following day, 21 April, the Daily Mail announced it has purchased exclusive rights to a photo it attributed to "Mr. Robert Kenneth Wilson, M.A., M.B., Ch.B.Camb., F.R.C.S., of Queen Anne-street, W., who has been touring the Loch Ness countryside." Along with the photo, it ran an interview with Wilson about "his remarkable luck in being able to secure such a photograph." Wilson said he was looking at the loch when he saw the monster, grabbed his camera, and snapped four photos. Only two exposures came out clearly; the first reportedly shows a small head and back, and the second shows a similar head in a diving position. The first photo became well known, and the second attracted little publicity because of its blurriness.
For 60 years, the photo was considered evidence of the monster's existence, although skeptics dismissed it as driftwood, an elephant, an otter or a bird. The photo's scale was controversial; it is often shown cropped, while the uncropped shot shows the other end of the loch and the monster in the centre. The ripples in the photo were found to fit the size and pattern of small ripples, rather than large waves photographed up close. Analysis of the original image fostered further doubt. In 1993, the makers of the Discovery Communications documentary Loch Ness Discovered analyzed the uncropped image and found a white object visible in every version of the photo. It was believed to be the cause of the ripples, as if the object was being towed, although the possibility of a blemish on the negative could not be ruled out. An analysis of the full photograph indicated that the object was small, about long.
Since 1994, most agree that the photo was an elaborate hoax. It had been described as fake in a 7 December 1975 Sunday Telegraph article that fell into obscurity. Details of how the photo was taken were published in the 1999 book, Nessie – the Surgeon's Photograph Exposed, which contains a facsimile of the 1975 Sunday Telegraph article. The creature was reportedly a toy submarine built by Christian Spurling, the stepson of actor, screenwriter, director, producer, and -- perhaps most saliently -- big-game hunter M. A. Wetherell. Spurling admitted the photograph was a hoax in January 1991. Wetherell had been publicly ridiculed by his employer, the Daily Mail, after he found "Nessie footprints" that turned out to be a hoax. To get revenge on the Mail, Wetherell perpetrated his hoax with co-conspirators Spurling, Ian Colin Marmaduke Wetherell, and Maurice Chambers.
The toy submarine was bought from F. W. Woolworth, and its head and neck were made from wood putty. After testing it in a local pond the group went to Loch Ness, where Ian Marmaduke Wetherell took the photos near the Altsaigh Tea House. When they heard a water bailiff approaching, Wetherell sank the model with his foot and it is "presumably still somewhere in Loch Ness". Chambers gave the photographic plates to Wilson, a friend of his who enjoyed "a good practical joke". Wilson brought the plates to Ogston's, an Inverness chemist, and gave them to George Morrison for development. He sold the first photo to the Daily Mail, who then announced that the monster had been photographed.
Little is known of the second photo; it is often ignored by researchers, who believe its quality too poor and its differences from the first photo too great to warrant analysis. It shows a head similar to the first photo, with a more turbulent wave pattern, and possibly taken at a different time and location in the loch. Some believe it to be an earlier, cruder attempt at a hoax, and others consider it a picture of a diving bird or otter that Wilson mistook for the monster. According to Morrison, when the plates were developed, Wilson was uninterested in the second photo; he allowed Morrison to keep the negative, and the photo was rediscovered years later. When asked about the second photo by the Ness Information Service Newsletter, Spurling "... was vague, thought it might have been a piece of wood they were trying out as a monster, but not sure."