Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness Monster: Fact or Fiction

Some people believe that the Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, really exists. Photos and little bits of video claiming to show a creature in the Scottish lake have been popping up for decades. But many of these images have been proven to be hoaxes. Here’s some interesting history on Nessie.

• The first reports of a “monster” living in Loch Ness date back to the year 565, when Saint Columba is said to have saved someone from the creature by making the sign of the cross and telling the monster to leave.

• Nessie sightings picked up in the 1930s. First, in 1933 a man said he and his wife saw a creature that was four feet high and 25 feet long cross the road in front of their car. In 1934 a motorcyclist said he almost hit a creature as it crossed the road. That same year, a woman said she spent about 20 minutes one morning watching a creature with flippers, skin like an elephant, a small head and a long neck.

• On June 17, 1993, there were two separate sightings of a supposed sea creature in the lake. Both people reported seeing something that was four feet long, pale brown and had a long neck, which it held above the water.

• The most famous photo of the Loch Ness Monster is referred to as “The Surgeon’s Photo.” The grainy black-and-white shot shows a thin head and neck protruding from the water, surrounded by ripples. But the photo was suspicious when it first surfaced because the ripples didn’t look right. Eventually the image was proven to be a hoax. The photographer had merely attached a prosthetic clay head to a toy submarine.

• Various theories have tried to explain the sightings as a long-necked seal, an elephant from a travelling circus who was taking a dip, an eel, a log, or even an aquatic reptile called a plesiosaur which was believed to be extinct.

• Nessie’s not the only rumoured sea monster. Morag supposedly lives in Scotland’s Loch Morarm, while some in Vermont believe Champ swims in Lake Champlain. Closer to home, Ogopogo is a serpent-like beast that some say lives in British Columbia’s Lake Okanagan.