One of the most iconic and well-known mysteries in the world is the legend of the Loch Ness Monster. The creature is named after where it has been sighted on many occasions which is Loch Ness found in the Scottish Highlands near Inverness. The word loch comes from Irish/Scottish Gaelic and Scots languages which means a lake or sea inlet.
Featured photo: By Ad Meskens from Wikimedia. License.
Loch Ness itself is a large and deep freshwater loch that even has its own little artificial island called Cherry Island, speculated to have been constructed during the Iron Age and known as a Crannog, the little island used to be bigger but has become smaller from the water levels rising in the loch caused by the construction of the Caledonian Canal in the early 19th century for safer ship navigation, which also totally submerged a 2nd island that used to be in the loch, called Dog Island. Cherry Island even once had a small castle on it during the 15th century, built from stone and oak and is believed to have been some kind of fortified refuge, with some speculation that it was a hunting lodge, with the former Dog Island being the home of hunting dogs.
Loch Ness is the 2nd largest Scottish Loch after Loch Lomond and also the 2nd deepest loch in Scotland after Loch Morar, but Loch Ness is largest by water volume in the British Isles. The water visibility is also very low due to high peat content in the surrounding soil, so any attempt at looking into the water to try and find the Loch Ness Monster will prove exceptionally futile and not knowing what’s down there you probably won’t want to fall in or go for a swim! Plus, it would likely be pretty cold.
Pretty much all evidence of the Loch Ness Monster has stemmed from highly debatable photographs and sonar readings and a few videos as well as numerous stories without any solid backed up evidence. Descriptions of the beast often describe it as a very large creature with smooth dark skin, very long neck and tail and several humps across its back, which often stick up out of the water along with its long neck and head, the descriptions are reminiscent of a prehistoric creature known as a Plesiosaurus, which were large marine reptiles that lived during the early part of the Jurassic Period, fossils of these animals have been found across parts of England, and so some believers of the legend believe that Nessie, another name for the Loch Ness Monster, may be a descendent of the Plesiosaurus or that not all of them died out, this same or similar theories have also been speculated on many other sea monster mysteries across the world.
One of the earliest claims of the monster’s mention was as far back as the 6th Century AD in 565. Detailed in the 2nd book, of the Life of St. Columba which is about an Irish abbot and Evangelist missionary who is credited with spreading Christianity to Scotland. St. Columba also founded the abbey on Iona and the author of the books, Adomnan who was the abbot of Iona abbey from 679-704, wrote the 2nd book about a century after the events. The books have since been reproduced into one book, The Life of St. Columba.
In a part of the 2nd book, it details that St. Columba was staying in the land of the Picts, which was a confederation of Celtic language-speaking peoples who lived in Eastern and Northern Scotland. While here, St. Columba and his companions came across local residents burying a man by the River Ness which connects to Loch Ness. It was explained that the man had been swimming in the river when he was attacked by some kind of water beast, which mauled the man before dragging him underwater, the locals attempted to rescue the man using a boat but to no avail, the man was killed. After this St. Columba sent one of his followers to swim across the lake, which attracted the beast once again, but Columba in observation performed the ‘sign of the cross’ and said, “Go no further. Do not touch the man. Go back at once,” which repelled the water beast and was dubbed as a miracle by Columba’s men and the observing Picts.
In this account the beast was clearly portrayed as some kind of demon as it was repelled in such an action. It is also unclear if it was the same monster from Loch Ness or a different one. Sceptics also question believers of the Loch Ness Monster in connecting it with this supposed event in an attempt to bolster the validity of the Loch Ness myth. Others have said that medieval religious biographies very commonly used water-beast stories and have suggested it as nothing more than a recycled motif connected to a local landmark.
The Loch Ness Monster had always remained a sort of local legend but it wasn’t until three events that occurred in 1933/34 that made it soar into public popularity. The first incident happened on 22nd July 1933 when a man named George Spicer and his wife witnessed what they described as “a most extraordinary form of animal” crossing the road in front of their car, lurching its way towards Loch Ness that was twenty yards away. They said it was a large creature with a long wavy neck slightly thicker than an elephant’s trunk and the length of the neck was the width of the road that they were on, which was about 10-12 foot or 3-4 meters. They did not witness the creature possessing any limbs.
People have speculated that the construction of this very road had led to an increase in sightings of the Loch Ness Monster due to it bringing more people to a once remote and lonely area, but this has been disputed as the presence and construction of the Caledonian Canal has kept the area far from isolated before then and there was not an uptick in sightings. Sceptics have also said that a major upgrade to this road in the 1930s may have contributed to mistaken identity sightings due to the possibility of tar barrels floating in the loch.
The 2nd well publicized incident occurred almost three months later on 12th November 1933 when Hugh Gray took the first ever alleged photo of the Loch Ness Monster near the village of Foyers. The picture was blurred and sceptics had said upon looking closely at the photo you could see the head of a dog, of which Hugh Gray was walking his Labrador during the event and many passed it off as his dog fetching a stick from the loch, while other sceptics had guessed on it being other animals such as a swan, otter or fish. The photo still exists but the original photo negative was lost. In 1963 British zoologist and popular science author, Maurice Burton, a former believer in the Loch Ness Monster who has been involved in attempting to debunk numerous alleged evidence, claimed the possession of two lantern slides contact positives from the original negative and upon projecting on to a screen he believed it to be an otter rolling in the water in characteristic fashion and is in his eyes debunked. It remains debated whether the picture is genuine or a fake. There is one photo though that is widely agreed as fake, which will be the 4th event we reach…
But first we move on to the 3rd well publicized incident, this one occurring almost two months later on 5th January 1934 in the early hours of the morning a man called Arthur Grant claimed to nearly hit a creature while riding his motorcycle towards Abriachan near the north-eastern end of the loch. Grant said that the creature saw him and then begun crossing the road back towards the loch, Grant then pulled over and dismounted from his motorcycle to follow the creature to the loch but by the time he reached it he said that he could only see ripples in the water. Grant who was a veterinary student described the creature as a cross between a seal and a plesiosaurus, he also produced a sketch of his encounter. Skeptics have claimed that the sighting may have been an animal such as an otter or a seal and due to poor lighting conditions, it was mis-identified. Grant has also been accused of exaggerating his story over the years.
Finally, we move on to the 4th event that produced an iconic photo that is now widely believed to have been a hoax but the matter itself is also surrounded in trickery. The photo was supposedly taken by a gynecologist called Robert Kenneth Wilson and was later published in the Daily Mail on 21st April 1934 where it picked up huge attention and was known at the time as one of the clearest pieces of evidence on the Loch Ness Monster, it became known as the “Surgeon’s photograph” as Wilson wanted to remain anonymous. His brief description of the encounter is that he was looking at the loch when he saw the monster, grabbed his camera and snapped four photos, only two of which came out clearest, the 1st showing a head and back and the 2nd shows the head but in a diving position. The 1st photo became by far the most popular due to the blurriness of the 2nd. For about six decades it was known as the best evidence ever captured of the Loch Ness Monster.
And that was that… or was it? In 1984 an analysis of the iconic photo was performed by Stewart Campbell and published in the British Journal of Photography saying that the analysis concluded that the object in the photo could have only been two-three feet long at most and speculated that it was likely some kind of animal such as an otter or bird and also accused Wilson of knowing this was the case. While Campbell’s analysis was widely accepted, his accusation was to be put in doubt after a major revelation from hidden actors.
Let’s rewind back to 1933 as the Nessie craze was ramping up, the Daily Mail taking advantage of the situation had decided to hire a famous big-game hunter called Marmaduke Wetherell to investigate the sightings and attempt to locate the Loch Ness Monster. While finding no visual evidence of the monster itself, Wetherell did come across tracks he believed were made by the monster in December 1933, huge footprints leading into the loch. Eventually the tracks were analyzed by researchers from the Natural History Museum who came to the conclusion that they were in-fact made by a dried hippo’s foot, the type usually found used as umbrella stands.
Understandably after this revelation Wetherell felt cheated and humiliated, even causing him to withdraw from the public eye. Fast forward to 1994, a man lying on his deathbed was about to make a huge disclosure, this man was Christian Spurling, the stepson of Marmaduke Wetherell. He divulged that the iconic photo was in-fact a grand hoax perpetrated by him, his stepfather Wetherell and included Robert Kenneth Wilson who would be the reputable source of the photo due to his respected profession. The plot was the making of a hoax Loch Ness Monster using a toy submarine with a sea-serpent head attached to it. It was Wetherell’s grand revenge for the trickery he himself had suffered.
Despite the hilarity of the whole situation, the event still served to make the Loch Ness Monster into a cultural and mythological icon worldwide within the annals in the world of the unexplained that has inspired ongoing awe and fascination within the subject of the unknown and the mysterious. This also wasn’t the end of the Loch Ness Monster, as other material continued to surface over the years. And although the Surgeon’s photo is widely accepted as a hoax now, it is still disputed if the story provided by Marmaduke’s stepson is totally legitimate and the original publisher of the picture on to the Daily Mail is also disputed.
Such material has included alleged video of the Loch Ness Monster and one of the first known videos to be shot was on 29th May 1938 when a South African tourist named G. E. Taylor filmed what was thought to be some kind of creature in the loch using 16mm colour film. Unfortunately, the only person to gain access to the video was Maurice Burton, the earlier mentioned zoologist who only brought light to such a video in a book he authored in 1961 called Elusive Monster but only released one frame, the video itself cannot be found anywhere. Burton’s analysis and conclusion is that it was a floating object.
During 1960 another video emerged known as the Dinsdale film, filmed by Tim Dinsdale an aeronautical engineer, which is one of the most popular pieces of alleged video evidence of a creature in Loch Ness, showing the wake of something travelling along the water, although the footage is unclear. But there appears to be some confusion over whether the film has been proven fake or not, one unverified claim from a source on a blog called loch-ness that is dedicated to the evidence and content of the Loch Ness Monster has said the video was shown to be a mistake by accidental high contrast of a documentary that featured the film, showing a man sitting in a light coloured boat and that apparently this information was not released at the time due to Tim Dinsdale being unwell.
The blog also followed up saying that it was proven to be simply a boat after new analysis by Royal Air Force’s Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre, of which had previously given the video credence, but there was no visible source to prove this new analysis. The blog has stated that apparently the Dinsdale family had wrote to it not allowing the author to use images from the video in his book or website, even when he offered to pay. Although again this is unverified.
There is continued debate to this day over the authenticity of the video between believers and critics.
I guess it is about time that I begin drawing this to a close. I have gone through quite a bit of the history of the loch ness monster, although I have not covered everything, there is more recent footage and pictures including a video from as early as 2013. I also didn’t go over the many searches that have been held to find the Loch Ness monster, or the police constable of Inverness-shire who was doubtful of his ability to defend the Loch Ness monster from a group of hunters determined to catch it “dead or alive”.
But alas, they can be things for future posts perhaps. I hope you have enjoyed this much improved blogpost on a subject of the Paranormal Alphabet.
Thank you for reading and I hope you found this interesting. Next up will be N for the Nightmarchers, a folklore of spirits in Hawaii.
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