The Loch Ness Monster
The world's most famous monster photograph was a toy submarine with a sculpted head, and the loch still hasn't given up its secrets.
Published
Quick Facts
- What happened
- In 1933 roadworks and a newspaper report launched the modern legend of a creature in Loch Ness.
- Report that launched the modern legend
- 2 May 1933, when the Inverness Courier covered Aldie Mackay's April sighting
- Earliest story
- Adomnán's Life of Columba, written about a century after Columba's death in 597, describes a beast in the River Ness
- Famous hoax
- The 'Surgeon's Photograph' of 1934, admitted to be a fake in 1994
- The loch
- About 23 miles long and roughly 755 feet deep, holding more fresh water than all the lakes of England and Wales combined
- Environmental DNA survey
- A 2018 survey led by Neil Gemmell found no trace of reptile DNA, but a great deal of eel DNA
- Nickname
- Nessie
- Where to go
- Urquhart Castle, Drumnadrochit and Fort Augustus
The road that made a monster
The modern Loch Ness Monster began with road improvements. In 1933 the road along the loch's northwestern shore was widened and improved. Tree clearance opened up views of the water in places. On 2 May 1933 the Inverness Courier reported that a hotel manager's wife, Aldie Mackay, had seen a huge disturbance in the water, with what looked like a whale rolling in it. The paper's editor, Evan Barron, ran the story. Water bailiff Alex Campbell, who wrote for the paper, called the thing a 'monster'. London papers picked it up, and by the end of the year the Daily Mail had hired a big-game hunter, Marmaduke Wetherell, to track the beast down. Within days he found giant footprints on the shore. Experts at the Natural History Museum identified them as the foot of a hippopotamus, probably cut from an umbrella stand or ashtray.
A saint, a beast and a very old story
Fans like to say Nessie is 1,500 years old. The evidence is a story in Adomnán's Life of Columba. It tells how the saint, travelling in the Highlands in the 6th century, came upon locals burying a man killed by a water beast in the River Ness. Columba sent his follower Lugne to swim across the river. When the creature rose up, the saint made the sign of the cross and told it to go no further. It fled, and the onlookers praised the God of the Christians. It is a tale about a saint's power, and the beast is in the river, not the loch. Still, it gave the legend a pedigree that no 1930s newspaper could have invented.
The photograph that fooled the world
On 21 April 1934 the Daily Mail published the 'Surgeon's Photograph'. It showed a long neck and small head rising from the water, and it became the defining image of the monster. It was credited to a London gynaecologist, Colonel Robert Kenneth Wilson, who didn't want his name on it, hence the title. In 1994 it was revealed that the picture was staged. Christian Spurling, stepson of Marmaduke Wetherell, said the monster was a toy submarine fitted with a head and neck made of plastic wood. Wetherell had planned it as revenge for the humiliation of the hippo footprints. The photograph had survived 60 years of scrutiny. That says a lot about how badly people wanted it to be true.
Hunters, films and an anagram
In April 1960 an aeronautical engineer, Tim Dinsdale, filmed a hump moving across the water. He spent much of his life searching for the creature. In 1962 the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau was founded, with the naturalist Peter Scott among its backers. Constance Whyte's book More Than a Legend had helped to stir interest in 1957. In 1975 Scott and the American researcher Robert Rines, who had published underwater photographs said to show a flipper, proposed a scientific name for the animal: Nessiteras rhombopteryx. A newspaper noticed that it rearranges into 'Monster hoax by Sir Peter S'. Scott was amused. The name was meant to help get the creature protected. Sonar sweeps such as Operation Deepscan in 1987 found no large creature.
What science says, and what you can still see
The loch is about 23 miles long and reaches roughly 230 metres (755 feet) deep, but it is peaty and dark, with visibility of just a few feet. That makes it easy for a log, a wave, a swimming deer or a line of birds to turn into something stranger. In 2018 a team led by Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago took about 250 water samples and sequenced the DNA in them. They found no reptile DNA, so nothing supported the plesiosaur idea. Not finding something isn't quite proof it's absent: the survey also missed otter DNA, even though otters are known to live there. There was abundant eel DNA, which shows eels are present but says nothing about their size, so it doesn't make giant eels the only explanation for sightings. The monster remains a reason to visit. Urquhart Castle, on a headland above the water, is where many sightings have been recorded. Drumnadrochit has exhibitions on the hunt, boat trips run from several points, and the Caledonian Canal brings you into Fort Augustus. Bring binoculars. People keep logging sightings to this day.
Notable people
- Saint Columba
- Adomnán
- Aldie Mackay
- Evan Barron
- Alex Campbell
- Marmaduke Wetherell
- Robert Kenneth Wilson
- Christian Spurling
- Tim Dinsdale
- Constance Whyte
- Peter Scott
- Robert Rines
- Neil Gemmell