Is the Loch Ness Monster Real?

 

For 1500 years there has been speculation regarding the mystery of the Monster in Loch Ness. Is there a real monster living in the Loch Ness or is it only a myth perpetuated by the tourist industry?

 

There have been thousands of reported sightings of humps and heads and upturned boats, and doubtless many more that have never been publicised. Photographs and videos of the Loch Ness Monster have been taken by local people and visitors and much high powered and expensive scientific research has taken place on the loch, often returning with positive results and aiming to prove the Loch Ness monster is real. (More Loch Ness Monster facts ...>)

 

A vast amount of evidence to suggest the Loch Ness Monster is real has been amassed over the years and it is unlikely that Nessie is a merely a figment of the collective imagination. There may be those who believe that the Loch Ness Monster is not real and merely an illusion but there are also many who, having borne witness to unexplained disturbances and visions on the water, remain utterly convinced by what they have seen.

 

In 1965 Ian Cameron was fishing on Loch Ness when he saw a hump which turned round underwater. He remains convinced he saw the real Loch Ness Monster. In 1990 Val Moffat saw a shape similar to an upturned boat and remains convinced that she saw the real Loch Ness Monster. In March 1996 Gary Campbell, an accountant and now president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club which is based in Inverness, saw a large, black hump with water coursing off it, rise out of the water more than once and is convinced that what he saw was proof that the Loch Ness Monster is real. In March 1997 Richard White, who lives in Muir of Ord and sells pet food, saw three black humps in the water. On a flat-calm loch Ronald Macintosh, an authority on local history, witnessed a huge disturbance in the water opposite Aldourie Castle. Something flipped over and crashed back into the water sending three-foot high waves to either shore. No-one can explain to Mr Macintosh exactly what he saw so he too, remains convinced that he has seen the real monster in Loch Ness.

 

Why would this diverse group of ordinary people feel the need to invent monster stories if the Loch Ness Monster was not real?

 

The case of big game hunter Marmaduke Wetherall is slightly different. During the Nessie frenzy of the 1930s he was hired by the Daily Mail to track down and prove that the Loch Ness Monster was real and after just a few days on the job he reported finding enormous footprints of which he had plaster casts made and sent to the Natural History Museum in London. The prints turned out to have been made by an ornamental hippopotamus foot but it is not known whether Duke Wetherall was the hoaxer or in fact himself a victim of it. Perhaps a blot in the copybook of Loch Ness Monster history.

 

Whatever the truth of that may have been, scientists must continue to look for evidence that the Loch Ness Monster could be real. According to the Smithsonian Institution, "even though most scientists believe the likelihood of a monster is small, they keep an open mind as scientists should, and wait for concrete proof in the form of skeletal evidence or the actual capture of such a creature". The Smithsonian also suggests that those with an interest in such phenomena join the international Society of Cryptozoology, a scientific organisation which examines issues involving unknown creatures of unexpected form and size. Why would such an organisation even exist if 'monsters' such as the Loch Ness Monster could not be real?

 

There are many who believe that the Loch Ness Monster is real and who devote large parts of their lives to searching for her.

 

Tim Dinsdale was one of the most dedicated searchers and between 1960 and 1987 he led 56 expeditions to track down the real Loch Ness Monster. In 1960, on the last day of his first expedition, he filmed a large object moving rapidly just under the surface of the water, travelling across the loch and changing direction. It was larger than anything known to live in the loch and remains one of the most convincing pieces of film showing that there is every chance that the Loch Ness Monster is real.

 

In 1966 Dinsdale's reputation soared when the RAF photographic experts at the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence centre declared that the film he had taken was of "probably an animate object". Impressed by Dinsdale's work and evidence, the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau (later shortened to the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau or LNIB) was formed in 1962 and worked with him for the next ten years.

 

Firm in his belief that the Loch Ness Monster was real, Tim Dinsdale witnessed two more sightings of the Loch Ness Monster and in 1987 was elected as an Honorary Member of the International Society of Cryptozoology. His memory lives on through the Society for Scientific Exploration's Tim Dinsdale Memorial Award which is granted to individuals for "significant contributions to the expansion of human understanding through the study of unexplained phenomena".

 

In 1968 Professor DG Tucker, chairman of the Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department at Birmingham University volunteered to help the LNIB conduct sonar trials and perhaps prove the Loch Ness Monster real. A sonar transducer was set up at Temple Pier in Urquhart Bay facing across the loch and effectively creating a net across the full width of the water through which nothing could pass without being 'seen'. During the two week trial in August that year objects were recorded passing at speeds of up to 10 knots (12 mph). Professor Tucker declared that they were highly unlikely to be fish. Could this have been the real Monster of Loch Ness?

 

During the 1970s the name of Dr Robert Rines was closely associated with the hunt for the real Loch Ness Monster. Dr Rines was president of the American Academy of Applied Science and, following a chance sighting of the Loch Ness Monster the previous year, was conducting sonar trials in Loch Ness in the summer of 1972. On 8 August his Raytheon sonar detected large moving objects from which shoals of fish were taking evasive action. A photograph taken, perhaps a picture of the Loch Ness Monster, is somewhat indistinct due to poor visibility through the dark, peaty water but shows the off-side hind quarter, a flipper and part of the tail of a large animal with a rough, greenish-brown skin. Could this be strong evidence that the Loch Ness Monster is real?

 

In 1975 Dr Rines and his team had a major breakthrough in proving the Loch Ness Monster was real when photos taken the previous June were released showing the head and body of one of the creatures in remarkable detail. This caused an international sensation and for months the Loch Ness Monster pictures were examined in secret by zoological centres in Britain, America, Canada and Europe. There were plans to release them at a symposium in Edinburgh but news of the pictures of the Loch Ness Monster leaked out early and caused such excitement that sponsors of the symposium decided it would be impossible to conduct a proper scientific discussion and cancelled the event.

 

1986 saw one of the largest and most intensive studies of Loch Ness; Operation Deepscan. The plan was to sweep every inch of the loch's depths leaving nowhere untouched where the elusive Nessie might hide. The estimated cost was to be £1 million. Surely this would prove that the Loch Ness Monster was real?

 

Operation Deepscan was set up by Adrian Shine, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and leader of the Loch Ness Project, who teamed up with an electronics expert from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Loch Ness would be a good test site for the new American sonar units and in October 1986 ten boats fitted with X-16 sonar units began a sweep of the loch. Unfortunately bad weather cancelled this attempt to prove the Loch Ness Monster was real.

 

Things started again on 9 October 1987. This time 24 boats took part and there were spectators in every lay-by around the loch, hoping for a sighting or picture of the Loch Ness Monster. It is reported that there were more members of the press present at the Operation Deepscan press conference than at the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Iceland in the same year. Twenty TV crews and 250 members of the press turned up from all over the world, the loch was covered with hire boats and a helicopter hovered overhead. The world's media were all be hoping to prove the Loch Ness Monster real.

 

Three strong sonar contacts were recorded on the first day and one was found to have changed position in the time it took for two boats to pass that particular spot. Was this then the real Loch Ness Monster?

 

In the end only 60% of the loch was swept and the bays and sides had not been covered. The media and onlookers may have felt cheated that a real, live, dripping wet Loch Ness Monster was not pulled from the water but neither was there a satisfactory explanation of what it was that the three sonar units had located. All that is known is that whatever it was, it was too large to have been anything actually known to be living in the loch.

 

Sceptics would do well to remember that the absence of proof is not proof of absence. Is it not almost impossible to prove that something does not exist? The Loch Ness Monster could still be real, even if there was a lack of evidence.

 

The 1990s saw another major scientific study begin on Loch Ness. Known as 'Project Urquhart', this investigation was the idea of Nicholas Witchell, former BBC news presenter and a Loch Ness enthusiast and produced important information relating to the history of Loch Ness. The project began in 1992 with a hydrographic survey of the loch. Sonar scans picked up a considerable number of fish shoals and on the evening of 28 July 1992, suddenly locked on to a target for approximately two minutes. The operator described it as a much stronger echo than from the fish they had previously been tracking. Could this be proof that the Loch Ness Monster is real?

 

Scientific interest in the Loch Ness Monster comes and goes. To follow the pattern it would seem to be about time for another investigation to be launched. Who will lead this next one? We have discovered so much about our planet and our environment, but Loch Ness and whether or not the Loch Ness Monster is real remains a mystery.

 

One man who shares this view is Steve Feltham who is currently conducting one of the most enduring studies of Loch Ness. Having seen something he couldn't explain making a wash on the surface of the loch and realising he had a deep curiosity about the monster, Steve founded 'Nessie-sery Independent Research' in 1991. Like earlier researchers he too, gave up his career and family life to set up home in a former mobile library van near Dores on the north side of the loch and spends his time watching the water. He hopes to film something which will finally persuade scientists and sceptics that the Loch Ness Monster is real. Steve Feltham's conviction has never wavered and he in fact believes there may be up to 20-30 creatures living in the loch and talks of occasions when there have been sightings of two or three simultaneously.

 

Since St Columba there have been thousands of sightings of the Loch Ness Monster . It may well be that some have indeed been mistakes made by people who are not familiar with Loch Ness and the particular movements of tides and winds found there. But surely not all. It is in fact far more likely that a (small) number of plesiosaurs live in Loch Ness than that hundreds of people have been making things up for 1500 years.

 

And for those who say that the Loch Ness Monster is not real but a fantasy kept alive by a grasping tourist industry, remember that tourism grew out of the myth, rather than the myth out of tourism. Did they have tour buses in 565 AD?

 

We welcome you to the Nessieland Castle Monster Centre on your visit to the Highlands of Scotland.

 

We BELIEVE in the monster.

 

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