Rumor & Record
In the spring of 1934, a London surgeon stopped his car on a new road beside a Scottish loch and took a picture: a small head on a long neck, rising out of dark water. For 60 years it was the best evidence the world had of the Loch Ness Monster. Then one of the men behind it confessed that the monster was .1
Four pieces of evidence that come up in almost every Loch Ness argument. Look at each one and give your first impression. Then read both explanations. You can change your answer any time.
The oldest story is about 1,400 years old. A biography of the Irish monk St. Columba says that around 564, he met a large beast at Loch Ness and ordered it: "Go back with all speed."3
For most of the centuries after that, the loch was just a long, deep, cold lake in the Highlands.
In 1933, Aldie Mackay, who managed a hotel in Drumnadrochit, said she saw a "whale-like creature" in the loch. The Inverness Courier reported it, and its editor is said to have suggested the word that stuck: monster.2
That same year, a couple named Spicer said a large, long-necked animal crossed the road in front of their car. On November 12, Hugh Gray took the first photo said to show the creature. It was later thought to show an otter.2
Then a London newspaper, the Daily Mail, hired a big-game hunter named Marmaduke Wetherell to find the beast. In December 1933 he found huge footprints on the shore. Experts at the Natural History Museum found they had been made with a dried hippo's foot.1
Four months later came the Surgeon's Photo, taken on April 19, 1934, by Colonel Robert Wilson, a London surgeon, on the new road along the loch's north shore.1
In 1994, Christian Spurling, Wetherell's stepson, confessed. He said Wetherell had wanted revenge for the hippo-foot humiliation, and had built the monster from a toy submarine with a sea-serpent head. Wetherell's son remembered his father saying: "We'll give them their monster."1
The searches got more serious. In 1960, Tim Dinsdale filmed a dark, humped object moving across the loch. The footage is still argued over.2
In 1987, Operation Deepscan sent 24 boats down the loch with sonar.4 In 2018, a team led by Neil Gemmell of New Zealand's University of Otago looked for DNA instead, and found traces of more than 3,000 kinds of living things, from bacteria to deer to humans.5
In August 2023, a volunteer search called The Quest used drones, infrared cameras and an underwater microphone. It recorded four distinct noises, and nothing conclusive.2
HostA hotel manager, a couple on the road, a veterinary student, a filmmaker: ordinary people have been reporting something big in that water since 1933.2 One hoaxer doesn't erase all of them. And this is a huge, dark loch, more than 200 meters deep in places.2
The machines haven't closed the case either. The biggest sonar search ever made there found three contacts nobody could identify.4 The DNA survey found eel DNA nearly everywhere, and even the scientists said overgrown eels could explain some sightings.5 In 2023, microphones picked up four distinct noises.2 Something is still down there making people look.
HostThe photo that made Nessie famous was a toy submarine, and the man behind it had already faked footprints with a hippo's foot.1 The first photo was probably an otter, and so was at least one famous road sighting.2 That's the foundation the legend is built on.
When scientists looked properly, they found nothing big and unknown. The DNA survey found no reptiles at all.5 Plesiosaurs died out 66 million years ago, and the loch is too small to feed a breeding population of them.6 The sonar contacts were most likely debris or water layers.4 People see waves, boats, birds and logs, and the legend tells them what to call it.
Rex and June are characters written for this site and appear in every file. They are not real people. Their arguments come from the sources listed below.
The oldest Loch Ness story isn't a sighting. It's a saint giving orders.
According to the biography of St. Columba, the monk faced a large beast around the year 564 and commanded it: "Go back with all speed."3 By that account, the monster has been in retreat for 1,400 years.
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No physical evidence has confirmed it. A 2018 DNA survey of the loch found no reptile DNA, and the most famous photo was confessed as a hoax. Sightings are still reported.
Yes. The 1934 "Surgeon's Photo" was a toy submarine fitted with a sea-serpent head, according to a 1994 confession by Christian Spurling, one of the men involved.
Plesiosaurs died out about 66 million years ago, and paleontologists say the loch is too small to support a breeding population.
Eel DNA was found in nearly every water sample in 2018, and the researchers said overgrown eels could explain some sightings, though they considered giant eels unlikely.
He rehearsed past midnight for a comeback tour. By the next afternoon he was dead. His doctor was convicted, and the doubts never stopped.
Open file 019Photo credits: Urquhart Castle, BIG ALBERT (CC0); the Surgeon's Photo (public domain); plesiosaur skeleton, Gary Todd (CC0); Loch Ness, Julian Nyča (CC BY-SA 3.0); European eel, vranken martin (CC BY 4.0). Full list on the credits page.