Is The Loch Ness Monster Real?

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Is the Loch Ness Monster Real?

Is Nessie ( as she is affectionately known ), The Loch Ness Monster Real?. Well on closer inspection of the science and facts, she might just be.

The start of the legend of the Loch Ness Monster.

It all started with a small column in the May 1933 Inverness Courier which tells the story of how a well-known businessman and his wife were driving along the north shore of Loch Ness when they witnessed what they described as a “tremendous upheaval” in the water.

After coming to a stop, they saw an enormous creature with a “body resembling a whale” sending out “waves that were big enough to have been sent out by a passing steamer.” 

The couple were stunned and related that they waited for almost half-an-hour in the “hope that the monster (if such it was) would come to the surface again.”

She did not appear but in printing this story, it assured that the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born.

No real evidence was found in the years following the article although many people searched for the creature lurking in the depths of Loch Ness. The only things that turned up were fake doctored photos and other props but nothing substantiating.

However in the autumn  of 2019, a new twist was added to the tail when a long-awaited study using environmental DNA made a splash with some surprising conclusions about what actually may be in Loch Ness.

Neil Gemmell, University of Otago geneticist and team leader for the project Loch Ness Hunters, told Popular Mechanics – “Environmental DNA is a powerful new tool to understanding our world,”. “And we are building a relatively accurate picture of life in the loch. While no reptiles were found, it is plausible that there are [other creatures] of unusual size in there.”

Back to the question – Is the Loch Ness Monster real? 

About Loch Ness

Loch Ness is a large freshwater lake in the Scottish Highlands It extends for approximately 37 kilometres (23 miles) southwest of the Scottish town of  Inverness.

Loch Ness was named after the River Ness, which flows from the northern end. Loch Ness is the largest body of freshwater by volume, in the United Kingdom.

Origins of the Loch Ness Monster story.

Humans have seen things lurking in the depths of this great lake for hundreds of years, long before the sighting reported in 1933.

One instance is that of a first-century Pictish stone carving  that depicts a large-headed animal with flippers that some have said looks like a swimming elephant.

Notes Adrian Shine, a long time researched and leader of the Loch Ness Project: – “The way humanity works is that we rationalize and revise mythologies,”

 “The way humanity works is that we rationalize and revise mythologies,” says Adrian Shine, leader of the Loch Ness Project and long-time researcher.

  Sea serpents, water horses, and water kelpie were all observed in Scotland’s waterways according to various 1,500-year-old texts, with the earliest written sighting coming from a biography of the missionary St. Columba in the 7th-century. Saint Columba was the saint responsible for converting Scotland to Christianity in the mid-6th century. 

According to this account of events, St. Columba meets a group of locals burying a companion that was killed by a water beast.  St. Columba tapped his staff and with a fantastic miracle brought the man back to life. He then ordered one of his disciples to swim across the loch to retrieve a boat on the other side. The disciple duly started swimming across and as he swam, he was pursued by the same water beast.

St. Columba, with the help of prayer, persuaded the monster to leave and the beast plunged back into the water leaving the man alone. The stunned and thankful locals converted to Christianity on the spot.

Do eye-witness accounts prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster?

Gary Campbell, who, along with his wife Kathy, created the Loch Ness Monster sightings register, believes so: – “The fact that there are stories of a creature in Loch Ness that date back 1,500 years and continue through today are proof enough that there really is something down there. If this was in a court of law and there were over 1,000 eye witnesses saying roughly the same thing, the verdict wouldn’t be in doubt,” Campbell says.

Apart from Campbells list there are also a number of sightings documented on Wikipedia. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster

Information sources for this article: 

Popular Mechnanics –https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a29858210/loch-ness-monster/

Britannica – https://www.britannica.com/topic/Loch-Ness-monster-legendary-creature

Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster

Loch Ness Project: – https://www.lochnessproject.org/

What do you think? Is the Loch Ness Monster real?

The Irish also have their fair shares of legends. Have you heard about the Witch of the Cliffs of Moher?

Ready to start planning that trip to Scotland? Start here!

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