12 things you didn’t know about the Loch Ness Monster

If she’s real why isn’t she on Insta?

1. The sightings go back a looooong way

In the summer of 564, Irish abbot Saint Columba saw a beast about to attack a man swimming along the Loch Ness shore and commanded it to“go back with all speed.”

It did.

And Columba was credited with saving the man’s life and performing a miracle.

It’s also thought to be the first ever sighting of the Loch Ness Monster. 

2. The most famous photo is a fake

In 1934, London surgeon Dr Robert Kenneth Wilson was exploring a new road near the Loch when he snapped an image of a creature with an elongated neck bobbing in the water.

In the early 1990s, however, a chap named Christian Spurling came forward with an admission. Apparently, his stepfather, the marvelously named Marmaduke Wetherell added a wooden neck to a toy submarine and snapped the shot.

But because Marmaduke had previously been exposed as a Loch Ness Monster hoaxer – he used stuffed hippo feet to prove the creature came ashore – he felt his credibility to be somewhat lacking and he convinced the more respectable Dr Wilson to take the lead.

Wilson made 100 pounds off the shots from the London Daily Mail but didn’t want his name associated with it, so it was simply called the ‘surgeon’s photograph’.

3. So what could it be?

The most likely animal could be lake sturgeon which can weigh hundreds of kilos and have the distinctive hardened plates on their spines.

But then again paleontologist Neil Clark has also pointed out that many traveling circuses in the area when the monster was first spotted – the 1930s – had elephants.

Which loved playing in water.

Mountainous reflections in still water, seismic activity and surfacing trees have also been suggested.

4. What’s actually been found down there?

During a 2009 Nessie search, 100,000 submerged golf balls were discovered.

5. A dinosaur in a haystack

The search area is immense.

The loch is not only 36 kilometers long and an average of 1.5 kilometers wide, it is also so deep that it contains more water by volume than the rest of every Welsh and English lake combined. 

6. She’s a money spinner

According to a 2018 study cited by Scotland’s Press and Journal newspaper, the Nessie industry could be worth around $80 million annually to the Scottish economy.

That’s a lot of boat trips, souvenirs and overnight visits.

7. It’s dark as sin

The peat that is constantly washed into the lake from Scotland’s consistent rain makes visibility damn near impossible.

We’re talking an average of around 10cm.

Which helps if you’re a shy monster we guess.

8. Dino might?

If you’re into your dinosaurs, you may well see resemblance between Nessie and the marine plesiosaurus which lived 205 million years ago.

9. She gets around

There are around 20 reported sightings a year and there have been over 1000 in total.

10. A true TV/film star

There have been hundreds of films and documentaries on the Loch Ness monster.

Even Scooby Doo has had a crack.

11. The science is pretty conclusive

When a team from the University of Otago carried out an analysis of the water – over 200 one litre samples both deep and shallow – in the loch, it found 500 million organisms and 3000 species.

There were no genetic sequence matchings for shark, catfish, sturgeon, thus ruling out large exotic fish in the loch.

They even compared the samples to monster-free lochs. 

12. And yet, people believe

According to a YouGov survey of 3840 British adults, 15 percent said they believed in the Loch Ness monster.

Among Scottish respondents, that figure rose to 27 percent.