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Carvings of this unidentified animal, made by the
ancient inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands some
1,500 years ago, are the earliest evidence that Loch
Ness harbors a strange aquatic creature.
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Birth of a Legend
by Stephen Lyons
"Many a man has been hanged on less evidence than there
is for the Loch Ness Monster."
—G.K. Chesterton
When the Romans first came to northern Scotland in the first
century A.D., they found the Highlands occupied by fierce,
tattoo-covered tribes they called the Picts, or painted
people. From the carved, standing stones still found in the
region around Loch Ness, it is clear the Picts were fascinated
by animals, and careful to render them with great fidelity.
All the animals depicted on the Pictish stones are lifelike
and easily recognizable—all but one. The exception is a
strange beast with an elongated beak or muzzle, a head locket
or spout, and flippers instead of feet. Described by some
scholars as a swimming elephant, the Pictish beast is the
earliest known evidence for an idea that has held sway in the
Scottish Highlands for at least 1,500 years—that Loch
Ness is home to a mysterious aquatic animal.
In Scottish folklore, large animals have been associated with
many bodies of water, from small streams to the largest lakes,
often labeled Loch-na-Beistie on old maps. These water-horses,
or water-kelpies, are said to have magical powers and
malevolent intentions. According to one version of the legend,
the water-horse lures small children into the water by
offering them rides on its back. Once the children are aboard,
their hands become stuck to the beast and they are dragged to
a watery death, their livers washing ashore the following
day.
The earliest written reference linking such creatures to Loch
Ness is in the biography of Saint Columba, the man credited
with introducing Christianity to Scotland. In A.D. 565,
according to this account, Columba was on his way to visit a
Pictish king when he stopped along the shore of Loch Ness.
Seeing a large beast about to attack a man who was swimming in
the lake, Columba raised his hand, invoking the name of God
and commanding the monster to "go back with all speed." The
beast complied, and the swimmer was saved.
When Nicholas Witchell, a future BBC correspondent, researched
the history of the legend for his 1974 book
The Loch Ness Story, he found about a dozen
pre-20th-century references to large animals in Loch Ness,
gradually shifting in character from these clearly mythical
accounts to something more like eyewitness descriptions.
The Loch Ness Monster has been headline news all over
the world for more than 60 years.
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But the modern legend of Loch Ness dates from 1933, when a new
road was completed along the shore, offering the first clear
views of the loch from the northern side. One April afternoon,
a local couple was driving home along this road when they
spotted "an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the
surface." Their account was written up by a correspondent for
the Inverness Courier, whose editor used the word
"monster" to describe the animal. The Loch Ness Monster has
been a media phenomenon ever since.
Public interest built gradually during the spring of 1933,
then picked up sharply after a couple reported seeing one of
the creatures on land, lumbering across the shore road. By
October, several London newspapers had sent correspondents to
Scotland, and radio programs were being interrupted to bring
listeners the latest news from the loch. A British circus
offered a reward of £20,000 for the capture of the beast.
Hundreds of boy scouts and outdoorsmen arrived, some venturing
out in small boats, others setting up deck chairs and waiting
expectantly for the monster to appear.
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Big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell
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The excitement over the monster reached a fever pitch in
December, when the London Daily Mail hired an actor,
film director, and big-game hunter named Marmaduke Wetherell
to track down the beast. After only a few days at the loch,
Wetherell reported finding the fresh footprints of a large,
four-toed animal. He estimated it to be 20
feet long. With great
fanfare, Wetherell made plaster casts of the footprints and,
just before Christmas, sent them off to the Natural History
Museum in London for analysis. While the world waited for the
museum zoologists to return from holiday, legions of monster
hunters descended on Loch Ness, filling the local hotels.
Inverness was floodlit for the occasion, and traffic jammed
the shoreline roads in both directions.
The bubble burst in early January, when museum zoologists
announced that the footprints were those of a hippopotamus.
They had been made with a stuffed hippo foot—the base of
an umbrella stand or ashtray. It wasn't clear whether
Wetherell was the perpetrator of the hoax or its gullible
victim. Either way, the incident tainted the image of the Loch
Ness Monster and discouraged serious investigation of the
phenomenon. For the next three decades, most scientists
scornfully dismissed reports of strange animals in the loch.
Those sightings that weren't outright hoaxes, they said, were
the result of optical illusions caused by boat wakes, wind
slicks, floating logs, otters, ducks, or swimming deer.
Saw Something, They Did
Nevertheless, eyewitnesses continued to come forward with
accounts of their sightings—more than 4,000 of them,
according to Witchell's estimate. Most of the witnesses
described a large creature with one or more humps protruding
above the surface like the hull of an upturned boat. Others
reported seeing a long neck or flippers. What was most
remarkable, however, was that many of the eyewitnesses were
sober, level-headed people: lawyers and priests, scientists
and school teachers, policemen and fishermen—even a
Nobel Prize winner.
Continue
Fantastic Creatures
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Birth of a Legend
Eyewitness Accounts
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Experimenting with Sonar
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| Updated November 2000
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