Loch Ness Monster Story

Today I found out the origin of the Loch Ness Monster myth.

Loch Ness is a long, narrow lake southwest of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. It is the second largest loch in Scotland by surface area and the largest by volume. It is also the second deepest loch, at an astounding 755 feet (230 meters) at its deepest point. The water is dark and murky due to the high levels of peat in the surrounding soil. The breadth, depth, and low visibility of this particular loch make a prime environment for someone’s imagination to run wild, particularly when other lake monsters were plentiful in Scottish legends.

The first recorded sighting of Nessie was in 565 A.D. by Saint Columba. Saint Columba was an Irish missionary praised for spreading Christianity in Scotland. On one trip to the highlands, he ran across a group of people burying a man who had been bitten by the monster in the River Ness. The Saint supposedly asked another man present to swim across the river. When the man jumped in, the monster rose from the depths and Saint Columba, invoking God’s power, banished it. The story was written nearly a century after the supposed encounter; but even so, it remains a popular piece of “evidence” used to demonstrate Nessie’s existence.

The next recorded sighting happened over 1300 years later in 1933. George Spicer was out driving with his wife when they saw a large creature walk in front of their car near the loch. The creature supposedly had a huge body, long neck, and they couldn’t see any limbs before it lunged toward the Loch Ness. A few weeks later, a motorcyclist claimed to have nearly run into a similar creature, describing it as a type of plesiosaur—a prehistoric marine creature with four large fins and a long neck, fitting the Spicers’ description. Soon, with the building of a road along the loch’s coast, many more reports of sightings of the monster flooded in.

The 1933 sightings proved to be the beginning of a long, fruitless search for the monster. The first picture taken of the monster was in November 1933 by Hugh Gray. He supposedly saw a large creature rise above the surface of the water and snapped several photographs before it disappeared, but only one photo turned out when developed. The picture shows a creature with a long neck and a thick body, with four lumps at its side which might have been flippers. However, it should be noted that critics claim that the photo is of a dog swimming with a stick in its mouth… not remotely frightening.