Loch Ness (Gel. Loch Nis) is a large deep freshwater lake of glacial origin in Scotland, stretching 37 km southwest of Inverness. The maximum depth is 226 m. Loch Ness became known throughout the world thanks to the legend of the Loch Ness monster (“Nessie”).
Collection of N. Stepanova
According to legend, the first to tell the world about a mysterious creature in a distant Scottish lake were Roman legionnaires who came to Scotland at the dawn of the Christian era. The first written mention of a mysterious creature living in the waters of Loch Ness dates back to 565 AD. In the life of Saint Columba, Abbot Jonah spoke of the saint's triumph over the "water beast" in the River Ness. The abbot of Columbus, who converted the pagan Picts and Scots in a monastery off the west coast of Scotland, one day went to Loch Ness and saw that the locals, armed with hooks, were pulling out of the water one of their people, killed in Lake Nisagom (the Gaelic name for the monster) . One of the saint’s disciples frivolously threw himself into the water and swam across a narrow strait to bring in a boat. When he sailed away from the shore, “a strange-looking animal rose from the water, like a giant frog, only it was not a frog.” Thus began the legend of the Loch Ness monster.
In the spring of 1933, the Inverness Courier newspaper published a story by the Mackay couple, who encountered Nessie firsthand. In August of the same year, three eyewitnesses noticed a disturbance on the usually quiet Loch Ness. Then, several humps began to appear on the surface of the water, arranged in a row, then floating to the surface, then again going under the water. They moved in waves, like a caterpillar.
Most supporters of the existence of the monster considered it a relict plesiosaur, but over 70 years of “observations” it was not possible to find a single corpse of the animal. Reports from the 6th century about sightings of the animal also raise doubts.
In addition to the hypothesis about plesiosaurs that have survived to this day, there are other versions of the origin of Nessie. So in 2005, Neil Clarke, curator of paleontology at the University of Glasgow Museum, compared the first reliable data on sightings of the monster with the travel schedule of traveling circuses on the road to Iverness, and realized that local residents had not seen prehistoric dinosaurs, but bathing elephants from traveling circuses heading to Iverness. Iverness. Clark believes that the first observations and photographs of Nessie were made from bathing and swimming elephants. After all, when an elephant swims, a trunk and two “humps” are visible on the surface of the water - the top of the head and the top of the elephant’s back. The picture is very similar to the descriptions and photos of Nessie. According to Clark, the Nessie legend was one of the best marketing moves of the 20th century. It’s not for nothing that the manager of the circus troupe (speaking of elephants!!!) Bertram Mills offered a large monetary reward (? 20 thousand, or? 1 million in modern money) to the one who caught this monster for him in 1933, after The first reports of a large animal with a long neck appeared. This is how Nessie became widely known.
There is also a version of the Italian seismologist Luigi Piccardi that the huge waves on the surface of the lake, as well as the huge bubbles rising from its bottom, are nothing more than the results of tectonic activity on the surface of the lake bottom. After all, a tectonic fault runs along the bottom of the lake. All this can be accompanied by the emission of flames, the emission of characteristic sounds reminiscent of a muffled roar, and also cause mild earthquakes, which are mistaken for a monster.
In 2007, reports appeared in the press that scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examining the bottom of Loch Ness, saw on the monitor screen connected to a television camera lowered to a depth of almost 100 m, a living creature crawling out from under the silt. Upon closer examination, this creature turned out to be a TOAD (!!!) about the size of a palm. But there are deeper backwaters on the lake. Maybe someone bigger lives there? After all, if you believe the biography of St. Columba and the descriptions of eyewitnesses of the century before last, then the Loch Ness monster initially resembled a huge toad or frog. Only in the 20th century did they begin to believe that it looked like a 10-15-meter plesiosaur.
Material prepared by Natalya Stepanova
Sources: wikipedia.org, vseotmambo.nnm.ru, lenta.ru
In the famous Scottish lake Loch Ness, a mysterious creature called Nessie was again observed.
“It went under water a couple of times and appeared again.”
According to The Scottish Sun, a tourist from Canada Lynn Lock took a photograph of an object that she herself considers to be the famous Loch Ness monster. About 45 meters from the shore near Urquhart Castle, Lock noticed something moving under the water.
“When we were in the castle, I noticed something moving in the water, blowing bubbles. It went under water a couple of times and appeared again. Of course, I heard Nessie’s story, so I took a few pictures,” the publication quotes the tourist as saying. 2018 turned out to be a fruitful year for reports about Nessie. This is Lynn Locke's seventh statement. In total, over the decades that records of reports of the Nessie phenomenon have been kept, the number of requests has exceeded 1080.
From St. Columba to the Mackays: how a legend was born
The first written mention of a certain monster living in the waters of Loch Ness dates back to the 6th century AD. Abbot of the Aion Monastery Adomnan in biography Saint Columba, tells how a righteous man pacified a monster that was devouring people with the help of prayer. For a long time, the monster was part of local folklore, until at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, scientists tried to put a scientific basis behind the legends. They started talking about the possible existence of some aquatic animal unknown to scientists, a prehistoric lizard that survived in the depths of a Scottish lake.
In the spring of 1933, the Inverness Courier newspaper first published a detailed story about the sighting of an unknown creature in the lake of the married couple. the Mackays, cited by a local resident, Water and Forestry Inspector Alex Campbell, who subsequently testified to his own repeated sightings of the creature and claimed in a BBC television interview that, while crossing the lake in a boat, Constable John Fraser literally "faced an unknown creature and heard its breathing."
Photo by Dr. Wilson
An article in the Inverness Courier gave a start to local tourism: the number of people wishing to see Nessie with their own eyes was such that already in 1933, the reconstruction of the local road, as well as the construction of infrastructure facilities, began. In 1933-1934, reports of sightings of the Loch Ness Monster came in with such intensity that English journalists appealed to Parliament to allocate government subsidies to study the phenomenon.
One of the most famous “evidence” of Nessie’s existence is the so-called “surgeon’s photograph.” In 1934, a London doctor R. Kenneth Wilson I filmed a creature in the water, very similar to a prehistoric lizard. Thanks to Wilson's photograph, it was this image of Nessie that became dominant among fans of the phenomenon. For several decades, available technical means did not allow a thorough study of Loch Ness. Supporters of the version about the reality of Nessie objected to the skeptics: the monster hides in crevices at great depths, and they simply cannot “detect” it.
The "monster" was found. But only man-made
However, every year such arguments sounded less and less convincing. For example, in 2003, the BBC funded the study of the lake by a group of specialists using 600 sound emitters. The result was unconditional: there is no monster in Loch Ness. Other groups of researchers came to the same conclusions. In 2016, scientists representing the “Loch Ness Project” led by Adriana Shaina, conducted the largest study of the lake to date using a deep-sea robot. It was established that there are no mysterious super-deep “clefts” in the lake, which means that Nessie has nowhere to hide.
By the way, Shine’s group is a very serious team that studies Loch Ness not only and not so much for the sake of the mythical beast, but for the sake of studying all kinds of natural anomalies, as well as searching for sunken ships and planes that fell into the lake. Such discoveries have indeed been made in Loch Ness, but they do not attract the general public.
In fairness, it must be said that the researchers’ robot did stumble upon a “monster”: it was a monster doll that drowned in a lake in the sixties during the filming of the film “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.”
The Hunger Games: Why wouldn't Nessie survive Loch Ness?
The paradox of the situation is that the legend of Nessie has been debunked for a long time. An animal of the stated size simply could not survive in Loch Ness. Despite the considerable size of this reservoir, it contains very little biomass: only about 20 tons. Such reserves are only enough to support the life of one living creature weighing no more than 2 tons. The described dimensions of Nessie allow us to conclude that this creature must weigh no less than 25 tons. In a word, the poor lizard, if he had ended up in Loch Ness, would have died of starvation in the shortest possible time.
And in general, Loch Ness is not the most suitable place for the existence of an animal unknown to science. It is part of the Caledonian Canal, a transport artery with active shipping. With the same success, one could look for a prehistoric lizard in the Moscow Canal or the Volga-Don Canal.
Sculpture of Nessie. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Nothing personal just business
What about the famous photograph of Dr. Wilson? In 1994, it was finally revealed that the photo was a fake, created by Wilson himself and three of his accomplices. Over time, this happens with almost all “reliable images” of Nessie. But where then do all the new reports of sightings of the “monster” that are being circulated by the press come from?
The explanation is obvious: for 80 years now, a local tourism business has been built and successfully operates on Nessie. The Nessie Museum, hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops simply will not make sense if we admit that there is no Loch Ness monster. Therefore, after the next debunking of the myth, there follows an “absolutely reliable statement” about a meeting with Nessie.
And probably nothing can be done about this. People do not want to part with miracles and are ready to pay for a fairy tale.
Nessie is the affectionate name given to the mysterious inhabitant of the mysterious Scottish lake Loch Ness. Is there really some strange creature hiding in the dark depths of Loch Ness, or is it a fiction to attract tourists? Let's try to figure it out by analyzing the facts and legends.
Where is Loch Ness located?
This fairly large reservoir with an area of 65 square meters. km is located in the Highland region of Scotland in the UK. It is part of the Caledonian Canal, connecting two sea coasts. The depth of Loch Ness reaches 230 meters, the width is about one and a half kilometers, and the length is 37 km. This is Scotland's second largest lake. Thanks to such an impressive size, Loch Ness has become the largest “reservoir” of fresh water in Great Britain. The water here is not transparent due to large accumulations of peat. Interesting climatic phenomena are also observed: in sunny weather in the evening the surface of the lake is covered with thick fog. Also here, the seiche effect is often noticed - peculiar vibrations of the water surface when standing waves are formed.
All this adds mystery to the lake, which has long become famous far beyond the borders of Foggy Albion.
What is Loch Ness hiding?
The history of Loch Ness began many centuries ago, when glacial waters collected in the Great Glen geological fault. Many bodies of water in this area are of glacial origin, and Loch Ness is no exception. If you look at the map of Loch Ness online, you are unlikely to notice anything special. The scenery here is actually typical for Scotland, and there are no particularly interesting sights. There are several villages on the shore, there are artificial islets (crannogs) and Urquhart Castle. But it is unlikely that this attracted so many tourists. And, according to statistics, about two million tourists come every year to gaze at the Loch Ness waters! They are all drawn here by the hope of seeing the Loch Ness monster, which, according to legend, lurks in the dark depths.
An old legend
The first description that mentions the Loch Ness monster dates back to 565. This story is contained in the chronicles of the authorship of Abbot Ion. The clergyman talks about an incident that happened to Saint Columbus. When the saint passed by the lake, he witnessed a funeral procession. Local residents were burying a fisherman who they claimed was killed by a lake monster. The saint decided to make sure that the deceased was not possessed by evil spirits. He asked the student to drag the boat with the body of the dead man back to the shore. When the student jumped into the lake, the head of a monster appeared there. But Saint Columbus began to pray, and the monster disappeared into the depths of the water. By the way, in those days, the monster had a different name - Nisag. And the local Celts, having seen the miracle of taming the monster, became Christians en masse.
Even more ancient mentions, however, only in the form of drawings, date back to the Roman period. The ancient Romans, who lived in these parts before our era, left rock paintings with images of various animals. But among the “portraits” of representatives of the local fauna, a drawing of an unidentified animal resembling a plesiosaur was discovered. But these marine mammals lived at least several tens of millions of years BC. Therefore, it has been suggested that the ancient Romans discovered this strange animal in the waters of Loch Ness.
Evidence and opinions of researchers
Many thousands of eyewitness accounts have been collected who were lucky enough to see the Loch Ness monster. But it is quite obvious that most of them, like the photo of Loch Ness, where a large head on a long neck rises above the surface of the water, are fiction and fake.
But they still could not find any traces of forgery in some photo and video materials. In particular, these are videos of Tim Dinsdale and Gordon Holmes. In both cases, a creature was filmed moving at a fairly high speed. These videos were found to be reliable after numerous examinations. But neither on them, nor on any other more or less reliable evidence, can one clearly see what the underwater inhabitant looks like. The only thing that can be stated is that the creature is enormous in size (about 15 meters in length).
Researchers are divided on the origin of the monster. Some argue that perhaps this is some kind of mutated representative of the sturgeon. Others insist that the large aquatic beast is nothing more than a plesiosaur that has survived to this day.
Official science refutes both versions. According to the point of view of scientists, such a large animal, as the Loch Ness monster is imagined, simply cannot survive due to lack of food. The amount of biomass in the lake is limited to twenty tons, which is extremely small for a lizard weighing 25 tons and 15 meters in length. Another argument is a long ice age in Scotland, which ended approximately in the 10th millennium BC. Obviously, large animals such as dinosaurs could not survive in such conditions.
However, the researchers are not at all embarrassed by the scientific point of view - they are sure that the animal could make its way to the sea through a system of underground tunnels.
- The Loch Ness Monster is the real national pride of the Scots. In 1933, when interest was at its peak, the British planned to find and destroy the monster in order to subsequently install an exhibit in the British Museum. These plans outraged the Scots so much that Nessie was going to be protected at the legislative level.
- The mystery of Loch Ness attracts not only researchers, but also filmmakers. Many films have been made about the mysterious inhabitant of the lake depths.
- Near the lake there is a museum of the Loch Ness Monster, so everyone who is not lucky enough to see it in person has the opportunity to “get to know” it in absentia.
November 12, 1933 someone Hugh Gray took the first photograph of a monster that allegedly lives in Scotland's Loch Ness. This photo became famous worldwide due to its publication in the British newspaper The Daily Sketch.
Under public pressure, the following year the Scottish Parliament was forced to put on the agenda the issue of the existence of Nessie, as the monster was nicknamed in the press. Deputies discussed the possibility of allocating funds to study Loch Ness and its inhabitants. However, the heated parliamentary battles did not lead to anything.
Researchers have still not found evidence that the Loch Ness monster really exists. AiF.ru has collected seven of the most interesting facts related to the Nessie phenomenon.
What is the name of the Loch Ness monster?
The ancient Celts called the monster that lives in a Scottish lake by the crude name Nisag. And now he is affectionately called Nessie. This name is an abbreviation of the name of Loch Ness.
Loch Ness monster. Photo by Robert Wilson, 1934. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
The Loch Ness monster was seen more than 400 years ago
The first written mention of a mysterious creature living in the waters of Loch Ness dates back to the 6th century AD. The biography of Saint Columba speaks of his encounter with a “water beast.”
In the life of Columba it is written that one day the saint went out to Loch Ness and saw the funeral of a local resident who was killed by a certain lake monster
One of the saint’s disciples frivolously threw himself into the water and swam across a narrow strait to bring in a boat. As he sailed away from the shore, Nisag rose from the water. Columba drove the monster away with prayer.
Nessie is considered a giant sturgeon or dinosaur
Some researchers claim that Nessie is a huge sturgeon. Others insist that the monster is a plesiosaur. However, scientists consider both of these versions to be untenable. The fact is that the sturgeon cannot grow to such a gigantic size, and a prehistoric reptile in a Scottish lake would very soon die of starvation. Loch Ness contains only about 20 tons of biomass, which is extremely small for a 15-meter lizard that weighed more than 25 tons.
Illustration of a plesiosaur by Heinrich Harder. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
Loch Ness has been covered in ice for thousands of years
Loch Ness, like the whole of Scotland, was covered with a continuous ice sheet during the last ice age, which began about 110 thousand years ago and ended around 9700-9600 BC. e.
Science does not know large animals that can survive in such conditions. However, some experts suggest that the lake has access to the sea through a system of underground tunnels that the monster could use.
Bathing elephants could be mistaken for the Loch Ness monster
In 2005 British paleontologist Neil Clark compared photographs of the Loch Ness monster with the schedule of traveling circuses on the road to Inverness. And he came to the conclusion that local residents saw not prehistoric dinosaurs, but bathing elephants.
A swimming elephant can indeed be mistaken for a monster. Only the trunk, crown and upper back of the animal are visible on the surface. This is exactly how eyewitnesses described Nessie - a long-necked something with two humps.
The Scots wanted to protect Nessie from the English
In 1933, the British planned to find and kill the Loch Ness monster, and put its carcass on public display at the Natural History Museum in the British capital. However, Nessie has already become a source of Scottish national pride. Therefore, the mere thought that a stuffed animal could be exhibited in London infuriated residents of the region. Therefore, the Scots demanded that laws be passed that would protect the monster. However, it didn't come to that.
Is the Loch Ness monster just an optical illusion?
Researchers have discovered the existence of a seiche effect in Loch Ness. These are underwater currents invisible to the eye, which can be caused by changes in atmospheric pressure, wind, and seismic phenomena.
Currents carry large objects with them. Observers may have the illusion that objects are floating on their own.
Incredible facts
Italian geologist Luigi Piccardi believes that finally revealed the mystery of the Loch Ness monster: Nessie emerging from the dark water Loch Ness, nothing more than bubbles that appear on the surface of the water as a result of geological processes at the bottom of the lake.
The scientist is sure that there is no monster, about which there was so much debate, doesn't really exist in Scottish Loch Ness.
Since ancient times, this lake has been overgrown with rumors and assumptions that it is supposedly the haven of an unknown monster. At the same time, historical descriptions of the monster often included references to earthquakes in the area. Piccardi is sure that everything is to blame seismic activity in a geological fault Great Glen, part of which lies just under the lake.
Earthquakes and monster
Although Scotland is not prone to large earthquakes, The Great Glen fault line is quite active. At the bottom of the lake, some seismic movements are possible, which are periodically visible on the surface of the water in the form of bubbles or waves.
For example, drawing on ancient descriptions, Piccardi noted that the authors mentioned that the monster appeared from the water when people on the shore felt the vibrations of the earth. One of the texts, written in 690 AD by Adomnan, contains a story about saints who crossed the Nessus River and were attacked by a monster. After asking for protection, God saved them.
Many noted that the description of the monster in this work was very vague, but it was said that the monster roared loudly, and that the ground vibrated under my feet. This interested Piccardi.
In the 1930s, eyewitness reports of the Loch Ness Monster began to appear. It is known that just during this period, the Great Glen fault observed increased seismic activity. People most likely could see the results of this activity on the surface of the water, but due to superstitions and myths they believed that it was a monster.
Geologists have confirmed that tremors measuring 3-4 on the Richter scale were periodically recorded in the Loch Ness area. The largest of them took place in 1816, 1888, 1890 and 1901.
Another point of view
Some researchers disagree with Dr. Piccardi. They believe that in the 1930s no major earthquakes have been observed in this area. Even if there were such and such shocks, they were not strong enough to cause any vibrations on the surface of the water.
Pickard is sure that not only the myths about the Loch Ness monster, but also about other strange creatures, in fact based on natural phenomena, which remain not fully understandable to people. For example, Piccard also suggested that the riddle of the Delphic Oracle is associated with the fumes of sulfur gas.
Modern witnesses of the Loch Ness monster
From 6th-7th centuries a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, and since then evidence of the monsters of Loch Ness has accumulated more than 3 thousand. To this day, monster hunters continue to search for evidence of the monster's existence.
For example, in 2009 one Englishman noticed something strange in satellite images Google Earth. This photo actually shows something that looks like a living creature with a tail and lamps, however It’s impossible to say for sure what it is yet.
The most popular versions about Nessie
Logs. According to different versions of skeptics, witnesses mistake a variety of objects for the Loch Ness monster in a Scottish lake, in particular, floating logs. A log that falls into water usually sinks immediately, but after taking on water it can float.
Elephants. Another original version appeared in 2005. Curator at Glasgow Museum Neil Clark suggested that the “monster” was actually the bathing elephants of traveling circuses. Some local residents in the 1930s simply did not know that circuses were visiting at this time, and their route passed next to Loch Ness.
Birds. If the lake remains very calm and there is no boat nearby, you may notice strange marks on the surface of the water V-shape, which are taken to be the tracks of a monster. In fact, the trail was left by waterfowl, which are too small to be seen with the naked eye.
Acne. Large eel fish can be mistaken for strange creatures. They are found in Loch Ness and can periodically appear at the surface of the water. Although fish do not have long necks that they can stick out of the water, it is possible that their heads were mistaken for the heads of monsters.
In 2001 several dead fish of the family were found on the shore of the lake atlantic conger, which usually live in salt water. It has been suggested that these animals were deliberately brought here from the ocean to they played the role of monsters for tourists.
Creatures unknown to science. It is believed that the Loch Ness monster exists and is some kind of creature unknown to science, for example, strange fish, giant clams or seals with long necks.
