lonelyplanet.com - March 01, 2008
It all began with a headline in the Inverness Courier on 3 May, 1933: “Strange Spectacle In Loch Ness; What Was It?”
Will it all end with a headline in the Daily Record on 13 February, 2008: “Veteran Loch Ness Monster Hunter Gives Up”?
It’s 75 years since the Loch Ness Monster first hit the headlines, and even hard-core Nessie fans are worried that Scotland’s best known beastie might be dead in the water.
From around 30 sightings in 1933-34, when all the fuss began, and more than 10 a year in the 1990s, reports of Nessie’s appearances have dropped to three in 2006 and two in 2007 (and none so far in 2008). Robert Rines, the 85-year-old monster hunter who took the famous “flipper photograph” in 1972 has finally hung up his binoculars, believing the creature he once captured on film is now dead.
Locals are understandably worried about Nessie’s reluctance to show her face in recent years. An industry worth £6 million a year has grown up around the Scottish legend, with monster exhibitions on the shores of Loch Ness and in Edinburgh, countless cruise boats equipped with sonar and underwater video cameras, a string of webcams trained on the loch (http://www.lochness.co.uk/livecam) and a roaring trade in Nessie souvenirs that probably supports a minor manufacturing empire in China.
Naturalist Adrian Shine, who designed the original Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit and the Loch Ness 3D Experience in Edinburgh (now closed), believes an increasingly sceptical public is less inclined to believe in the monster’s existence.
Theories about the nature of the Nessie phenomenon have ranged from giant eels and errant seals to swimming deer, floating logs and boat wakes. The big favourite among the “Lost World” wing of Nessie-watchers is that Loch Ness harbours a plesiosaur, a living fossil that has somehow survived since the age of dinosaurs.
Scientists gently point out that the waters of Loch Ness fill a 23-mile long glacial trench that was gouged out by Ice Age glaciers a mere 12,000 years ago (plesiosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago) and that (unless it feeds on hype) any large predator would have starved to death long ago - the loch supports only a small population of fish.
One of the most intriguing explanations for the glut of sightings in 1933-34 was put forward in 2006 by museum curator Neil Clark, who noted that a circus came to Inverness in 1933. Picking up on the flurry of newspaper articles about the monster, circus impresario Bertram Mills drummed up publicity by offering a reward of £20,000 (around £1 million in today’s money) to anyone who could capture the beast.
Clark proposed that what many people thought was the Loch Ness monster was actually one of Mills’ circus elephants swimming in the loch. Most of a swimming elephant is underwater, with only two humps - its back and head - breaking the surface, and its trunk held aloft as a breathing snorkel (giving the appearance of the “monster”’s snake-like head). Mills knew his money was safe, because the “monster” was performing nightly in his big top!
From elephants to eels, it’s safe to say that no single theory can explain all of the strange sightings on the loch. If you stare long enough and hard enough at something, eventually you’re going to see some weird stuff.
Loch Ness locals are pinning their hopes on the film The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thewaterhorse), which features the monster centre stage, to rekindle public interest in Nessie. And it wouldn’t hurt if some strange spectacle put in an appearance at the loch too.
The irony is that, even without the monster, Loch Ness is a pretty attractive place to visit. Hiking and mountain-biking trails run the length of the Great Glen, and there are picturesque waterfalls at Foyers, beautiful gardens at Abriachan, historic ruins at Urquhart Castle and a cosy canalside pubs at Fort Augustus. The scenery is spectacular too - an easy hillwalk leads to the summit of Meallfuarvonie above Drumnadrochit, where you can soak up the stunning views over the Great Glen.
Who knows - you might even spot a mysterious wake rippling the surface of Loch Ness down below. As they say in the X-Files, “The truth is out there…”
