A Monster In Loch Ness?
Unknown creatures of great size and wonderment
continue to turn up, such as the "megamouth" shark, which was first identified
as recently as 1976.
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Fantastic Creatures
The first evidence that a fabled donkey-like creature existed in the heart of
the Congo appeared in Henry Morton Stanley's 1860 book In Darkest
Africa. Stanley wrote that the Wambutti pygmies, who lived in the Ituri
forests, "knew a donkey and called it 'atti.' They say that they sometimes
catch them in pits. What they can find to eat is a wonder. They eat leaves."
But no one had ever heard of asses in the Congo. The only member of the horse
family known from the region was the zebra, and zebras don't live in forests,
especially the deep jungle where the pygmies hunted.
Intrigued by Stanley's report, Sir Harry Johnston, then Governor of Uganda,
questioned some pygmies he met in 1899. "They at once understood what I meant,"
he wrote, "and pointing to a zebra-skin and a live mule, they informed me that
the creature in question . . . was like a mule with zebra stripes on it." When
they showed him the elusive creature's cloven-footed tracks, Johnston changed
his mind. "I disbelieved them," he wrote, "and imagined that we were merely
following a forest-eland." (The eland is a large African antelope.) Finally,
when he got hold of a skin, Johnston changed his mind yet again: "Upon
receiving this skin, I saw at once what [it] was -- namely, a close relation to
the giraffe."
The
antelope - donkey - anteater - giraffe, otherwise known as the okapi.
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From that skin, a pair of skulls, and the pygmies' tales, Johnston was able to
conceive what the mysterious animal must look like. It was a strange beast. As
the zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans has noted, it reminded one of those mythical
creatures comprised of the body parts of various animals. It was like a large
antelope but with no visible horns; it had ears similar to but larger than a
donkey's; its hindquarters were striped like those of a zebra; and it had an
anteater's long tongue.
Could a more fantastical beast be imagined? Few Europeans believed it existed,
but Johnston's persistence paid off. In the early part of this century, the
animal finally became known to science as the okapi. Named for Johnston,
Okapia johnstoni is a heavy-bodied animal with a coat of reddish
chestnut, yellowish-white cheeks, and thighs ringed with alternating stripes of
cream and purplish black. Johnston's last guess about this oddball creature was
right -- it is related to the giraffe. To bring to light a huge, unknown mammal
in this century astounded the world. As one scientist has written, we today
have no idea of "the romance surrounding the discovery of the Okapi, nor of the
excitement caused in natural history circles, first by the vague reports of its
presence, and later by its actual finding."
Those who disbelieve in the Loch Ness monster and other fabulous creatures
would do well to remember the okapi, as well as certain points surrounding its
discovery. To wit:
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For centuries savvy merchants sold narwhal
tusks as the horns of the fabled unicorn.
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Legends often hold some truth. In the Middle Ages, ivory horns
supposedly taken from unicorns were peddled to European royalty for 20 times
their weight in gold. Few if any collectors knew that these long, spiraled
tusks came from an actual animal, the narwhal, a cetacean that lives in the
Arctic. Scholars believe that the
remarkably human aspect that the heads of seals and manatees rising above the
waves can take on may have given rise to tales of the mermaid, the fabled
half-woman, half-fish of the deep. While traveling across Arabia on his return
from China in 1294, Marco Polo heard of a bird on Madagascar that was so large
it could carry elephants aloft in its talons. Baseless? Nope. Until they went
extinct about 1,000 years ago, Madagascar's elephant birds were the largest
birds that ever lived. Though they couldn't lift an elephant, they did stand
ten feet tall and weigh close to half a ton.
Experiment with Sonar
Expand your mind with "Hot Science," a fun, interactive way to delve into the
world of science. (For ages 9 and up.)
How can you "see" a lake bottom or sea floor if the water is too muddy, too
dark, or too deep? You can't, right? Well, not with your eyes. But you can
"see" with sound waves. See below.
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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.
| 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
| 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.
Loch Ness Monster, the Scottish legend
Where is it
- Loch Ness and it monster are both found in northern Scotland
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- What is it
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- Loch Ness is part of the Great Glen, an enormous fissure in the earth that just about
splits Scotland into two. There are a series of lochs, rivers and canals that link the
Atlantic with the North Sea. this is the most eastern of these.
- It is the largest freshwater lake in the Britain. It is twenty four miles long and a
maximum of one and a half miles wide. Its maximum depth is around 750 feet and its average
depth 450 feet. Because the waters are very cold, and also very cloudy it is difficult to
see underwater more than a few feet. So there is a lot of murky water in which Nessie
could hide
Monster legend
- Said to have started with an account of Saint Columba, in 565 A.D rescuing a swimmer
from a lake creature. From then on stories of such a creature emerged periodically,
but little is actually recorded until the 20th century
- It was only after1933, when a new road was built along the lake shore and people were
first able to visit the area in large numbers, that reports of sightings really took off
Mackay's and Campbell 1933
- The MacKays owned a pub at Drumnadrochit, and on April 14th saw an "enormous
animal" in the Loch. They told the man responsible for controlling salmon fishing in
the Loch, a Alex Campbell. Campbell, because of his job spent a lot of time observing the
Loch, and he saw Nessie a number of times.
- Campbell put it at 30 feet long and described it as having "a long, tapering neck,
about 6 feet long, and a smallish head with a serpentine look about it, and a huge hump
behind..."
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Hugh Gray photo 1933
- The monster was first photographed by a Hugh Gray in 1933. Gray claims "I
immediately got my camera ready and snapped the object which was then two to three feet
above the surface of the water. I did not see any head, for what I took to be the front
parts were under the water, but there was considerable movement from what seemed to be the
tail."
The Surgeons photo
- This photo was the most famous of them all, and was reputedly taken by a surgeon who was
a pillar of the establishment, Colonel Robert Wilson.
- Christain Spurling later admitted that he had taken part in a hoax. He made the
confession on his death bed in 1993 when he was aged 90. His story was that he had helped
make a model out of a toy submarine and photographed the model. Spurling claimed that his
stepbrother, Ian Wetherell, and Ian's father, Marmaduke ("Duke") Wetherell, had
been hired by the Daily Mail to find Nessie. They made their "monster"
out of a 14 inch toy submarine and plastic wood. The photo was taken so seriously that
they dared not own up to the hoax at the time
- You can take you pick as to whether this confession is proof that the photo is a fake or
not.
Seen on land 1934
- Arthur Grant, a veterinary student, saw the thing crossing the road as he rode along on
his motorbike. His decryption matched that of a Plesiosaurus - small head, long neck, big
body with flippers and a tail. The Plesiosaurus, a relative of the dinosaur, has been
thought to be extinct for some 65 million years.
On moving film in 1960
- An indistinct moving picture was taken by an an aeronautical engineer, Tim Dinsdale in
1960. The film may not have convinced the world, but Dinsdale gave up his job, and spent
the next twenty years trying to prove they existed. He saw it twice more, but never got
the photographic proof
Sonar Sweeps in 1970
- The American Academy of Applied Science, funded a search by Dr Robert Rines, using sonar
and automatic cameras. In 1972 one of their cameras photographed, in the murk, what
appeared to be a flipper about 6 feet long on just four frames of film.
- Various sonar contacts followed, but it was not until 1975 that they got a vague, very
blurred image of what might possibly have been the face
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Submarines
- In more recent years mini submarines have tried to find Nessie, without success In
1987, 20 cruisers methodically swept the Loch with sonar equipment bouncing sound
waves from the surface down to the bottom and electronically recording any contacts. Many
salmon were found, but no Nessie.
Conclusion
- None of the evidence so far shows proof of Nessie's existence.
- On the other hand the waters are big enough and deep enough to hide such a creature
- And there again it is impossible for one to exist, there would have to be a breeding
population of say at least 10 to 20.
- Certainly no bones or bodies have been found, so the myth lives on.
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