For at least 1,500 years a legend has held in the Scottish Highlands that Loch Ness is home to a mysterious aquatic animal called “Nessie.” 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.
One of the earliest known “evidence” of Nessie is from ancient stone carvings made by the Picts an ancient tribe who depicted lifelike animals with the exception of a strange beast with an elongated neck and flippers instead of feet. The first ever photograph of the Loch Ness Monster was taken on December 6th, 1933, by Hugh Gray and was published in the Daily Express newspaper. Circus owner Bertram Mills promised a sum of £20,000 to any man who could bring the creature alive to his circus.
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. With great fanfare, Wetherell made allegations of “proof” that turned out to be false which 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. It’s even been said that the whole mystery could be explained by the presence of circus elephants in the area in the 1930s.
Nevertheless, eyewitnesses continued to come forward with accounts of their sightings—more than 4,000 of them, according to author Nicholas Witchell The Loch Ness Story. 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 level-headed people: lawyers and priests, scientists and school teachers, policemen and fishermen—even a Nobel Prize winner.
In 1987, Operation Deep Scan, the most ambitious sonar survey of Loch Ness, found three unexplained underwater targets.
To this day, there is no conclusive proof to suggest that the monster is a reality. However, many respectable and responsible observers have been utterly convinced they have seen a huge creature in the water. Prehistoric animal? Elaborate hoax? Seismic activity? A simple trick of the light? You decide if it’s real.
In today’s class, we are going to imagine that anything is possible and the Nessie is still lurking in the Loch Ness just long enough for us to catch a glimpse and paint her on paper!