Greatest Unsolved Mysteries

The Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster is a cryptid, a creature whose existence has been suggested but has not been discovered or documented by the scientific community. It is reputedly large unknown animal that inhabits Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands,

It is similar to other supposed lake

monsters in Scotland and elsewhere, though its description varies from one account to the next. Popular interest and belief in the animal's existence has varied since it was first brought to the world's attention in 1933. The most common speculation among believers is that the creature

represents a line of long-surviving plesiosaurs. The scientific community regards the Loch Ness Monster as a modern-day myth, and explains sightings as including misidentifications of more mundane objects, outright hoaxes, and wishful thinking

The term "monster" was reportedly applied for the first time to the creature on 2 May 1933 by Alex Campbell, the water bailiff for Loch Ness and a part-time journalist, in a report in the Inverness Courier. On 4 August 1933, the Courier published as a full news item the assertion of a London man, George Spicer, that a few weeks earlier

while motoring around the Loch, he and his wife had seen "the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life" trundling across the road toward the Loch carrying "an animal" in its mouth.

The earliest report of a monster

associated with the vicinity of Loch

Ness appears in the Life of St.

Columba by Adomnán, written in

the 7th century. According

Adomnán, writing about a century

after the events he described, the

Irish monk Saint Columba was

staying in the land of the Picts with

his companions when he came

across the locals burying a man by

the River Ness. They explained that the man had been swimming the river when he was attacked by a "water beast" that had mauled him and dragged him under. They tried to rescue him in a boat, but were able only to drag up his corpse. Hearing this, Columba stunned the Picts by sending his follower Luigne moccu Min to swim across the river.

The beast came after him, but

Columba made the sign of the Cross

and commanded: "Go no further. Do not touch the man. Go back at once." The beast immediately halted as if it had been "pulled back with ropes" and fled in terrot and both Columba's men and the pagan Picts praised God for the miracle.

On 12 November 1933, Hugh

Gray was walking along the loch

after church when he spotted a

substantial commotion in the water. A large creature rose up from the lake. Gray took several pictures of it, but only one of them showed up after they were developed. This image appeared to show a creature with a long tail and thick body at the surface of the loch. The image is blurred suggesting the animal was

splashing. Four stumpy-looking

objects on the bottom of the

creature's body might possibly be a pair of appendages, such as flippers.

A variety of explanations have

been postulated over the years to

account for sightings of the Loch

Ness Monster. These may be catego. rised as: misidentifications of common animals; misidentifications of inanimate objects or effects; reinterpretations of traditional Scottish folklore; hoaxes; and exotic species of large animals.