The Unexplained - Things that go bump in the night

Inner Space

The Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness Monster ?

Does Nessie exist ?

Well it hasn't been proved, but yet it hasn't been disproved either!

I doubt if there is hardly anyone in the world who has not heard about the 'Loch Ness Monster', it has been a challenge for many over the years to try to capture and prove it's existence, many thousands of pounds have been spent in the hunt for Nessie, Sonar scans, radar scans, and even placing a submarine in the Loch itself to scour the lake bed.
Of course it could have just been a ruse, a publicity stunt years ago to generate income from tourism in the area, many have travelled from all over the world to stay in the many hotels and B&B's around the lake, spending money in tea rooms and restaurants, buying up locally made memorabilia, paying for boat trips. The income generated locally and in royalties for goods must have been tremendous.
But that still does not mean it does not exist or has never existed!

All around the world there are claims of sightings of strange animal life that resemble prehistoric beasts, in Papua New Guinea there are current stories of sightings of a flying 'Devil' which closely resembles a Pterodactyl or Pterosaur. In recent years fish which were believed to been extinct for many thousands if not millions of years have been found alive in seas and oceans.

We are still discovering new species of life, the Sea's are full of rarely seen if not unseen varieties of creatures, our inability to successfully explore the deepest parts of our Ocean's due to intense pressures and lack of light does not mean there is not any life down there, far from it, there are Fish and other 'Life' that survive in these depths and rarely surface for us to view,
The existence of some of these Deep Sea Creatures creates a possibility that there are still unknown creatures, whether prehistoric or not, that could explain the many sightings over the years.  take a look at my section 'Creatures from the deep' to see.

Nessie ?

Is Nessie really a 'Monster'?

here are many reports of sightings of Nessie over the years, but I have yet to find a report of whatever this animal is actually attacking or killing an individual. Sightings true or false describe an animal that resembles a Sauropod such as the Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus), which were Herbivore's, it could also be described as resembling a Plesiosauria, an aquatic dinosaur believed to live by eating either plankton or small fish.
(see section further down on the Plesiosaur)
Was the uncalled for label of 'Monster' given to it for effect? was it to just boost the folklore?
Surely Nessie should be called 'The Loch Ness Dinosaur'

Plesiosaur ?

Sightings have often described it to match the Plesiosaur.

Note the similarities of the fins to the picture above that was caught when scanning Loch Ness.

So why doesn't 'Nessie' appear more ?

Fear perhaps? the in-built need for survival that makes many animals 'hide' from sight of any predator.
Or maybe it is Nocturnal and therefore just not seen as often as expected.
or is it that
maybe it is not always there!

There are various other marine life that travel the Oceans, travelling many thousands of miles yet return to a certain area to breed or spawn. Salmon return to their original breeding ground, turtles return to specific areas too.

Could 'Nessie' be a deep Ocean creature, spending the majority of it's time tucked away in the deepest parts of the oceans and only returning to Loch Ness only when it needs to breed or give birth?

A Theory ?

If you look at the layout of the area, Loch Ness, Loch Lochry and Loch Linnhe lie 'end on' to each other almost splitting the land in to two, they reach the sea at both ends.

There could possibly be deep unknown caves or tunnels that have been eroded by the sea over the years that link one Loch to another, making it viable that it could access Loch Ness from the sea using these underground rivers that link the Loch's to the main body of Sea. 

The Map showing the end to end layout of Loch Ness; Loch Lochry and Loch Linnhe, spanning from Inverness through to Fort William. 

Isn't that a possibility ?

First modern Loch Ness Monster sighting

The first report, which is considered modern, was April 14, 1933 by Mr. and Mrs. Mackay. They reported seeing an unknown creature in the lake that "disported itself for fully a minute, its body resembling that of a whale". Next sighting came on July 22, 1933 when Mr. and Mrs. Spicer drove across the newly built road alongside Loch Ness. Their car nearly struck a huge, black creature with a long neck. The "prehistoric animal" shambled across the road, slithered through the undergrowth and splashed in the Loch.

Loch Ness is situated in northern Scotland, near the town of Inverness, and is considered one of the country's largest lakes (or "lochs"), albeit smaller than it's biggest, Loch Lomond. At twenty-four miles long and one mile at its widest point and up to one thousand feet deep, Loch Ness is part of the Great Glen fault that divides the Highlands from Fort William to Inverness, Scotland. Loch Ness empties into the River Ness, which in turn flows into the North Sea.  

During the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, Scotland was covered by huge glaciers. When these glaciers started to melt, the slow-moving waters also carved rocky sides into lakes, along with the natural formation of "caves" and shelves. The water poured into the sea surrounding the area now known as Scotland, flooding much of the land and causing it to rise. This natural phenomenon permitted sea creatures to inhabit the flooded areas (dubbed "fjords"), where they also reproduced. When the floods began to dissipate some seven thousand years ago, the waters surrounding the land became lakes. However, it is said animals during this age also lost their connectivity with the "fjords," thereby trapping them in the newly developed lakes. Over the natural course of time, conditions in the lakes changed - salt water was eventually replaced by fresh rainwater, causing some of the sea animals to become extinct. Yet somehow others adjusted to the new atmosphere and survived.

Loch Ness is a deeply dark morass that is also located over an earthquake fault line, said to be the reason the lake is so vastly deep in areas. The bottom of the "loch" is layered with peat, which is likened to coal in that it consists of carbonized vegetable matter similar to moss. Peat particles float in the lake, making the water appear dark brown and in places almost black in color. The result is a rather murky body of water, making it difficult to see through clearly even when using sophisticated scuba diving equipment.

 

Some geographic experts claim Loch Ness is one of the deepest lakes in Europe - and if emptied, could be filled with three times the number of men, women and children from around the world.

 

The Loch Ness monster has been compared to the water-dwelling pre-historic plesiosaurs, which according to scientists became extinct more than sixty million years ago. Plesiosaurs were known to be cold-blooded creatures, garnering their heat from surrounding environments. Statistically speaking, plesiosaurs could not have possibly survived in Loch Ness because of the lake's icy waters; the creatures also breathed air, surfacing for oxygen regularly. If Nessie descended from the plesiosaurs, certainly more sightings would have been reported than is currently on record. Additionally, plesiosaurs thrived in salt water, casting shadows of doubt on whether they ever occupied Loch Ness.

However, in a dichotomous turn fossils of plesiosaur bones have been discovered near Loch Ness, providing evidence that Nessie may indeed be descended from them.

British engineer Timothy Dinsdale led an expedition to Loch Ness in the 1960's, where his six-day watch resulted in film footage showing a large creature moving underwater at ten miles per hour.

In the 60 years from 1933 to 1993, there were more than 3000 sightings of Nessie. Most people describe a long-necked, humpbacked animal that can move very fast or rise quietly.
The "official" scientific name is now Nessiteras Rhombopteryx. After seeing the 1972 underwater photo by Dr Robert H. Rines of the Academy of Applied sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology which resembles some sort of flipper, Sir Peter Scott came up with the Latin name. 

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, blurred image of what might possibly have been the face.  
At some point during the 1970's, someone also suggested the water be drained from Loch Ness to settle the matter of Nessie's existence once and for all. This idea was naturally abandoned as such a task would take nearly ten years, not to mention bringing about the dilemma of where to store the 263 billion cubic feet of water from Loch Ness.

As time marches on and equipment becomes more sophisticated, so do the various searches for Nessie. The United States Navy offered their underwater scanning equipment to the New-Hampshire-based Academy of Applied Science for testing, but with little or no result. The Academy also tried training dolphins to swim with cameras in the off chance a glimpse of the monster.

In 1987, Britain's Loch Ness Project began Operation Deepscan, whereby they equipped twenty boats with sonar units and sent them travelling up and down the lake. Some of the tests detected the presence of an object larger than any known animal native to the fresh water environment, but could not be linked to any pertinent species of fish. This discovery led the Loch Ness Project to install a round-the-clock research station onboard a boat in the middle of Loch Ness.

Nothing conclusive was ever found but modern expeditions continue in the hunt for Nessie to this day.

Nessie spotted using Google Earth ?

Since satellite imagery has been become accessible to the general public, many weird and unexplainable things have been spotted scattered over the Earth. From UFO's to strange shapes or carvings in the Earth, you only have to search on the internet for photographs of these.

if you want to check Nessie out for yourself, then enter in to Google Earth.
Latitude 57°12′52.13″N,   Longitude 4°34′14.16″W 

Caught on camera ?

Sea-monster sightings in similar regions

An interesting fact is that most sightings of not only Nessie, but the 250+ similar lake monsters all appear around the isothermic line of 500F in both northern and southern hemispheres. In a scientific sense, this gives a credible pattern for the distribution of certain animals through the world. The fact that there are more claims around these areas means it may not all be hoaxes.

Are Plesiosaurs still roaming the Earth ?

Take a look at these photographs and decide for yourself
This apparent Plesiosaur washed up on Moore's Beach in Monterey Bay, California in 1925. The neck was described as being about 20 feet long. No credible explanation has ever been made to explain it, other than Plesiosaurs still living in the Pacific Ocean.

Hoaxes

You would expect that with our ever developing technology we could now prove or disprove the existence of 'Nessie' once and for all.
The problem we have today is that our own technological advances in computing and graphical manipulation using such readily available editing packages as Photoshop and even Digital video editing software have made it far too easy to create hoaxes.