In Happy Ever Afterlife, we go on a big Scottish adventure to Loch Ness. Come with me to take a deep dive on the Loch Ness Monster.
The second largest lake, Loch Ness -with Loch meaning river or sea in Gaelic- has more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined. Located in the Scottish Highlands near Inverness, It has a depth of 230 meters and in its depths is home to -what people call- ‘the Loch Ness Monster’ a mythical creature from Scottish folklore.
The earliest report of a monster in the vicinity is in a book called the ‘Life of St. Columba’, written by Adomnan, who was an Abbot in the 7th century. He encounters a man being buried after an attack in the water when he was swimming. In response to this, Columba sent a follower to swim across the River Ness and when the ‘water beast’ approached him he said: "Go no further. Do not touch the man. Go back at once." and the creature stopped and fled. The local Picts perceived this as a miracle.
In the late 1800’s, Alexander Macdonald saw a “large stubby-legged animal” surfacing from the loch, and reported it looked like a salamander. A D. Mackenzie also allegedly reported seeing an object resembling a log “wriggling and churning up the water” but it disappeared quickly. However, Mackenzie’s story was not published until much later in the 1930’s.
There was a frenzy of news reports in the 1930s claiming that a ‘Loch Ness Monster’ had been spotted by locals and journalists alike. The speculation led to the Loch’s notoriety globally. The best-known account came from The Inverness Courier, from a journalist called Alex Campbell. He discusses a sighting by Aldie Mackay of an enormous “beast” or “whale-like fish”. The article says, "The creature disported itself, rolling and plunging for fully a minute, its body resembling that of a whale, and the water cascading and churning like a simmering cauldron. Soon, however, it disappeared in a boiling mass of foam.”
Also in 1933, George Spicer allegedly saw the monster with his wife rise out of the water, but was later proved in 2013 to be fake, with scholars claiming it resembled how the long-neck dinosaur rose out of the lake in King Kong. This is one of many sightings that year.
The next year, one of the most iconic photos of the Loch Ness monster would be taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a doctor from London which was published in the Daily Mail. Known as the ‘Surgeon’s Photograph’ because Wilson didn’t want his name associated with the picture, for over 60 years this photo was considered evidence of the monster’s existence when it was dismissed as a hoax in the 90’s. In the 1960’s Tim Dinsdale would video a dark hump supposedly belonging to Nessie, which would later be attributed to a small fishing boat.
Whilst there have been many multiple sightings of the monster over the years, with people claiming ‘Monster Eels’, swimming elephants, a Greenland Shark often found in Canada and even massive catfish all roamed in the waters. Even claims that Nessie was an extinct
prehistoric species called a Plesiosaur or a long-necked giant amphibian.
It’s also worth noting that similar sightings of ‘water beasts’ have been spotted across the world, particularly in North America. In Canada, the Ogopogo inhabits a lake in British Columbia, with origins in First Nations folklore. In Georgia, the Altamaha-ha, an alligator-like creature, has been attributed to its myth of a water monster in the area. Champ is a monster found in New York, Vermont and Quebec.
More sightings of the Loch Ness monster, including a 2014 apple maps photograph, and drone footage taken in 2021 would help further the notoriety of the Loch Ness Myth, almost 100 years since the Nessie-mania of the 1930’s. Many expeditions, including the founding of the Loch ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau in the 1960’s, Sonar studying the lake and even multiple TV crews have tried and failed to find the monster.
Looks like the only real evidence we have of a Loch Ness monster was in a book written by Stephanie Hudson.
Our Loch Ness adventure is part of Happy Ever Afterlife Parts 1 and 2. Read how it all went down here.
You can also re-read Afterlife from the beginning by clicking on this link here.
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