We can thank an Irish man, Saint Columba, for the earliest recorded report of a “beast” dwelling in the river Ness in the Scottish Highlands. The saint impressed the local Picts by chasing the creature away, and the sixth century account of the encounter remained firmly in the realm of fantastical legend for one and a half millennia. Until the summer of 1933, when two witnesses reported separate sightings of a large “whale-like creature” slipping through the waves of Loch Ness and, more alarmingly, “a most extraordinary form of animal” crossing a nearby road. Those testimonies were enthusiastically relayed to the world by the Inverness Courier, and the modern myth of the Loch Ness Monster was born. Few newspapers can claim a scoop of such longevity based on so little material evidence.
The charming and resilient story of “Nessie”, the great creature which some say lurks beneath the deep waters of the loch, has endured for 90 years. There have been sporadic eruptions of public interest driven by fresh “sightings”, or, some sceptics suggest, by the needs of the local tourism industry. There have been hoaxes aplenty, while theories have fallen in and out of favour. Is Nessie a prehistoric plesiosaur? An unusual optical illusion? A very large pike?
Perhaps due to the 90th anniversary of the original sightings falling this year, or maybe because of the recent renovation of the Loch Ness Centre at the local hotel, an ambitious new mission this weekend will search yet again for an answer to the mystery. Hundreds of enthusiasts will take part in the largest organised hunt in 50 years, with volunteers from across the world participating in person and online, searching for tell-tale ripples or mysterious splashes. Drones will capture thermal images of the water, and hydrophones will be deployed to detect underwater acoustic signals. None of these efforts will yield any meaningful evidence, but all involved will have a good time. Nessie, meanwhile, will remain hundreds of metres below the loch’s dark surface, slumbering and undisturbed.