Loch Ness Monster

About

The Loch Ness Monster, also nicknamed Nessie, is a cryptid which is often described as a giant aquatic reptile resembling a plesiosaur or serpent, which is rumored to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. Since the first supposed sighting of the creature in 1933, the monster has become a worldwide legend. It has also made multiple appearances in television shows and movies, including a 1999 episode of South Park where the creature is purported to repeatedly beg for $3.50.

Origin

Though reports of a monster in Loch Ness date back to the 6th century in a biography of the Irish monk Saint Columba^[1], the creature did not gain worldwide attention until 1933 when George Spicer and his wife reported seeing a 40 to 50 foot long animal crossing the road near Loch Ness.^[2] That year, the dozens of others reported seeing a monster in the area that year, including Hugh Gray who took the first photo of the animal that November (shown below).

In 1934, the most famous photograph of the creature was taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London-based doctor. The image came to be known as "The Surgeon's Photograph"^[3] and was published in The Daily Mail on April 21st, 1934. Though The Sunday Telegraph revealed the image to be a hoax in 1975, people have continued to debate its authenticity.

Additional Sightings

In 1938, the first alleged film of the creature was taken by South African tourist G.E. Taylor. This three-minute recording was not publicly shown except for a still frame published in Maurice Burton's 1961 book The Elusive Monster.^[4] Nearly 30 years later, in 1960, aeronautical engineer Tim Dinsdale was the second person who caught a reddish creature on film (shown below) after several days of filming in the area. Dinsdale's film was digitally enhanced during the Discovery Channel special Loch Ness Discovered^[5], where experts claim to have found a shadow trailing behind the above-water hump.^[6]

Sonar Studies

Multiple sonar studies of Loch Ness have been carried out since the 1960s^[7], with a 1969 study resulting in an echo twice as intense as one expected from a 10-foot pilot whale.^[8] In April 2012, a new sonar study found a large object at least 5 feet wide 75 feet below the loch's surface.^[9] However, a marine biologist from Southampton suggested^[10] the object may have been a strand of algae.

Spread

In 1981, the horror film The Loch Ness Horror was released (shown below, left). In 1996, the family drama film Loch Ness was released, in which a scientist investigates the existence of the cryptid (shown below, right).

On September 24th, 2007, YouTuber Madkiller9 uploaded a video titled "Loch Ness Monster Caugh on Tape," featuring footage of something moving in the water behind a boat (shown below). Within 10 years, the video gathered upwards of 6.1 million views and 4,800 comments.

On August 5th, 2010, a TV Tropes^[19] page titled "Stock Ness Monster" was created, cataloging references to lake-dwelling cryptids in popular culture. On November 22nd, a TV Tropes^[20] page titled "Not the Nessie" was created. On April 9th, 2011, the Just For Laughs Gags YouTube channel uploaded a prank video titled "Loch Ness Monster Attack" (shown below, left). Within five years, the video accumulated more than 1.4 million views and 660 comments. On February 6th, 2012, YouTuber ViralNews2012 uploaded footage of what appears to be a large serpent swimming through frozen waters in Iceland, which gained over 5.3 million views and 2,200 comments in four years (shown below).

On December 17th, 2013, a video titled "Loch Ness monster spotted in Russia" was uploaded to LiveLeak, in which a man emerges from a frozen lake (shown below, left). On June 5th, 2014, the Drawing 3D Art YouTube channel uploaded an instructional video for drawing a Loch Ness Monster (shown below, right). Within two years, the video received upwards of 19 million views and 3,000 comments.

On April 14th, 2016, Redditor ClosingDownSummer posted a photograph of Loch Ness Project founder Adrian Shine to /r/funny,^[25] noting that he "looks exactly like how I imagined" (shown below).

2016 Alaska Sighting

On October 26th, 2016, the Alaskan Bureau of Land Management posted a video titled "Chena River Ice Monster" to their official Facebook page (shown below). Within one week the video received more than 880,000 views, 1,700 reactions and 1,000 comments.

Over the next week, many speculated that the video showed footage of a giant Loch Ness Monster-like creature.

On October 31st, the Bureau of Land Management published a Facebook post presenting the theory that the moving object in the video was a rope swaying in the river (shown below). In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the video, including RT,^[21] CBS News,^[22] UpRoxx^[23] and Fox News.^[24]

Related Memes

Tree Fiddy

"Tree Fiddy" is an expression associated with a story about the Loch Ness Monster originally told in an episode of the animated television series South Park. In various online communities, the phrase serves as the anti-climactic punchline to bait-and-switch stories, which abruptly end with the Loch Ness Monster begging for $3.50.

Search Interest

History of References

External References