The Loch Ness Monster:

equally obscure evidence. None of it is convincing.

So how can we explain 1,500 years of monster
sightings? It’s always best to investigate the
original source of the legend.

©2007 by Heinemann and Carus Publishing from Toolkit Texts by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann). This page may be reproduced for classroom use only.
Origin of a Myth
The Loch Ness Monster can be traced to A.D. 565,
during the life of St. Columba, an Irish monk trying
to convert the Scottish people into Christians. The
story goes that St. Columba had witnessed the
burial of a man killed by a “beast” in the Loch.
Then he saw the monster rush another swimmer
“with a great roaring and with a wide open mouth.”
St. Columba drove away the “beast” by making a
sign of the cross and urging it to “think not to go
further, touch not that man.”
After translating and studying the original Latin
text recounting St. Columba’s experience, Charles
Thomas, a professor at the University of Exeter,
England, concluded that the “beast” was probably
something like a walrus or a seal. Have you ever
called your sister or brother a “beast” or a
Nessie has made beautiful Loch Ness in Scotland “monster” when they’ve done something bad? The
famous. Proof of the monster’s existence rests on “beast” in the Loch got its name the same way. End
shadowy images such as this one.
of story? It should have been, but . . .

he cold waters of Loch Ness, Scotland’s

The Footprint and the Photo

T longest lake (38 kilometers or 24 miles), are

home to one of the most enduring legends of
our times—the Loch Ness Monster. Nessie, as the
By 1933, stories about the Loch Ness Monster
were accepted as myth—something fun to tell
around a campfire. But in December 1933,
monster is commonly called, was first sighted as a Marmaduke Arundel Wetherell, a big-game hunter,
“water beast” in the 6th century. Since then, it has discovered two footprints “less than a few hours
been called a serpent, a dragon, a water-horse, and old” on a beach at the Loch. Wetherell deduced
a prehistoric animal. But scientists call Nessie a that “a very powerful, soft-footed animal about
myth of monstrous dimensions. 20 feet long” created them. Finally, evidence of
Let’s cut to the chase. In the 1,500 years that a monster? Not at all. Plaster casts made of the
Nessie’s been around, there has been no solid footprints and studied by researchers of London’s
evidence of its existence—nothing, say, like a Natural History Museum revealed that the tracks
corpse. We do have more than 3,000 eyewitness were created by a hippo foot, not a mysterious
accounts, some poor-quality photographs, a movie creature. Someone created the footprints with
clip showing an animated “blip,” and some other a replica of a hippo foot, a common item used in

Anatomy of a Hoax
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 the Academy of Applied Science in Boston, and
Harold “Doc” Edgerton of MIT went to Scotland
to photograph the monster underwater using
automated cameras and side-scanning sonar—
the same device used to discover the sunken Titanic.
The sonar was so sensitive that it could detect
objects hundreds of meters away on either side
of the boat. The results? Merely shadows.
©2007 by Heinemann and Carus Publishing from Toolkit Texts by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann). This page may be reproduced for classroom use only.

And the other expedition? In 1976, National

Geographic placed highly sophisticated camera gear
below the surface of the Loch and used recorded
beeper sounds to attract the beast. They found,
saw, and photographed . . . nothing.

Divers deploy the “creature camera” to search for Nessie.

The Confession
Nessie hysteria continued through 1994, with the
decorating in the early 1900s. The footprints were a surgeon’s photo still the best evidence for a
hoax. Hopes for a monster sank like a stone dropped prehistoric animal in the Loch. But on March 12 of
in the Loch. that year, The London Sunday Telegraph revealed the
The story would have ended there, but three truth: The surgeon’s “monster” was a small model
months later the monster was captured “clearly” for made of plastic wood attached to a 35-cm toy
the first time on film. The April 19, 1934, issue of submarine. The person who made the model,
London’s Daily Mail published a photograph taken Christian Spurling, confessed that and more on his
by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a respected London deathbed in 1993.
surgeon, which shows the monster’s long neck and The “monster,” he revealed, took eight days to
tiny head emerging out of the Loch’s murky waters. make. The photo was not even taken by Dr. Wilson
That photo, known now as the “surgeon’s photo,” but by Spurling’s stepbrother—Ian Wetherell, the
caused a wave of Nessie Fever. People no longer son of the creator of the hippo-foot “monster
came to the Loch just to relax; they came to see the footprints.” Marmaduke Wetherell asked Spurling to
monster. The surgeon’s photo was a boon for the make the model after the footprint fiasco; he was
tourist industry and the local economy. Nessie determined to give the public “their monster.” Wilson
sightings, naturally, increased. was let in on the hoax because Wetherell knew
Wilson’s trusted name (not his) would give the photo
credibility.
The Search The hoax was done in “harmless fun.” No one
Scientists looking at the surgeon photo concluded expected it would turn into a worldwide sensation.
it was indeed a photo . . . but of what? The grainy, The situation got so out of control that all involved in
shadowy form had nothing near it for scale. It could the hoax decided to remain quiet about it. Wetherell
have been anything from gas bubbles to an and Wilson died with their mouths zipped shut. But
elephant—and this remained the best photo. Then, Spurling had to clear his conscience. In doing so, he
in 1960, Nessie was filmed swimming. But when the “killed” Nessie and 1,500 years of mystery.
Royal Air Force analyzed the film, they concluded Maybe it’s best to end with a quote from the late
only that something, probably a motorboat, was astronomer, Carl Sagan: “There are wonders enough
moving in the water. out there, without our inventing any.”
Two ambitious scientific efforts to nab Nessie
took place in the 1970s. Rob Rines, director of Adapted from an article by Stephen James O’Meara

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