Ever since I watched Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster I have been a firm believer of the Loch Ness monster, and I’m obsessed with her. Nessie is an illusive sea monster that both fascinates and scares countless theorists. She is said to live in the Scottish Highlands, in Loch Ness. There are countless theories surrounding the origins, whereabouts, or even the question of if she is real or not. Nessie is described as a large sea mammal, with a few humps on the back, and a long neck. There have been several people who have claimed to have seen her, and strangely enough, they all seem to describe her in the exact same way.
The oldest known reference to the beast is Pict carvings into the rocks of Loch Ness that have been dated back to 500 AD. The drawings illustrate an unknown aquatic animal with flippers. A 7th century biography of a Christian, Irish missionary, Saint Columba, claims that he approached a monster living in the lake and killing men. These are the oldest claims of a monster in the lake, however the first official sightings started in 1933, when the first road along the Loch was built. On May 2, 1933, a local couple claimed to have seen a large animal swimming and rolling through the waves; the incident was reported and recorded in the local paper. The incident was not regarded as a joke, instead it was taken completely seriously, apparently even a circus offered a 20,000 pound reward to catch her. After another couple claimed to have seen her, a London paper hired an acclaimed hunter named Marmaduke Wetherell to catch Nessie, he obviously did not succeed, however he claimed to have found large footprints on the shores. 1934 the infamous photo was taken of her in the loch, the one we’ve all seen. She is sticking her head out of the water in a black and white photo taken by a surgeon. Although the photo was disapproved multiple times, people still claim it is the first real photo of her. Despite failure after failure to find solid proof, people still found the monster entirely believable. Multiple universities in Britain sent students and professors to the Loch with sonar equipment, coming back empty handed every time, but still convinced. Several inconclusive photos and reads have been seen, but nothing so far can confirm her.
There are many conspiracies of what exactly the Loch Ness monster is. A very popular theory is that she is an aquatic mammal, a subspecies of whale. An archeocyte is a primitive whale species, thought to have been extinct for the past 18 million years, this beast is known to have been very large, and to have had a long serpentine neck, it certainly matches Nessie’s description perfectly. Another accepted theory is that she is an evolved survivor of the plesiosaurs, an aquatic dinosaur that also fits the description of the monster. At the time of the meteor strike, Loch Ness would have been frozen over, so, the theory goes that the dino survived the meteor strike due to being protected by the frozen lake. This theory, in my opinion, is less plausible, but who knows. Generally a large aquatic animal of her size would not be supported by the environment of the loch, in simple terms there would not be nearly enough oxygen in the water for her to survive, however if she is an aquatic mammal than she would not be taking oxygen from the waters themselves, she would most likely have a blowhole of some sort.
Personally, I think she’s real, I think that lake is so huge, I find it hard to believe that it’s impossible for us to have missed her. I think she is a large aquatic mammal, an illusive one, and a smart one. I don’t have all the answers obviously, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure, but I think there’s some logic in understanding and believing that there are unknown things in those waters. Whether you believe she is real or not, I think it’s possible that she could be real. So, what do you think? Do you think she’s real? Even if she’s not, is the swim worth the risk?
