In Scotland, the hunt for the Loch Ness monster relaunched

August 26, 2023

What if, despite decades of fruitless searches, “Nessie” is indeed hiding in the murky waters of Loch Ness? Researchers and enthusiasts braved the rain on Saturday to take part in the biggest Scottish monster hunt in 50 years.

Drones equipped with thermal scanners, boats with infrared cameras, hydrophone… All the means are dispatched to try to unravel the mystery which has captivated the whole world for generations.

“There’s not a corner of the globe where people haven’t heard of Nessie, but it’s still one of our biggest questions: what is the Loch Ness Monster? “, told AFP Paul Nixon, managing director of the Loch Ness Centre, which organized the event with the volunteer research team Loch Ness Exploration.

“I don’t know what it is. All I know is that there is something huge in Loch Ness. I’ve seen scanner images of objects the size of a truck moving through water.”

“It could be a myth, it could be real. I like to think it’s something halfway between the two,” says Tatiana Yeboah, a 21-year-old French tourist, among the few to have braved the rain on Saturday to embark on the search for the legendary monster.

She intends to stay alert to detect any suspicious movement on the surface of the water.

Researchers believe thermal scanners could help identify any anomalies while the hydrophone will pick up unusual cries underwater from the 56km2 loch, which is 240m deep.

The presence of a monster in Loch Ness is a legend that dates back to ancient times: stone carvings made by the Picts who then lived in the area depict a mysterious beast with fins.

The first written record of the creature dates back to 565 AD, in a biography of an Irish monk Saint Columba while the first modern sighting of Nessie was reported in a local newspaper in May 1933.

In 1934, English physician Robert Wilson took what came to be known as the “surgeon’s picture”, an image that appears to depict Nessie’s head and elongated neck emerging from the water.

The photo, published in the Daily Mail, is a hoax but propels the Loch Ness Monster to international stardom.

According to the Loch Ness Centre, more than 1,100 official sightings of Nessie have been recorded to date, and the monster contributes millions of pounds to the Scottish economy each year through tourism.

Over the years scientists and hobbyists have tried to find evidence of a large fish in the depths of the loch, while some have suggested the monster could be a prehistoric marine reptile like a plesiosaur.

In 1972 the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau undertook the largest search of the loch to date, to no avail.

In 1987, during Operation Deepscan, a sonar was deployed across the entire width of the loch. Its organizers claim to have found an “unidentified object of unusual size and strength” in the depths.

In 2018, researchers conducted a DNA study of Loch Ness to determine what organisms live in its waters. Nothing has ever been found except many eels.

“This weekend brings us an opportunity to search the waters in a way we’ve never seen before, and we can’t wait to see what we find,” said Paul Nixon, chief executive of the Loch Ness Centre.

Organizers have brought in volunteers to watch for any movement in the water or anything else unexplainable over the weekend, but due to ‘overwhelming demand’ from enthusiasts, the group is no longer accepting of candidates.