Loch Ness Monster Explained

Chapter 10b - THE MONSTER - The Classic Photographs

So, in the previous chapter we saw that the most famous of all monster pictures was actually a very simple fake produced by a group of practical-jokers. Many readers will nod knowingly that they always knew the monster was fiction, but I really do need to ask you to be a little more forgiving than that. I need you to try to follow the story as it developed and not with the benefit of hindsight.

At this stage in our story we have seen how the folklore and sightings of a large fish set the story in motion, but that it was the media who took it on and ran with it. The journalists arriving at the loch in their dozens encouraged fanciful sightings and even spoofed their own expeditions. Hugh Gray's poorly taken picture of his dog, with the most awful case of camera shake, became Nessie and then Wetherell, sacked by the Daily Mail for hoaxing the footprints, then conned the same newspaper by having the surgeon sell them the concocted "neck" picture which we all know and love today.

The casual observer of events, however, could quite easily have accepted the growing number of eye-witness accounts. At the time, the photographs had not been shown to be anything other than genuine. In fact, at that time it was believed that the camera could not lie. This reinforced the belief that there could be something in the loch and this encouraged some individuals to take an open-minded approach to the subject.

Sir Edward Mountain sent an expedition.

Unfortunately there was a modicum of naivety too. Unemployed men were paid to sit on the loch side with cameras. Nothing too problematical in that, but someone was foolish enough to offer a bonus if a monster picture was obtained. The results can be imagined. Pictures of boat wakes and stones flung into the loch resulted. As far as the scientific community was concerned credibility deteriorated still further, but a growing band of equally blinkered Nessie supporters accumulated all of this material as if it was genuine and many of them would hear nothing said against any of the evidence (and will no doubt be on the verge of throwing this book in the waste bin as sacrilege, if they even got this far).

Throughout the thirties, forties and fifties eye witness accounts continued, the faked Lachlan Stuart image boosted interest in 1951 and then banker, the late Peter MacNab entered the scene.

MacNab's photograph/s (above and below) show the monster breaking surface beside Urquhart Castle which means that it is possible to calculate the size of the beast. The tip of the castle tower is 65 feet above the loch, so Nessie must be in the order of forty to fifty feet at the surface. Most aquatic animals only show about one third of their bodies when surfacing and this means that MacNab's monster would have to be an animal approaching one hundred and twenty feet long – twenty percent bigger than a large adult blue whale, the world's largest living creature.