[music playing]
NARRATOR: Despite thousands of sightings
and near constant speculation about the Loch Ness Monster,
there's still very little agreement about its features
or where it might be found.
It's a problem that's been frustrating Nessie hunters
for decades.
We're not spending all this time and money trying
to prove that there's a large unidentified species in Loch
Ness.
We know that.
We've seen it.
We know it's here.
What we are trying to do now is identify the species.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: Today, a brand new profile
is emerging, which, once complete,
could help us finally find the beast.
But while most researchers have focused their efforts
within the Scottish Highlands, they're
ignoring a key data source.
Because as it turns out, this unknown species
might have a long lost twin outside the Loch.
In the 17th century, a similar creature
began appearing here in Northern Sweden's Storsjon Lake.
The Swedes call it the Great Lake Monster.
In the Eastern town of Ostersund,
archaeologist Anders Hansson has been studying the Great Lake
Monster for years and believes there is
a definite link to Loch Ness.
We know that people have always been seeing
strange things in big waters.
And this is part of the Western and Norwegian tradition,
and even up to Scotland, that we have these sea serpents.
NARRATOR: There have been rumors of an unknown underwater
species in Storsjon as far back as the 11th century,
not long after rumors of Nessie began.
One early description was even recorded on a Viking relic
called the Froso Runestone that has
stood in Ostersund since 1050.
ANDERS HANSSON: And as you can see,
it's got this great serpent, this dragon on it.
And this is what is said to be the first--
actually, first picture and story about the Great Lake
Monster.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: A similar timeline isn't the only thing
these two creatures share.
Both Loch Ness and Storsjon are cold freshwater lakes.
And both feed directly into the same common body of water--
the North Sea.
In other words, a migratory aquatic species
could swim between both lakes.
Physical accounts of the Swedish monster
also line up with alleged Nessie sightings.
ANDERS HANSSON: People are fishing,
seeing something in the lake.
Sometimes it's 3 meters.
Sometimes it's 15 meters long.
NARRATOR: Almost all the witnesses describe the monster
with a long, sea-serpent-like body and the head
of a dog or a horse.
Some of them are quite traumatic,
talking about the speed of the monster,
and how the mouth of it was so big that you could put down--
I mean, your whole head in the mouth of the monster.
So what do we have here?
Two similar creatures spotted along similar timelines,
both in large, cold, northern freshwater lakes.
And what's more, these two lakes are directly
linked via the North Sea.
If the Swedish and Scottish monsters
are related or even the same species,
it raises a frightening possibility.
Perhaps the Loch Ness Monster isn't trapped in the Loch
at all.
[music playing]