Scotland's Loch Ness Monster has been capturing imaginations for years.
Is it a mysterious sea beast?
Or a dinosaur that somehow survived all these years?
What's the monstrous truth?
There's probably a loch more to the Loch Ness Monster than you realize.
1,500-year-old mystery
The first known reference to the Loch Ness monster comes from the biography of St. Columba,
the Irish missionary who introduced Christianity to Scotland, who makes reference to a creature
dating back to the year 565 A.D.
In that story, Columba was on his way to visit a king when he made a detour by the loch to
see a monster that had been eating locals.
The life of a missionary was pretty intense.
Did Columba find the beast?
According to his biography, he sure did.
Columba came upon the beast trying to eat a man and commanded it, in the name of God,
to return to the loch.
Being a God-fearing monster, it did as it was told, never to harm anyone again.
In fairness, none of the modern sightings of the monster involve it eating anyone, so
it's possible Columba's order stuck.
Loch Ness Hoaxter
Everyone who's ever hunted a monster has wanted the same thing - evidence.
On April 19, 1934, a respected British surgeon gave the world just that in the form of a
photo of the Loch Ness Monster.
Depicting a long-necked creature mostly immersed in the water, the "surgeon's photo" is simply
iconic.
It resembles a plesiosaur, basically a long-necked aquatic reptile with a small head and fins.
It set the standard for what people believe the Loch Ness Monster looked like and stood
for years as the greatest proof of the beast's existence.
But by 1994, a man named Christian Spurling made a deathbed confession, claiming that
he and his stepfather - who'd been outed as a Loch Ness Monster hoaxer before the famous
photo - faked the whole thing with a tiny model.
Tourist trap
Despite everyone knowing the famous photo was faked, Scotland still earns a pretty pound
from tourists who want to catch their own glimpse of Nessie.
The BBC dug into the Loch Ness tourism industry in 2012.
At that time, a million people per year were heading to the Loch Ness area, adding about
$33 million to the local economy.
Around 85 percent of those people were coming specifically because of the monster.
Real or not, that thing is a cash sea-cow.
With places like Nessie Land offering cruises and presentations on the monster, and of course
a gift shop, there are plenty of spots to drop a few pounds monster hunting on vacation.
BBC debunking
If you want a job done right, you have to be thorough, and that's what the BBC planned
to do when they went searching for the Loch Ness Monster back in 2003.
Using satellite navigation and extensive sonar, they covered the entire massive lake from
top to bottom in search of anything even slightly anomalous.
What did they discover?
"Nothing!
Absolutely nothing!"
The team mapped every part of the loch.
They were able to discover a small buoy below the surface, and map the walls of the loch,
but there was no sign of any unusual life.
The data they got was clear and showed the flat bottom of the loch as well as smooth,
steep walls.
Given the lack of anything even slightly mysterious, the researchers were forced to conclude there
was no truth to the story of the monster.
It's just a myth.
But what if - just so this video can go on for a few more minutes - we pretended that
it's actually not?
The Loch Ness Microbes
While photos are a great start for proving something like a Loch Ness Monster exists,
a photograph these days isn't worth quite what it used to be.
"There it is!"
"Wow!"
If you're skilled enough with Photoshop you could make a picture of the Loch Ness Monster
sitting down to tea with the Queen of England.
On Mars.
Luckily, science offers up better methods of proving things - like DNA testing.
A scientist based in New Zealand, Professor Neil Gemmell, mounted an expedition in 2018
to test the waters of Loch Ness for biodiversity.
Using DNA sampling techniques, the team would be able to take water samples and then test
to see what all lives in the lake.
Now, Gemmell doesn't have any expectations of finding a monster - but he should be able
to figure out what does and does not live in the loch based on the samples they collect.
He and his team are mostly excited about discovering new bacteria in the lake.
But he's at least open to the idea that he may discover some answers about whatever might
or might not be living in Loch Ness - microbe...or monster.
Nessie's cousins
As it happens, lake monsters are extremely common in folklore, and Nessie simply became
the iconic one.
Many other lakes boast their own mysterious creatures hiding out in the depths.
Over in Utah and Idaho, there's more than one creature alleged to be residing in Bear
Lake.
Canada's Lake Okanagan is the reputed home of Ogopogo, another long serpent creature.
Further east in Canada, the Manipogo is a lake monster supposedly found in the waters
of Lake Manitoba.
And lest you think hunting for these creatures is a silly waste of time, it's worth noting
that Turkey has its own beast, the Lake Van Monster, and when teams went hunting for it
they actually made an amazing discovery: a 3,000-year-old castle under the lake.
Sure, it's no monster, but it is old and interesting.