The Loch Ness Monster

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The history of the Nessie story is well recorded in newspapers and in the reports of searches. Sightings themselves are not evidence of an animal: they are personal reports, often of wakes, birds, logs or eels. The weakest claims are those that make the legend ancient.

St Columba and the water beast

shared The earliest story linked to Nessie comes from the Life of St Columba, written around 700 by Adomnán, abbot of Iona, a century after the saint's death. It tells how Columba found local people burying a man killed by a water beast in the River Ness. He sent a follower to swim across, and when the beast charged, Columba made the sign of the cross and it fled. The story is often called the first sighting of Nessie, but it is set in the river, not the loch, and the beast is far more aggressive than the modern Nessie. Dr Oisín Plumb of the University of the Highlands and Islands suggests that Adomnán probably invented or embroidered the episode, drawing on a story about St Martin commanding a sea serpent that was in Iona's library.

1933: a monster is born

established The modern legend has a precise start. On 2 May 1933 the Inverness Courier published an account by Alex Campbell, the loch's water bailiff and a part-time journalist, of a sighting by Aldie Mackay and her husband John on 15 April. That summer George Spicer reported a long-necked creature crossing the road in front of his car. A new road along the north shore of the loch had brought more travellers, and more sightings followed. National newspapers took up the story.

Hoaxes

established In 1933 the Daily Mail sent the big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell to find the monster. He reported giant footprints, but the Natural History Museum showed they had been made with a hippopotamus foot. On 21 April 1934 the Daily Mail published the Surgeon's Photograph, credited to the London gynaecologist Robert Kenneth Wilson, which showed a long neck rising from the water. It was a toy submarine fitted with a model head.

shared Christian Spurling, Wetherell's stepson (some sources say son-in-law), admitted his part in the fake in 1991, and the confession became widely known in 1994; some sources give only the later date.

Searching the loch

established Organised searches began in the 1960s. The Loch Ness Investigation Bureau, founded in 1962, kept watch on the loch until 1972. In 1987 Operation Deepscan swept the loch with echo sounders on 24 boats and found nothing conclusive. In 2003 a BBC search using 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking found no animal of substantial size. In 2016 a survey robot found a 33-foot model monster on the loch bed: a prop from the 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. A 90th-anniversary search in 2023 recorded sounds that were "probably ducks".

The DNA survey

established In June 2018 a team led by Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago took about 250 water samples from different depths and tested the DNA in them. They found no reptile DNA, ruling out a surviving plesiosaur, and no DNA from sturgeon or sharks. They did find a lot of eel DNA. Gemmell said the team "can't discount the possibility that what people see and believe is the Loch Ness monster might be a giant eel", though there is no evidence of eels of monstrous size.

Nessie today

established Loch Ness is about 22.5 miles long and over 800 feet deep, and holds more fresh water than any other body of water in Britain. More than a thousand sightings have been reported since the 1930s. The legend draws around a million visitors a year to the area.

• The Columba story is set in the River Ness, not Loch Ness.
• The modern Nessie legend began with a newspaper report on 2 May 1933.
• "Monster footprints" found in 1933 were made with a hippopotamus foot.
• The Surgeon's Photograph was a toy submarine with a model head.
• A 33-foot film prop monster was found at the bottom of the loch in 2016.
• A 2018 DNA survey found no reptile DNA in Loch Ness.
• It did find plenty of eel DNA.
• A 2023 search recorded sounds that were "probably ducks".

• Do not call the Columba story the first sighting of Nessie; it is set in the River Ness.
• Do not call the legend 1,500 years old; the modern legend dates from 1933.
• Do not present the Surgeon's Photograph as genuine.
• Do not say science has found a giant eel; it found eel DNA, not a giant eel.
• Do not say Nessie could be a plesiosaur; no reptile DNA was found.