The Loch Ness Monster

    After a tough week of sick children, snowstorms, and temperatures that nosedived to -40C, I couldn’t face writing about another historical figure who might have lead a fascinating life but inevitably met a gruesome end at the hands of an even more gruesome character. And so, I searched my tiny brain cell (Yes, after this week
I only have one brain cell left) for a suitable topic and came up with the Loch Ness Monster or Nessie as she’s affectionately called.

    I’ve known about the legend of the Loch Ness Monster all my life but was still surprised when I did a little research and discovered what a controversial subject this is. It seems to attract people who would use the idea of Nessie to defraud unsuspecting enthusiasts making it almost impossible to separate the serious explorer from the shyster.

    This photo known as the Surgeon’s Photograph was proven to be a fake.

    The only real facts I could uncover were from National Geographic, the rest are, unfortunately, considered unsubstantiated sightings. But just because they can’t be proved doesn’t mean that there’s nothing there and I suppose it is this question that captures our collective imaginations. 

     Loch Ness, itself, is 788 feet deep and about 23 miles long, with water that’s so murky it’s hard to see your hand in front of your face. It lies directly over the Great Glen Fault that stretches diagonally along the length of Scotland, from Inverness to Fort William and some believe “sightings” are actually disturbances on the water
surface caused by fault activity.

For a lot of people Nessie is mind-blowingly real and here are a few points that prove it.

    

• In 2005, 100 athletes taking part in Scotland’s biggest
  triathlon were reportedly each insured for £1 million against bites from the Loch Ness Monster.
• A 2006 survey named the Loch Ness Monster as the most famous Scot - surpassing both poet Robert Burns and actor Sir Sean Connery
• Since 1987, bookmaker William Hill has paid the Natural History Museum in London an annual fee of £1,000 to ensure that its experts would confirm Nessie’s identity, should the monster ever be found.
• Missionary St. Columba made the first recorded sighting in 565 AD.

    As someone who enjoys history the last fact is the one that captured my attention. It means that nearly fifteen hundred years before the age of tourism, promotion and hype Nessie was already a legend. It is this unexplainable fact that, for me, makes the Loch
Ness Monster such an intriguing phenomenon. 
    What about you? Is there some unexplained incident, fact or legend that captures your imagination?