LEGEND: Loch Ness Monster

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i came across this statistic the other day that actually stopped me in my tracks did you know that we have discovered and logged about 1.3 million species on this planet.

I'm talking plants, animals, down to single-cell organisms like bacteria.

But that's not the most interesting part.

Researchers think we still have about 8.7 million to go.

So when I heard this, you know where my mind went?

Cryptids.

And who is the most well-known cryptid of them all?

Perhaps one of the oldest and most documented ever?

My girl.

Yes, I like to think she's my girl.

Nessie.

Aka the Loch Ness Monster.

Nessie was first spotted in 565 CE in the Loch Ness of Scotland.

And since then, there have been over a thousand sightings of this serpent-like creature.

But when you consider that the Loch Ness contains more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined, Well, it sort of makes sense.

Maybe Nessie is on that list of 8.7 million.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is so supernatural.

Welcome back to So Supernatural.

I'm Yvette Gentile

and I'm her sister Rasha Pecaro.

And the day has finally arrived for us to cover one of the most famous cryptids of all time, a creature that's basically synonymous with Scotland, the Loch Ness Monster.

I have to say, neither Rasha nor I have been to Scotland, but it is definitely on our bucket list to go, especially because of the Loch Ness Monster, as well as the beauty, right, of Scotland itself, because we've had so many different friends who've gone and they're like, oh my God, you guys got to go.

But when I think of cryptids, right, and Gino and I go to Italy quite often, there is a town and it's called Rossetto delli Abruzzi.

And they have a very famous cryptid, which is a mermaid.

And she's called La Sarena.

And in this particular town, it is said that her voice will call in the fishermen from sea, especially when they're out there, you know, and the waters are treacherous and whatnot.

They can hear the sound of her voice and it guides them back to shore.

Isn't that cool?

That's super cool.

I would love to see or even hear a mermaid.

That would be amazing.

But today is all about the long-necked lake-dwelling creature, otherwise known as Nessie.

So let's travel back in time, like way back in time, to 565 CE Scotland, where for the first time on record, someone is about to spot the elusive cryptid in its natural habitat.

That year, a Christian missionary named Columba comes to Scotland to teach people all about his faith.

He spends some time with the native people known as the Pics.

They've been living in Scotland for almost 300 years.

But as he continues his travels, Columba passes Loch Ness, a lake 23 miles away from the modern city of Inverness.

Loch Ness is tucked away in a hilly, mountainous region, in an area that's always foggy and rainy.

And if that doesn't sound like the perfect moody environment for monster spotting, I don't know what is.

Well, when Columbus stops and takes in the loch, I have to imagine he's pretty speechless because this is the largest lake in all of the UK.

The thing is absolutely massive.

But that's not even the most striking thing Columba encounters.

When he arrives, there's a funeral happening right on the shore of the river that flows out of Loch Ness.

So Columba walks up to the grieving picts people.

and asks, what happened?

How did this man die?

They tell him the deceased was out swimming in the river when some kind of monstrous beast burst out of the water, bit the man, and killed him.

Columba is moved by their story, but he doesn't seem to be threatened by it.

Because after he asks the locals if they can help him cross the river, he figures this way, he'll save time instead of having to go all the way around it.

And despite the story they just told him, a few brave souls do offer to help him out.

One of the monks traveling with Columba heads into the water to get their boat ready.

Except as soon as the man starts splashing around, he draws the attention of something beneath the waves.

And before he knows it, a huge creature bursts out of the water.

It's vicious and terrifying.

And it swims straight towards the guy in the water, like it intends to bite and kill him too.

That's when Columba thinks fast, calling on his faith to save them all.

He says a prayer, makes the sign of the cross, and then shouts, you will go no further.

Do not touch the man.

Leave at once.

And shockingly, that's what the monster does.

It dives back under the water without hurting anyone.

The man grabs the boat and Columba apparently gets to the other side of the lake unharmed.

And with that, the accounts of an evil lock-lurking monster continue to grow.

Over the centuries, lots of people have come forward to say they've seen the loch nest monster in real life.

And many of those accounts include more specific details of what she actually looks like.

For example, the majority of sightings say she kind of looks like a dinosaur called a plesiosaur, you know, the one with the long neck and tail with the four flippers.

But there are others who say Nessie looks more like a whale or even like a sea serpent with humps, sort of like a camel.

There are even reports of her looking like a crocodile.

So basically, the thing is, nobody knows quite what the Loch Ness monster really looks like, but a few details are consistent.

She tends to be large with either an incredibly long neck, a tail, or body.

And there's the most important feature of all.

Nessie is exclusive to Loch Ness.

There's actually an ancient Celtic legend about the loch that I found super interesting and think it's worth sharing.

Apparently they believe the loch actually used to be a woman named Nessa.

Nessa was a maid who worked for a goddess known as the Winter Queen.

Unfortunately the Winter Queen had a terrible temper.

and Nessa knew that if she ever made a mistake, she'd be punished severely.

Sure enough, one day, the winter queen told Nessa to draw some water from a well, but Nessa took too long to finish the chore.

Her tardiness was all it took for the winter queen to fly into a rage, and that's when she cursed Nessa by turning her into a river.

And the river grew and grew and became a lake.

For a long time, Nessa suffered under the curse, but she had an incredibly strong will.

She fought against the power of the winter queen's magic and eventually found a way to transform from a lake back into her human form.

Except she could only do it for one day a year, every year.

Legend says on that day, when Nessa is human again, she walks out of the lake and sings a heartbreaking song that can be heard echoing in the distance.

Then she has to return to the watery depths yet again.

The point of this is, even the loch's origin story says there's something mysterious happening within its depths.

And as they say, where there's smoke, there's fire.

Well, that's not the only sign.

There's something ancient and mysterious happening with the loch.

The Picts, Scotland's indigenous people, were known to carve images into these huge stone monoliths, pictures of horses, dogs, deer, cows, and all sorts of other local animals.

But there were also a lot of pictures of a strange creature that still haven't been identified to this day.

It has a long neck and tail and flippers instead of feet.

Sound familiar?

Some people believe these pictures prove that the ancient picts knew about the Loch Ness monster even way back in the days of the ancient Roman Empire.

Even throughout the Middle Ages, it was said that the locals who lived near Inverness kept seeing Nessie.

During a 300-year period from 1500 to 1800, there are at least 21 recorded sightings.

And I know that doesn't sound like a lot.

It's about one encounter every 14 years.

But it's worth mentioning that during that time period, the lake was very remote and very hard to get to.

So there weren't many visitors to the area, meaning there weren't many people looking for Nessie to begin with.

But that changed in 1933 when state officials built a new road that passed right by the lake.

It was a game changer.

And for the first time in history, people could visit the lock easily.

So naturally, there's going to be an enormous influx in tourists.

And there's also a huge spike in Nessie sightings.

Because that year, one hotel worker says he sees something that resembles a whale in the lake.

Another visitor claims to see something huge jump out of the water, but he doesn't give a very detailed description.

However, one of the most notable sightings is from August 4th, 1933.

A man named George Spicer and his wife are on a road trip to the lake.

They're driving around near the shore when something crosses the street right in front of their car.

They describe it as, quote, a dragon or prehistoric monster.

They also say say it has a thick, round body, flippers, and a very long neck.

If you ask me, it sounds like they're describing a plesiosaur like Yvette was talking about earlier.

Anywho, all throughout 1933, the papers are full of accounts like these.

And every time a witness comes forward, the public eats it up.

So by December of that year, one newspaper decides to up the ante, the Daily Mail.

Its editors know that if they can prove that Nessie exists, they'll really sell some papers.

So they hire a famous British hunter named Marmaduke Wetherall to go to Loch Ness.

They want him to either find the beast or at least find solid clues that it actually exists.

Marmaduke spends several days exploring the lake shores, and he's not even a week into his Nessie hunt he finds something undeniable.

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In December of 1933, a big game hunter named Marmaduke Weatherall finds footprints on the shores of Lochness in Scotland.

We're talking a set of huge, webbed, four-toed tracks.

And since Marmaduke is a very experienced tracker, he can tell a lot from just looking at these prints.

The prints suggest this monster doesn't actually have flippers after all.

It has wide, round feet with four toes.

And from the way they're spaced out, he thinks the beast has to be about 20 feet long head to toe, which would be about the same size as a school bus.

But Marmaduke knows people won't just take his word for it.

He needs experts to verify his findings.

So right away, he makes plaster casts of the footprints.

Then he sends them to the Natural History Museum in London.

That way, professional biologists and zoologists can confirm what he's found.

And this all happens pretty fast.

He finds the tracks in December and sends them to the museum about a week before Christmas.

And naturally, because it's the holiday season, there are some delays.

But by January, the results are back.

And the museum's top scientists say the footprints are from

a hippopotamus?

Like, what?

Right?

So, obviously, hippos aren't native to Scotland.

So, you can see why this is pretty confusing.

But it also makes people realize this has to be some sort of giant hoax.

And they believe Marmaduke was likely a victim in all of this.

They think some prankster maybe maybe heard about Marmaduke's Nessie hunt, so they attached a hippo foot, or a very accurate model of one, to some kind of sturdy pole.

Then they stamped the hippo prince along the shoreline, hoping to trick Marmaduke.

But there are also some people who accused Marmaduke of being in on it too.

Like maybe he created the prince himself.

That way, he'd have something to show his bosses at the Daily Mail to make his expedition look look like a success.

I mean, let's think about it.

He could have gotten famous for discovering evidence of Nessie.

He had a whole lot to gain, which is why, to this day, it's unclear whether Marmaduke was actually involved in the hoax or not.

Here's the thing, though.

If you knew the prints were a fraud, would you actually send them to the Natural History Museum to be analyzed by some of the world's leading experts?

Was Marmaduke a super confident forger who just thought this would fly under the radar?

I mean, I don't think so.

I don't know.

That just doesn't make any sense, right?

Right.

The point is, those footprints are not the proof that Marmaduke or the rest of the world are looking for.

But even with the headlines announcing the hoax, People still want to believe the Loch Ness monster is out there.

Tourists continue to flock to the area, hoping they'll be the ones to find the evidence next.

And then one of the most famous discoveries comes just a few months later in 1934.

That's when a surgeon named Robert Kenneth Wilson visits the lake during a hunting trip with his friend Maurice Chambers.

Robert and Maurice are ready for anything.

They've even got their cameras handy so they can shoot pictures at a moment's notice.

Well, one day, Robert and Maurice are out along the river.

They reportedly see something in the water.

So Robert points his lens at it and snaps the picture.

And he ends up with one of the most famous cryptid photos ever taken.

Odds are, you've probably even seen it before.

I know that I have.

It's a simple black and white picture.

There's a dark long neck and what appears to be a head rising out of the lake, surrounded by rippling waves.

And since that's all you can really see in the picture, it's hard to get a sense of scale, whether this creature is a foot tall, a hundred feet tall, or anything in between.

Either way, that picture comes to be known as the surgeon's photo because of Robert's profession.

It ends up getting published in the Daily Mail, and it makes Robert incredibly famous.

But then, Decades later, some new information about the photo comes to light and it calls the entire thing into question.

And that's right, a man named Ian Weatherall makes an announcement about the surgeon's photo.

And if you think his last name sounds familiar, that's because his father is Marmaduke Weatherall, the big game hunter who found the hippo footprints, remember?

According to Ian, his father was absolutely humiliated after the hoax was exposed.

He hated the fact that he couldn't prove Nessie existed.

I mean, the whole thing really damaged his career and his reputation.

So Ian says his father decided to get revenge on everyone who believed in the Loch Ness monster and the newspapers that reported it, which is why Ian claims his dad staged the surgeon photo and Robert Wilson and Maurice Chambers were in on it.

Well, sort of.

Ian, who is Marmaduke's son, was a sculptor and get this.

He claims that he made a long dinosaur neck out of clay, then stuck it to a toy submarine.

And yes, even though this was all a prank, he still went all the way to Loch Nest to create the image.

And it was actually Marmaduke and his other son who took the photo of what looked like a monster's head cresting out of the water, not Robert.

But after Marmaduke passed the film on to Maurice, who did go on that hunting trip with Robert.

So once they were back home, Maurice was like, he says this to Robert, hey, Robert, will you develop these photos for me from our trip?

And Robert says, sure.

But he claims it wasn't until after those photos were developed that he realized, holy cow, look what Maurice captured.

Robert has what he thinks is a real picture of the actual Loch Ness monster.

So he sells it to the Daily Mail, the same paper that had previously hired Marmaduke.

And just like that, everyone falls for Marmaduke's little stunt.

So essentially, Marmaduke got to embarrass the very same paper that helped embarrass him back in 1933.

Now, the wild thing is that Ian isn't the only person making these allegations.

Others started coming out of the woodwork saying things like, They helped make Nessie's head or they helped stage the photograph.

Basically, lots of people are in agreement.

This picture is 100%

fake.

But by the time this starts to come to light, it's 1975.

We're talking 40 years after the surgeon's photo was first taken and published.

And during those four decades, no one was able to debunk it.

I mean, if Ian hadn't come forward, we might still think the photo was credible to this day.

So just to recap, that's two monster hunters, both of whom found evidence that could have proven Nessie's existence, only they were debunked later, which is why some people think the Loch Ness monster doesn't exist at all.

It's very possible that those who think they've seen the creature are just a little bit confused.

because the loch has some incredibly unique features that can really trick the mind.

For starters, Loch Ness has a lot of peat in it.

Well, peat is this thick dirt that's full of decaying plant matter.

It makes the water so murky and so cloudy to the point where it's virtually impossible to see anything that's not right at the surface.

So if a large animal were to pass under your boat or swim while you're on shore, it would be so hard to make out any details about it because you'd just see a huge mass passing under the waves and your imagination might fill in the gaps with say, I don't know, flippers or a long neck and tail, especially if that's something you're already expecting.

It's worth noting that there are a lot of wild animals living in Loch Ness.

Seals, fish, aquatic birds, even deer.

Yes, apparently deer can swim.

So if someone spots what's actually a seal or a bird swimming in the murky depths and they can't quite make make out what they're seeing, well, they might assume they've just spotted Nessie.

On top of that, the water in the lake moves in a pretty weird way.

Usually, if you look at a river or a lake, you'll see that the waves flow in the same direction.

If there's something floating, like say you see a log or a plant, it'll also move in that same direction.

But in locked nests, logs or leaves and other objects often drift against the current, which means that it's going in the opposite direction.

And that's because most of the lock is full of this dense, cold, peat-filled water.

But there's a layer of warmer, less dense water on the top of the lake that's been heated by the sun and separated from the peat.

And the peat is like I talked about earlier.

It's like that muddy stuff, that sediment that's in there.

And when the two types of water interact, it causes these weird ripples.

Sometimes it looks like, or I should say it appears like you could be seeing an object that's just gliding beneath the lock surface.

But the truth is, there's nothing there.

It's just that murky water creating this optical illusion.

Okay, so yes, I'll admit, some nesty sightings could be explained away as wild animals or unusual wave movements, but not all of them.

And you don't have to take my word for it.

Just ask Gary Campbell.

For decades, he was the official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Registrar.

Can you believe that was even a thing?

He was also the person who founded the registry in 1996.

So it's not like anyone hired him for the job.

The point is, he maintained this huge database.

It includes every credible encounter anyone had with Nessie after that point.

So anytime someone saw something mysterious in the lake, it was his job to investigate their sighting.

If the incident could be explained away, like if Gary thought the witness just saw an animal or a floating log, or if he thought that they were making the story up for attention, he would dismiss the sighting.

The registry only included incidents that were genuinely unexplained.

Gary retired just last year in 2024, but his daughter, Paige Daly, took over.

Her dad spent decades teaching her everything that he knows.

Between the two of them, they have almost 30 years of experience.

So I think it's safe to say that they know how to tell an authentic sighting from a hoax or a trick of the light.

But here's what's wild.

Gary and Paige still record five to ten unexplained sightings every single year.

In total, the registry has 1,159 entries as of this recording.

And again, that only goes back to 1996.

There are also 13 photos listed in it, photos that either Gary or Paige have verified and think are totally legit.

So let's just assume that Gary and Paige know what they're talking about.

That means there are literally more than a thousand Nessie encounters that can't be easily dismissed as a fish or a deer or a seal.

We also know they're not weird ripples from the churning water because the two of them ruled out those possibilities.

So to me, it sounds like there's only one explanation left.

Something is living in Loch Ness.

Something that can't be explained away.

But I think we can totally guess at what that something is.

I think it's worth looking back at the encounter that started the modern wave of Nessie sightings.

Remember George Spicer and his wife who saw the Loch Ness monster literally cross the road?

They called her a dragon or a prehistoric monster.

And by prehistoric monster, it's pretty clear they meant klesiosaur because they also described her as having a long neck, tail, and flippers.

In fact, That's how the majority of the sightings describe her.

Reports of the monster looking like a whale or a crocodile are a lot more rare.

I gotta say, it's easy to imagine a huge animal or rather a small colony of them hiding in the lock's depths, going undiscovered for millions of years, because

the lake is enormously deep.

I'm talking like between 700 and 800 feet deep.

Get this, y'all.

If you dropped the Statue of Liberty into the lock's deepest point, then dropped another Statue of Liberty on top of that one, the torch still wouldn't touch the lake's surface.

That said, I do find it difficult to believe that a family of plesiosaur could survive in the loch from the dinosaur era to today.

For one thing, the lake was completely frozen solid during the ice age.

It didn't thaw out until about 10,000 years ago.

So, If there are plesiosaur in the water, their ancestors had to spend the ice age somewhere else, then migrate to Loch Ness without leaving any survivors anywhere else in the world that we know about?

Well, in 2018, a group of researchers decide they're going to prove whether the Lochness monster truly exists and what species she is once and for all.

And they'll do it with new technology that, of course, didn't exist back in the 1930s.

This team is mostly made up of scientists from the University of the Highlands and Islands, which is based in Inverness.

So it's literally right in Nessie's backyard.

They plan to sail all around the lock and collect a bunch of water samples.

Then they'll test those samples for DNA.

The idea is that even if they don't see Nessie herself, the water should still have trace amounts of her fecal matter, her mucus, her hair, her scales, and whatever else her body may shed into the water.

And when they run the tests, they confirm there is something mysterious living in the lake after all.

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In 2018, scientists take a bunch of water samples from Loch Ness.

They're hoping to find proof that Nessie really exists.

And while there's no evidence whatsoever of a plesiosaur in the lake, there are other readings suggesting there's a different kind of creature there the findings say that the loch nest is chock full of eels

which isn't exactly big news people have known that there are eels in the lake for decades this discovery is mainly surprising because of just how many eels there are namely a lot i'm talking a ton of them loch nest is brimming with way more than anyone ever imagined.

And it's worth keeping in mind, eels can grow to be really, really big.

One species of European eels can get as large as 13 feet long and weigh almost 250 pounds.

That is big enough to be mistaken for some type of sea serpent, right?

For sure.

Which has some people wondering, has Nessie just been some giant eel this whole time?

I mean, if that were the case, we would have to ignore George Spicer and all of the other witnesses who saw those flipper-like limbs.

But it's not that hard to imagine an eel poking its head out of the water and someone mistaking it for Nessie's plesiosaur-like neck.

Well, eel DNA isn't the only thing they find.

When scientists were testing the genes in the water, they discovered that 75% of that material came from eels, seals, aquatic birds, and other species they expected to see.

But 25% of the DNA from the lake couldn't be identified, meaning it could be from a creature that hasn't been classified by science yet.

So maybe Nessie isn't an eel after all.

In fact, people who live near Inverness say they all know what eels look like, and they're confident that the thing that they've seen in Loch Ness definitely isn't an eel.

I just have to say it makes sense that the locals would know the most about the lake's secrets, which is why it's worth looking at some of their oldest stories about sea monsters to understand Nessie better.

Take the accounts of a local creature called a Kelpie.

I'd love to tell y'all exactly what a Kelpie looks like, but I don't know.

I can't really.

They're supposedly shapeshifters, so every time someone gets a glimpse of one, its appearance is totally totally different.

Sounds like something from True Blood, right, Rosh?

Right.

But here's what I do know.

Kelpies are usually depicted as horses, but not always.

Sometimes they look like beautiful men or women instead.

And legend says they like to tempt people into the rivers and lakes where they live.

If someone is reckless enough to set foot in their banks, the kelpie will drag them to the depths and drown them.

One particular Kelpie is said to live, guess where?

In Loch Ness.

As the legend goes, this Kelpie has a golden bridle, which is what you call the straps that fit over a horse's head.

But this bridle is magic.

It gives the Kelpie all of his power and allows him to transition from one animal to another.

Occasionally, people would see what looked like a healthy, well-bred horse on the loose, and they'd run over to try and catch him.

But as soon as they got a little too close or mounted the horse, the kelpie would drag those unsuspecting people to their deaths in the lock.

One day in the 1700s, a man named James McGregor visited the lake.

James had heard legends of a Kelpie in the area, so he knew better than to follow the horse beyond the shoreline.

Instead, When James did see it, he drew his sword and he chopped off the Kelpie's magic bridle.

This didn't kill the Kelpie, but it did take away some of his magic.

Without the bridle, the creature couldn't shapeshift anymore.

The Kelpie was furious to lose his power, so he charged at James.

But James, of course, hightailed it out of there just in time, presumably still with the bridle in hand.

When he got home, James realized that he was the one with the powers now.

Not only could he run faster than an ordinary man, he could even outrun a horse.

It was as though the bridle had given him super speed.

As for the Kelpie, well, the legend doesn't say what happened to him afterward, just that he never drowned anyone at Loch Ness again.

And no one ever saw him again either.

At least no one who saw him realized what they were looking at.

Most people interpret the legend to mean that James either killed the Kelpie or that it fled somewhere else.

But there's another possible interpretation too, that the Kelpie is still dwelling in the lake.

He of course can't turn into a horse anymore, but maybe he still can shapeshift into a flippered plesiosaur.

Or maybe other times he looks like a whale or a crocodile or even a sea serpent.

Perhaps the Loch Nest monster looks different to various eyewitnesses because it is a kelpie still trapped in the water after all these years.

I don't know if Nessie is literally a shapeshifter, but the legends about the creature definitely have a way of changing and adapting with time.

I also will say there have been a ton of scientific studies and investigations into the Loch Ness monster.

And there's no way we'd have enough time to cover all of them in this episode.

Because if you're like me and you go on these deep dives into YouTube, into Google, into reading all this stuff, it is never ending about the Loch Ness monster.

But thanks to those studies, we know that the sonar vessels have found something in the water that is about the size of an actual van.

They don't know what it is or if it's alive, so it could be a needle or a submerged log or a rock or I I don't know, a boat of some kind.

Who's to say?

Still, a lot of people figure it actually might be Nessie.

And new eyewitnesses pop up every single day.

The first sighting of 2025 happened on January 29th.

It was a nice day and the water was clear with not too many waves.

But visitors to the lake still saw something dark in the water.

They snapped a picture that shows a triangular shadow bobbing just under the surface.

And I'll be honest, it's not the most impressive photo.

But if you believe in Nessie, like I do, you may find it pretty striking.

And lots of people do believe in her still to this day.

I mean, including environmental scientists.

In fact, a group of conservationists filed to have Nessie classified as an endangered species back in 1975.

These scientists fully admitted they couldn't prove the Loch Ness monster existed, but they also couldn't disprove her existence either.

So it seemed safer to take the steps to actually preserve her and the Loch's unique ecosystem so long as the question was up in the air.

Thanks to their efforts, Nessie now has a formal scientific name.

And please bear with me because I'm going to try my best to pronounce this properly.

Nessetris rhombopteryx,

which roughly translates to the Ness Monster with a diamond fin.

I have to say the phrase diamond fin sounds much better than flippers in my humble opinion.

So I do appreciate the poetry.

And personally, I think it's pretty telling.

Even though scientists can't say for sure whether or not the Loch Ness monster is real, they still gave her an official scientific name.

I think what it comes down to is that deep down, no matter how much we claim to know or not know, we want there to be something out there, something watching us back, because some legends aren't meant to be solved, they're meant to be believed.

This is So Supernatural, an audio Chuck original produced by Crime House.

You can connect with us on Instagram at SoSupernatural Pod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com.

Join Yvette and Me next Friday for an all-new episode.

So what do you think, Chuck?

Do you approve?

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