Is the Loch Ness Monster real?
I personally think it is true
The story we are going to tell today is still an unsolved mystery. It starts with an explosive piece of news released by the British media in 1934. In April 1934, a small black-and-white photo published in several British newspapers made Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands famous throughout the world overnight. The photo shows a strange animal: a long neck and a flat head. According to reports, the monster was accidentally photographed by London doctor Wilson while sightseeing on the shores of Loch Ness. For a time, people exclaimed: There is really a water monster in Loch Ness!
Located in the northern part of the Scottish Highlands, Loch Ness is very mysterious. It has a cold climate but the lake does not freeze all year round. The long and narrow lake on the surface reaches a maximum depth of 293 meters. The maze-like underwater bottom hides many caves that lead to unknown places. No one has been able to find out its true appearance so far. As early as more than a thousand years ago, rumors circulated in the Scottish Highlands that a water monster lived in Loch Ness. Look at this photo again. Indeed, the animal above is not like any aquatic creature today, but more like the giant plesiosaur that became extinct more than 65 million years ago. The plesiosaur was 12 to 16 meters long and was known as the "ocean killer" in the Jurassic era.
Is it true that there are surviving plesiosaurs that have escaped many disasters in the paradise of Loch Ness? All of a sudden, the media and people at the time were obsessed, and they went north one after another. Huge rewards for capturing the monster were also posted one after another. The hotel business in the Lake District is unprecedentedly prosperous. It is said that even the then British Prime Minister Macdonald made plans to travel north for sightseeing, but he was unable to make the trip due to busy government affairs.
During that time, Nessie’s fame quickly broke out of the UK and spread to the world. In order to relieve the heavy atmosphere caused by the Great Depression, the French press spared no effort to report this so-called most exciting news. It is said that the United States on the other side of the ocean has also launched a suit named after "Loch Ness". There are more and more stories about water monsters.
Among the many reporters eager to dig out big news from Loch Ness, Whitrow of the British "Daily Mail" took the lead. Not long after he arrived at Loch Ness, he announced that he had discovered the footprints left by the monster a few hours earlier. The footprints were immediately sent to London for close care. As a result, people all over the world waited with bated breath for the results of the British Museum's examination.
Shortly afterwards, another piece of film data was released to the public: this is the most unusual thing in recent years, it confirms the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. The weather and exposure to strong winds and rain day and night affected the quality of our footage, so the results are a bit blurry. But that's not important. What's important is that for the first time in history, we got a video of the monster itself.
However, experts later confirmed that the footprints found by Whitrow were nothing special and were just those of hippos. To be precise, it was made from a Victorian hippopotamus-foot umbrella stand. The monster-hunting master, Witlow, had long since disappeared. Later, the film data was also confirmed to be excessive propaganda for the purpose of developing tourism, and the credibility of the existence of the water monster was suddenly greatly reduced. By World War II, it seemed that only the eccentric Italian dictator Mussolini was still talking about kelpies. He sent planes to bombard Loch Ness, and then announced that the monster had been killed and that Britain would soon be destroyed.
The craze and various scams in 1934 seemed to have basically exhausted people’s interest in Loch Ness. So in 1947, when a bank manager named Forbes said that he saw a lake monster, a local newspaper immediately published a sarcastic letter, which read: I would like to take the opportunity of meeting Mr. Forbes to express my gratitude to Mr. Forbes. People are urging you to take your empty whiskey bottles away from the lake. Broken glass is very dangerous for us amphibians. Signed by the Loch Ness Monster. In this way, Nessie spent more than ten years after World War II quietly in the neglect of the media. It was not until the 1960s that the world's attention returned to Loch Ness.
What caused a stir again was a video taken by British aeronautical engineer Dinsdale in Loch Ness in 1960. After technicians inspected the film, it was proven that the film was authentic. Dinsdale said, "It was like a black boa constrictor. It just stood out of the water. Then it went back into the water and a ball of foam appeared. Then it came out of the water again, bringing another burst of water, and it was gone like this. I never saw it again." I've never seen it before. "
Inspired by this video, after the 1970s, people began to use advanced equipment to search for water monsters. Scientist Lynes used underwater cameras and sonar to record a huge object. After enhanced computer processing, a series of images of water monsters were drawn. The world couldn't help but exclaim again, we finally found the water monster! However, it was too early to be happy. Do you remember the first photo of a water monster in 1934? It is this that lays the psychological foundation for people to acknowledge the existence of water monsters. But people didn't expect that 60 years later, this same photo would almost crush people's curiosity about water monsters.
In 1994, the 60th year after this photo was published, the photographer, Dr. Wilson, died of illness. Perhaps in order to seek peace of conscience, Wilson made a fool of himself before his death: the monster with a long neck and a small head was forged by him using a dinosaur toy set on a wooden stake.
The photo was taken on April 1st, April Fool's Day in the West.
The most famous water monster photo turned out to be an April Fool’s Day prank! Inspired skeptics then began to question Dinsdale's film and scientist Lynes's photographs. They believe the object in Dinsdale's film was likely a small boat, making it look like an animal due to its distance. The monster in Lynes' photo is actually a string of bubbles rising from the water, a common phenomenon in Loch Ness. Dinsdale and Lines fought back angrily.
However, this time the debate about authenticity has not caused people’s interest in water monsters to plummet. After all, Loch Ness is a place of fascination with the strange and unexplained happenings that have occurred over the years. Over the decades, various searches on Loch Ness have also repeatedly recorded the movement of large objects underwater. If they weren't water monsters, what were they? So far, more than 3,000 people around the world have claimed to have seen water monsters. Are they all lying? Just when they were doubtful and unable to stop, a collective sighting once again aroused new interest.
The first sighting occurred here. Witnesses said: I saw a head and neck there, a foot above the water. It was very weird. I think it had a bit of a coffee color to it, but it soon went back under the water. I understood what I was seeing. It was indeed a creature and could not be anything else. On this day, a woman living on the mountain near the lake also saw a similar scene. Not long after, a father and son who returned from fishing became the third group of witnesses. The father said: "My son shouted, 'Oh my God, that's a water monster.' I didn't believe him at first, but when I turned my head and looked towards the lake, it was a nice day, and I could see a giraffe-like neck poking out of the water. It may be nearly 2 meters long, and it comes out with the body attached. When all the witnesses put what they saw together, we saw this animal with a long neck and a small head that was very similar to a plesiosaur.
And just in July this year, a latest discovery provided more important evidence for the possible existence of water monsters. Scientists from the Scottish Ethnographic Museum confirmed that a retired man discovered a 150 million-year-old plesiosaur fossil near Loch Ness. It shows that plesiosaurs lived in the Loch Ness area during the Jurassic era.
Is it true that the plesiosaurs were not completely extinct? Some people think that the coelacanth's "resurrection from death" is quite a precedent. The coelacanth is an ancient fish that was once thought to have become extinct 70 million years ago, but it was later discovered in the Indian Ocean. Since the coelacanth can survive to this day, who can guarantee that there are no ancient aquatic creatures that we don’t recognize swimming around in Loch Ness?
Just like that, true and false, it is clear that people are still interested in the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster. There is always an endless stream of tourists at Loch Ness.