Monster theories - what is the Loch Ness Monster?

There are lots of different ideas and theories about what the Loch Ness Monster might be.  

A plesiosaur?

In October 1933 following a series of sightings reported in the Inverness Courier (the newspaper local to Loch Ness), a Mr A Russell Smith of Sussex wrote to say that he had talked to:  

'... two residents on Loch Ness whose veracity it is impossible to doubt, who have both seen the monster at different times, and who are convinced that it bears a striking resemblance to the supposedly extinct plesiosaurs.'

Plesiosaurs were marine reptiles that died out over 65 million years ago. They lived at the same time as the dinosaurs but technically they weren’t dinosaurs themselves. Plesiosaurs were cold-blooded and breathed air. Two problems with this theory are that Loch Ness is a very cold body of water (the average temperature is 5.5˚C) and an air breathing animal would have to surface frequently. 

If a group of plesiosaurs survived there would have to be a whole breeding population. Where did they live until they entered Loch Ness - which wasn’t formed until the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago? 

In 2003, a fossilised vertebra of a plesiosaur was found on the banks of Loch Ness, but due to the local geology - which is not a fossil-bearing type of rock - many people regard this as a hoax placed there by a prankster. 

And what would the plesiosaurs eat?

A seal?

Some people simply misidentify the things they see in the loch. People who unexpectedly see a seal or several seals can assume it is the monster because they are at Loch Ness.   

It has also been proposed that there is a new species of seal in Loch Ness - a long-necked seal. This idea was first put forward in 1934 by the members of the Sir Edward Mountain expedition.

This was reported in the Daily Mirror on 5 October 1934 as ‘Loch Ness Riddle Solved - Official’. This idea has also been put forward by other researchers (for example Peter Costello and Bernard Heuvelmans) to explain many other lake monsters. 

One advantage of the long-necked seal idea is that, as a mammal, the water temperature would not be a problem for it. Similarly, sightings of Nessie on land would also be explained. Unfortunately there are no known long-necked species of seal and all species of seal spend quite a lot of time basking on rocks, which would make such a creature quite easy to spot.

An elephant?

Bizarrely, an elephant has even been proposed as the real Nessie. In all fairness no one is suggesting Loch Ness has a resident population of secret elephants - merely that some early sightings were down to a travelling circus bathing their elephants in the loch.  

This idea was first put forward in an article in New Scientist Magazine in the late 1980s but was subsequently independently suggested in 2006 by Neil Clark, Curator of Palaeontology at Glasgow University's Hunterian Museum.  

Clark suggests that a circus bathing its elephants was responsible for the start of sightings in the 1930s. 

'When their elephants were allowed to swim in the loch, only the trunk and two humps could be seen - the first hump being the top of the head and the second being the back of the animal.' 

In 1933 the circus owner Bertram Mills offered £20,000 (about £1 million today) to anyone who could capture the Loch Ness Monster for his circus. Bertram Mills Circus often performed at Olympia in London but toured the country, travelling past Loch Ness to Inverness. 

When pressed about the possibility of a monster, Clark said, ‘I do believe there is something alive in Loch Ness.'

An overgrown eel?

On 8 December 1933 the Daily Mirror newspaper first put forward the idea that an eel was the answer to Nessie sightings.  

There are eels in Loch Ness, but some dismiss the idea because of the sideways motion that an eel has when it is swimming. Also there are a small number of sightings where the head and neck of Nessie are seen above the water - eels cannot raise themselves in this way. 

The eel theory has had a recent resurgence of interest courtesy of Jon Downes and Richard Freeman of the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ). They have added to the theory by postulating that the eels are sterile and that this lack of puberty has allowed them to continue growing.

A sturgeon?

In 1993 Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness Project and the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre in Drumnadrochit suggested that some sightings and perhaps the beginnings of the Water Horse tradition could have been caused by the Atlantic sturgeon.

Sturgeon have never been known to breed in this country but individuals have ascended rivers, sometimes for more than 50 miles. In 1872 one was caught off the entrance to the Caledonian Canal at Inverness. Shine thinks that the occasional sturgeon might have ascended the River Ness to spawn.

Some sturgeon have been reported as being a staggering 20 feet in length. Adrian Shine conducted an experiment in the pond at the Loch Ness Centre with a captive Siberian sturgeon. He has the sturgeon in the pond to check visitors’ reactions; very few guess it is a fish, some think it's a shark and others think it's a crocodile! 

To date no sturgeon have been seen in the River Ness or in the loch - unless of course the monster sightings are actually sturgeons!

A long-necked newt?

This idea was put forward by R T Gould and subsequently championed by Roy Mackal. The advantage of this theory is that there would be no need for the beast to surface to breathe. However, it would have to be a much larger newt than any currently known.

Other theories

These are the main candidates but there are others, for example some think Nessie is a ghost or a Tulpa - a mirage conjured up by people who want to believe.   

Many sightings of Nessie are actually common things such as waves, boat wakes and deer swimming across the loch.

What is a cryptozoologist?

People who study Nessie and other claimed but as yet undiscovered animals (such as Bigfoot, sea serpents and the yeti) are called cryptozoologists.   

The name means someone who studies hidden animals. Some cryptozoologists study evidence collected by others such as photographs, videos and eyewitness reports, whilst others go out looking for the evidence themselves. 

Tim Dinsdale filmed what he thought was Nessie twice in the 1960s and then spent the rest of his life on the shores of Loch Ness. Even now there’s a cryptozoologist there all year round. Steve Feltham has lived on the shores of Loch Ness in a converted mobile library since 1991. 

As yet he has not seen Nessie.

Text by Gordon Rutter, cryptozoologist and secondary science teacher.