Loch Ness Monster
A creature reported in Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands, whose sightings drew thousands of visitors and newspaper coverage around the world in the 1930s.
Meaning
By March 1934 an American newspaper counted reports from over two hundred witnesses, "including ministers of the gospel, government officials, fishermen and big game hunters", and described a student of natural history who believed the animal was a survivor of the plesiosaurs, marine reptiles of millions of years ago (The Washington Times, 6 March 1934).
Was it ever explained?
In September 1934 Terence McGrath, an officer of the Cunard Line, told reporters in New York that a British Admiralty commission had found the monster to be the wreck of a German blimp. He said its observers noticed that it always appeared between two fixed points offshore, never swam against the current, and showed itself only in the evening and in calm weather, and that divers then found the blimp's remains (The Washington Daily News, 5 September 1934). No other source here reports the commission, and McGrath himself added: "there are lots of people who still insist it's a monster."
The Surgeon's Photograph
The most famous picture of the monster was a hoax. It was credited to Robert Wilson, a highly respected British surgeon, who said he had taken it on the morning of 19 April 1934. In March 1994 the Sunday Telegraph reported, as Reuters relayed it, that Christian Spurling, who had died the previous November at the age of 90, had told two researchers how it was made. His stepfather, the big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell, had asked him to make a monster, and he built the head and neck in plastic wood on a 14-inch toy submarine, which was floated in the shallows and photographed by Wetherell's son Ian. Wilson's part was to be the photograph's credible front man (The Museum of Hoaxes; Reuters in the Deseret News).
Read next
- Next in Cryptids and folklore creaturesChamp (Lake Champlain monster)A serpent-like creature reported in Lake Champlain in newspaper stories of the 1880s.
- The same shape in Animal symbolismSpirit animalIn its first sense a spirit animal is a guardian spirit in animal form, as many Indigenous peoples of North America understand such spirits. Today the phrase is also slang for an animal, person or thing someone identifies with, a use Merriam-Webster notes is often considered offensive. Spirit animals by birthday or star sign are modern inventions.
See also
Sea serpent, Kraken, Bigfoot (Sasquatch), Yeti (Abominable Snowman), Mongolian death worm, Chupacabra.
Sources
- The Washington Times (Washington, D.C.), 6 March 1934, The Washington Times, 6 March 1934, page 28, Library of Congress, Chronicling America, page 28
- The Washington Daily News (Washington, D.C.), 5 September 1934, The Washington Daily News, 5 September 1934, page 31, Library of Congress, Chronicling America, page 31
- The Surgeon's Photo (The Museum of Hoaxes), Alex Boese, The Museum of Hoaxes, photo database, The Museum of Hoaxes
- Loch Ness is a 14-inch submarine! (Deseret News, 14 March 1994), Reuter News Service, Deseret News
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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