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 1994 Christian Spurling, then about 90, said that his stepfather, the big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell, had asked him to make a model of the monster's head and neck, which was fixed to a toy submarine and photographed on the loch; Wilson's part was to be the photograph's credible front man (The Museum of Hoaxes; Don't Take Pictures).
See also
Champ (Lake Champlain monster), Sea serpent, Kraken, Sea serpent, Champ (Lake Champlain monster), Bigfoot (Sasquatch).
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
- The Loch Ness Monster Turns 83: The Story of The Surgeon's Photograph (Don't Take Pictures, 2017), Don't Take Pictures, 19 April 2017, Don't Take Pictures
Last reviewed September 28, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research