The Story

By: Nick

In Northern Scotland there is a narrow lake called Loch Ness. The lake is about 2 km wide, the deepest part is about 230 meters, and it is about 39 km long. This is the home of the Loch Ness monster. It is probably the most famous water creature in the world.

Loch ness is the home of the legendary Nessie, or the Loch Ness monster. There have been numerous stories of Nessie with the first being written in 565 A. D. That story tells of a swimmer being saved from a hungry lake monster by Saint Columba. After that stories surfaced from time to time.

In the early 1930s three men were out on a boat when and all of a sudden a large wave rocked the boat violently. One of the men looked up and thought a huge rock was coming toward them. When it was about 15 yards away it turned in a large half circle.

A new road was built along the edge of the lake and the number of sightings increased like wildfire.

Owners of an Inn reported to Alex Campbel, the man in charge of salmon fishing in the Loch, that they had observed an enormous animal rolling and plunging in the Loch. After that Campbel spent several hours on the lake observing the monster himself.

Nessie is described as having a long, tapering neck about 6 feet long with a small serpentine head, a huge hump behind, and measuring about 30 feet long.

Evidence For

Nessie's first picture was taken in 1933 by Hugh Gray. Since that time many others have been taken. Some of the photographs show more than one of the creatures together.

Nessie the Loch Ness monster is believed by some scientists to be a Plesiosaur, an aquatic dinosaur, which somehow survived. Other beliefs are that it could be a large mammal like a manatee or a primitive whale. Still others think it could be a long necked seal or a giant otter. An over-grown eel or a giant slug has also been suggested.

Evidence Against

The most famous photo was proven to be a fake. It was really a toy submarine with the neck and head built onto it.

Arguments on the fact that the Loch might be too cold for a reptile like the Plesiosaur have been challenged by new studies suggesting the possibility that the dinosaurs including the Plesiosaur could have been warm-blooded. Another argument is that mammals such as whales or seals would need to surface more often which would allow more sightings.

Underwater waves which occur in deep, long, cold lakes like Loch Ness could push debris to the surface of the water making the illusion of a monster.

If there is a monster that exists it is very elusive. Draining the Loch seems to be the only way to prove or disprove Nessie's existence since no bones or bodies have ever been found.

Resources

www.lochness.co.uk/livecam

www.nessie.co.uk

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/searchkids.pl?searchtype=subject&keywords=monsters&title=Monsters