Hoaxes:
As with any phenomenon of this type, there have been numerous hoaxes associated with the creature:
- December, 1933 - Marmaduke Wetherell finds footprints on the shores of the loch. It turns out he made them himself with a hippopotamus foot ashtray.
- April 19, 1934 - Dr. Robert Kenneth Wilson claims to photograph Nessie while on a hunting trip. It circulated for years as being authentic and became one of the most famous photos of Nessie. It was later revealed that this so-called "surgeon's photo" was made using children's toys.
Theories:
What is it that people are seeing in the loch?
- Skeptics say sightings are actually of groups of large fish, seals, otters or ducks.
- It's also been shown that waves on the surface of the lake can look like the oft-seen humped back of Nessie.
- The favorite theory of believers and many witnesses is that Nessie is a dinosaur known as a plesiosaur - a large aquatic creature with flippers and a long neck that is thought to have gone extinct 90 million years ago. Somehow, it is thought, plesiosaurs survived in Loch Ness (and perhaps some other lakes around the world). There must be enough of them in the loch to constitute a breeding population.
- On Art Bell's erstwhile radio show, he once asked remote viewer Ed Dames to remote view what the Loch Ness Monster is. Dames' conclusion: it is the ghost of an aquatic dinosaur.
Expeditions:
Several serious expeditions have been mounted over the years in search of the Loch Ness Monster:
- 1934 - Sir Edward Mountain paid 20 men to sit at various points around the shore of the lake with box cameras. A few highly contestable photos of shapes on the water were obtained.
- The Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau; 1960s-1972 - Carried out extensive photographic surveillance of the loch using 35mm motion picture cameras fitted with telephoto lenses. Only a few ambiguous sequences resulted.
- The Academy of Applied Science Expeditions; August, 1972 - Led by Dr. Robert Rines, this expedition sonar equipment with time-lapse photography. The result were some very controversial photos, including the famous "flipper" photo and "gargoyle head" photo, both of which were "creatively enhanced" by computers to be much clearer than they actually were.
- Operation Deepscan; October, 1987 - Nineteen cruisers were lined up to conduct a thorough sweep of the entire loch with a "sonar curtain." A 20th boat, New Atlantis, following was equipped with scanning sonar. Although a few "contacts" were reported, nothing could be confirmed.
- Other expeditions have been conducted or planned in recent years that attempted to catch the monster in a net or giant trap. A self-professed "white witch" cast a spell over the loch to protect Nessie from capture. Yes, it gets pretty silly.
- Webcams - Nessie on the Net! has live webcams overlooking the loch, and is promising an underwater webcam soon.
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