The Loch Ness monster mystery may finally be solved – scientist claims he has a simple explanation for the mythical beast’s sightings
An expert who has spent fifty years investigating the Nessie phenomenon has delivered his devastating verdict on the monster: that people actually see swans.
Naturalist Adrian Shine said people who spotted long-necked creatures on Loch Ness were actually misidentifying waterfowl in calm conditions.
While mysterious bumps or loops in the water were actually nothing more than boats waking up, he said, and that’s the “biggest cause of monster sightings.”
He added that the Nessie of the popular imagination was simply the classic sea serpent depicted on old maps in a new inland setting.
Mr Shine, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and founder of the Loch Ness Project, says he is a “sympathetic skeptic” when it comes to the monster.
But he offered little comfort to those who believe Nessie is real.
He said: ‘Boat wakes are probably the main cause of monster sightings, and waterfowl are the longnecks.’
He continued: ‘Of course there are long-necked creatures on Loch Ness – we call them swans.
An expert who has spent fifty years investigating the Nessie phenomenon has delivered his devastating verdict on the monster: that people actually see swans. Pictured: A composite image of different parts of a swan
Naturalist Adrian Shine said people who spotted long-necked creatures on Loch Ness were misidentifying waterfowl in calm conditions
Sketches by various witnesses of their respective sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, published by Nessie researcher Rupert Gould in 1934
“And in calm conditions you can lose your ability to judge distance, and if you can’t judge distance, you can’t judge size.”
He’s not the only one to notice the similarity, either.
Finnish photographer Tommi Vainionpää edited a convincing likeness of Nessie with images of different parts of a swan captured in silhouette.
Other waterfowl mistaken for the monster included cormorants and mergansers, Shine said.
The naturalist, who still lives on the lake at Drumnadrochit, also described how boat wakes could form the classic Nessie humps.
He said: ‘When a ship is coming towards you, it is clear what the wake is – you can see it spreading from the sides of the ship approaching you, or even moving away from you.
‘But when it goes across your front, it’s very different: you see the individual wave train, the individual wavelengths, as solid black bumps.
‘They will be short and many for a slow-moving ship, and they will become longer and fewer as the ship goes faster.
“Of course there are long-necked creatures on Loch Ness – we call them swans,” Mr Shine said.
In his new book, A Natural History of Sea Serpents, Mr Shine explores how the sea serpent of nautical lore was reborn in Loch Ness.
‘The wave lines can be almost continuous, and it is a fascinating illusion. It’s very convincing.’
In his new book, A Natural History of Sea Serpents, Mr Shine explores how the sea serpent of nautical lore was reborn in Loch Ness.
He said: ‘You can’t look at Nessies as a single phenomenon; it is directly derived from the sea serpent controversy.
‘The way it’s perceived… the two forms – the multi-humper and the longnecker – are exactly where the 19th century debate about sea snakes ended up.
‘We know what sea snakes look like, you know it, I know it, everyone else knows it – and the things people are seeing in Loch Ness now will confirm that.
“People will continue to come forward after seeing things they don’t recognize, which will inevitably confirm the stereotypes that society has – this is called confirmation bias.”
As for whether other species could be responsible for the Nessie sightings, Mr Shine characterized the other candidates as a “basket of fish”: sturgeon, catfish and giant eel.
But a 2018 study of the DNA in Loch Ness failed to find any trace of the first two, while the eel DNA discovered could have come from eels of any size.
He said: ‘You can’t talk about Nessies as a single phenomenon – it’s directly derived from the sea snake controversy’
The naturalist added that there simply wasn’t enough food in the lake for a hypothetical monster to survive.
As evidence, he cited the 10% rule, which states that only one-tenth of the energy at any level of the food chain is passed on to the next.
He said: ‘We have measured the open water fish population acoustically and we estimate it to be around 20 tonnes.
“And so if you have twenty tons of fish, you can only have two tons of monster. That would be about half the weight of a basking shark.
“You see the orders of magnitude that we need to achieve, and they are very low.”
In any case, Mr. Shine believes that the Nessie debate will prove more enduring than the issue of sea monsters in the world’s oceans.
He said: ‘The sea is too big for people to really discuss, while the lake represents a finite environment, more amenable to solution.’
He continued: ‘Yes, the lake is quite deep, it’s quite big – it has more water in it than the whole of England and Wales, but it’s still a relatively small place.
‘It is finite and that is why the answer does not seem far away. That’s why it lends itself to the people’s curiosity.’
A Natural History of Sea Serpents is available directly from Amazon or Whittles Publishing for £18.99.
What IS the Loch Ness Monster?
Rumors of a strange creature living in the waters of Loch Ness have abounded in recent decades, but little evidence has been found to substantiate these claims.
One of the first sightings, believed to have sparked modern Nessie fever, occurred on May 2, 1933.
On this date the Inverness Courier carried a story about a local couple who claimed to have seen ‘a huge animal rolling and crashing on the surface’.
Another famous sighting is a photograph taken in 1934 by Colonel Robert Kenneth Wilson.
It was later exposed as a hoax by one of the participants, Chris Spurling, who revealed on his deathbed that the photos had been staged.
Other sightings include James Gray’s 2001 photo when he and friend Peter Levings were fishing on the Loch, while namesake Hugh Gray’s blurry photo of what appears to be a large sea creature was published in the Daily Express in 1933.
Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London doctor, captured perhaps the most famous image of the Loch Ness Monster. The surgeon’s photo was published in the Daily Mail on April 21, 1934, but it was later revealed to be a fake.
The first reported sighting of the monster is said to have been made in 565 AD by the Irish missionary St. Columba, when he encountered a gigantic beast in the River Ness.
But no one has ever come up with a satisfactory explanation for the sightings – although ‘Nessie expert’ Steve Feltham, who has been watching the Loch for 24 years, said in 2019 that he thought it was actually a giant Welsh catfish, native to waters near the Baltic and Caspian Seas in Europe.
An online register lists a total of more than 1,000 Nessie sightings made by Mr Campbell, the man behind the official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, and is available at www.lochnesssightings.com.
So what could explain these mysterious observations?
Many Nessie witnesses have reported large, crocodile-like scales sitting atop the creature’s spine, leading some to believe that an escaped amphibian could be the culprit.
Native fish sturgeons can also weigh hundreds of pounds and have ridged backs, giving them an almost reptilian appearance.
Some believe Nessie is a long-necked plesiosaur – like an elasmosaur – who somehow survived when all other dinosaurs were wiped out.
Others say the sightings are related to Scotch pines dying and flopping into the lake, before quickly becoming submerged and sinking.
While underwater, botanical chemicals begin to trap small air bubbles.
Eventually enough of these are collected to propel the block upwards, while deep pressure begins to change its shape, making it look like an animal is coming up for air.