Searching for Nessie

/Home/Cryptozoology/Sea Serpents and Lake Monsters

Searching for Nessie

Although Nessie was sighted as far back as the 6th century a.d. it is the modern day sightings that have captured the public imagination.
In the early part of the 1930's a new road was built around Loch Ness which in turn brought in a spate of new sightings from road users and sightseers. Up until this time stories of the monster circulated more within the local community but talk of other sightings were spreading outwith the village.
The first recorded sighting of Nessie on land was made by Mr Spicer and his wife, on July 22nd 1933, who were driving down the road between the Loch Ness side villages of Dores and Inverfarigaig. They caught sight of a large cumbersome animal crossing the road ahead, which was some 20 yards from the water. They first saw a long neck, forming a number of arches, a little thicker than a elephant's trunk and a huge lumbering body heading towards the Loch. It disappeared into the bushes out of sight. After this sighting reports flooded in and interest grew on an international scale. Speculators offered huge prizes for the animal, dead or alive. The preparation of a cage for Nessie Circus owner Bertram Mills promised a sum of £20,000 to any man who could bring the creature alive to his circus.

Probably one of the first photographs to be taken of the monster was snapped by a British Aluminium Company worker, Mr Hugh Gray, near Foyers. It showed a writhing creature creating a considerable disturbance on the surface of the Loch. He only saw part of the animal which he estimated to be around40 ft long, which included a thick rounded back and also a muscular looking tail.
In December of the same year a hippo's foot had been planted by a prankster and all was taken seriously until officials finally uncovered the truth. This had an affect on future reports of sightings, as theywere taken less seriously.But still reported sightings were becoming increasingly common and more intriguing.


On the 5th of January, 1934, a motorcyclist almost collided with the monster as he was returning home from Inverness. It was around 1a.m. and was bright due to the moonlight. As Mr Grant approached Abriachan on the north-eastern shore of the Loch he saw a large shape loom on the right side of the road.As he approached the object he saw a small head attached to a long neck.The animal saw Grant and promptly crossed the road back down to the Loch. Mr Grant, by this time, had jumped off his motorbike and followed the path it took to the Loch only to see the rippling water where thecreature had entered.In April,1934 the most famous photograph was obtained by a London surgeon as he heading towards Inverness along the new road.

Nessie The Surgeon's picture. There is some dispute as to the authenticity of this photograph.
This event encouraged more people to come forward with their tales of sightings.
An event on the 5th of June, 1934 was considered to be of importance but was not widely publicised. It involved a young girl from the Fort Augustus area who was employed as a maid in a large house close to abbey. It was about 6:30 a.m., the maid was looking out of a window down the Loch. She saw on the shore, ' one of the biggest animals she had seen in her life, ' at a range of about 200 yards. Her description was similar to those of others, giraffe like neck, small head, skin like an elephant and two very short fore legs or flippers. She watched it for around 20 mins when it re-entered the water and disappeared.

There were a number of privately funded investigations, most of which were not successful, which took place in the same year. There was one such expedition which did have a degree of success. It was led by a Sir Edward Mountain in July, 1934. During that period of research and investigation he obtained five still pictures of the monster, he had observed the monster, along with members of his team, and had actually filmed the monster. It was probably because the expedition was so well funded that a result was most likely and that a poorly funded investigation would be doomed to failure.

As the threat of war with Germany grew stronger, Nessie and all the sightings were furthest things from peoples minds, Loch Nessbut there were some recorded sightings and even a number of photographs were taken. During the war Loch Ness was in control of the Navy and the loch area was secured. This did not stop the monster from making itself known.In May, 1943, a Mr C.B. Farrel of the Royal Observer Corps was on duty to warn of incoming enemy bombers but instead observed the movements of the monster at a distance of 250 yards. He saw 20-30 ft of the monster's body and the neck which was approximately 4-5ft above the surface of the water. The eyes, he explained, were large and the body of the monster appeared to have a 'fin'. It finally submerged without a movement on the water.

When the war was over and up until the late '50's sightings of Nessie continued as people got back onto the road with their motorcars on the Loch side road. The monster was still a local source of interest but remained the complete enigma.

In 1951 a new photograph appeared which to some confirmed the existence of the monster. On the 14th of July at around 6:30 a.m. Mr Lachlan Stewart, a woodcutter employed by the forestry commission, saw something large moving out on the Loch. With a friend he ran to the waters edge and there about 50 yards away they saw three humps, each about 5 ft long moving at fast speed. Mr Stewart ,who had picked up a small camera before leaving his house, took this photograph. Three humps above the water Seconds later a small head and long neck appeared in front of the first hump then the monster turned out towards the centre of the Loch and with a lot of splashing swam off and sinking head first 300 yards offshore, disappeared. Mr Stewart estimated the length of head and neck to be 6 ft, and then 15-20 ft behind the last hump he noticed a commotion in the water suggesting the movement of the tail.

In December 1954 another 'sighting' was made by a Peterhead fishing drifter called 'Rival III'. The vessel captured an unusual graphical recording of a large object at a depth of around 480 ft - 100 ft or so above the bottom - which kept pace with the boat for half a mile then disappeared.

Another eyewitness account happened in October 1955, by Colonel Patrick Grant of Knockie Estate. He was travelling from Fort Augustus to Invermoriston and nearing Inchnacardoch Bay he saw a great commotion in the water between 100-200 yards from the road. He brought his car to a stop and could see a black object above the surface 10 or 15 ft long. In less than a minute the object suddenly started swimming eastwards, parallel with the shore and very near the surface though submerged. Moving at great speed it travelled 200-300 yards and disappeared completely.

1955 brought one of the most intriguing photograph ever taken. Peter A. Macnab from Ayrshire was having a holiday in the Highlands and was preparing to take a photograph of Urquhart Castle. His attention was drawn to his left where he saw an enormous dark animal with two humps. This is the photograph he took.
Nessie in Urquhart Bay

Spring 1958. The proprietor of The Foyers Hotel, Mr Hugh Rowand, his wife and two friends were seated in their garden overlooking Loch Ness when his eye caught a stationary fin shaped object in the water near Sand Point. A few seconds elapsed and the object sprang into life and shot across the Loch towards Drumnadrochit. Mr Rowand guessed it's speed to be in the region of 20-25 knots.

A Mr H.L. Cockrell of Dumfries, Scotland, had a remarkable experience with the monster in the Autumn of 1958 when he met it in his canoe on the Loch. Mr Cockrell being an expert seaman and familiar with small crafts had developed a waterproof camera with flash equipment which he used from his canoe. View of Nessie The camera was strapped to his head like a miner's lamp and activated by the movement of his mouth which left his hands free to paddle. He was boating about dawn on the Loch when something appeared about 50 yards away. It looked like it had a large flat head 4 or 5 feet long and about 3 feet to the rear of this he noticed another thin line, all very low in the water. He swung round to approach what ever it was and to his great horror it turned towards him. He took a shot with his camera and kept moving towards it and to his relief the creature turned to another direction. When the film was developed , although it showed the Loch to be calm, there was a great deal of disturbance on part of the surface of the water.

he day after Mr Cockrell's sighting the monster was seen by a Mr Brown and his wife from Invergordon in the same place but closer to shore. They described it as three thick black humps moving through the water with 50 ft ahead of the humps a movement which seemed to suggest a head.

24th May,1960
A member of the Northern Naturalists Organisations, Mr Peter O'Connor from Gateshead, Durham had a sighting. From the garden of the Foyers Hotel he and a number of other people saw the creature at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. At first he thought it was a rowing boat about 200 yards from the Foyers shore but using his field glasses he could see a brown coloured object which was slowly sinking.
Nessie near shore

27th of May, 1960
Mr O'Connor encountered the monster yet again 3 days later. Between 6 and 6:30 a.m. he went for a walk along the shore beside Foyers Bay and the monster glided into view around the headland. He waded into the water up to his waist to get a closer view. It features were small and sheep-like and a very, very strong neck. It's skin appeared smooth, very like a seal. He turned to yell to his companion and then turned back and took this photograph, to the right, as it disappeared into the turbulence it had created.

27th June to 23rd July 1960
This date is generally regarded to be the first major scientifically planned expedition of its kind to visit the Loch was conducted by The Universities (Oxford and Cambridge) Expedition. The purpose being to make a general study of Loch Ness, paying particular attention to the possible existence of the Loch Ness Monster. Participant in the expedition numbered 30 volunteer graduates and under graduates who used cameras and an echo sounder mounted on a boat. They did encounter one visual sighting of what appeared to be the monsters back moving through the water. Another sighting they had was of an object that continuously changed shape on the surface of the water. Numerous echo soundings were taken which were of unusual character.

7th August 1960
A sighting was reported on this date by a witness who wished to remain anonymous. The witness was driving south-westerly along the main road towards Abriachan pier when he noticed a small yacht travelling up the Loch. He then realised there were two V wakes parallel to one another. The closest of the two wakes came from the yacht and the second appeared to be caused by something just under the water. The object surfaced and looked just like a midget submarine without its periscope. The colour was greenish black, about the size of the yacht, which was in fact 48ft by 10 ft.

Saturday 10th November 1973
In 1973 an interesting sighting was reported by a Mr Jenkyns of Pointclair, Invermoriston. Mr Jenkyns had a head/neck sighting in a close range observation. The sighting report is as follows : Mr Jenkyns lived in a house which is 12 yards above the surface level of Loch Ness. On Saturday 10th November 1973, at about 11:45am he tried to start a tractor which had been stuck for some weeks on a piece of rough ground sloping down to the loch edge to partially built jetty it was a cold slightly damp day, with a strong south-westerly wind on the surface giving a heavy swell with waves over 2ft high. Mr Jenkyns used an engine chemical to start the tractor and as the tractor did not have a silencer there was an explosive noise, so loud that Mrs Jenkyns heard it in the house, despite all the windows being double glazed. Immediately after the noise of the starter, Mr Jenkyns heard a very loud splash, which he described as an impact splash as if something very heavy had been thrown into the water. It was a single noise and was not followed by any further splashing. Being under the impression someone must of thrown a heavy object into the water, he got down from the tractor, walked round it and a good look along the shoreline. He then went back to the tractor and 2 mins after hearing the splash noticed in the water 5 yards of the end of the jetty a ring of concentric circles, showing despite the waves. While he was looking, a little to his left an animal emerged quietly and smoothly (the distance from the observer being about 45 yards) in a north-easterly direction parallel to the shore, then submerged straight down. Throughout, the object maintained a rigid pole-like posture and its motion through the water was very smooth, with no apparent sign of any jerky movement. The head and neck were slate-black, quite rigid and about 9 inches in diameter. He observed a slit mouth, what appeared to be some large scales on the top of the head but not the neck, and above the mouth an eye or possibly a vent. The eye was quite tiny in proportion to the mouth. When the object rose out of the water, it formed an angle 80 degrees to the water, but when it started to move and throughout the movement it formed a 60 degree angle. There was no sign of any fins, horns or other appurtenances. The water at this point is estimated to be only 10 - 20ft deep.

13th July 1979
Going on a number of years, this sighting was by Paul H. Biermasz who was on holiday in the Loch Ness area. This is Mr Biermaszs' own account of his sighting. In July 1979 I had a Nessie sighting that goes as follows :
I was driving from the camp site where I was staying at Invermoriston, north to Inverness on the main road when a few miles after Urquhart Bay, passing a layby with a good Loch view, I saw 'It'. 'It' was at a distance of some 200-300 metres, shaped like an upside-down (black) rowing boat, speeding away from the shore. The speed was remarkable because of the wave 'it' produced. Other people must have seen 'it', a sailing boat crew might have spotted something as 'it' was coming their way. A touring bus was in front of me and crossed the road to pull into the layby. Passengers in the rear of the bus were pointing at the Loch also. Everything happened in seconds. The time of this sighting was between 10 and 11 a.m.. The sky was cloudy but the Loch could be clearly seen and the wind was very low. Back in Holland the story of my sighting was not believed so I have kept quiet about until now.

17th June 1993
Edna MacInnes and her boyfriend, David Mackay said they watched the creature for 10 minutes. Miss MacInnes said that the 40ft beast waved around its giraffe like neck then vanished into the water. Later on the same day James Mackintosh and his son also spotted a brown thing with a neck like a giraffe break the surface. Mr Mackintosh remembers: "It was an eerie experience, it was swimming quite swiftly away from the shore."

9th of April,1996
A Lancashire man, named Bill Kinder, observed a black, shiny object rise out of the water and leave a 10 metre wake. This took place on this date 1996 around 10:00am, just north of Fort Augustus. Also on the same day, the Ling family from London who were travelling behind Bill Kinder on the west shore, reported seeing two humps rise out of the water and leave a long trail.

10th of April, 1996
Two large brown shapes were spotted by a couple from the Black Isle, which appeared to be 10 feet in diameter and 3 feet apart. The object was 200m from the shore near Urquhart Castle, it then travelled across the Loch and disappeared.

14th of May, 1996
A representative of Union Commercials, named Jonathan Murphy, on his first visit to Loch Ness to make a television commercial for Vodaphone, contacted a local paper and said he saw something in the water. He had photographed the object which was then sent to NASA for a thorough investigation.

13th June, 1996Staff and guests of the Craigdarroch House Hotel, Foyers, witnessed at 8:30pm, a bubbly disturbance which was followed by a wake, it then travelled zigzag across the water, creating movement on the Loch for around 10 minutes.

21st of July, 1996
During their visit to the Loch Ness Caravan and Camping Park at Invermoriston, Emilio Demnio and Nikhi Banjeri from Preston, reported seeing a dark brown or black hump appear in the middle of the Loch and stayed for around 10 minutes, at 2:15pm.

1st of August, 1996
While on the pier at Fort Augustus, three witnesses including holidaymaker Nick Watson saw at around 5:30pm a black hump approximately a mile from the shore. It was creating a large commotion on the surface. A few minutes later it headed away from them and disappeared.

18th August, 1996
A camper at Invermoriston photographed what looked like a head and a neck emerging from the Loch. Glaswegian Craig Kerr reported it to a national newspaper. The object appears in the background of a photograph he was taking of another subject. He did not realise this until the film had been processed.

In 1996
Staff members at the Clansman Hotel beside Loch Ness, during their lunchbreak around noon witnessed several humps appear in the Loch. They appeared to be black and were around 1 metre long. They disappeared and shot to the surface again further out in the Loch within moments.

September 1996
This sighting was made by Frank Meyer of Cincinnati, Ohio. These are his own words :
As someone with scientific education (physics) I will not believe in anything I don't know for sure. But I was on Loch Ness for four days in 1996 during the first days of September with four relatives, we saw something we could not quite explain: We had rented a motor cruiser to travel on the Caledonian Canal for two weeks. We spent one night at the Foyers pier. The weather had been fine in the evening, and the loch was very quiet in the morning, practically no waves at all, clear weather. Around 8:45am, I noticed something like the trunk of a large tree, floating motionless just under the surface, about 100 meters in the direction of Urquhart Castle. My four fellow boaters saw it, too, after I asked them what it was. It did not move for at least 15 minutes (well, one of us thought it had moved slightly). We speculated what it could be, we watched it with binoculars (which revealed that it was not a single blob of darkness, but had limblike substructures, as if it really was a dead tree), but nobody took a single photo! I still can't believe it... Finally we took off to visit Urquhart Castle. I took a course that would take us close to the point the mysterious object was floating. Due to the position of the steering wheel, I could not see it during the beginning of the approach and relied on the others to take a close look. But when we got there, nothing was visible. Not only that, but nobody had actually seen it disappear. One moment it had been there, a moment later it was gone without a trace. It was obviously no tree. Was it one of the almost stationary zones of rippled water that can occur on lakes due to wind and current? It was so isolated - one dark spot in a wide totally quiet surrounding - and stayed unchanged for 15 minutes or more, and it was darker than the normal shadow - to me that explanation seems practically impossible. The same reasons exclude a cloud shadow. For a mirage it was not far enough, and one thing I am absolutely sure of: It was under the surface. The only thing I can think of as possible explanation is a thin floating layer of dark particles, slowly collected overnight by the currents of the Foyers bay and of the open loch, clearly visible only because of the flat viewing angle. But then, why didn't it disappear gradually when we approached the spot?

16th February, 1997
A family reported seeing an object travelling quickly through the water.

1997
A local man from Glenurquhart filed a report about seeing two humps in the water near to Abriachan.

21st March, 1997
A South African holidaymaker reported to have seen two humps appear from the water near Aldourie Castle beside Loch Ness.

22nd of March 1997
Travelling down the south side of the Loch Richard White of Muir of Ord saw a number of humps moving on the water around 200m from the shore

15th April, 1997
A visitor from the Isle of Skye reported seeing something odd in the water near Foyers.

14th June, 1997
An object which looked like a pole appeared from the water near Dores, the top of which looked like a small head that looked around and then disappeared.

21st of June,1997
About 1 mile south of Urquhart Castle, at around 9:00am, a dark object was spotted moving swiftly across the Loch.

21st of June, 1997.
Another sighting was reported by the producer and technician of an American film team who were filming a documentary at Strone Point, above the castle. They spotted a dark object moving swiftly across the Loch about 1 mile south of Urquhart Castle around 9:00am. Unfortunately it had disappeared before the cameraman had time to record it on film.

21st of June, 1997
The "Royal Scot" from Fort Augustus reported two sonar contacts at a depth of 400 ft in a trench just north of Fort Augustus.

2nd July, 1997
The "Royal Scot" again reported a similar contact at a depth of 300 ft.

9th of August,1997
There was a report of a camper, who was staying at the Loch Ness Caravan and Camping Park at Invermoriston, which told of her experience during an incident at around 3:00am. She had heard something splashing about in the water and realised some ducks nearby were becoming restless for some reason. Then she said she heard a strange buzzing noise from the Loch but it didn't sound like a boat or other engine.

13th August, 1997
A report of a large, dark, coloured object appearing in the water near Abriachan and moving at speed.

Saturday 30th May 1998
The first reported sighting of the the Loch Ness Monster in 1998 was made by a 22 year old female tourist from Marlborough, Wiltshire at 8:55am. She saw a large black object rising about 10 feet out of the water just beneath Urquhart Castle and claimed she had been able to see the object for a full 2 minutes before it disappeared.

June 17th 1998
Around 5 a.m. a group of young men on a hill walk claimed to have witnessed Nessie as they were descending a hill near Inverfarigaig. The men, brothers Adam and Mark Sutherland and Peter Gillies from Inverfarigaig and Peter Rhind from the Black Isle watched the shape for about 45 minutes through binoculars before it disappeared under the water. They described the shape as being about 300 metres from the shore, massive in size with a long tail. The Loch was flat calm at the time.

July 13th 2000
At approx 11 a.m. Melissa Bavister and Chris Rivett, a couple on holiday in Scotland from Northampton. were travelling on the North shore of Loch Ness near Drumnadrochit when they stopped in a lay-by to take a scenic picture of the Loch using a camera with a 23mm lens. They hadn't noticed that also in the pitcure was the now familiar humps that are associated with Nessie. When they returned home and had the film processed Chris noticed the humped shapes in one of the photographs. They were just passed the village of Lochend. "It was a fine clear day and we are positive there were no craft on the loch or birds flying about." said Chris.
Experts have agreed the single photograph showed a very large object in the water half a mile from either shore.
The exact location, near the reputedly haunted Boleskin House, is one of the deepest parts of the 23-mile-long loch, believed to be around 700ft deep.

See Full Story

Early May 2001
Approx 6 a.m James Gray and Peter Levings were fishing on Loch Ness near Invermoriston, about three quarters of a mile from where the River joins the Loch. Mr Gray said the conditions were absolutely peaceful in the middle of the loch. He then spotted a movement 150 yards away and saw something sticking out of the water. He grabbed his camera and took a few snaps. The object then raised up a couple of feet and was rising as he looked at it. He said: "Soon, it was about 6ft out of the water but secods later it had become a black kind of blob as it disappeared. It had curled forward and gone down." He added: "This was certainly no seal. It had a long black neck almost like a conger eel, but I couldn't see a head. It didn't seem to bend very much but as it went under it sort of arched and disappeared. "We circled for twenty minutes but found nothing."


Have a look at this sighting:
Sighting

June 1st 2003
This proved a good day for monster spotting with no less than three sightings in eight hours. Two of the sightings were from the cruise boat Royal Scot and the third was claimed by a fisherman at around 10pm. All were reported in the Fort Augustus area. The skipper of the Royal Scot spotted a fast moving wake in the water at around 2pm, but thinks he was the only person aboard to see it at the time. "The loch situation at that time was flat calm - absolutely mirror glass," he recalled. "It was travelling at 30 to 35 miles per hour. It was probably chasing salmon. It seems to be some sort of fish eating machine." The second sighting at 8pm lasted for 35 minutes and was witnessed by all 25 passengers and three crew aboard at the time. "What we saw was the top of a hump four or five feet long and five or six inches out of the water," the skipper revealed. The sightings came a week after the boat's sonar detected an object 20 feet long and weighing almost two tons, 320 feet below the surface in the same area. The third sighting was reported at Borlum Bay. A fisherman saw something resting on the surface for three or four minutes before it did a surface roll underwater and disappeared. It was described as almost black in colour and close to a seal in size.

Tuesday 17th August 2004
Tom Clegg of Worcestershire saw what he is certain was the monster just before 4pm. Tom saw the creature in the south of Loch Ness between Invermoriston and Fort Augustus. "I saw three dark humps in the water," he recalled. "It was maybe about 150 metres out into the loch. The humps were three to five metres in length maybe. The skin seemed very smooth. It didn't look like anything I'd seen before." He watched the humps for three to five seconds before they appeared to slip below the water. Tom remains convinced he saw an animal of some kind and rejected the suggestion he may have been fooled by a boat wake. "That was the first thing I checked for, but there wasn't a wake. There weren't any boats in sight," he said.

Thursday 11th August 2005
Nigel Bell and his family from Newcastle watched what they described as the head of a large animal move through the loch at 6pm. The family, who were on the veranda of a holiday lodge at Foyers at the time, said that the head was larger than that of a cow and was about a third of the way across the loch. Regular visitors to the area, they were convinced what they saw was not the result of a boat wake or wave movement.

Sunday 28th August 2005
Kelly Yeats and Neil McKenzie from Bridge of Deee, were staying at Foyers Bay House when they saw a "long necked, curved-headed" creature in the loch at 8.30am. The sighting lasted 10 minutes.

Friday 9th September 2005
A retired Master Mariner was cruising just south of Urquhart Bay in a Caley Cruisers' boat at a speed of nine knots when it was overtaken by an unknown object which came between them and the south shore. The sighting lasted several minutes and the object only disappeared as the boat moved towards it. A regular boat user on the loch, the captain said that there was no rational explanation for the object, which was unlike anything any of the boat's occupants had seen before.

Saturday 15th October 2005
Robbie Girvan. owner of the Loch Ness Caravan Park at Invermoriston, took five pictures of what he described as a four foot high head and neck at 6pm when he was walking his dogs by the loch shore. He said he saw a long neck come out of the water and had time to return to the house, get his camera and return to take the pictures. Previously a non-believer, he said the "dark green and silvery" creature could only have been Nessie.

Tuesday 27th March 2007
Sidney Wilson, an English holiday maker from Nottingham, took a cruise down the loch to view the sights. As they approached Urquhart Castle two power boats appeared leaving a large wash in their wake. Sidney took two quick photographs of the boats and on the second one there appeared to be something in the water. After enlarging the image Sidney could see a head and a fin on the photograph.

Saturday 26th May 2007
A two-minute video clip, recorded on this date, shows what appears to be a long, black creature swimming just below the surface of Loch Ness. Click here to view Gordon's video. The creature's head breaks the surface as it propels itself through the water. Images from the tape also clearly show how the creature creates a wake on the surface of the water as it swims in the direction of Inverness. The film was taken by amateur scientist Gordon Holmes, from Shipley, Yorkshire, who estimates the "creature" was moving at around 6mph. Mr Holmes, who works as a technician at Bradford University, was in the area using hydrophones to detect underwater noises from the loch. He said he saw the monster at 9.50pm while he was filming the loch from a layby on the A82. Mr Holmes, 55, said: "I was minutes from going home but I saw something moving and dashed out of the car and switched the camcorder on. "About 200 yards away from me I could see something in the water. It was definitely a creature propelling itself through the water. It was fairly bubbling along the water. It was streaking along."