DOWN MEMORY LANE: 'Will conclusive evidence ever be found in Nessie hunt?'
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Bobby the Sea Serpent of Loch Ness was the name the Daily Mail gave 89 years ago to the phenomenon which is known worldwide today as “the Loch Ness Monster”, writes columnist Bill McAllister.
The Mail’s cheerily inappropriate christening of the creature came in March 1934, four months after the Inverness Courier had first mentioned “monster” in water bailiff Alex Campbell’s article.
It also came after the media hype which followed Bertram Mills, owner of Britain’s biggest circus, offering a £20,000 reward in December 1933 – some £2 million in today’s money – for the monster’s capture.
Mills, whose circus was travelling along the loch to its next show in Inverness at the time, launched his brilliant marketing move, displayed an empty cage to accommodate the monster.
Sightings surged – and a couple of interesting photographs were later proved to be Mills’ elephants, which had been led into the loch!
The Daily Mail referred to 51 sightings and asked: “What is it which has been affectionately christened Bobby?” Reference was made to submarine commander Baron Von Forstner seeing a sea serpent in 1915 – perhaps after partaking of a couple of large schnapps.
The cuddly name of Bobby failed to catch on, and the Loch Ness Monster became the settled tag. Its abbreviation to Nessie is first attributed to the Edinburgh Evening News in January 1934, while two months later the Tamworth Herald reported a group of Scottish supporters, down in London for the rugby international, towing a model monster which they had named Nessie.
William Fraser, chief constable of Inverness-shire, wrote in 1938 that there was no doubt of the monster’s existence and he was alarmed that a hunting party had arrived with a harpoon gun to catch it dead or alive.
In 1971 the makers of Cutty Sark whisky offered £1 million for the beast’s capture, taking out insurance with Lloyds of London.
In 1972 a team of Loch Ness Phenomena Bureau were having breakfast at a Drumnadrochit hotel when the manager alerted them to a sighting – and they rushed outside to see a large, dark shape some 300 yards out in the water. The team retrieved a body, green in colour, up to 18 feet long and described as “half bear, half seal”.
Media rushed to the area only to find the body was on a lorry bound for Flamingo Park Zoo in Yorkshire. Police stopped the lorry, taking the corpse to the curator of Edinburgh Zoo – who identified it as a bull elephant seal! Flamingo Park confessed to the hoax, explaining the seal had been acquired on a Falklands Islands expedition, then died.
Bookmakers William Hill were next to offer £1 million, in 2007, for proof of the monster’s existence. It proved a safe bet – even as the bookie handed out thousands of disposable cameras for RockNess concertgoers to try for photographic proof.
Robert Rines and researchers from the Academy of Applied Science launched sonar surveys in 1972 and 1975 and revealed underwater photographs of what appeared to be a flipper – leading naturalist Peter Scott to declare the creature could be added to the British register of protected wildlife as “Nessiteras rhombopteryx”.
After Rines’ fourth survey 15 years ago drew a blank, he surmised the creature may now be extinct, with climate change to blame.
Teams have descended on the loch from Japan, the US and elsewhere seeking proof. Operation Deepscan in 1987 used 24 echo-sounding boats, detecting a large, moving object 600 feet down. The BBC, in 2003, used 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking, but found nothing.
Hundreds of sightings have been recorded over the past 90 years, some hoaxes, some genuine error, others reasonably credible. Serious scientists and charlatans alike have hunted Nessie. An eel, shark, sturgeon or catfish have all been given as an explanation.Will we ever have conclusive evidence of whether the loch holds a dynasty of the deep? Or is it better not to know the truth about the phenomenon which continues to draw tourists to Loch Ness?
– Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.
