Sean Rickards

What's in the Loch ?

February 19, 2006 |  0 comments
Image Credit: Possibly the first mention of the Loch Ness monster occured in AD565, recorded in St Adaman's ' Life of St Columba' in which is mentioned ' the driving away of a certain water monster by the virtue of prayer of the holy man'. It wasn't until 1933 that the real possibility of the monster being real sparked public interest, due to the Mackay sighting. Ever since their has been hundreds of sightings, various photos and couple of expeditions of which sonar readings had picked up a large mobile object. Even though their is a wealth of evidence to prove that something maylive in the Loch, none of it is conclusive. I think the key to proving either way is to understand the Loch, but even with the modern technology avaliable it is still largely unexplored. So what imformation DO we have, well for starters it is certainly deep enough to hide something quite large or even a small family group. It was believed that the monster lived in caves within the lake, this has now been disproved by sonar readings.'Surely their is not enough food in the Loch to support such a large animal', some may say. But in fact a vast quantity of life reside or visit the Loch, Salmon, Trout, eel, sturgeon and the odd seal. Plus the extremely murky water would provide exellent cover for such a large creature (especially if it has highly tuned senses).

' It's a Plesiasaur ', many say.The skeptical side of this is that Loch Ness was formed as the end of the last ice age, or that Dinosaurs were reptiles and so couldn't cope with the extremely cold water. These are valid points provided that Dinosaurs were cold-blooded, which is now in doubt, also it could have evolved to live in colder waters. It is also true that the Loch was not around at the time of the Dinosaurs, but who is to say the creature didn't enter the lake via the rivers that link Loch Ness to the sea. Coincidentally most Nessy sighting are around the mouths of rivers, is this because there its passage to and from the Loch, or perhaps there its favorite hunting grounds. Assuming the Nessy does excist what kind of animal could it possibly be, lets look at the facts. Personally the basic Plesiasaur theory is flawed, unless that is a small group managed to successfully evolve. How then about some type of mammal a whale or seal perhaps, if this is the case then they have evolved into there own niche, although this as above may explain the need to surface. Another popular theory is that it might be a fish, if so it resembles no known fish. An even stranger idea is that it is a phantom beast, only appearing at certain times, this could explain why it has never been discovered (possibly simillar to phantom dog sightings). The list of what Nessy might be is endless and range from realistic to the out-right strange.

Unfortunatly we may never discover the truth of the matter, in fact it may be just one giant goose chase. Comments (0)

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