Creatures, Myths & Legends

Veteran Nessie hunter offers his own views on the Loch Ness Monster

By T.K. Randall
December 21, 2024 ·  4 comments

Does a monster lurk in the depths of Loch Ness ? Image Credit: Pixabay / GregMontani Fewer people have spent more time scouring the depths of Loch Ness for its legendary monster than Adrian Shrine, a naturalist whose work has included conducting a major sonar exploration of the loch back in 1987 known as Operation Deepscan.

Founder of the Loch Ness Project and author of multiple papers and books on the subject, it would be fair to say that Shine knows just about everything there is to know about the phenomenon.

His views on it, therefore, hold a great deal more weight than those of most other people.

After more than five decades of research, he has reached the conclusion that the monster doesn't actually exist and that people are seeing and misinterpreting various other mundane things.

"Of course, there are long-necked creatures on Loch Ness - we call them swans," he told Pen News, while adding that other birds such as cormorants can also be mistaken for something unusual in the loch.

"And in calm conditions you can lose your ability to judge distance, and if you can't judge distance, you can't judge size."As well as birds, Shine also believes that boat wakes are a major cause of monster sightings.

"When a vessel is coming towards you, it is obvious what the wake is - you see it spreading out from the sides of the vessel approaching you, or indeed going away from you," he said.

"But if it's going across your front, it's quite different - you see the individual wave train, the individual wavelengths, as solid black humps."

As things stand, it seems unlikely that Shine will ever find conclusive evidence that the Loch Ness Monster is actually a real creature.

"The way that it is perceived... the two forms - the multi-humper and the long necker - are exactly where the 19th-Century debate got to with sea serpents," he said. "We know what sea serpents look like, you do, I do, everybody else does - and the things people see now in Loch Ness will confirm that."

"People will continue to come forward having seen things unrecognized by them, and which will inevitably confirm the stereotypes that society has - it is called confirmation bias."

Source: Lad Bible | Comments (4)

Tags: Adrian Shrine, Loch Ness Monster