New Loch Ness Monster sighting — Has Nessie been now confirmed as real?

Since the 1930s, the Loch Ness Monster myth will occasionally pop up and gain a bit of media traction. This latest example comes via “researchers” at The Loch Ness Centre, and yes, there is a reason for the air-quote there, we will come to that soon enough.

I’m sure you are familiar with the myth, but just in case it passed you by, the idea is this — there is an ongoing series of claims that something prehistoric lurks within the murky waters of Loch Ness. Various sightings over the years describe it as large, long-necked, and that it has one or more humps protruding from the water.

The picture at the top of this posting looks real, so what’s the story there?

What is now known about that specific picture is that it was a hoax created by Christian Spurling, the son-in-law of actor, screenwriter, director, producer, and big-game hunter M. A. Wetherell. What had started it all was a previous hoax of “Nessie footprints” that Wetherell was convinced were real, then when exposed as a hoax, the Daily Mail newspaper publicly humiliated Wetherell for being gullible. To get revenge Wetherell and his son-in-law Spurling cooked up the photograph hoax and then successfully persuaded the Daily Mail to publish it as real. (details here). Apparently when it was published and went viral, they were shocked at how popular the idea became, so they decided to keep quiet at the time and only admitted it many decades later.