THE LOCH NESS MONSTER "NESSIE"Hundreds of people through the years claim to have seen Nessie, the mysterious creature that inhabits the deep waters of Scotland’s Loch Ness. The Loch’s amazing depth (over 800ft.) is deeper than that of the North Sea. Only in the last few years has it been discovered that this lake contains a large population of arctic chard. Reports the monster go back to the missionary St. Columba in AD 565. Many of the eyewitnesses accounts, from a Benedictine priest to dedicated researchers, are chronicled in Tim Dimsdale’s book The Leviathans. These accounts commonly describe a long neck, humped body and an amazing ability to rapidly sink and hide in the murky depths or subterranean caves of this remote waterway. Unfortunately, all of the famous pictures of Nessie are also highly disputed. The top right picture from Readers Digest's Strange Stories, Amazing Facts (1978, p. 424) taken by photographer Frank Searle is widely accused of being a hoax. The most famous picture of all, the Surgeon’s photo (middle right) taken in 1934, defined Nessie for 60 years years until a curious death bed confession seemed to discredit it. But zoologist Dr. Karl Shuker and other experts still holds to its authenticity based on analysis of the wave patterns (Shuker, In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, 1995, p. 87.) Below right are two blurry pictures taken utilizing sonar, which can penetrate the loch’s dark, peaty waters like no other camera can. These Academy of Applied Sciences photographs show what might be a creature’s head and neck (left side of picture) and a diamond-shaped flipper. Research continues and a new submarine search attempt has begun. If plesiosaurs really have survived, then they could be the basis for many of the "sea monster" stories that exist today. Perhaps the best evidence for Nessie is sonar contacts. In 1987 Operation Deepscan, involving 24 motor launches traversed the whole length of Loch Ness providing a nearly complete sonar scan of the Loch. "All this effort was rewarded by three strong contacts. One of these - a sonar echo from a ‘large and moving’ object 200 feet (67 m) down - remains unexplained." (Picknett, Lynn, The Loch Ness Monster, 2001, p. 20.) As recently as April of 2002 a sonar image (right) has provided continued evidence of a huge animate object deep in the Loch. While no undisputed photographic evidence has been obtained, it has been said that many a person has been hanged on less evidence than we have of a monster existing in Loch Ness!