Loch Ness

17 Stories

Team Plans Biggest Hunt for Nessie in Half a Century

Biggest search since 1972 will involve drones, and a lot of people watching the water

(Newser) - The Loch Ness Centre in the Scottish Highlands and the Loch Ness Exploration research team are on the hunt for Nessie—and they're looking for volunteers. Over the last weekend in August, they're planning to hold the biggest search for the legendary Loch Ness Monster in more than...

Researchers Cast Doubt on a Popular Loch Ness Theory

Study rejects the idea that the 'monster' is a giant eel

(Newser) - Score one for the mystery of the Loch Ness monster. A popular theory emerged in recent years suggesting Nessie is merely a giant eel, not some elusive creature of the deep. But a new study all but rejects the possibility, per Science Alert . In the journal JMIRx Bio , data scientist...

Fossil Discovery Spurs Believers in Nessie
Fossil Discovery Spurs
Believers in Nessie
NEW STUDY

Fossil Discovery Spurs Believers in Nessie

Study suggests ancient plesiosaurs lived in freshwater bodies of water, though not Loch Ness

(Newser) - A new study offering some of the best evidence yet for ancient long-necked reptiles living in freshwater lakes has been seized upon by believers in the Loch Ness Monster. Plesiosaurs, small-headed beasts with flippers that disappeared from the fossil record 66 million years ago, certainly inhabited Earth's oceans. There...

Loch Ness Tourist Leaves a Bitter, Hilarious Review

Where the heck is Nessie?!

(Newser) - A tourist visiting Inverness in the Scottish Highlands apparently thought a Nessie sighting was guaranteed. In a bitter yet amusing one-star TripAdvisor review of the trip, posted in June, "Ron" from Grimsby, a port town in North East Lincolnshire, England, described his disappointment at failing to catch a sight...

One Family Has Heavy Hand in Tale of the Loch Ness Monster

Sandy Gray's sighting made press; then his brother took a photo

(Newser) - You know the Loch Ness Monster, but it's unlikely you know the Gray family. In a lengthy piece for Narratively , Paul Brown rectifies that. He takes readers back nearly a century to May 1933, when a sighting of the beast in the loch's black waters was for the...

Scientists to Unveil 'Plausible' Theory for Loch Ness Monster
DNA Samples From Loch Ness
Lead to One 'Plausible' Theory
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

DNA Samples From Loch Ness Lead to One 'Plausible' Theory

Scientists set to unveil that theory on mythical monster next week

(Newser) - Scientists failed to find Nessie in a study of Scotland's Loch Ness—but they did come up with a possible explanation for more than 1,000 reported sightings of the mythical monster, including 14 this year, per the Mirror . Unfortunately, we don't yet know the details. The findings,...

Team Searches for DNA of Loch Ness Monster

They plan to test hundreds of samples from lake

(Newser) - The stories seem as tall as the lake is deep. For hundreds of years, visitors to Scotland's Loch Ness have described seeing a monster that some believe lurks in the depths. But now the legend of "Nessie" may have no place left to hide. A New Zealand scientist...

Drone Hunting for Loch Ness Monster Has Weird False Alarm

It located a long-lost movie double

(Newser) - Well that must have been weird: A marine robot scouring Loch Ness in Scotland detected something at the bottom of the lake, something that looked exactly the Loch Ness Monster. And it was indeed Nessie. Except, as Reuters reports, it was a long-lost 30-foot replica built for a 1970 Sherlock...

Man Claims He Knows Nessie's True Identity

Nessie is probably a catfish, says Steve Feltman

(Newser) - In 1991, Steve Feltham said sayonara to his girlfriend, home, and job in England to hunt for the Loch Ness monster in Scotland. His big revelation after 24 years of searching: The beast is probably a catfish—though a big one, obviously. Feltman, 52, has spent much of the last...

Claim: Loch Ness Monster Spotted on Apple Maps

Google doesn't offer view of creature

(Newser) - Apple Maps may have gotten a bad rap upon release—but when it comes to monster-hunting, it beats Google. So say Loch Ness Monster hunters who have apparently detected the creature on Apple Maps' satellite imaging. A close look at the right spot in Scotland's Loch Ness, pinpointed at...

Has Nessie Gone Belly-Up?
 Has Nessie Gone Belly-Up? 
in case you missed it

Has Nessie Gone Belly-Up?

There haven't been confirmed sightings in 18 months

(Newser) - The last 18 months have been the longest stretch of time since 1925 with no "confirmed" sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, and the Scotsman who keeps a record of sightings is starting to get worried. "It's very upsetting news and we don't know where she'...

Loch Ness: An 80-Year-Old Conspiracy?

A Scottish academic trawls through 1,000 eye-witness accounts

(Newser) - Is the Loch Ness monster harmless folklore or a clever conspiracy to lure tourists? An academic may shed light on the question with his analysis of 1,000 eye-witness descriptions of the alleged creature, the BBC reports. Marine biologist Adrien Shine notes wryly that several spotters were proprietors in the...

Experts 'Verify' New Loch Ness Monster Pic

Tour guide George Edwards snaps pic of 'creature'

(Newser) - Yet another hazy, distant photo has emerged of a creature swimming around Loch Ness. This one comes from a Nessie tour guide who apparently photographed the mythical, humped monster in Scotland's most popular freshwater loch. "It was slowly moving up the loch towards Urquhart Castle and it was...

Loch Ness Tilts, but Don't Blame Nessie

Scientists say North Sea tides cause land to shift

(Newser) - UK scientists have made a nifty, unprecedented discovery about Scotland's Loch Ness, but prepare to be a little disappointed. They found that tides from the nearby North Sea caused the land underneath the lake to shift ever so slightly, resulting in a change in depth of 0.06 inches...

Scottish Authorities Believed In, Tried to Protect Nessie

Police chief called existence of monster "beyond doubt" in newly released letter

(Newser) - "That there is some strange creature in Loch Ness seems now beyond doubt, but that the police have any power to protect it is very doubtful," a Scottish police chief wrote back in the 1930s in a newly released letter expressing his concern that a London man might...

Search for Nessie Yields ... Golf Balls

Hundreds of thousands of them found at bottom of Loch Ness

(Newser) - Researchers in Scotland hoping to find the famous Loch Ness monster instead stumbled across hundreds of thousands of golf balls at the lake's bottom. Apparently tourists and locals alike enjoy using the lake as a driving range, but Planet Green doesn't think it's a laughing matter. It notes a recent...

Hunter: Nessie 'Probably Dead'
Hunter: Nessie 'Probably Dead'

Hunter: Nessie 'Probably Dead'

Foremost Nessie sleuth pursues final hunt for skeleton

(Newser) - Two decades of silence from the depths of Loch Ness signal its most famous resident is likely dead, says the man who's searched for Nessie every summer since he says he first saw it in 1972. Ex-physicist, lawyer, and MIT professor Rob Rines, whose underwater photos are considered the best...

17 Stories