World Mysteries - The Loch Ness Monster - World's Unsolved Mysteries

World Mysteries - The Loch Ness Monster - World's Unsolved Mysteries

The Loch Ness Monster is a being from folklore that reputedly inhabits Loch Ness, a lake in the Scottish Highlands. It is similar to other supposed lake monsters in Scotland and elsewhere, though its description varies from one account to the next, with most describing it as large.

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World Mysteries - The Loch Ness Monster - World's Unsolved Mysteries

Loch Ness Monster: Facts About Nessie

Though there are dozens, if not hundreds, of lake monsters around the world, one superstar marine denizen outshines them all: Nessie, the beast said to inhabit Scotland's Loch Ness.

Some say it's a myth; others say it's a living dinosaur or even a sea serpent that swam into the lake before it became landlocked. Whether real or fictional, it is what Scotland is best known for around the world (aside from whiskey, bagpipes and kilts).

Some claim that the Loch Ness monster was first reported in A.D. 565, when — according to Catholic legend — St. Columba turned away a giant beast that was threatening a man in the Ness River, which flows into the lake. However tempting it is to suggest that the encounter was a true historical record of the beast's existence, it is only one of many church myths about righteous saints vanquishing Satan in the form of serpents and dragons.

In fact, there are no reports of the beast until less than a century ago. The Loch Ness monster first achieved notoriety in 1933 after a story was published in "The Inverness Courier," a local newspaper, describing not a monstrous head or hump but instead a splashing in the water that was described as appearing to be caused "by two ducks fighting." Some suggested a more monstrous explanation; however it wasn't until the following year that Nessie shot to superstardom with the publication of a famous photograph showing a serpentine head and neck. That image, taken by a London surgeon named Kenneth Wilson, was touted for decades as the best evidence for Nessie — until it was admitted as a hoax decades later.

World Mysteries - The Loch Ness Monster - World's Unsolved Mysteries

New sightings of Loch Ness Monster at their highest in more than a decade with five unexplained eye witness accounts of the mythical beast in the last year 

Gary Campbell, keeper of the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register, said it was a 'vintage' year for Nessie reports in Scotland.

It has now accepted five sightings for 2015 - including one just logged by a New York woman - the most in 13 years.

Mr Campbell stressed that the majority of claimed sightings do not get included on the register - as most can be explained in one way or another. 

Among them was that logged by American tourist Crystal Ardito who recently found pictures of 'Nessie' after studying her summer holiday snaps.

'I went to Scotland to go on the Loch Ness boat ride on July 1. I took photos of the loch and I was just looking at my photos and I found one photo where I saw a grey thing sticking out of the water, so I zoomed in,' she said.

Ms Ardito said she had only seen the object for 'a few seconds' and 'did not notice the grey object in the photo until months later...in the middle of the loch.'

Mr Campbell said it was a very good sighting, and added: '2015 has been a vintage year for Nessie sightings. We've had five bona fide reports from people who were at the loch, two of which have fantastic pictures as well.

'This is the first time in 13 years that there have this number of sightings reported by people who saw something while they were at Loch Ness. It also includes a multiple witness sighting which is very unusual - it's normally just one person who sees something for a few seconds.

'I think that this proves that Nessie's not gone anywhere. We were a bit worried in 2013 when no-one saw her but it looks like she was just keeping her head down at the time.

World Mysteries - The Loch Ness Monster - World's Unsolved Mysteries

Loch Ness Facts - Loch Ness is the largest body of fresh water in Britain.

• (1) There is more water in Loch Ness than all the other lakes in England, Scotland and Wales put together.
• (2) It is around twenty two and a half miles long and between one and one and a half miles wide, a depth of 754 feet with the bottom of the loch being as flat as a bowling green.
• (3) It holds 263 thousand million cubic feet of water which is around 16 million 430 thousand million gallons of water with a surface area of 14000 acres and could hold the population of the world 10 times over.
• (4) It is fed by 7 major rivers the Oich, Tarff, Enrich, Coiltie, Moriston, Foyers and Farigaig plus numerous burns, with only one outlet the River Ness which flows 7 miles through Inverness into the Moray Firth 52 feet below the loch surface.
• (5) During a heavy rainfall the lochs level has been known to rise by as much as 7 feet and a rise of 2 feet is common place.
• (6) The rain catchment area for Loch Ness is so large that a rainfall of just quarter of an inch adds 11.000.000 tons of water to the loch.
• (7) It is said that the loch never freezes and this is true.
• (8) Because of the great amount of water in the loch a thermocline lies at around 100 feet down in the loch. The top 100 feet of water alters temperature depending on the weather conditions but below the thermocline the temperature never alters from 44 degrees Fahrenheit. So as the surface water cools in winter and nears freezing point it sinks and is replaced by the warmer water from below. This can cause the loch to steam on very cold days, in fact it as been estimated that the heat given off by the loch in a winter is the equivalent to burning 2 million tons of coal.