Loch Ness Monster

Green hills rise in waves above the dark, glassy surface of a lake. Like a mirror, the water reflects the gray clouds that fill the sky overhead. All of a sudden, a dark shape seems to poke up from the surface. It looks like a head rising on top of a long neck. Then, as quickly as they appeared, the head and neck disappear again below the water. 

What just happened? What was that giant creature? Was it just a trick of the sunlight on the water, or did a monster just appear and disappear in the blink of an eye?

Scotland has many lakes. The word “loch” means “lake” in Scottish. Loch Ness is a freshwater lake in northern Scotland. People have claimed to have seen a monster in these waters for almost 1,500 years. Does it really exist? No one knows.

An Early Sighting

St. Columba was a Christian missionary who brought his religion to Scotland. The first stories of the Loch Ness monster are from this saint protecting people near the lake. 

The story goes that St. Columba heard of a man who had been bitten by a beast living in the lake. He went down to the lake, and the monster came out of the water. With a loud voice, St. Columba told the monster to go no farther. He commanded the monster not to touch anyone, and to go back from where it came at once! When the monster heard St. Columba’s words, it disappeared under the water. 

That story dates back to the year 565! Stories about the Loch Ness monster have been around for a long time.

Sightings Today

The Loch Ness monster isn’t just a story from long ago — people today still think they see the monster. In fact, sightings of the monster really took off about 100 years ago.

In 1933, a husband and wife were driving along a road near Loch Ness when they stopped to look at the water. They said they saw a creature in the water “rolling and plunging.” The creature has a body like a whale. For a full minute, the monster made the lake’s water look as if it was “cascading and churning like a simmering cauldron.”

A newspaper reported their sighting, and then many other people began writing to the newspaper. They claimed they had seen a monster in Loch Ness, too. Since then, an official register has started recording sightings of the monster. As of 2023, there have been 1,141 different times that people have caught sight of the creature!

Do Monsters Exist?

There are many rivers, lakes, and streams all over Scotland. Glaciers from the last ice age carved deep grooves in the earth. These grooves filled with water, making especially deep rivers and lakes. 

Loch Ness has the most water of all of the lakes in the United Kingdom. This includes Scotland, Wales, England, and Northern Ireland. Loch Ness is more than 750 feet deep — that’s bigger than two football fields placed end-to-end! This makes it a particularly good place for a monster hideout.

Loch Ness isn’t the only place people claim to see monsters or fairytale creatures. Kelpies are magical, shape-shifters that often take the form of horses with reeds in their manes. Kelpies are said to live in several of the different lochs around Scotland. Some people even think that the Loch Ness monster might be a kelpie.

Even if Loch Ness might be a good home for a monster, there isn’t any proof that a monster actually lives there. Every time someone claims to have a picture of the monster, it turns out to be a joke or a hoax. One of the most famous hoaxes was a picture taken in 1934. For a long time, people believed the photograph really showed a monster. It wasn’t until 1994 that the picture was shown to be a hoax.

There’s a lot of mystery around creatures that might live in the gray, deep lake in Scotland. Do you think there might be a monster living down there? You never quite know what’s lurking below the surface!