Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster is missing. Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Club, who keeps a record of reported sightings, last week revealed no one had come forward with proof they’d seen the monster in the previous 18 months.
News that Nessie had failed to make an appearance for the first time in almost 90 years made headlines around the world.
But Gary, 48, a chartered accountant from Milton of Leys in Inverness, has been proved wrong – and he’s delighted.
“I was hoping the publicity generated would encourage people to come forward, and it did, he said.
“Ken Ross from Inverness got in touch with a photograph he’d taken on October 25, 2012, which means she was last sighted 15 months ago which doesn’t seem so bad.”
SOMETHING STRANGE IN THE LOCH
Mr Ross, 67 a retired Royal Mail transport manager and his wife were driving to Fort William when she spotted something in the water near Inverfarigaig.
“My wife said she could see something strange in the loch so I stopped in a lay-by and took four photographs,” said Mr Ross who lives in the Castle Heather area.
“It looked like a boat wake, but it wasn’t wide enough to have come from a boat, was about 200ft long and travelling at a fair speed for a while then stopped – there wasn’t a boat to be seen for miles.
“I don’t know what caused it and didn’t give it a great deal of thought until I saw Gary’s appeal to get in touch.”
SEEING IS BELIEVING
Like Mr Ross, Gary, originally from Oban, never set out to search for Nessie.
“I had no real interest in the Loch Ness Monster but in 1996, when I was 32, I saw this black hump coming out of the water, twice,” said Gary.
“I was parked in a lay-by just north of Abriachan and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“It was nothing spectacular – not a long-necked dinosaur or anything, more like a mini whale. It was over in a matter of seconds but there was definitely something there.
“It sparked my curiosity so I went to report it and discovered, at that time, nobody was recording sightings.”
He began keeping a registrar of sightings which includes historic ones going back 1,500 years.
Irish missionary St Columba is said to have encountered a beast in the River Ness in 565AD.
The possibility of spotting Nessie draws thousands of tourists to the area and last year, when she failed to make an appearance, was the 80th anniversary of the first sighting that became a global sensation.
Scott Armstrong, VisitScotland Regional Director, said: “Last year marked the 80th anniversary of the first official sighting of Nessie and indeed, 2013 was a good year for tourism in the Highlands, including Loch Ness, and visitor figures generally to the Highlands were up.
“Sightings of the ‘monster’ keep Loch Ness in the news globally, but we are not aware of any evidence that no sightings of Nessie during this period means fewer visitors, or it is impacting negatively on tourism here.
“Part of the allure for visitors to Loch Ness is keeping their eyes peeled in case they spot the elusive Nessie.”
MONSTER FEVER
It was in 1933 that a Mrs MacKay of Drumnadrochit reported seeing something large and strange in the water.
Her story surfaced some months later and after being reported, became hugely famous.
Gary, who records the sightings purely for fun, has a theory as to why.
“The original newspaper report came out months after the release of King Kong, and there’s a suggestion that the world was in the grip of monster fever, which is why it caught the imagination.
“Sightings have declined since the turn of the century but they are cyclical, and there are times when interest is greater. For example, in the 1960s, when the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau was backed by MP David James it made it feel official and something to be taken seriously.
“There was also lots of interest in the 1990s when TV show, The X Files was popular.
“There was no big monster movie last year.”
While some have suggested global warming and climate change may be responsible for fewer sightings, Gary thinks modern technology could actually be to blame for Nessie’s ‘disappearance.’
“With the advent of smartphones everybody can take a video or photograph quickly and because of that, I think people are taking a picture of what they have seen, then perhaps checking it against pictures and videos online and dismissing it,” said Gary.
Last year, bookmaker William Hill failed to pay out a £1,000 prize for the best Nessie sighting of the year.
“Three photographs were submitted but these could be explained as waves and a duck,” said Gary.
But given the number of eye-witness accounts, there must surely be something lurking beneath the deep, dark waters?
“If you put this to a court, given the hundreds of eye witness evidence, it would be an absolute given there is a Loch Ness Monster.
“Even when you take out the dubious and fake sightings you are left with two or three sightings every decade which can’t be explained.”
LOOPHOLES IN BIOLOGY
Naturalist Adrian Shine, leader of the Loch Ness & Morar Project, has been engaged in fieldwork in the Highlands since moving here in the 1970s when he constructed the manned underwater observation chamber, “Machan”.
“The loch was an ice cube until 12,000 years ago which does limit what could be living in it,” said Mr Shine.
“The loch is very unproductive but there is no evidence of it becoming polluted, just some signs there is a little more nutrition than there was.
“There are sightings, but whether or not they are registered depends on Mr Campbell.
“People could be seeing a great variety of things – boat wakes, seals, swimming deer, logs and other floating debris.
“The issue is, could occasionally something come into the loch and leave again?
“The biggest creatures we have in Loch Ness come up the River Ness – seals and salmon.
“The 60ft Loch Ness Monster as suggested by the classic pictures is not really a possibility and hasn’t been considered a possibility for some 20 years by the investigators. What we are looking for are little loopholes in biology as nature surprises us – in nature the rules are there to be broken – and witnesses may have seen a large and unusual creature in Loch Ness.
“The Loch Ness monster is nothing like the stereotypes out there but it is not impossible that witnesses might have seen, on occasion, creatures that are unusual to Loch Ness which doesn’t mean they are new to science, but the biological possibilities are there and nature sometimes breaks the rules.”
Mr Shine said he is still the sceptical investigator he’s known to be and has himself suggested the ‘monster’ could be sturgeon.
“I have no evidence that sturgeon ever entered the loch but there’s no reason whey they shouldn’t,” he said.
“If a duck can cause a sighting then a sturgeon measuring nine to 12 feet long would be a fairly good monster.”
Citing a combination of investigative evidence and gadgetry as to the lack of recent reported sightings, he said: “Judging size and distance over water is fairly difficult but I think people have become rather more familiar with water in their leisure activities and are becoming more discerning in what they see.”
So does he think Nessie exists?
“The only reason I didn’t go home was because I hadn’t got to the bottom of how the classic pictures had been faked but also because the eye witness testimony was quite compelling.
“There’s no reason why, based on scientific evidence, there should be a Loch Ness Monster, but on the other hand, looking at human evidence, there has to be.
“If we were having this argument in a court of law we might be able to carry the point, but if we’re trying to make a scientific argument then we’d have considerable difficulty.”