Nessie: The Problem of the World's Most Famous Photo Being a Toy Submarine

When it comes to the king of cryptids, it really has to be this guy.
Nessie.
That monster said to inhabit Loch Ness in Scotland. You probably have an image of it in your head, too. A long neck, jutting out from the dark lake surface. A dinosaur-like silhouette.
That's the one. That single photo.
Actually, while that photo is the most famous UMA photo in the world, its true identity is rather pathetic.
Today, I'm going to carefully peel back the mask of that king of monsters. So, shall we begin?

Chapter 1: "That one photo changed the world"

The story goes back to 1934.
That year, a photo was published in the British newspaper, the Daily Mail. A long neck standing straight up on the dark water. That famous one. It was supposedly taken by a London doctor, Robert Kenneth Wilson.
The fact that it was "taken by a doctor" was effective. People thought, "It's not just a drunkard's mistake; a doctor took it." It gained credibility all at once. This photo spread across the world under the nickname, the "Surgeon's Photograph."
……However, as will become relevant later, this Mr. Wilson wasn't even a surgeon. In reality, he was an obstetrician.
What kind of nickname is that, which falls apart at the first reveal?
Regardless, the silhouette of the long neck made people think: "This is a surviving dinosaur." A plesiosaur that should have been in the ocean. Could it be that one remained in Loch Ness? It's romantic. Everyone gets a little excited by that.
And so, Nessie took the throne as the king of UMAs. With just a single photo.

Chapter 2: "Why did it suddenly appear in 1933?"

Now, there is one thing that bothers me here.
When did the story of the Loch Ness monster begin?
The oldest record is said to date back as far as 565 AD. There is a biography remaining of Saint Columba, who came from Ireland and drove away a "water monster" that was about to attack a person in the River Ness. That was 1,500 years ago.
Is that true? Well, this is a story meant to tell of a saint's miracle, so we can't take it at face value.
However, the strange thing starts from there. Even though there is a record from 1,500 years ago, after that, the sightings go completely quiet. Where did the monster go?
It suddenly increases in 1933.
The reason is clear: that year, a proper road was built along the shore of Loch Ness. The lake became easier to see. The number of people passing by in cars increased significantly. So, what happens? The number of people who "saw it" increased all at once.
In May of that same year, 1933, a sighting by Mrs. Mackay, who ran a hotel by the lake, was published in a local newspaper, and at that time, a reporter wrote of the lake's master as a "monster." From here, the "Loch Ness Monster," nicknamed Nessie, really started to take off.
And, you see, this commotion happened just four days after the movie "King Kong" was released in Scotland. That movie where giant dinosaur-like creatures run wild.
Right after the image of a "giant ancient creature" was firmly imprinted in people's minds. At that exact timing, the lake became easy to see.
……It's like the stage was set too perfectly.

Chapter 3: "Let's speak calmly here"

Now, let's go back to that "Surgeon's Photograph." It's time for the reveal.
This, you see, completely falls apart years later from the mouths of the people involved themselves.
The origin of the story is a hunter named Marmaduke Wetherell, who was looking for big game. This man was actually the leader of a Nessie investigation team hired by the Daily Mail. He came to the lake with great fanfare.
And he grandly announced at the lakeside, "I've discovered Nessie's footprints!" However, when they investigated, those footprints were made by a hippo's foot. A hippo's foot that was being used as an umbrella stand—that was the trace of him patting it down.
Naturally, he was laughed at by the public. The team leader lost all face.
And here is where it gets very human. He held a grudge.
"If that's how it is, I'll make some evidence that looks real and get back at them."
And that is how that photo was made. As for what it was—a toy submarine. It was a model with a 30-centimeter neck made of clay attached to it.
A toy!?
The world's most famous king of UMAs, its true identity is a toy submarine. The model was made by Wetherell's son-in-law, Mr. Spurling. And since it would be suspicious if they said they took it themselves, they borrowed the "doctor" title of their acquaintance, Dr. Wilson, and submitted it to the Daily Mail.
It seems it was initially intended as a lighthearted April Fool's prank. However, it became a global sensation, and they couldn't back down.
And so, for sixty years.
The first time it was leaked that "it was a prank" was in 1975. The final blow was a confession by Mr. Spurling, who made the model, just before he passed away, which was reported by the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph in 1994.
Moreover, you see, it didn't even have to wait for the confession. In the 1960s, it had already been pointed out that "given the size of the waves in the photo, the object shown is only a few dozen centimeters long." In the 1980s, the original photo showing the opposite shore was found, and it was revealed that the subject was small. That famous photo had been cropped specifically to hide that small size.
The king had been naked for quite a long time.

Chapter 4: "So, does Nessie not exist?"

The photo is a fake. I understand.
But just because one photo was a fake doesn't mean Nessie doesn't exist, right? You'd want to say that. I do, too.
So, I'm going to tell you something a bit colder.
First, if Nessie were truly a surviving plesiosaur, there are many problems. Reptiles breathe with lungs, so they would have to show their faces on the surface of the water constantly. If so, sightings should happen almost every day. Also, a species cannot continue with just one individual, so it would be strange if there weren't dozens of them. Yet, not a single bone or carcass has been found.
And the final blow is the latest science.
Between 2018 and 2019, Professor Neil Gemmell and his team at the University of Otago in New Zealand did something amazing. Environmental DNA testing. It's a method of scooping up lake water and reading every single fragment of DNA from living things drifting in it.
Even without looking for the creature, you can tell "what is there."
The result: DNA from fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals appeared. But not a single fragment of DNA from a large reptile like a plesiosaur appeared.
Instead, something was detected in unusually large quantities. Eels.
From that, Professor Gemmell and his team said: "Nessie's true identity might be an exceptionally large eel."
……It's an eel. The candidate for the true identity of that dinosaur-like silhouette.
There are other theories, too: driftwood, otters, water birds, waves pulled by boats. There's even a theory that someone mistook a circus elephant on tour swimming with only its trunk above the water. Perhaps you were being fooled by an elephant.
A zoologist at Oxford University even said it more clearly: it is "biologically impossible" for a creature like Nessie to exist.

In the end, what was Nessie?

Hearing this much, it feels like the end of the story. The photo is a fake, science denies it, the true identity is probably an eel. Yes, dismissed.
But, you see.
This is the strangest part.
That photo was exposed as a fake in 1994. Even now, more than thirty years later, tourists from all over the world come to Loch Ness. People who peer into the lake and set up their cameras never cease.
The evidence collapsed. Science denied it. Yet, the legend itself did not die.
I think that humans, perhaps, don't want to let go of the "what if" more than the "true identity."
People want to peer into a lake that still has no answer rather than a mystery that has been completely solved. Even if told it's an eel, somewhere in their hearts, they want to think, "No, even so." That "even so" might be the true identity of Nessie.
So, finally, I want to ask you.
Even knowing that the photo was a toy submarine—if you were to stand on the shore of Loch Ness, could you refrain from peering into that dark water?
Next time, we'll leave the lake and head into the forest. The next opponent is a hairy giant who leaves behind only huge footprints.