Probably not to find a person who has never heard of the monster from the Scottish Loch Ness.
The first mention of him dates back to the 6th century AD, and from the 20th century they tried to photograph and shoot him on video. True, all photos and videos turned out to be either blurry, or it was generally difficult to understand what was depicted on them. But this does not slow down the flow of tourists and researchers who come to Scotland every year with the hope of finally "catching Nessie".
Typical reports of an encounter with the Loch Ness monster look like this. A person or group of people suddenly see something dark on the surface, they can make out a head and a long neck, sometimes humps. This does not last long, the monster dives and disappears from sight.
“It was big and black,” said farmer Hugh Ayton, “there was no breeze or noise on the lake. But it moved steadily forward. It moved across the lake, and as we approached it, we could see the details. The long neck protruded two meters above the water, and the head resembled a horse's, but was larger and flatter. The body seemed to consist of three low humps, it was about 12 meters long and four meters high. The color was dark and the skin was rough. I memorized well the oval eyes at the top of the head. I will never forget how they looked at us."
Once, six people watched through a pub window as a monster swam across the lake for about 0.8 kilometers. It had a head like a snake and a neck that rose and fell, and also moved from side to side. People clearly distinguished two humps and a wide tail pounding on the water. As if enchanted, they watched the creature until it slowly disappeared under the water.
One of the snapshots of something in the water in Loch Ness
The animal was also encountered on land, although there are few reports of this. George Spicer, a businessman from London, and his wife were driving along the beach one summer when suddenly “a hideous creature with a long neck and a body about 9 meters long crossed the path. It looks like it was holding a lamb or something similar in its mouth."
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In the mid-1950s, the first sonar scan of Loch Ness was performed. It revealed that in the lake at great depths there are unidentified giant objects that can independently rise, fall and maneuver in the water column. The answer to the question of what these objects can be has not yet been received.
A mysterious object, similar to the diamond-shaped fin of an ancient lizard, appeared in the photograph during 1972 research using sonar and photographic equipment under the direction of American researcher Dr. Robert Raines
Who is Nessie? For many decades, the most popular version has been that of plesiosaurs, a small population of which survived the last glaciation and survived in the lake.
Supporters of this version recall the capture in 1938 of a live coelacanth, a large prehistoric fish that was believed to have shared the fate of the plesiosaurs.
Plesiosaur
But these latter are not the only creatures that claim to be Nessie. There is a theory according to which Nessie is an enlarged version of the oldest worm. One of the constant researchers of the phenomenon, former marine engineer F. Holiday, believed that the creature was a giant water worm, previously found only in fossil remains.
But few agreed with him. However, in tropical ocean waters there really is a predatory polychaetal worm (the so-called "Bobbit worm"), reaching a length of 2-3 meters (very thin, only 2.5 cm thick). The worm spends all the time, digging in the sand and sticking out only a part of its jaws, waiting for prey (small fish). The worm does not really look like Nessie (as most eyewitnesses describe her).
Predatory 'bobbit worm' on the hunt
Given that the creature that could be mistaken for Nessie must be not only long, but also voluminous, then only some invertebrates, such as the giant squid and the octopus, are large enough to catch up with the plesiosaur attributed to Nessie in size, but they are also are nothing like him.
Many researchers, including Adrian Schein, an amateur naturalist from London, admit that it is just a large fish, a species of eel. Loch Ness is rich in salmon and eels, both of which grow to significant sizes. In addition, they swim quickly, occasionally emerge.
But opponents are categorical: fish do not change horizons as fast as something does according to sonar observations. In addition, the eel wriggles from side to side, and Nessie, according to eyewitnesses, is up and down. And if it's a fish, they add, then what about land-based encounters?
All of these cons have reduced the number of animals "suspected of involvement" in the Loch Ness monster. Only mammals remained. According to scientists, only representatives of several orders - pinnipeds, sirens and cetaceans - can reach the size of a monster and are able to live for a long time in fresh water.
Researcher Mekel, having sorted out candidates - from a giant slug to a giant amphibian - decided to limit himself to zeuglodon, a primitive whale believed to be extinct 70 million years ago.
Zeuglodon
In 2005, Neil Clark, curator of paleontology at the University of Glasgow Museum, matched the first reliable data from sightings of the monster to a travel chart of traveling circuses on the road to Inverness. And I came to the conclusion that the locals did not see prehistoric dinosaurs, but bathing elephants.
The scientist found out that most of the reports about Nessie refer to 1933 and subsequent years. It was at this time that traveling circuses stopped in the vicinity of the lake on their way to Inverness.
Of course, long-necked seals and otters remain the most likely candidates for the monster role. But Nessie's supporters, who believe that this is generally an unknown creature, continue to argue that seals are too sociable and gregarious creatures, which every now and then, frolic in the water, get out in groups ashore.
Otters are more shy and withdrawn animals, but they are not so aquatic as to constantly live and reproduce in the water element, as this monster probably does. And they cannot dive to a depth of two hundred meters, at which the sonars detected large moving objects.
This photo was published in the British media in September 2016 with the caption "The most convincing photo of Nessie's existence." Photo by amateur photographer Ian Bremner. In the vicinity of Loch Ness, he was looking for a deer to photograph and suddenly saw something floating in the lake. The overwhelming majority are sure that just three seals swimming one after another are filmed here, which is the answer to the Loch Ness monster.