LOCH NESS MONSTER

19 April 2012

- FI-NESS -

19 April 1934 -  The famous 'Surgeon's Photo' of the Loch Ness Monster is taken.

Loch Ness, or Loch Nis in Gaelic, is a large, deep freshwater lakein the Scottish Highlands, which extends for about 37 km southwest of Inverness. It is the second largest loch (lake) in Scotland, with a surface area of 56.4 km2, but is the largest in volume. It is 226 m deep at its deepest point. For centuries, witnesses have reported sighting a large monster with a long neck in Loch Ness, Scotland. Famous photographs have been proven to be hoaxes, but still the myth of the monster has persisted.

One such photograph was supposedly taken by surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson on 19 April 1934. The photograph appears to show the long neck and head of an unidentified water creature rising from the lake's surface. The picture, which became famously known as 'the surgeon's photo', was touted as absolute evidence of the existence of the Loch Ness monster. Sixty years later, on 12 March 1994, a big game hunter by the name of Marmaduke Wetherell admitted on his deathbed that he had faked the photograph. Dr Wilson's name had only been included to add credibility to the photograph, which was in fact nothing more than a fake serpent neck attached to the back of a toy submarine.