Loch Ness monster. Loch Ness lake in Scotland. Last photo of the Loch Ness monster

On the territory of Scotland, surrounded by mountain ranges, lies the deepest and most mysterious lake in Great Britain - Loch Ness. Millions of tourists annually come to its shores to admire the beauties of the surrounding nature and in the hope of seeing with their own eyes the secret of Loch Ness, the famous monster Nessie.

The lake owes its formation to geological processes that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. Due to the abundance of peat deposits in the ground, the fresh waters of the glacial lake are muddy. Its length is about 40 km, the greatest width exceeds 2 km, and the depth of Loch Ness reaches 230 meters. Fog almost always creeps over the surface of the lake in the morning.

The surroundings of Loch Ness are no less interesting than the lake itself, and also deserve attention.

City of Inverness.

The port city of Inverness is the starting point for a trip around the lake. It attracts tourists with its unusual view, which shows a kind of cocktail of architectural styles from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The Museum of History and Art contains works of art made by Pictish craftsmen, early Neolithic artifacts and household items that tell about the life of hill tribes in different eras.

In the city of Inverness you can see St. Andrew's Cathedral, built in the 60s of the XIX century and erected in the Gothic style. It is famous for its similarity with the Parisian Notre Dame and keeps five icons donated by the Russian emperor.

On the site of the once destroyed inverness castle now rises a new one, built in the XIX-XX centuries. Its architecture is stylized after the Middle Ages and includes towers of various configurations: square, round and octagonal.

In local pubs, you can participate in traditional feasts, listen to folk music and taste local ale or whiskey, which is the hallmark of Scotland. By the way, you can take a tour of one of the many distilleries, with a mandatory tasting.

At a distance of 10 km from Iverness stands, built in the XIV century cawdor castle, known to the whole world from the works of Shakespeare. King Macbeth once lived here.

Drumnadrohit village.

In the village of Drumnadrohit there is a museum dedicated to the monster of Loch Ness. The museum with two exhibition centers presents expositions that allow tourists to get acquainted with the legends and history of the study of Nessie, the first mention of which is known from the Romans.

Today, the sight of Loch Ness can be seen in 3D using special glasses, or you can watch modern interactive exhibits and a laser show. To keep the memory of visiting the museum and the lake, tourists buy all kinds of souvenirs and take pictures near statue of the loch ness monster.

Urquhart Castle.

On the shores of Loch Ness are the ruins of Urquhart Castle, built in the 13th-16th centuries. In the northern part of the castle, the Grant Tower, five stories high, has been preserved. Visitors climb it to admire the beauties of nature and in the hope of seeing Nessie. Near the ruins of the castle stands a real catapult, with the help of which Urkarth was destroyed in the 17th century.

Fort Augustus.

In the western part of the Scottish Loch Ness stands Fort Augustus. You can look at the traditional life of a Scottish farmer by visiting a working farm. But the main attraction of the fort is the "Stairs of Neptune" - the Caledonian Canal starting here, consisting of 29 locks.

Fort William.

The main tourist center of Loch Ness in Scotland is Fort William, located at Mount Ben Nevis, the highest point in the UK. Here you can ride a funicular and enjoy stunning views of mountain landscapes, in winter you can ski down the mountain. A favorite pastime for tourists is a ride on an old steam locomotive from the Harry Potter films on a railway that runs between the mountains. Fans of outdoor activities will be interested in routes designed for hiking and cycling.

This is one of the largest and mysterious reservoirs in Europe! It is hidden in the Scottish highlands, it is surrounded by mountains and cliffs on all sides. The length of Loch Ness is about 40 km, and the width is no more than 1 km. The depth of the lake - more than 300 m - makes it the third largest lake in Europe in terms of volume. The legend says that in its icy depths, opaque and dark, like night, lives ... the Loch Ness monster! We'll talk about him.

Whatever they call it: water kelpie, sea horse, lake bull, gloomy spirit. Be that as it may, parents from century to century forbid their children to be or play near this reservoir. Some superstitious people still believe that the Loch Ness monster (photos 1, 2, 3) may well turn into a galloping horse, grab a child and put him on his back, and then plunge into the abyss with a small and helpless rider!

Who saw the Loch Ness monster?

One of the first and most striking observations dates back to the 1880s. It was then that the boatman Duncan McDonald, who later became famous, was looking for a boat sunken in the lake. But something happened under water, and he emerged from the lake like a bullet! His face was contorted in fear. When he was brought to his senses, MacDonald but quite articulately said that he had seen the Loch Ness monster. He especially remembered his eye - small, vicious, gray ... Since then, more than 3 thousand various eyewitness accounts have been accumulated, who, under certain circumstances, allegedly observed the Loch Ness monster from the shore and from the boat. According to them, it appeared during the day. Today, scientists are confident that the size and appearance of this uncaught creature depends on the imagination of a person.

Everyone saw the monster!

Nessie (as he was called) was seen by people of various professions: from farmers to clergymen. Fishermen, lawyers, policemen, politicians and even ... the winner - the Englishman Richard Singe, spoke about him! Allegedly, he watched the monster back in 1938.

Useless Research

Expensive expeditions were equipped. They explored Loch Ness for months, conducting research and experiments, examining its surface with binoculars, and also hired special mini-submarines to scan the lake depths using the most modern electronic devices.

Search results

Hundreds of hours of intense work spent on the lake searching for the monster, a whole library of books and articles written on the subject of the Loch Ness monster, a bunch of photographs that allegedly depict the real Loch Ness lizard, several festivals called "Nessie", dozens of high-profile revelations and ... one real proof of value! So far, no ancient bones or a piece of skin from this plesiosaur have been found.

Not caught, so not a thief!

In general, not a single obvious evidence of the existence of some ancient lizard in a Scottish lake has been presented to the judgment of experts and scientists. But be that as it may, the most mysterious lake in the world - Loch Ness - still keeps its most important secret. Who knows, maybe Nessie is biding her time, and soon we will all open our mouths in surprise?

Nessie is just such an affectionate name given to the mysterious inhabitant of the mysterious Scottish lake Loch Ness. Is it really some strange creature hiding in the dark depths of Loch Ness, or is it fiction to attract tourists? Let's try to figure it out by analyzing the facts and legends.

Where is Loch Ness located?

This rather large body of water with an area of ​​65 sq. km is located in the Highland region of Scotland in the UK. It is part of the Caledonian Canal, which connects two sea coasts. The depth of Loch Ness reaches 230 meters, the width is about one and a half kilometers, and the length is 37 km. It is the second largest lake in Scotland. Thanks to such an impressive size, Loch Ness has become the largest "reservoir" of fresh water in Great Britain. The water here is not transparent due to large accumulations of peat. Interesting climatic phenomena are also observed: in sunny weather in the evening, the surface of the lake is covered with thick fog. Also, the seiche effect is often noticed here - peculiar fluctuations in the water surface when standing waves form.

All this adds mystery to the lake, which has long become famous far beyond the boundaries of Foggy Albion.

What is Loch Ness hiding?

The history of Loch Ness began many centuries ago, when glacial waters gathered in the Great Glen geological fault. In this area, many reservoirs are of glacial origin, and Loch Ness is no exception. If you look at the map of Loch Ness online, you are unlikely to notice anything special. Here, in fact, the landscapes are typical for Scotland, and there are no extremely interesting sights. There are several villages on the shore, there are artificial islands (crannogs) and Urquhart Castle. But it is unlikely that this attracted so many tourists. And according to statistics, about two million tourists come to stare at the water surface of Loch Ness every year! They are all attracted here by the hope of seeing the monster of Loch Ness, which, according to legend, lurks in the dark depths.

old legend

The first description in which the Loch Ness monster is mentioned refers to the year 565. This story is contained in the annals of the authorship of the abbot Jon. The priest tells about the incident that happened to St. Columbus. As the saint passed by the lake, he witnessed a funeral procession. The locals were burying a fisherman who they claimed was killed by a lake monster. The saint decided to make sure that the deceased was not possessed by evil spirits. He asked the student to drag the boat with the body of the deceased back to the shore. When the student jumped into the lake, the monster's head appeared there. But Saint Columbus began to pray, and the monster disappeared into the water depths. By the way, in those days, the monster had a different name - Nisag. And the local Celts, seeing the miracle of taming the monster, became Christians en masse.

Even more ancient references, however, only in the form of drawings, belong to the Roman period. The ancient Romans, who lived in these parts even before our era, left cave paintings with images of various animals. But among the "portraits" of representatives of the local fauna, a drawing of an unidentified animal resembling a plesiosaur was found. But these marine mammals lived at least several tens of millions of years before our era. Therefore, suggestions have been put forward that the ancient Romans discovered this strange animal in the waters of Loch Ness.

Evidence and opinions of researchers

Collected many thousands of eyewitness accounts who were lucky enough to see the Loch Ness monster. But it is quite obvious that most of them, like the photo of Loch Ness, where a large head on a long neck rises above the water surface, are fiction and fake.

But on some photo and video materials, traces of forgery still could not be found. In particular, these are video footage by Tim Dinsdale and Gordon Holmes. In both cases, a creature moving at a sufficiently high speed is filmed. These videos were found to be reliable after numerous examinations. But neither on them, nor on any other more or less reliable evidence, one can clearly see what an underwater inhabitant looks like. The only thing that can be stated is that the creature has a huge size (about 15 meters in length).

Researchers are divided on the origin of the monster. Some argue that, perhaps, this is some kind of mutated representative of sturgeons. Others insist that the large aquatic beast is nothing more than a plesiosaur that has survived to this day.

Official science refutes both versions. According to scientists, such a large animal, as the Loch Ness monster is represented, simply cannot survive due to lack of food. The amount of biomass in the lake is limited to twenty tons, which is extremely small for a pangolin weighing 25 tons and 15 meters in length. Another argument is the long ice age in Scotland, which ended around the 10th millennium BC. Obviously, large animals such as dinosaurs could not survive in such conditions.

However, researchers are not at all embarrassed by the scientific point of view - they are sure that the animal could make its way to the sea through a system of underground tunnels.

• The Loch Ness monster is the real national pride of the Scots. In 1933, when interest was at its peak, the British planned to find and destroy the monster in order to subsequently install an exhibit in the British Museum. These plans so outraged the Scots that Nessie was going to be protected at the legislative level.
• The mystery of Loch Ness attracts not only researchers, but also filmmakers. Many films have been made about the mysterious inhabitant of the lake depths.
• Near the lake there is a museum of the Loch Ness monster, so everyone who was not lucky enough to see it with their own eyes is given the opportunity to “get acquainted” in absentia.

The "best" photo of the Loch Ness monster was taken by 60-year-old George Edwards - the picture has already been studied by the US military experts and recognized it as genuine . To capture the monster, the Nessie hunter has spent 60 hours a week for the past 26 years. The author of the photo believes that there are several similar monsters in the lake.

"It was slowly moving up the lake to Urquhart Castle, it was something dark gray in color. It was quite far from the boat - about half a mile," Edwards told The Sun. He did not want to publish the picture he received until he received confirmation from experts - the photo was taken back in November last year.

A photo taken by Edwards shows a strange hump sticking out of the water. The experts concluded that the image is a moving object. According to Edwards, he watched Nessie for about 10 minutes, after which it sank under the water and disappeared.

Loch Ness is a large deep freshwater lake in Scotland, stretching for 37 km southwest of Inverness.

It is curious that modern technology has repeatedly spotted the Loch Ness monster. In April, Captain Martin Atkinson said that the echo sounder on his ship found a snake-like creature one and a half meters long in the depths of the famous lake. He provided evidence of this. His shot won the "Best Recent Nessie Observation" award, established by bookmaker William Hill.

The first mention of the Loch Ness monster dates back to 565 AD, when in the biography of St. Columba, Abbot Jonah spoke about the saint's triumph over the "water beast" in the Ness River. Since then, the world has been divided into those who believed in the existence of a monster, and those who considered it impossible.

Maybe some kind of hefty fish swims there?

Well, in general, you can collect such photos of this monster on the Internet, though I won’t vouch for the authenticity :-)

With a snake head and neck, living in the Scottish Loch Ness. According to legend, the Roman legionnaires were the first to tell the world about the mysterious monster. For a long time, nothing was known about the existence of the lake monster, until in the spring of 1933, the Mackay spouses first reported to the newspaper about a meeting with an unknown animal. Driving along the road that runs close to the lake, they watched as an unknown huge size appeared from the thickness of the lake, resembling a cross between a lizard and a fish. The monster remained on the surface of the lake for no more than twenty seconds, after which it sank under the water and did not appear again.

Since the construction of this road, which runs along the coast of Loch Ness, people have noted almost five thousand appearances of the Loch Ness monster. After the McKays reported about the meeting with the monster, local newspapers seized on the sensation that became known to the masses. After this, the revival of the ancient legend of the water monster began, which began to be called the Loch Ness monster or Nessie. The Loch Ness monster resurfaced a few years later, when new disturbing reports of a huge monster began to appear. Numerous witnesses claimed that they observed “movements of a huge lizard” in the water column, several times traces were found on the coast, which a crawling animal could leave behind.

Scientists became interested in the Loch Ness monster and began to regularly explore the lake with visual methods. But soon the effectiveness of visual research did not bear fruit, and scientists went the other way - they began to listen to Loch Ness with sound scanning. The first operation of this kind was carried out in the middle of the twentieth century, and since then work in this area has continued continuously. The use of sonar water scanning allowed scientists to learn many important things about Loch Ness, for example, they were able to calculate the total amount of biomass in the lake - a very important circumstance that is directly related to the possibility of the existence of the Loch Ness monster. In addition, the study of sound revealed the presence of the seiche effect in the water, which causes optical illusion. This is the sudden occurrence of the strongest short-term flows of water arising from a sharp change in atmospheric pressure. Such currents, dragging large objects along with them, create the illusion of the object moving according to “its own will”. But sound scanning revealed inexplicable facts in the lake. Scientists have recognized that at great depths there are objects of enormous size, which independently descend and rise, moving under water. There is still no exact answer to the question of what these objects are. Confidence in the existence of the Loch Ness monster still raises many questions. In fact, the Loch Ness monster will not be able to live at the bottom of the lake alone. Some kind of offspring must live there, otherwise the giant would have died of old age long ago. But on the other hand, if, for example, a dozen of such monsters live in the water, why do people see them so rarely?

One of the most common and plausible speculations is that the Loch Ness monster may be a plesiosaur that has survived to this day. This is one of the marine reptiles that existed during the age of dinosaurs, which ended about 63 million years ago. Plesiosaurs were very similar to dolphins or sharks, and an expedition of scientists to the lake in 1987 could well support this hypothesis. But the fact is that about ten thousand years ago there was a huge glacier on the site of Loch Ness for a long time, and hardly any animals could survive in the ice water. According to John Grant in one of his books, the Loch Ness monster does not belong to the younger generation of immigrants. The family of the largest marine animals that arrived in Loch Ness several decades or centuries ago has nothing to do with the family of whales or dolphins, otherwise their appearance would often be observed on the surface of Loch Ness. Most likely, we are talking about here, which is rarely shown on the surface; in addition, eyewitnesses could observe different parts of his gigantic body, which can explain the conflicting descriptions of the monster by many witnesses.

The mystery of the Loch Ness monster over the years began to acquire an incredible amount of detail: over the decades, a lot of documentary evidence, photographs of varying reliability, echo sounder recordings and underwater video footage have been provided, but at the same time there is a huge number of fakes. Research will continue further, and perhaps the mystery of the mysterious monster will be solved.

Labynkyr devil

In the east of Yakutia, in the Oymyakonsky district, there is a small lake Labynkyr, about which there are many rumors and legends. In accordance with numerous observations, including shooting from a helicopter, a huge animal lives in the reservoir, presumably of relict origin. In the nearby village of Tomtor, locals claim that the lake is inhabited by strange creatures. Old-timers are happy to answer questions about the newly-minted "Nessie", they say that there is some kind of "devil" in the reservoir that has been living there for a long time. In all nearby districts, the creature was nicknamed the "Labynkyr Devil". Since Lake Labynkyr is located in the northern part of Russia, famous for its low temperatures, the surface of the lake is covered with ice for most of the year. The researchers found that every winter several large polynyas (called locally "devil's windows") appear on the surface of the lake, and next to the polynyas there are traces of some large animal. Officially, science believes that the inhabitants of the water depths are quite well studied, but practice shows the opposite. For the first time the topic of "northern monsters" was raised by the newspaper "Youth of Yakutia" in December 1958. And two years later, the diaries of the head of the geological party V.I. Tverdokhlebov, which also confirmed the existence of a large animal of unknown origin in Yakutia. This post was criticized by many. One of the researchers at the Permafrost Institute suggested that eyewitnesses observed nothing more than a large catfish about five meters in size, weighing up to 300 kg. However, this version was soon refuted - it turned out that catfish had never been found in Labynkyr. In any case, according to existing scientific practice, such reports are certainly considered documentary evidence.

Scientists were interested in Tverdokhlebov's reports, as a result, several expeditions were sent to the lake, which, however, did not bring any convincing results. Cryptozoologists, in turn, put forward their assumptions regarding the natural origin of the "Labynkyr devil": a giant mutant pike, an amphibian or a relic reptile. In 2005, a well-known TV program organized its own expedition to Labynkyr, during which it carried out a number of measurements and studies. With the help of an echo sounder, it was possible to identify an anomalous crack at the bottom of the lake. The deep-sea telesonde allowed the expedition to discover the remains of the jaws and vertebrae of animals at the bottom. We also managed to fix unusual sounds coming from the side of the lake, similar to the roar of an underwater monster. The Acoustics Laboratory of the Research Institute of Oceanology came to the conclusion that the recorded sound is unlike any known to science.

It was also reported about the appearance of a "devil" in the nearby Gateway Lake, but the expedition that went to this lake completely denied the existence of any monsters in it. There are very unusual stories about the monster among the locals. For example, once a monster got out of the depths to the shore and chased a Yakut fisherman, who died on the run from a strong fright. On another occasion, the creature swallowed an adult dog swimming after a thrown stick. But most often, the Yakuts call deer the object of hunting, of which there are many. They tell a terrible incident, how a local reindeer herder tied a team with deer to a tusk sticking out of thin ice. While he was making a fire, a loud crack was heard on the shore - the tusk fell into the broken ice, and something huge carried the deer to the bottom. Neither the team nor the animals themselves were ever found. In part, the existence of the monster is also confirmed by the fact that different eyewitnesses have the same opinions in the descriptions of the monster. They describe it in almost the same way - a huge torso of dark gray color, a large head. According to available evidence, the distance between the eyes of a huge creature is more than a meter. Such dimensions seem incredible, but the find of a local resident helped here. The man accidentally discovered on the shore the jaw of an unknown animal with teeth, which was so large that standing upright under it, a horseman could easily pass. To date, all data on Labynkyrsky, as in the case of "Nessie", have not found direct and indisputable evidence.