Loch Ness Monster

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speculation that a plesiosaur had survived from prehistoric times and was living in the lake.

The most famous picture of Nessiteras Rhombopteryx, to give Nessie its full name, came from the camera of the London gynecologist Robert Wilson. On April 19, 1934 Wilson reported seeing "something on the water" and took a snap: a long neck of the monster had just emerged from the ice-cold water. But it later turned out that Wilson belonged to a team of five who had set out to play a trick on the media. Shortly before his death in 1993, Christian Spurling, one of the "conspirators", explained his part in the great deception to Loch Ness researchers David Martin and Alastair Boyd. Marmaduke Wetherell, a film producer, although at the time a reporter for the Daily Mail investigating the existence of Nessie, his son Jan and the insurance agent Maurice Chambers were also present. According to the Sunday Times, Spurling, an amateur woodworker, had rigged up a dinosaur dummy on a toy submarine. The ruse worked perfectly.

A host of snapshots and eye-witness reports followed, not to mention a growing stream of visitors. Most descriptions of the beast say it resembles a large sea reptile from the era of tropical dinosaurs. It is said to have a long neck, a small head, fins and several humps, but these features match those of certain species of sea snake.