The Scottish Highlands draw the attention of worldwide visitors because of its unique beauty, untamed nature and turbulent history. A powerful place, the Highlands has everything a visitor could want including stunning scenery, fascinating legends, tales of heroism and of course, stories of strange creatures lurking in the lochs and glens. However, the most famous of them all is the legend of the Loch Ness monster – the world famous Nessie.
As we know, there are many stories about different monsters from various countries and parts of the world. But, the fact is, most of them belong in the past. The story of Nessie, however, keeps coming to the fore and over and over, this she appears and captures our imagination.
This intriguing ‘monster’ is described as being quite large in size, with a long neck and probably one or m ore humps – in fact, some say that she resembles a long extinct species of dinosaurs. More than that, there are 1082 recorded sightings with the most recent being just last year and the oldest one from 565 AD.
Wow! That’s what I thought when I read this date – 565 AD? That’s almost 1500 years ago and people are still saying that Nessie exists. In my opinion, though, there is something that rings true about this story… There’s a great site – www.lochnesssightings.com , where I’ve found plenty of interesting facts about Loch Ness monster and in my case, until I read them, these were unfamiliar facts – information that you wouldn’t associate with something that most people think is just a myth.
Gary Campbell, the Registrar of Sightings at Loch Ness says ‘It’s not just Nessie that fascinates people – did you know that in Scotland alone, there are 23 other lochs (in addition to Loch Ness) where sightings of unknown creatures have been noted …’ Yes, I know that Scotland’s rich in lochs, but as for the monsters, until now I’d really heard just of the Loch Ness monster. Amazing…
It’s also fascinating that 2016 had the highest number of sightings since 2000. And, what’s more important, all of them had photographic evidence. More interestingly, the last two sightings of Nessie happened on 21 August at exactly the same time but 12 miles apart. This could be an evidence of more than one creature living in the loch. So, Nessie is not alone? Again – wow! Somehow to me this is both thrilling and scary at the same time. And more – as well as this photographic evidence, in 2016 research by a local university professor recorded unknown sounds in the mysterious loch. It appears that Nessie is much more than just a legend.
When you read about this monster on the net or any other available resources, it’s interesting that this, or more likely, these creatures, appear suddenly, show themselves, more or less, for a few seconds and then calmly disappear. They have never attacked anyone, it seems they are a bit shy, and they don’t put on a big show. In some cases, they appear when very few people were around and in others, the eyewitnesses spot them somewhere in the distance. On the other hand, some people have observed them close up while they were cruising along the loch – this could be slightly more scary if you ask me.
Amazingly then, it seems that 1500 years on from the first sighting, these interesting creatures still live on today. Maybe they admire people the same way people admire them. Who knows what they are … but only time will tell. But, when? Many Loch Ness monster fans feel the intrigue heighten every time someone reports a new sighting of the Nessie or ‘her friends’. Of course we look forward to the day when someone will solve the enigma. But until that happens, we’ll all have to just enjoy new stories and photos that appear every year about this world famous legend.
