What is the Loch Ness Monster?

Mira (0:00)

Welcome to History's Not Boring by kidopoli.com. I'm Mira.

Finn (0:05)

And I'm Finn.

Mira (0:06)

Before we dive in, a huge eighth birthday hello to Viola in Western New York.

Finn (0:12)

Happy birthday, Viola. We hear you're listening with your sister Margo and brother Wesley.

Mira (0:18)

Big shout outs also to Arrow in California, who is nearly seven, Ollie, who is five in Texas, and Enrique, seven in Alberta.

Finn (0:28)

And to Tori, who is 10, and Theodore, six, who are moving to Germany.

Mira (0:33)

You all asked for an episode about Bigfoot, Yetis, and the Loch Ness Monster. So this one is for all of you.

Finn (0:40)

If you haven't already, tap follow wherever you're listening, so you never miss an episode.

Mira (0:46)

Okay, Finn, imagine a lake so massive, it holds 263 billion cubic feet of water.

Finn (0:54)

Whoa, how big is that exactly?

Mira (0:57)

It's enough to hold all the water from every single lake in England and Wales combined.

Finn (1:03)

That's humongous! What's hiding in there?

Mira (1:07)

For nearly a hundred years, people have claimed a gigantic, dinosaur-like monster lives in those dark, freezing waters.

Finn (1:16)

A dinosaur? Alive today?

Mira (1:18)

Exactly, and it's not just under the water. High in the snowy Himalayas, mountaineers have found giant footprints of the Yeti.

Finn (1:27)

And what about in the forests? People always talk about Bigfoot.

Mira (1:31)

Yep, today we are hunting down the facts behind the world's most famous mystery creatures. These mystery animals are called cryptids, creatures that people claim to see, but science hasn't proven they exist.

Finn (1:45)

So, where do we start our monster hunt?

Mira (1:48)

Let's go to Scotland, to a giant lake called Loch Ness. It is 23 miles long, over a mile wide and a staggering 754 feet deep.

Finn (2:00)

That is way too deep. The water must be freezing and pitch black.

Mira (2:05)

It is, because it's filled with dark peat washed in from the hills. You can barely see anything underwater.

That makes it the perfect hiding spot.

Finn (2:15)

When did people first start seeing this monster?

Mira (2:18)

The very first story goes all the way back to the year 565 An Irish missionary named St. Columba supposedly chased a water beast away to save a swimmer.

Finn (2:30)

Whoa, so it's a super ancient legend.

Mira (2:33)

Yes, but the modern craze really kicked off in 1933 A hotel manager named Aldi McKay was driving near the lake on April 15th.

Finn (2:44)

What did she see?

Mira (2:45)

She saw something massive, dark, and rolling in the water.

She called it a whale-like beast. Her story was printed in the Inverness Korea newspaper, and suddenly everyone flocked to Scotland looking for Nessie.

Finn (2:59)

I bet the Yeti has a cool origin story too.

Mira (3:03)

It does. In the Himalayas, local Sherpa people had told legends about the Yeti, a wild man there, for centuries.

But the world went crazy for it in 1951

Finn (3:14)

What happened then?

Mira (3:16)

A famous British explorer named Eric Shipton was exploring the Men Lung Glacier near Mount Everest, scouting routes to the top.

Finn (3:24)

Mount Everest is huge.

Mira (3:26)

Exactly. He was hiking at a freezing altitude of 19,000 feet when he spotted a line of strange, bare footprints stamped into the hard snow.

Finn (3:37)

How big were they?

Mira (3:38)

He photographed them next to an ice axe. The prints were 13 inches long and nearly twice as broad as a normal human boot.

Finn (3:47)

13 inches? That is bigger than a standard ruler.

Mira (3:50)

So Eric Shipton's photograph made the Yeti world famous. But Loch Ness had an even more famous picture taken in 1934

Finn (4:00)

Wait, who took it?

Mira (4:02)

A London doctor named Robert Kenneth Wilson.

He claimed he saw a monster, grabbed his camera and snapped four photos. It became known as the surgeon's photograph.

Finn (4:14)

What did it look like? Let me guess, giant teeth?

Mira (4:18)

Not quite. It showed a long snake-like neck and a tiny head rising out of the dark, rippling water.

People thought it looked exactly like an extinct marine dinosaur called a plesiosaur.

Finn (4:31)

No way! Did scientists actually believe a dinosaur survived for 65 million years?

Mira (4:38)

Many people believed it for 60 years.

It was printed in newspapers around the globe. It was considered the best proof of the Loch Ness Monster.

Finn (4:48)

Wait, you said they believed it for 60 years. What happened next?

Mira (4:54)

Well, in the 1990s, the truth finally came out. One of the men involved confessed on his deathbed that it was a total hoax.