He pointed to the 19th- and 20th-Century discoveries of a range of large animals — including the okapi, Komodo dragon and mountain gorilla — as support for his view that other large creatures were still out there to find. The daring proposal that giant mystery primates, lake and sea monsters, and surviving dinosaurs and pterosaurs might really exist — an idea that had always been present at the fringes of the zoological world but was dismissed due to lack of evidence — achieved a modicum of respectability when its proponents elected to form an International Society of Cryptozoology or ISC in Over the years, scant fragments of data were put forward as support for the existence of the mystery creatures that Heuvelmans and the ISC endorsed.
Key among these were the alleged Nessie photos of the s, s and s; a supposed Yeti footprint photographed in the Himalayas in ; the notorious film shot in California in said to depict a female Bigfoot walking alongside a creek; and tracks and other evidence also purported to belong to Bigfoot.
Heuvelmans and his followers claimed that mainstream science displayed a disinterested, blinkered approach to these pieces of evidence, and to the study of mystery animals in general. In reality, qualified scientists investigated this evidence to a considerable degree, concluding that all of it could either be completely explained or labelled as significantly problematic.
The photos that claimed to show Nessie all turned out to be hoaxes, or misinterpretations of waterbirds, waves, boat wakes or underwater objects like chunks of wood. Investigations published since show that the most famous Nessie photos variously depict a toy submarine, a blurry swan, a wave and an upturned kayak. As for the Bigfoot film, an enormous amount of circumstantial evidence shows how Roger Patterson, the cameraman, planned for years to set up a hoaxed scene exactly like the one he filmed.
If photographic evidence has failed to pass the tests, what else might support the existence of monsters? An idea popular among cryptozoologists is that Nessie, Bigfoot and other mysterious beasts escape detection because they inhabit regions of the world that are remote and little explored.
But is this true? Loch Ness is no remote Highland refuge, but has long been an important place for military campaigns, transportation and settlement.
Loch Ness also fails as the sort of place where giant, unknown animals could survive. Otters frequent its surface, seals visit on occasion, and deer sometimes swim across it. But this is a scarce, low-diversity collection of creatures for a lake of this size and latitude. Indeed, the organic productivity of Loch Ness is so low that even the most optimistic calculations show that a population of large aquatic animals could not survive here, and certainly not for generations.
A giant, hairy, man-shaped monster famous for leaving human-like footprints. One promising way to resist a skeptic is simply not to engage in trying to prove that the thing whose existence is doubted exists.
A better approach might be to start with basic knowledge: assume we know some things and can draw further consequences from them. A knowledge-first approach that attempts to do exactly this has recently gained popularity in epistemology, the philosophical theory of knowledge. British philosopher Timothy Williamson and others including me have proposed that evidence, rationality, belief, assertion, cognitive aspects of action and so on can be explained in terms of knowledge.
This idea is in contrast to an approach popular in the 20th century, that knowledge is true justified belief. But counterexamples abound that show one can have true justified belief without knowledge.
Say, you check your Swiss watch and it reads You believe on this basis that it is And by incredible chance it happens that, now, when you check your watch, it is in fact Our newer knowledge-first approach avoids defining knowledge altogether and rather posits knowledge as fundamental.
One may not need to feel certain or have a sensation of clarity and distinctness in order to know things. Psychology may help explain why. And lessons from philosophy suggest this kind of investigation may not even provide good arguments against conspiracy theorists and skeptics. One of the most damning arguments against the Loch Ness Monster is that it would had to have moved into the Loch Ness relatively recently. That's because Loch Ness was completely covered in ice as recently as 18, years ago.
Now, in theory, Nessie could have originated in the Atlantic Ocean and then moved into Loch Ness sometime in the past 20, years. But that raises another problem: There's not really a plausible path by which the monster could have done so. And it used to be even tougher to get from the sea to the Loch. That means Nessie would have had to swim against the current through extremely cold water to get to the lake, which is unlikely for a giant monster reptile or mammal. Possible routes such as the River Ness are far too shallow for a sea monster to go back and forth.
Finally, because Loch Ness is above sea level, even an underwater tunnel to the Loch would be difficult to traverse because of the differences in elevation. For a sea monster, a journey like that is a tall order. For a gray seal, however, it's more likely and that may be why people see them and possibly mistake them for Nessie. The sea monster in 's King Kong. Despite its total implausibility, however, the legend of Nessie persisted throughout the 20th century.
And there are a few possible cultural explanations. In the late s and early s, Loxton and Prothero point out, dinosaurs were becoming popular — thanks to everything from Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World to breathtaking exhibits in museums. So perhaps it's not surprising that people wanted to find a dinosaur-like creature in the lake. Then in the movie King Kong was released, showing prehistoric creatures run amok. Shortly after, we had the first modern Loch Ness Monster sighting.
Loxton and Prothero make a convincing case that early testimonials were influenced by the imagery and mythology seen in the movie. What's surprising, however, is that the myth still persists today. There may be economic reasons for that.
The strange persistence of the Loch Ness myth isn't just a story about a creature — it's one about a culture that wants it to be real. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
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