The legend started in the sixth century after St. Colomba sent a monk swimming across the loch and a giant creature attacked. After a harsh scolding from the saint, the monster withdrew. The legend, however, lives on.
Is Nessie the Loch Ness Monster that surfaced from the dark waters in the 16th century coming to shore while knocking down trees and crushing three men with her tail? Or is she Nessitera rhombopteryx, a vestigial survivor from the age of the dinosaurs (her basic description sounds somewhat like that of a plesiosaur — then again, it also kind of matches some species of sea snake).
No one knows for sure, but one definite fact is that the monster sightings increased in number after 1933, when the A82 road was built by blasting lakeshore rock. Shortly thereafter, innkeeps Mr. and Mrs. Spicer thought they saw something break the surface of the waters one night. The incident was reported on a slow news day in the local paper, and the rumor spread like wildfire.
In the end, the monster may be no more than the collective effect of faked photographs(took by Fort Myers photographer), water-surface mirages brought on by too much whiskey, a few unexplained lake phenomena, and a string of lochside villages whose economies are based on spinning tall tales to visitors. Sonar soundings and a host of keen-eyed watchers have not yet managed to prove, or disprove, Nessie’s existence, and that is more thanenough reason for 200,000 visitors annually to come, cameras and binoculars in hand, to search for the monster of Loch Ness.
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