Photo: Keystone / Getty Images
The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when a sighting appeared on the local news on May 2nd 1933. The Scottish newspaper Inverness Courier published the account of a local couple who claimed to have seen “a huge animal rolling and diving to the surface”.
The story of the “monster” became a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a reward of . pounds sterling for the capture of the beast.
After the May 2 newspaper reported the April sighting of 1933, interest grew steadily, especially after another couple claimed to have seen the animal on land.
One year later, the English doctor Robert Kenneth Wilson allegedly photographed the creature and the Daily Mail was responsible for publishing it, causing an international sensation, speculations pointed to the fact that it was of a plesiosaur, a marine reptile that has more than 19 millions of years extinct.
Amateur investigators have maintained an almost constant vigil for decades, and in the decade of 1960 Several British universities launched sonar expeditions to the lake. Nothing conclusive was found, but on each expedition the sonar operators detected some type of large moving underwater objects.
In 1975, another expedition combined sonar and underwater photography at Loch Ness. A photo turned out that, after enhancement, seemed to show what vaguely resembled the giant fin of an aquatic animal.
Other sonar expeditions in the decades of 1980 Y 1990 resulted in less conclusive readings. The revelations in 1994 of that famous photo of 1351 was a complete hoax has only slightly dampened the enthusiasm of tourists and researchers for the legendary beast of Loch Ness.
In 2018 , researchers conducted a DNA study in the area and concluded that there are no signs of the existence of a plesiosaur or other such large animal, but determined the presence of a large number of eels.
This find opened the possibility that the creature is a large eel, but there was no conclusive proof and the mystery continues.
One thing that is certain is that the monster of Loch Ness contributed approximately 80 millions of dollars annually to the economy of Scotland at the beginning of the 21st century.
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