How was the mysterious Loch Ness monster discovered?

The Loch Ness Monster is one of the most mysterious and fascinating mysteries on earth.

Loch Ness is located in the Grand Canyon in the northern Scottish Plateau of England. It is 39 kilometers long and 2.4 kilometers wide. Its area is small, but the water is deep, with an average depth of 200 meters and the deepest point of 293 meters. The lake is not frozen all year round, with steep banks and dense forests. At the end of Hubei, there is a river connected with the North Sea.

The legendary Loch Ness monster

The earliest record of water monsters can be traced back to 565 AD. At that time, Irish missionary St. Columbus and his servant were swimming in the lake. The monster suddenly attacked the servant. Thanks to the priest's timely rescue, the servant swam back to the shore and saved his life. In the following 10 centuries, there were more than 10,000 pieces of news about the appearance of water monsters. But people at that time didn't believe it and thought it was just an ancient legend or nonsense.

It was not until April 1934 that London doctor Wilson passed by Loch Ness and just found the water monster swimming in the lake. Wilson quickly took a picture of the water monster with his camera. Although the picture is not very clear, it clearly shows the characteristics of the water monster: its long neck and flat head don't look like any aquatic animals at all, but like a giant reptile plesiosaur that died out more than 70 million years ago.

Plesiosaur is a huge aquatic reptile, which lived from/kloc-0 to 70 million years ago and was also a distant relative of dinosaurs. It has a slender neck, an oval body and a long tail. It has sharp teeth in its mouth and feeds on fish. It is the overlord of the Mesozoic ocean. If the Loch Ness monster is really a snake, it is undoubtedly an extremely precious prehistoric animal, and this discovery will also occupy an important position in zoology.

So after this photo was published, it quickly caused a worldwide sensation. With the "dinosaur fever" in the 20th century, people began to associate water monsters with plesiosaurs and paid great attention to them. 1960 On April 23rd, British aviation engineer Ding Side filmed a film more than 50 feet (1 foot = 0.3048m) in Loch Ness. Although the film is rough, during the screening, giant creatures with long black necks can still be clearly seen swimming across Loch Ness. Some scientists who are negative about this changed their views after watching this film. The Royal Air Force and the Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Center analyzed Tinsted's films and came to the conclusion that "that thing is probably a creature".

In 1970s, scientists began to search for water monsters with the help of advanced instruments and equipment. 1972 In August, the Boston Institute of Biology took some photos in Loch Ness with some underwater cameras and sonar. One of them shows a 2-meter-long diamond-shaped flipper attached to a huge organism. At the same time, they also discovered the movement of huge objects in the lake through sonar.

1June, 975, the hospital sent an investigation team to Loch Ness and took more photos. Two of them are particularly interesting: ① one shows a huge body with a long neck, and it can also show ② the short flippers of objects. From the photos, it is estimated that the creature is 6.5 meters long, and its forehead is 2.7 meters long, which really looks like plesiosaur. Another photo captured the monster's head. After computer magnification, you can see the short tentacles and wide mouth on the monster's head. On this basis, they came to the conclusion that "there are indeed large unknown aquatic animals in Loch Ness".

The discovery of 1972 and 1975 was a sensation, which made people feel that it is urgent to solve the mystery of the water monster or capture the live plesiosaur. Since then, Britain and the United States jointly organized a large-scale expedition, organized 24 research ships to form a "one-word" long snake array, and swept over Lake Nice in the form of a net in an attempt to catch the water monster at one fell swoop. But unfortunately, nothing was found except recording some sonar data.

Because chasing water monsters failed, negative views became popular again. A retired electronic engineer wrote in the British magazine New Scientist that the Loch Ness monster is not an animal, but an ancient pine tree. He said: "More than 10,000 years ago, there were many pine trees near Loch Ness. At the end of the ice age, the lake rose and many pine trees sank to the bottom. Due to the pressure of water, the resin in the trunk floats to the surface, and the generated gas cannot be discharged. So these pine trees sometimes float to the surface, but release some gas on the surface and then sink to the bottom. In the eyes of people in the distance, this is like the head, neck and body of a water monster. "

But this view cannot convince those who claim to have witnessed the monster with their own eyes. Moreover, in the late 1970s, some people took several photos of water monsters.

So, why can't people catch monsters so far?

This should start with the special geological structure of Loch Ness. It turns out that Loch Ness contains a lot of peat, which makes the lake very turbid, and the visibility in the water is about 1 m. Moreover, the topography of the lake bottom is complex, and there are labyrinthine deep valleys and gullies everywhere. Even huge aquatic animals can easily hide in them quietly, thus avoiding the detection of electronic instruments. There are many fish in the lake, so monsters don't have to go out for food, and the lake is connected with the sea, so it is easy for monsters to get in and out. Therefore, it is difficult to catch monsters.

But as long as we don't really find the monster, this mystery can't be solved. Until now, people are still debating whether the water monster exists, and no one dares to jump to conclusions.