Original subtitles

[Phil] I heard that splash. Did you see something over there?

[Josh] On this episode of Expedition X...

-Something's swimming there. -[Heather] Look, there.

[Phil] I got it. Going straight at it.

[Josh] ...we're joined by special guest, Rhys Darby...

I didn't think I would ever see some evidence

that made me think it actually is real.

[Josh] ...to investigate the world's most-famous cryptid.

As Heather and Phil dive deep on the tail of the Loch Ness monster...

-What's that? Yeah. That is big. -Ooh.

[Josh] ...with shocking new evidence.

Is the most iconic monster of them all about to be discovered?

[Phil] Oh, wow.

[Heather] Phil, you okay?

[Phil] I think I saw something out of the corner of my eye and it wasn't small.

-[vibration noise on radio] -[bleep]

[Phil] Oh, my God.

[Josh] Okay, I'm gonna skip the usual game

where I make you guess what we're investigating. I am too excited.

We are going after the Loch Ness monster.

-Nessie? -No way.

-[Josh] Yes. -Are you serious?

Wait a second. Why now? Did you run out of scotch?

I am absolutely serious.

And don't even joke about running out of booze.

And the reason we are investigating this now

is that maybe the most compelling piece of evidence

of Nessie's existence just came to light. Look at this.

This is a sequence of more than 70 photos

that were snapped at the loch by an amateur photographer,

and they clearly show what look like these dark humps

coming to the surface and then submerging again. Look at this!

-[Heather] Am I looking at Nessie? -[Josh] You might be.

[Josh] Phil, you tell me. What is this?

[Phil] I mean, I would love to be able to debunk that right now

but I I don't know.

The way it undulates, it could be.

There's humps clearly coming out of the water.

[Josh] Absolutely.

[Phil] Wow. And it's moving quick.

There is something there, and there is more, much more.

This is just the latest piece of evidence

in a century-long search for this monster

that has been equal parts compelling and controversial.

The first recorded sighting of a monstrous creature

in Scotland's river Ness dates back to 565 BC,

when St. Columba, an Irish missionary,

was said to have stopped the beast from attacking a swimmer...

...banishing it downriver to the loch by the power of God.

Local folklore kept the legend of the monster alive for centuries

until documented reports began regularly emerging in the 1800s,

including a diver in 1880, who claimed to see a creature

resembling a huge frog staring up at him from the lochs deepest depths.

Perched on the edge of the wilderness in the Scottish Highlands,

the 23-mile-long, 750-foot-deep Loch Ness

remained hard to access until 1933,

when a major road was created along its north shore.

As soon as the road opened, sightings began to pour in.

In 1933, a hotel worker and her husband

reported seeing a huge black whale-like beast

rolling and plunging on the surface of the loch,

creating waves big enough to be caused by a steamship.

In April 1934,

a photograph was taken that instantly catapulted Nessie

to become the world's most iconic cryptid.

The so-called surgeon's photo seemingly shows

a long-necked monster prowling the loch.

And while the photo was later debunked as a hoax,

it did nothing to diminish the belief

that Nessie was perhaps a dinosaur that had somehow survived extinction,

a plesiosaur, to be exact.

After decades of further sightings,

in 1962, the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau

was founded by the UK government

to collect scientific data and footage of the monster.

It disbanded 10 years later with no conclusive proof

for or against Nessie's existence.

But evidence continues to emerge right up to the present day.

In 2020, a fishing boat's sonar

registered a 33-foot-long mysterious shape 557 feet down.

And now comes what is potentially

the most extraordinary evidence yet,

a series of images taken by photographer, Chie Kelly,

which capture what seems to be a huge creature moving through the loch.

Remarkably, despite global scientific scrutiny,

these photos have not been debunked.

Is the Loch Ness monster real?

And is it finally ready to be discovered?

And here we are with the man who broke this evidence to the world,

actor, comedian, monster enthusiast.

-Yes. -Rhys Darby. Good to see you, man.

Thank you. And thanks for having me.

Of course. The last time I spoke to you, we were in this very room...

-Mmm-hmm. -...and I was amazed,

first of all, by your, uh, impressions of old creaky doors.

[mimics door creaking]

-It's staggering. -[mimics bird cawing]

Always a bird. There's always a bird trapped inside.

And also, I was amazed

by your genuine passion for cryptozoology and for the unexplained.

-It's my thing. -You love this stuff.

-I love it. -When did you first get into this kind of stuff?

-When you were a kid? -Definitely, about the age of eight.

Monsters, UFOs, ghosts.

What about Nessie? When did you get into Nessie?

Every year, the Nessie phenomenon

is the only one out of all the cryptids,

now and again, when it's like drying up a little bit,

there's a... [vocalizes],

and then all of a sudden something... the ripples come up,

and there's a great photo, or there's a sonar, or a radar image.

It's... What is it? Is it an ancient dinosaur?

And it didn't make sense that there was one

-that lived forever. [laughs] -Right.

-That is... That is the tricky thing about Nessie. -We don't think about that.

-You really need Nessies. -[Rhys] Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

-That's the $100 question. -[Josh] Right.

-Yeah. -And probably a bit more than that.

-Probably worth at least a few thousand. -[Heather chuckles]

Thankfully, these photos that Chie Kelly took

were high-def and they were on sports mode.

There was a lot of them, and then gave them to Steve Feltham.

He's the legendary Loch Ness hunter.

-Been there for 30 plus years. -[Phil] Wow.

And Steve gave the footage to my podcast, The Cryptid Factor

because "Buttons" Kirkbeck, who works on my team,

is an amazing video and audio analyst.

Three days later, after no sleep,

he came up with the results, and we shocked the world.

How many times have you watched this footage?

-I'm watching it right now. Wow. -[Phil] Yeah.

-[all laughing] -Pause it. Oh, that is good.

-That is good. -Yep.

I didn't think I would ever see some evidence that made me think,

-"Oh, gosh, it actually is real." -Right.

[Rhys] And this is the first time I've seen that.

And there's been hoaxes and what have you.

It's hard not to look at those images and be drawn in...

-[Rhys] Yeah. -...by the question of "What if?"

-Yeah. -Is that some unknown, huge, unknown creature?

-Yeah. -Yes.

-Heather says yes. -[Rhys] Yes.

-Phil, you'll learn quickly is our resident joy kill here. -[Rhys] Okay.

He... he probably is not convinced.

But even you have to admit, those photos are very compelling.

They're really compelling.

It does look like a big animal in there.

But it could just be something that we we do already know.

And there is precedent for these large marine species,

something like a Greenland shark,

something like a dolphin, something like a seal

to be able to enter a lake and live there for a long time.

Except what we have in this footage,

it's indefinable.

-It feels alien for a lack of a better word. -[Rhys] Yes.

Honestly, I think you guys should get out there.

Okay. I can connect you with Steve Feltham.

You'll be the first team to get out to the exact area where this was taken

since the evidence dropped.

We've got something special here and I think you need to find it.

-It's exciting. -This is a bucket-list investigation.

-I mean, I can't wait to get out there. -Let's do it.

Well, I couldn't have said it better myself.

You guys have your marching orders. Head out to Loch Ness.

See if you can separate fact from fiction

and get to the bottom of this new evidence.

And since you're gonna be in Scotland, Phil,

you should probably wear a kilt.

-I'm not doing that. -Oh, come on.

-You ever wear a kilt? -Oh, yeah.

-It's great, right? It's breezy. -I love it.

-Nothing underneath. -Yeah.

We'll see. We'll see.

-[mimics Scottish accent] Okay. -[laughs]

[Josh] It's an eight-hour flight

from New York to Inverness, Scotland.

Then, Phil and Heather make the 30-minute drive along the River Ness

to Dores Beach on the northern end of the loch,

to meet with top Nessie researcher, Steve Feltham.

[Phil] Okay, well, beautiful Scottish countryside.

That is beautiful.

[Phil] But it is way more remote out here than I thought it was gonna be.

-Do you know what we should do? -What?

-We should listen to bagpipe music. -Oh, yeah.

-Ready? -Ready.

-[bagpipes playing] -Now we're talking.

-[Heather]When in Scotland... -[Phil] Twenty-three mile lake.

I imagine once we see it, you can't miss it.

It is a huge lake. It is extremely deep.

A lot of places for things to hide.

I'm feeling lucky.

-You know what I'm feeling? -[Heather] What?

-I'm feeling lochy. -[laughs]

[Phil] Is that it?

-Oh, my gosh, yeah. -The distance down there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

-[Phil] There it is. -[Heather] We're here.

[Phil] Loch Ness. Ooh.

I'm guessing that guy down at the end of the beach

with that giant spotting binoculars,

-it's got to be Steve. -[Heather] Definitely.

[Phil] Steve Feltham is a Nessie researcher

who's been living on Dores Beach,

and searching for the Loch Ness monster for over 30 years.

He holds the Guinness World Record

for the longest continuous vigil in the search for Nessie.

Hey, Steve, I'm Phil.

Hi, Phil, nice to meet you.

-Good to meet you. -[Heather] Heather.

-Hi there. -Nice to meet you, Steve.

Anything out there today?

Not so far.

But you've been watching this lake for how long now?

Thirty-three years, full time.

-Thirty-three years. -Yeah. Mmm.

And how many times have you seen it?

In the first year, I saw something,

as if a torpedo shot through the water.

Waves this high all going that way.

So something was just below the surface, pushing through.

How fast?

Pretty fast. Less than 10 seconds.

This thing just went boff, boff, boff, boff,

as it hit each oncoming wave.

Just a white spray,

And I just froze and pointed at it.

And then it was gone.

-So, we've seen these amazing photographs that Chie took. -Yeah. Yeah.

Where did she take those pictures?

Just here on Dores Beach.

She'd been for something to eat with her husband

in The Dores Inn.

They came out for a walk along the beach,

and just out here, only 200 meters from the shore,

she became aware of a disturbance going on.

She had a very good camera with her.

She set it to sports mode so it would take a succession of pictures.

And in total, over three minutes she took 71 images.

Normally, if we get a sighting here,

people take one or two photographs.

Historically, they're normally grainy and out of focus,

and normally, I can explain it.

But those, I looked at them and I thought,

"That really does defy explanation."

So, have people analyzed these images

to give theories on what else it may be?

The theory is that it's the bubbles caused by a couple of divers.

[Phil] Did she see any divers active on that day?

-[Steve] Very much not. -[Phil] No boats came by to pick them up.

No. No.

Is there any other recent evidence that stands out to you?

Yeah, very much.

In fact, the piece of evidence that eclipses this in the quality

was taken by Ronald Mackenzie.

He drives a pleasure boat

that comes out of Fort Augustus on hour-long trips.

He's been doing it for 40 years.

He's got state of the art sonar equipment on there,

and as he turned,

it went across the middle of Loch Ness

His sonar picked up this single target.

-This one right here. -That one right there.

[Phil] That is amazing.

Yeah. It's like a bathtub.

The sides com straight down like that.

So it's totally flat-bottomed.

[Heather] The depth of water where this anomaly was captured

is 189 meters, or 620 feet.

Using the sonar data scale, we can estimate the object's depth

to be approximately 557 feet down and 33 feet long.

[Steve] That's massive.

So that to me, is the absolutely best piece of evidence

I've ever seen from here of a big animal swimming about in these waters.

[Phil] So, after all these years, you do still think

there is something big out there waiting to be discovered.

I am absolutely convinced, yes.

This is probably the world's greatest mystery.

Thank you for all the information you've given us.

We will keep our eyes on the lake and see what we find.

If you can find an explanation, let me know.

Do what we can. All right, Steve, appreciate it.

[Heather] Now that we know the exact location of Nessie's most recent sighting,

Phil is heading out to the same orange and white buoys

we saw in Chie's photos.

Some believe what Chie photographed

was just scuba divers and their bubbles.

So we plan to put that theory to the test.

While Phil dives near the buoys,

I'll be on shore with my camera

in the exact same location Chie was when she took her photos.

[Phil] Okay, Heather, I'm at the buoy.

I'll get my dry suit on.

Let me suit up and get in the water and blow some bubbles.

Can't wait to see what you see.

Okay, let's get suited up.

Okay, put away the walkie.

Once I'm in the water, we'll switch to water comms.

-Copy? -[Heather] Copy that.

Say hi to Nessie for me.

[Phil speaking]

Phil, how's it looking down there?

[Phil speaking]

[Heather speaking]

Or a loch monster.

Be safe out there.

[Phil speaking]

[Heather speaking]

I mean, the spacing is completely different here.

I'm seeing constant bubbles,

and with Chie's pictures, there are gaps.

-[camera clicking] -The shape also seems very different.

This doesn't look like Chi's pictures at all,

which is exciting because that means we might have

real images of Nessie.

I got the shots.

[Phil speaking]

[Heather] Hey, Mr. Mermaid.

Let me see how these bubbles turned out.

-That's the buoy. That's your bubbles. -[Phil] Yep.

That's my bubbles?

They're tiny. I'm sorry.

-Hold up. Let me compare to Chie's photos. -Yeah.

All right. So this is what is really interesting,

and I think you're gonna like it.

Okay.

There's her... whatever she saw.

[Heather] Look at that.

[Phil] Come on. Keep scrolling through.

That can't be as big as the bubbles got.

-Really? -I... Yes, I'm telling you.

I looked at all these images and they're teeny-tiny bubbles.

And that It is huge.

Let's look at the shape of the bubbles.

Here, and then the shape of whatever that is.

[Phil] They look nothing alike.

[Heather] No, and that's exciting.

It's true, but here's my thought.

So, have you heard of Diel Vertical Migration?

-No, Phil. -[Phil] Okay.

So, it's this pattern that organisms exhibit

when they're either in marine environments or really deep lakes,

where by day, they stay at the bottom,

and then they do this vertical migration.

At night, they come up closer to the surface,

which means if there's a lot of other animals

big and small that exhibit this behavior,

maybe if there's something big living in this lake,

it would do that behavior, too.

Oh, okay. So you've already got a plan in place?

Oh, yeah, we're looking for Nessie.

I'm not messing around with this investigation.

I like it. I feel the exact same way.

[Phil] With our equipment in tow,

we meet with local skipper, Les Butterworth...

...and board his 31-foot fishing boat

capable of scanning the deepest depths of the loch.

I'm guessing you spent a lot of time on this water.

And do you think Nessie is out there?

Okay,.

You believe there's something in the water.

[Phil] Mmm-hmm.

They've all seen.

I don't know about you, but I'm eager to get out on the water today.

Okay.

[Heather] We set off towards the northern end near Dores Beach.

Our plan is to divide the loch into a grid,

methodically scanning every stretch with the sonar.

Okay, so I've got this laptop hooked up to the boat's on-board sonar.

So as we travel the loch,

we will document every single thing underneath us.

I mean, look how deep we are already.

[Phil] Six-hundred... Almost 600 feet.

[Heather] So, what are some animals that you think might live in the loch?

-That could be mistaken for Nessie? -Yeah.

Well, it has been documented that the occasional bottlenose dolphin

or seal comes up the River Ness

and actually gets trapped inside the loch.

Those are easily big enough for someone to see it quickly

and think they're seeing Nessie.

And then there's the theory that Nessie herself is just a giant catfish.

This species, called the wels catfish can live over 100 years,

can be up to 15-feet long and weigh 600 pounds.

I mean, I hope it's not a catfish.

I eat way too much fried catfish

to come all the way over to Loch Ness to just discover a catfish.

[Phil] Well, if we do find it, you're not frying this one, Heather.

[Heather] I know. I'm not.

As the hours tick by, our search continues into the night.

It's two hours after sunset.

We've investigated the loch from end to end without spotting anything.

We're now back where we started,

at the place Chie took her photos.

Phil tells the boat to idle.

He wants to explore if the Diel Vertical Migration theory,

also known as DVM, might apply to Nessie,

seeing if we can spot it traveling to the surface in the early night to feed

[drone beeping]

Phil flies the thermal drone while I use the night-vision binoculars,

scanning the surface of the loch for any signs of life.

Scanning the waters.

[Heather] You're not seeing any fish.

Nothing right now.

[Heather] And are you sure that'll pick up over water?

[Phil] Yeah, because if you calibrate a drone

to the temperature of the water,

anything a little bit over that temperature could show up.

But I'm really not seeing anything.

I'm gonna get a little bit lower

to see if maybe get better resolution.

But I'm just seeing cold water right now.

So much for your DVM theory.

The science is sound. It's just, uh...

It's just not sciencing tonight.

[Phil] Yeah, I guess so.

[water splashes]

-[Heather] Oh, my God. -[Phil] I heard that splash.

Did you see something over there?

[Phil] Holy [bleep], Heather, there's something in there.

-[Heather] Do you see anything? -[Phil] Okay, hang on

So that is on the right side of the boat.

Bring the drone back.

Okay, I got the boat. Right side.

I'm basically right overhead where that splash was.

Something splashed right there.

I've got the drone right over.

Come on.

Show yourself.

Seeing anything?

[Heather] Nothing.

I'm not seeing any big waves.

[Heather] No. No, nothing.

And we heard something.

[Phil] Yeah. Big splash.

I mean, the one thing to consider

is they talk about the lake as one giant bathtub

where the currents can go from one side to another.

Possibly

what we just experienced

was energy from one side of the lake

colliding with energy from another side of the lake

and we got a single giant splash.

[Heather] But I'm not buying that

because whatever I heard

wasn't a rogue wave.

It was what caused the wave.

If so, where did it go?

A lot of hiding places on Loch Ness.

[Phil] Yeah.

The next morning, we arranged for a group of passionate

Nessie researchers to meet us at a lochside pub

to see if we can get more leads.

Well, thank you guys for joining us.

The reason we want to come here now is essentially

in response to Chie's photos.

Those images that just came out

that are hard to explain.

Indeed.

We're really eager to get more intel

on the history and some of the recent sightings that have been happening here.

You have essentially lived and breathed it,

and your families have, for generations.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

My own personal experiences

relates to my late father, Ian Cameron,

who had probably one of the most

amazing sightings of something in the loch.

What can you tell me?

[Willie] So he saw an object

rise in the water off Urquhart Castle,

and it was rotating slowly

in the water as it was moving,

went against the headwind, and disappeared.

But the most interesting part of the story was

the time scale was 50 minutes.

It is regarded as the longest sighting on record of something.

Multiple witnesses saw this?

Nine in total that we know of.

If there were nine people that saw something

that big in the water,

it just brings up the question,

what was it?

So I run a group called Loch Ness Exploration,

and we use hydrophones,

and we listen to the loch's story.

And through that,

we're trying to figure out what is natural

and what is man-made.

So what's the most interesting evidence

that you've discovered?

-The most recent I got was probably about a month ago. -Ooh.

Um, we picked up a very interesting, bizarre sound.

Um, and I've actually got audio if you would like to hear it.

-Yeah. -Do you have the recording?

I've got it with me, yeah.

[Alan, on recording] That's wind turbulence

coming down from the surrounding hills.

Hitting the loch, it's...

[eerie sound]

What was that?

I have no idea, but it caught me off guard.

[Heather] So theories on what it could be.

Could well be wildlife.

It could be man-made.

It could be pipes.

It could be a sudden rush of water. We don't know.

Can I get a copy of that recording?

I definitely want to listen to it

-multiple times. -Absolutely.

So obviously the loch is huge.

Where do you guys think we should be looking?

You could check out the caves,

because that's what we're looking at now.

Is Nessie even in Loch Ness?

Do you think there are caves

where Nessie may live?

Yeah.

What we found were these deep, dark pools of water.

And we know after about nine meters,

visibility goes to nothing in Loch Ness.

And when we were looking at them,

they were pitch black.

[Phil] On the eastern side of the loch,

11 miles south of Dores Beach,

lies the River Foyers.

It winds up through the Scottish Highlands,

but many believe it connects to the loch

through secret underground caves and tunnels.

Some theorize these caves are where Nessie

gives birth to offspring,

and is how she's stayed hidden for all these years.

Well, those caves sound fascinating.

Could you get me those coordinates?

Yeah, absolutely, guys.

I'm willing to share that with you.

Thank you.

[Heather] With two solid new leads,

we head back to the loch and check in with Gates.

[in Scottish accent]

What's that? I feel like we have a bad connection here.

I cannot understand what you're saying.

[in normal voice] No, I'm saying, "How's it going?"

Scotland style.

Uh, sure.

Okay. More importantly, how's it going with you?

Well, I gotta say, it does seem like there's

something strange happening here in Loch Ness.

Phil tried his scuba diving best,

but we could not debunk Chie's photos.

Yeah, and when we were on the boat yesterday,

I didn't see a monster, but I heard a splash.

[Heather] Yeah, something breached the surface,

and then there was this loud splash.

Well, hold on a second. What do you think this was?

Phil, you're saying you might have

genuinely encountered Nessie out there?

Sure, there's always a chance,

but there's also probably a better chance

it could have been a seal

or a big salmon just flying up

and flopping down.

-A big salmon? -Yeah.

-[Phil] Who knows? -[Heather] Look, I'm not

the only person that has been seeing things.

We just met with a bunch of locals

that have their own encounters with Nessie.

So I'd like to follow up on some

weird sounds that have been heard on the loch.

And I want to check out these caves that some people think

could be the Loch Ness monsters'

hiding place or even birthing pool.

Oh, baby Nessie. How great would that be?

All right, listen, guys, solid leads. And also,

I have just secured something for you that could

break this case wide open.

Okay.

I got you access to a world-class

Deep Trekker submersible.

This is one of the best

remote-controlled subs out there.

It is capable of reaching the bottom of this loch.

So if Nessie is down there,

this thing should find her.

That is amazing.

Nice.

Oh, and, Phil, Heather texted me

that you refused to wear a kilt.

Wear a kilt.

You'll love it. It's breezy. Trust me.

I'm not wearing a kilt.

He's wearing the kilt. I'll keep working on it.

Excellent. All right, stay safe, guys.

Oh, my God, behind you!

[Phil] What are you seeing?

Made you look.

Oh.

That's a lesson. Never sit with your backs to Loch Ness.

I'll see you later.

[Heather] While Phil heads to Paige's coordinates

on the hunt for caves,

I get back out on the loch,

sailing to where Alan recorded

the weird potential Nessie audio.

I'll use the sound itself to see if I can perhaps

provoke whatever created it into making another noise.

I connect our tablet to a wireless speaker,

secure it in a dry bag weighed down with heavy rocks,

and lower it into the loch.

Alan's weird sound will broadcast underwater

on a continuous loop.

[audio playing on loop]

[Heather] After 20 minutes,

I retrieve it.

Can you hear us, Nessie?

We've been talking to you.

And then use the hydrophone to listen for any response.

[Phil] As I head upstream,

the GPS coordinates take me away from the river,

and I find myself

in the heart of the Scottish Highlands.

So we just gained a bit of elevation

moving away from that river. Now,

the GPS is telling me I've got to go back down.

There should be a stream down there.

Oh!

Oh, I was afraid of that. Ooh!

Ooh, that is steep.

This is officially getting interesting,

because any time you have running water

and rocks,

you get erosion,

and you get an opportunity

for a cave to form.

So, I think we're in the right place.

I've just got to find a way down there and not die.

Let's move.

This is really steep coming down.

All right. [bleep]!

[grunting]

Oh! [grunts]

[grunts softly]

I think that'll leave a mark.

Okay.

One more step.

Okay.

Woo-hoo-hoo! We made it.

Now, that

is a beautiful stream.

Oh.

Okay, okay.

Let's find those caves.

If there are caves that connect to the loch

via underground tunnels...

Got to be here.

...this really could provide a plausible explanation

of how Nessie has remained hidden

for so many years.

[grunts]

Oh, yeah.

Marine animals,

including seals, dolphins, and whales,

can use secluded breeding pools like this

for protection.

This is so slippery here.

So I've brought with me an eDNA kit.

This test will detect

any DNA found in the environment,

identifying the presence of any creatures,

known or unknown.

Oh...

my goodness.

I think we found it.

I think we found it.

That, my friends, is a cave.

I cautiously maneuver the slippery terrain,

slowly making my way along the river

to what looks like a cave.

This must be what Paige was talking about.

Oh, my gosh. It's here.

That looks like a cave beneath the water.

She's right. It's pitch black.

How deep does that go?

Little pools like this

look like they go down forever.

But because of all the peat in the water here,

the thing that makes the loch so dark itself,

it's hard to tell.

But I brought my syringes to take

an eDNA test of the water.

It's a way of collecting water and filtering

all of the DNA that's in that water.

The E in that stands for environmental.

Every single known species around here will show up

when we analyze it.

Whether it's a salmon, whether it's an eel,

or, you know, whether it's a Nessie.

[Heather] After an hour and a half of monitoring,

I hear nothing unusual.

That is, until...

[eerie sound on hydrophone]

[eerie sound continues]

Oh, my God. What the hell was that?

After capturing that incredible audio,

I urgently need a way to search the area

for whatever made it.

I race back to the dock to meet Phil...

who's now equipped with the ROV Josh sent us.

I play the sound for him.

[eerie sound on recording]

Sounds like a whale.

What are we talking about?

But what would a whale be doing in the loch?

[Phil] I'll admit, that does sound

kind of like an animal communicating underwater.

Where did you get this recording?

A couple of miles north of here.

I know exactly where it was.

As we go full throttle back to where I recorded it,

we need to get the ROV in the water fast

to see if what made that noise is still in the area.

[Phil] Okay.

So, this is the Deep Trekker.

It is rated up to 1,000-foot depth,

meaning we can literally

get to the bottom of the loch.

-All right. Should we get in the water? -[Heather] Yeah.

[Phil] Built to withstand depths of 1,000 feet,

the Deep Trekker is fitted with a 4K camera

and a highly sensitive built-in imaging sonar

with a 200-meter range.

It also features 20,000-lumen floodlights

to illuminate the murky waters

of the bottom of the loch.

Deep Trekker's in the water. We are going down.

What we can see with our eyes here

is obviously a little bit different

than what the sonar can see.

It's amazing that this looks so murky,

but we're still able to get,

visually, some hits on the sonar.

[Phil] Yeah.

Whoa, there's something.

Something's swimming there.

First eel!

Apparently, this loch is full of eels.

Okay, back down to the bottom here.

What's that?

You see it?

-Ooh! -Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Based on the scale,

-that's huge. -How many feet?

That is big.

Keep the depth still so we can really look at it.

-Okay, I'm gonna go down. -Okay.

Slight... slight right.

-[Phil] It's gone. -It's gone.

-There was something there. -There was.

-But we lost it. -[Phil] No.

-No. Come on, come on. -[Heather] We lost it.

-No, I don't see it. -It's gotta be there. Okay, so,

-I'm gonna go up and down to scan the sonar... -[exhales]

...because we're seeing far--

[exclaims]

I got it! I'm going straight at it.

Going low, going low, going low, going low.

Keep your eyes glued to that sonar.

Forty meters.

[Phil] I'm steering the ROV in the direction of it.

[Heather] 35 meters.

[Phil] This thing is huge.

[Heather] 30 meters.

[Phil] Come on, come on, come on.

[Heather] 25 meters.

You see anything?

[Phil] Getting closer!

Fifteen meters.

-What... -Look at it. Look, look, look, look, look.

There's a huge cloud.

The most recognizable photo of the Loch Ness monster

happens to be both the first

and the most controversial.

This iconic shot

was originally published in 1934

in the Daily Mail newspaper.

For 60 years,

it stood as the strongest evidence

that the monster was real.

Then, in 1991,

Christian Spurling,

a former employee of the Mail back in the '30s,

admitted the shocking truth.

The photo was a hoax.

Christian explained he created it using

a toy submarine and forced perspective.

His monster

was actually only 14 inches high.

In the years since, there have been many more

Loch Ness monster photos proven to be fake.

As any good Scotsman will tell you,

just because some have taken liberties at the loch,

it doesn't mean that Nessie isn't still out there

waiting to be discovered.

[Phil] There was a huge, huge dust cloud.

Wow. Look how still everything is right now.

It is not moving naturally from the water,

meaning something must have stirred up

the bottom of the lake right here.

And also, it's gone.

It's not on the sonar.

What would make that?

I don't know. I mean, I guess conceivably,

it could just be a big fish

that was hunting down there and it kicked it all up.

But the whole reason we went here

was that strange sound on the hydrophone.

Right in this spot.

[Phil] Look at the depth right here.

About 15 meters.

I can dive that.

I'm gonna get my diving gear, I'm gonna get in.

Hand over the controls to you.

-I'll gear up. -[Heather] Okay.

Come on, Nessie.

[Phil] Okay, I'm now descending.

Copy that. Just be careful when you're going down.

[Phil speaking]

[laughs]

[Phil speaking]

[Heather speaking]

What are you seeing down there?

[Phil speaking]

Copy that. Keep your eyes peeled.

[Phil speaking]

[Heather speaking]

We're not even on the edge of the loch.

[Phil speaking]

[Heather speaking]

Keep to the side of the trench

and don't lose your orientation.

[Heather speaking]

[Phil speaking]

Whoa, whoa!

[Heather speaking]

Phil?

[Heather speaking]

[Phil speaking]

What do you mean, something?

[Phil speaking]

[Heather] It's not on the sonar.

I'm not seeing anything on the ROV either.

[Phil speaking]

[Heather speaking]

[Josh] My team scoured the length, breadth,

and depth of Loch Ness

on the hunt for its eponymous monster.

We came to investigate the extraordinary photos

that Chie Kelly captured.

Fascinatingly, we were unable to debunk them.

[Phil speaking]

[Josh] Whatever it was she photographed,

it was certainly something extremely unusual.

Phil was unable to determine if there were

secret Nessie caves along the River Foyers.

But he did take an eDNA sample

to discover what was in its waters.

The results came back with matches

for various fish, including sturgeon,

trout, and lamprey.

But curiously, there was also

a match for what was termed unexpected.

We were informed this could just be a sampling glitch,

or it could indicate uncatalogued DNA.

[eerie sound on hydrophone]

Oh, my God! What the hell was that?

[Josh] We sent Heather's hydrophone recordings

to marine biologists for analysis.

They agreed the sound was not man-made,

but said it was most likely methane

released by the loch's ancient sediments.

[Phil speaking]

[Josh] We commissioned a sonar scan

of the so-called trench

Phil spotted while scuba diving.

It turned out to not be a trench at all,

but rather a typical 30-foot underwater shelf.

[Phil] Okay.

But that's not to say the mission was a bust.

The sonar readings recorded from the ROV

right before that dive

proved very intriguing.

[Phil] What's that?

-Ooh. -Yeah.

[Josh] Analyzing the raw data,

it appears the team was chasing an aquatic creature.

And it was big,

over 20 feet long.

Perhaps it was a large undiscovered Wels catfish,

as others have theorized in the past.

Or could it have been something

even more extraordinary?

The question remains,

is the Loch Ness monster real?

Our evidence only deepens the mystery.

But I wouldn't write Nessie off.

After all, that loch is vast and deep.

So keep those cameras pointed at the water.

Perhaps one day soon,

Nessie will be ready for her close-up.

Oh, and speaking of close-ups,

we did finally get Phil into a kilt.

[sighs] I mean...

[Josh] Just don't look too closely.

-Feels great. Okay. -Whoa! Too much.

-Too much. -Forgot about the wind.

[Heather laughs]