Original subtitles

Tonight, the world's most enduring deep sea monster mystery.

I saw the head, the neck, and the huge body, which I'd say was about 50 feet

long. We are talking about thousands of sightings, and that's a conservative

estimate. It could be tens of thousands over the course of 1 ,500 years.

Despite so many sightings, the beast remains unidentified.

There are millions of species that we haven't found or classified yet. There's

stuff out there that we don't know anything about. As far as we can tell,

has ever captured a Loch Ness Monster.

Now we'll explore the top theories surrounding this elusive creature.

Hey, maybe it's a plesiosaur. What about the thing that washed up in Stransay or

the similar lake monster in Sweden?

There are tons of eels in Loch Ness. Is it possible that there is a gigantic

eel?

Many people still believe it's real. Does the Loch Ness monster exist? And if

so, what is it?

Northern Scotland, August, 564 A .D.

According to legend, an Irish monk named Columba is attempting to cross the

river Ness with a group when they stumble upon two men burying a friend.

This man had just been swimming when he was attacked by an enormous water beast.

You would think that after that exchange, the monks would try to find a

different river crossing, but Columba stayed.

Maybe he didn't believe the locals, or he just thought that his faith will

protect him.

He orders another monk to swim across and retrieve a small boat.

As this monk gets about halfway across, this creature suddenly appears out of

the water and gives a giant, bellowing roar.

Everyone panics, with the exception of Columba.

He steps right up to the edge of the bank, makes the sign of the cross, and

demands the monster leave the man alone.

The creature supposedly obeys.

To the witnesses on shore, it is nothing short of a miracle.

Columba eventually achieves sainthood, and this tale is supporting evidence for

his faith and ability.

And this story is retold for years to come.

Debate continues for centuries.

What could this mysterious creature actually be?

In Columba's time, and continuing for several centuries after, through the

Middle Ages, dragons are still believed to be real.

And so many people think this is some sort of sea dragon.

But nobody has any concrete evidence of what it is, or if it even truly exists.

It remains an essentially local legend for quite some time.

Then, in the 20th century...

New visitors flock to the highlands thanks to one remarkable invention, the

automobile.

By the early 1930s, there's a road built along the shore of Loch Ness.

One afternoon in 1931, a local couple were driving along there when they

a large animal. It was rolling and plunging on the surface of Loch Ness.

Immediately, they report their experience to the local papers.

When published, their story uses the now -famous keyword monster.

The Loch Ness Monster, a name that soon spreads far and wide.

Now, all of a sudden, the tourists are not coming to see the beautiful lake and

the rolling hills. They are coming to see the monster who is soon lovingly

called Nessie.

And guess what? They are spotting it all right. They are spotting it in droves.

Soon, there are more eyewitness accounts of Nessie, and they seem convincing.

I saw a large object that came right out of the water in front of me. I was

wading in the river fishing with fly fishing.

The best view I ever had was the very first in 1934. I saw the head, the neck,

and the huge body, which I'd say was about 50 feet long.

Each new glimpse brings fresh secrets, all with the latest technology.

We shouldn't have to wait long before somebody captures it on film, and then

we're bound to know what it is.

In April of 1934, that finally happened, and it becomes front -page news.

A gynecologist from London named Robert Kenneth Wilson went on a fishing trip

over there to northern Scotland when he decided to go for a walk.

During his stroll, that's when he spotted something unusual in the water.

Luckily, he had his camera, and he snapped a picture. And there we have it,

probably the first photograph of Nessie.

Known as the surgeon's photo, the image causes quite a stir.

Shows a silhouetted creature with a long, slender neck, a small head, and a

large body emerging slightly above the waterline.

This is amazing. We finally have some visual evidence to back up these

eyewitness accounts.

And not only that... Some experts think they can identify this animal.

The creature's shape also strikes a chord with British paleontologists.

So what particular species do you think it is?

The evidence, as I interpret it, all fits, and I know this is a fantastic

statement, but this all fits plethysaur.

Klesiosaurs are a marine reptile dating back millions of years.

Their fossils were first discovered in 1823 during a dig in England.

Fossil hunter Mary Anning actually uncovered a nearly complete skeleton

of a previously unknown species.

It is given the name Plesiosaurus, meaning near to reptile.

Plesiosaur fossils have been found around the world, but a major cluster of

comes from here in Scotland.

We're talking about hundreds of specimens.

This was, at least at one time, this creature's main habitat.

These fossils show that the plesiosaur was an enormous water -dwelling

over 20 feet long.

They had broad, flat bodies with short tails.

Their limbs had evolved into four long flippers that... propelled them through

the water in a flying motion.

They breathe air, and so they would constantly have to come to the surface

oxygen. Most notably, they have long, thin necks.

The surgeon's photograph happens to fit that to AT.

And coincidentally, so do most of the witness statements.

Though some believe Nessie could be a plesiosaur, the theory has one major

Scientists believe that a mass extinction event, about 65 and a half

years ago, killed about 75 % of all species on Earth, including dinosaurs

plesiosaurs. A plesiosaur should not be inhabiting these waters today, in St.

Columbus time, or any time during human existence.

They're supposed to be extinct.

But is it possible the plesiosaurs somehow survived?

When we say that 75 % of the creatures did not survive the last mass extinction

event, that means that 25 % did survive. So platypuses, turtles,

crocodiles, all kinds of animals actually did survive that event.

Scientists point to a fish long thought to be extinct as an example.

The coelacanth, discovered alive in 1938 in South Africa.

The entire scientific community believes that the coelacanth dies off 66 million

years ago. There are no fossils after that. It's the same time as the

plesiosaur.

If the coelacanth can still be swimming around out there, what's to say that a

small number of plesiosaurs couldn't have somehow avoided extinction too?

But to many, the plesiosaur theory remains too far -fetched. The fact that

breathe air could account for the animal being sighted at the surface, but I

actually think that's evidence against Nessie being a plesiosaur. Because it

would have to surface all the time, if that were the case, we'd have so many

more photos and videos.

One would have probably already been caught and put in a zoo by now.

Plus, a creature as big as a 20 -foot -long plesiosaurus would need a lot of

food to sustain itself.

There's just not enough of a food source for a massive beast, let alone a

community of them, which there would have to be in order for this species to

survive this long.

And honestly, the plesiosaur theory only hangs on the one photograph.

Before the surgeon's photo is published, absolutely nobody thinks it's a

plesiosaur.

1934. The first photo of the supposed Loch Ness Monster incites public frenzy

and a torrent of tourists looking for Nessie. But not everyone believes the

image known as the surgeon's photo is authentic.

Dr. R. Kenneth Wilson.

who submits this photo to the Daily Mail, claims that it's real. But others

hold on, this is an elephant's trunk rising out of the water, or maybe it's a

dolphin's fin, or something else.

What we do know is that the photo that's published is substantially cropped and

zoomed in, which blurs the shape of the creature a bit and skews any sense of

scale or perspective.

But when some experts go back and examine the original uncropped photo,

something entirely different.

Seeing the uncropped version changes their perspective completely.

They believe that whatever this beast is in the water isn't anywhere near 20

feet long.

It's maybe three feet long at the most.

Is it possible that the most famous photo of Nessie is somehow doctored?

People question the authenticity the moment this photo comes out in 1934.

But many people still believe.

This thing is real. And there is no definitive proof otherwise.

Then in 1994, the photo's whole provenance comes into question, thanks

deathbed confession by a man named Christian Sperling.

He claims that in 1933, his stepfather was hired by the Daily Mail to find

evidence of the Loch Ness Monster.

Sperling is the stepson of a big game hunter and filmmaker named Marmaduke

Weatherall. So Duke goes on this expedition to Scotland, and it doesn't

long to find these really large animal tracks near the banks of the Loch.

Judging from the size of the footprints, Duke estimates the animal to be at

least 20 feet long.

Wetherill sends plaster casts of the tracks to a London museum.

When the results came back, they find that the tracks didn't come from a

monster, but they came from a hippo.

It sounds unusual because we all know that hippos do not come from that area.

But back then, hippos' feet were used as umbrella holders and ashtrays, so it

wasn't that uncommon.

So one of two things is happening here. Either Duke faked the track or someone

was fooling him.

The Daily Mail is not happy about either of these options, so the paper publicly

ridicules them.

According to Sperling's confession...

Wetherell concocts a scheme to save his reputation.

Duke goes to his stepson, who happens to be a model maker, and asks him to

fabricate something that looks like the eyewitness descriptions of the beast.

They're using plastic, wood, and a toy submarine that create this model of a

creature with a long neck and a small head.

And then Duke goes to the lock with his other son and creates that iconic

photograph. But in reality, it's just a picture of the model.

floating in the water.

Now Wetherill just needs a way to make the photo public.

The perfect solution, the surgeon, Dr. R. Kenneth Wilson.

Duke realizes the best way he could pull this off is if he finds someone

trustworthy who can claim the photo as their own. So he passes the photo on to

Wilson, the very same surgeon who publicizes the infamous photo.

The surgeon's photo is really a game changer.

Still is going on to this day.

Over the years, there are more fake photos of Nessie, all of them eventually

debunked.

Then in 2016, there's suddenly new evidence that suggests the monster could

real.

Researchers from Kongsberg Maritime send an underwater drone deep into the loch

to search for any evidence of the monster.

And surprisingly, the sonar returns images of something that has the shape

the monster's head and neck.

At first, this is big news.

Until it's determined to be a prop from a movie.

In 1969, a Sherlock Holmes movie was shot at the Loch.

In the movie, there's a scene where the Loch Ness monster attacks the heroes.

But during the filming, director Billy Wilder takes a look at the monster prop

and decides he does not like the humps on the back.

So they removed the hump and accidentally caused the prop to sink to

of the lock.

There's a lot of fakery surrounding the Loch Ness Monster.

People love getting their 15 minutes of fame from this.

Every Nessie sighting gets attention.

And people love getting attention.

But the sheer volume of sightings throughout time convince many that

real. We are talking about thousands of sightings.

And that's a conservative estimate. It could be tens of thousands over the

course of 1 ,500 years.

Before cameras, before Photoshop, before robotic toy submarines.

Sure, a few dozen sightings may be fake, but all of them?

No way.

A key piece of evidence for believers.

A discovery in 1808 on the Scottish island of Stronsay, just 120 miles from

Ness.

According to eyewitnesses, the corpse of a strange animal washes up on the beach

and a crowd gathers to see it.

It's the rotting carcass of an enormous unidentified sea beast, and the locals

have never seen anything like this.

Eyewitnesses call it the strontae beast and describe it as having a serpentine

-like body with a long neck and six limbs that resemble paws.

They say its head is small like a sheep and its eyes are similar to a seal, but

bigger. It has some short hairs around its head and neck, and skin that is

to the touch and grayish in color. The measurements they take show how gigantic

this thing actually is. It's 55 feet long, with its neck alone measuring 10

feet.

Authorities document the creature and take sworn witness statements.

This is the early 19th century, so they can't photograph it. But they also know

the story won't be believed, so they need to prove it somehow.

So they bring all the eyewitnesses to the Capitol, where they can swear before

magistrate that what they saw is the truth.

We still have these records, along with drawings that they made. The carcass is

quickly decomposing, and they lack the right equipment to transport or preserve

this massive animal. But they do take samples of the specimen.

The skull is saved and sent to London for further examination.

But unfortunately, it's destroyed during the Blitz in World War II.

The vertebrae, on the other hand, are sent to leading anatomist John Barclay

from Edinburgh's most successful school of anatomy.

He concludes that this is unlike any other creature he's ever seen, opening

door to the possibility that this is a newfound species.

The connection isn't initially made to the Loch Ness Monster because it's not

the 1930s yet, so Nessie Fever has not swept the nation. The legendary creature

is not famous yet.

But once it becomes famous, theorists realize, hold on.

This might be the same animal.

The fact that Stronsay is just 120 miles from Loch Ness earns extra attention.

And the physical description of the two creatures is strikingly similar.

Gray skin, long neck, some kind of flipper -like appendages, small head.

only real major difference, I would say, is the size. The Stronsay beast,

according to those eyewitnesses, is much larger than anyone has ever claimed the

Loch Ness monster to be. Nearly twice the size.

That doesn't necessarily rule out the same species, though.

Perhaps Nessie is just smaller.

Or there's an even more compelling idea.

What if the creature in Loch Ness is a younger specimen?

What if the loch is where these animals breed?

It certainly happens.

Salmon swim in all the way from the North Sea and breed in the river Ness

the loch. It's an annual event.

This may also explain the inconsistency of sighting.

If that's the case, the animal breeds and raises its young in the loch, but

it migrates out into the sea. So the reason people don't see it all that

is because it doesn't live in Loch Ness full time.

It's possible.

Loch Ness and Strontae are actually connected by water. Both the Caledonian

Canal and the River Ness connect the loch to Rosemarkey Bay, and ultimately,

North Sea.

So it's entirely possible that whatever washed up on the Isle of Strontae is the

same species as the Loch Ness monster.

If the Loch Ness Monster exists, the waters it lives in remain largely

unexplored. But as marine science evolves, new theories emerge about what

might be.

Over time, modern technology has allowed scientists to dive deeper into bodies

of water than ever before.

And the diversity of life there is amazing.

And the more species we discover, the more we have to compare to the Loch Ness

Monster to see if they are a match.

And that approach has yielded one particularly compelling candidate.

In 2012, biologist Jeremy Wade publicizes a theory that some scientists

held for years on the origins of the Loch Ness legend.

Nessie may in fact be a creature that scientists already know.

A highly elusive, very mysterious species, but one that is very real.

The Greenland shark.

Why a Greenland shark?

Why this animal in particular?

Upon first blush, this theory seemed way out there.

For decades, Nessie has been described as more of a dinosaur -like creature.

But that belief stems from a photo that we now know to be a hoax.

What if Nessie is not the long -necked beast in the surgeon's photo, but

something else entirely?

Like Nessie, Greenland sharks are elusive. They tend to prefer very deep,

cold water.

That makes them hard to study. They are rarely photographed or filmed.

A lot of what we know about them has only come to light in the past couple of

decades, despite the fact that our best guess is they've roamed the Earth for

over 100 million years.

In fact, the first time one was photographed wasn't until 1995.

And when you first look at it, you may not initially see Nessie. But keep

looking and think about some of the eyewitness accounts.

It could fit.

Greenland sharks are typically mottled gray or brown.

The same colors used to describe the Loch Ness Monster.

And they're big.

Greenland sharks can get to like 20 feet long and like four tons.

So they're very, very large animals.

They can actually be larger than great white.

Unlike most sharks, they have a small dorsal fin. If a normal shark were

cruising along the surface of Loch Ness, people would know it. It's instantly

recognizable.

But the odd stubby fin of the Greenland shark could easily be mistaken for

something else, possibly the head or hump of some kind of sea monster.

Which definitely applies to most sightings of Nessie.

Witnesses often describe multiple humps undulating through the water.

When you think back to the time of St.

Columba, through the Middle Ages, and the Nessie sightings even up to the

there are still people around who believe in things like mermaids and all

of fantastical creatures.

So it's not surprising that somebody could catch a glimpse of a bizarre

shark like this and think that it is a monster in Loch Ness or the River Ness.

mean, it kind of does look like a monster.

According to some scientists, Greenland sharks also move like the Loch Ness

monster. So most people imagine sharks as being fast, agile hunters. You think

of like a great white or a mako shark chasing down a mule.

Nessie sightings.

tend to describe a slow -moving animal.

Greenland sharks live in a completely different habitat where the water is

really cold and they have a very slow metabolism.

So they swim slowly, they eat slowly, they do everything slowly.

That is why they're sometimes called sleeper sharks.

If an enormous Greenland shark surfaced and moved along the water of Loch Ness

that slowly, it's easy to see how it could be misconstrued as something other

than a shark.

And why don't we see Nessie very often?

because a shark doesn't have to come up for air.

It may occasionally make its way to the shallows, but not very often. These

Greenlands love the depth.

The problem with the Greenland shark theory is that Loch Ness is a body of

water. For a long time, we've thought that Greenland sharks are saltwater

creatures. But new evidence suggests otherwise.

Greenland sharks have recently been filmed in Canada's St. Lawrence River.

In fact, they go all up and down the St. Lawrence Seaway through America and

Canada, and that is entirely freshwater.

A similar freshwater route connects Loch Ness with the North Sea. If Greenland

sharks can live in both freshwater and seawater, it's entirely possible one

could survive in Loch Ness, or at least migrate in from time to time.

Maybe there's even a chance that the Strontae beast remains were

and it was some kind of large shark that was capable of going back and forth

between the sea and the loch.

All of this evidence excites the scientific community.

There are so many similarities between Greenland sharks and Nessie, experts

think that they've solved the mystery.

A 2016 experiment at the University of Copenhagen only adds to that excitement.

These scientists take 28 Greenland sharks and have them radiocarbon dated

determine their age.

Shockingly, one of them is over 400 years old.

400 years makes the Greenland shark the world's longest living vertebrate. To

give you an idea of how incredibly old this is, there could be a shark swimming

out there that was alive before the Pilgrims left England on the Mayflower.

The team also finds that these sharks only grow about a centimeter every year,

and they don't even reach sexual maturity until they are about 150 years

For some, this seals the deal that the Loch Ness Monster is a Greenland shark.

That longevity could be key to how isolated the sightings have been.

Nessie seems to be a solitary creature. No one has ever seen two at once. Most

animals, you would need a family of them living in the loch and regularly

breeding to account for so many years of regular sightings.

One single Greenland shark could be responsible for all of the sightings

back to the 1600s.

To find out if a Greenland shark is living in Loch Ness, a team looks for

in 2017.

A team of scientists led by Dr. Neil Gemmel from the University of Otago in

Zealand did a really interesting study.

They went to Loch Ness and they took water samples all over the lake, the

middle, the sides, the ends, everywhere.

From a half a liter of water, we can get a very, very good catalog of life

within the loch.

They did a DNA analysis of all the DNA that they found in that water. So in

theory, any living creature that has been in that water would leave a DNA

If there's a shark in there, they'll know, along with anything else that

be swimming around.

After two years, on September 5, 2019, they announced their results.

First and foremost, they found no evidence of Jurassic -era animals,

plesiosaurs. But more importantly, they found no evidence of shark DNA,

including Greenland sharks.

If we think the creature might be migrating in and out of the loch and

it's been away for a while, perhaps the shark is still a candidate for Nessie.

But that DNA test makes things a whole lot less likely.

This study wasn't completely fruitless, though, because they did find the DNA of

countless other species, including an incredibly large deposit of another

potential Nessie candidate.

Across nearly 1 ,500 years of sightings, witnesses and scientists alike have

been fascinated with the mystery of Scotland's beloved Nessie.

But a closer look at results from a 2019 DNA test might finally reveal the

secret of what's living in Loch Ness.

Throughout the years, since at least the 1960s and maybe even before, modern

technology has been used to try and solve the mystery of the Loch Ness

Everything from sonar to thermal imaging to hydrophonic sound waves. But none of

these techniques have given us concrete results or gotten us any closer to

legitimate answers.

However, anybody who has ever watched a crime show knows that the best evidence

to provide the identity of the culprit is DNA evidence.

In 2019, a team of scientists from New Zealand finally complete their DNA

analysis of water from Loch Ness.

While there's no trace of Greenland sharks, what they discover unleashes new

possibilities for Nessie.

They find about 3 ,000 species, if you can believe it. Most of those are tiny

plankton, roundworms, nematodes, small crustaceans.

Of the larger fish they find salmon, pike, stickleback, lamprey, a few

They even find DNA of land -based creatures that sometimes end up in the

for one reason or another, including dogs, cattle, sheep, rabbits, and even

humans. This tells us that this test is very sensitive.

Even animals that rarely go in the loch are detected.

But the largest amount of DNA they find that is detected in almost every single

sample is eel DNA.

There are a ton of eels in Loch Ness. It is one of the principal spawning

grounds of the European eel.

Now, most of these eels, they only grow to be about 0 .8 meters. So they're not

exactly monsters. But could there be a monster eel?

Very possible.

Every single sampling site that we went to pretty much had eels. And the sheer

volume of it was a bit of a surprise.

The largest eel in the region is the European conger. It can grow to almost

feet long and weigh up to 160 pounds.

Could that be Nessie?

Eels are migratory fish, so if someone saw an eel in Loch Ness, it's pretty

to assume that they could think that that's the Loch Ness monster.

Once you have an eel in mind and you look back at the videos and images of

Nessie, you realize it could be possible.

especially if you analyze the way both Nessie and eels move.

The Loch Ness monster has often been described as a serpentine -like monster,

maybe snake -like, or perhaps eel -like. If any animal could look like a sea

monster, an eel is a prime candidate. It really has a classic serpentine look.

Eels move in a slithery, sort of snake -like way, where their body curves.

And that's exactly what people...

say the Loch Ness Monster looks like. So it's really possible that they saw an

eel with those hump -like shapes, and they thought, that's the Loch Ness

Monster.

A 2007 video shot by retired engineer Gordon Holmes seems to support this

theory. In 2007, Holmes makes some trips to Loch Ness to perform some amateur

experiments just for fun.

At first, he records some sounds using hydrophonic equipment.

Then he sets up a camera to capture video of the lake. But he doesn't find

anything out of the ordinary.

That is, until his visit on May 26th.

Holmes spots the movement in the water as he's driving and pulls over and grabs

his camcorder.

His footage clearly shows some type of large animal moving through the water.

Though it's hard to tell, it appears as though it's moving in...

A serpentine fashion, almost slithering through the lochs. This is some of the

best video ever captured of a creature on the surface of Loch Ness.

Holmes purposely zooms in and out while he's shooting to make sure the shoreline

and other landmarks are visible so the footage can be analyzed later.

Holmes sends his footage to a forensic team to determine the animal's size and

speed.

They find that it's 10 to 15 feet long and swimming at a speed of six miles per

hour. Based on movement analysis, they find a strong likelihood that this

is an eel.

Eels are the most common animal in the loch, and it's very likely that most of

the sightings over the year have been related to eels. At the time, this is

before the discovery of eel DNA in the loch, so they come to this conclusion

on their own. Eels can also appear brownish -gray in the water and have

smooth skin, like the Nessie description.

The so -called humps that people see could be the serpentine curves of the

as it swims.

And the whole long, thin neck concept could fit with the eel as well. They

a long, thin everything.

But at 10 to 15 feet long, if Holmes' research is correct, there would still

an eel of massive proportions.

And in fact, they did develop an amazing new science and a way to study bodies

of water and what lives in them.

But of course, potentially identifying the Loch Ness Monster brings a ton more

attention to their research.

When a DNA profile of life in Loch Ness is completed in 2019, it uncovers a wide

array of species, but it doesn't identify everything.

Some of Nessie's most passionate researchers are quick to note that

the full 2019 report, the source of 20 % of the DNA collected is unknown, and

that opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

Maybe the monster isn't a plesiosaur or a shark or an eel or any species that

we've even encountered before.

All of the previous attempts to prove that it is this animal or this other

animal have been destined to fail because it's none of these.

We may not know what it is because we just don't know what it is.

Based on all this unidentified DNA, could Nessie be a completely

previously unknown species?

If there's one thing that all underwater explorers and scientists can agree on,

it's that we have not found all the species in the ocean.

There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of species that we haven't

or classified yet.

There's stuff out there that we don't know anything about.

If Nessie's species is unknown, how can we ever identify it? Pretty much the

only way we can properly identify a new species, whether it's a tiny insect or a

giant lake monster, is to find a specimen. That's how science proves and

classifies new animals, plants, and even bacteria.

Either living or dead, we have to capture one.

As far as we can tell, nobody has ever captured a Loch Ness monster.

There may have once been those remains on the Isle of Strontae, but we're not

actually sure it's the same animal. And in any case, none of that DNA survived.

So there's no way to compare the Strontae beast DNA with the unknown DNA

have from the loch.

So we're stuck with trying to catch this elusive animal in Loch Ness.

But for 1 ,500 years, no one has even come close.

We're still trying to get a good photograph, let alone trap the thing.

The problem lies...

in the incredibly challenging conditions at Loch Ness.

First off, Loch Ness is huge.

It's 23 miles long, it's a mile wide, and the most important thing, 750 feet

deep, which is impressively deep for any lake. It contains more water than any

other lake in the UK.

In fact, it contains as much water as all the lakes in England and Wales

combined.

It's a large place to look for a monster.

But the size isn't the only reason it's hard to explore.

Loch Ness is full of peat, which is organic matter from plants that's

breaking down in water. It makes the water dark brown, almost black.

Visibility is only a couple of feet at most.

And even if you were to dive down for a look around, the temperature is not

survivable. Loch Ness has an average surface temperature of 42 degrees

Fahrenheit. And as soon as you get about 20 feet down, it has what is known as a

thermocline. It's a stratification of the water, almost like an invisible

where suddenly the temperature can drop 10 or 20 degrees.

Without a very advanced modern dry suit, a diver could freeze to death and drown

in about six minutes.

I'm not sure that this thing is possible to catch in Loch Ness.

But could another lake linked to Loch Ness by a waterway offer fresh hope of

capturing a creature?

Like Nessie.

According to some, the answer is yes.

And Sweden's Storsjön Lake is the ideal location.

Both are fresh water and fairly cold.

Both share similar biological diversity, oxygen levels, etc.

If something can live in Loch Ness, it can most likely live here too.

Like Loch Ness, it has a long history of monster sightings.

There have been centuries of reported sightings of a creature with the same

physical description.

In Swedish, it's called Storjuljuret, which literally translates to the Great

Lake Monster.

First written about on a runestone that dates all the way back to the year 1050,

it's got this depiction of a long serpentine water monster on it.

Conditions in the two lakes are similar, but there's one key difference.

Storjuljuret is much cleaner and clearer and much less hazardous to explore.

And that makes spotting a monster.

Much easier.

Thanks to much more favorable conditions, the Storzjord has been

on video from far away, most recently in a 2008 documentary that also shot

infrared footage.

And attempts to track the specimen have already been mounted.

Researchers at the Lake Monster Center in Storzjord plan to continue their

search efforts.

If they're successful, all we have to do is compare the Swedish creature's DNA

to all the unknown DNA from Loch Ness.

If any of it matches, we've identified our monster and discovered a brand new

species. That would be among one of the most incredible scientific discoveries

in history.

As many as 18 ,000 new species are identified every single year.

So the possibility is out there. I hope one day we can add Nessie to that list.

Over long centuries, many theories have emerged about the origins and existence.

of the mysterious Loch Ness Monster.

Each offers an intriguing possibility, but none are airtight.

You say, hey, maybe it's a plesiosaur, but there's no evidence any of them

survived extinction, and we'd see an air -breathing creature much more often.

So maybe it's a Greenland shark, but shark DNA wasn't found in the loch.

Well, what about all the eels, Ian?

But could an eel, even a giant one, grow that big?

What about the thing that washed up in Stronteng?

or the similar lake monster in Sweden. To be honest, any one of these creatures

could be what was spotted in Loch Ness. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say all

of these things could be.

What if it's not Loch Ness Monster, but Monster?

We talk about the Loch Ness Monster as this monotypic creature, like there's

just one of it.

There's only ever been one Nessie.

But given the time period, 1 ,500 years of sightings? That's highly unlikely.

There's absolutely no reason it has to be one thing and the same thing over a

century. Let's start with the eel theory.

For sure, some of the things that people have seen in the loch over the years

have been eels. Just look at the Gordon Holmes footage, and that's obvious.

It's a common animal on the loch, and when you're scanning from far away

for any kind of movement on the surface, a large swimming eel could certainly

catch your attention.

How about a Greenland shark?

Well, we know they're swimming around in the North Sea, and they can and do

sometimes go upriver in the freshwater areas.

It's quite likely a predator like that could follow a bunch of salmon into the

river net and could conceivably make it all the way into the loch. A lot of

animals that sharks like to eat make that trip, including seals.

While there wasn't any shark DNA in 2019, there's still a good chance that a

shark has been spotted in the loch across the thousands of other sightings.

And what about...

The plesiosaur theory.

I don't necessarily think there's a living, breathing plesiosaur that is

swimming around there. But I do think the plesiosaur may be what's behind the

legend.

Scotland and the UK in general are teeming with plesiosaur fossils.

Fully intact skeletons of creatures that back in the Middle Ages would have been

assumed to be monsters.

Water beasts, just like St. Columbosaur.

Imagine in 500 or 600 AD, you stumble upon the remains of a plesiosaur. You

would certainly tell your buddies back at the alehouse about the crazy giant

long -necked creature. It's quite possible that this tale eventually

into the Loch Ness Monster legend.

As for the strontae beast, whatever it is, it really doesn't matter. If it

washed up on the shore of the island, we know there's a direct path of waterway

that connects back to the Loch Ness.

And any migratory creature, whether it's a shark, a whale, or anything less,

could be swimming back and forth from the sea to the loch. Some of the Loch

sightings could be the same animal.

Or perhaps an unidentified animal from even further away.

Across 1 ,500 years, some of the Loch Ness sightings may well be an

new species.

Even the DNA results bear that out. They can't identify every living thing in

the loch.

But if Sweden's Georgian Lake is hiding the same species, maybe we'll have an

incredible discovery soon.

Still, even if they identify the store's good shirt and identify one in Loch

Ness as well, that doesn't mean that Gordon Holmes didn't see an eel or

didn't see other animals. A new species would be a revelation, but remain only

one piece of the puzzle.

And still, there will always be those people who believe Nessie is a hoax.

We know for a fact that plenty of Nessie witnesses have been duped by hoaxes. It

happened to a sonar team that found a movie prop.

And in fact, it happened to millions of people around the globe thanks to the

surgeon's photograph.

So yes, Nessie is also a hoax, but not just a hoax. There is much more to the

monster than that.

One day we may get the perfect biopsy, the perfect picture, the perfect bone

specimen, or maybe a strange long -necked creature will just walk right

the lock and say hello.

And when that day comes, it'll be time to break out the champagne.

But until then, I think we shouldn't limit our minds to what Nessie could or

couldn't be, because it could be something new next year. The

endless, and that is what has kept people fascinated with Nessie for so

Despite the many challenges, thousands of amateur and professional researchers

still spend time at Loch Ness every year, hoping to unmask the monster.

Perhaps modern technology will soon provide us with a clear picture of

hiding in the depths. Until then, there's no shortage of people willing to

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.