Original subtitles

For centuries, the highlands of Scotland have provided a stunning backdrop to

one of the world's most enduring mysteries.

A terrifying creature that's been spotted beneath these tranquil waters

thousands of times, but still remains unidentified.

The Loch Ness Monster.

Is it simply a legend?

Or a case of mass hysteria?

Or... Could it be much more?

Is a massive creature actually lurking in the depths?

To find out, we'll compare decades of encounters across northern Europe, and

modern science to create a brand new profile of the beast, with help from the

world's top aquatic experts.

What might we discover?

Could Nessie possibly exist in some form?

Could it even be a new, never -before -seen species?

No!

And if so, could we potentially find it and have an up -close encounter of our

own?

Tonight, we dive deep in search of the Loch Ness Monster.

Oh, there's the bubbles! There's the bubbles. He's getting ready to come up.

You've probably heard this one before.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a

sound?

What about this?

If a monstrous creature swims across the surface of a Scottish loch and no one

takes a picture, was it ever really there?

For over 1 ,400 years, according to thousands of eyewitnesses, the answer is

yes.

All of them saw something emerge from the depths of Loch Ness.

The question is, what was it?

Whatever it is, it's certainly camera shy.

But that doesn't mean that Nessie can't be identified.

In fact, we actually have a large pool of information to draw from.

We have first -person encounters, recorded histories, and even some

video.

We have known species with similar characteristics that we can study for

to Nessie's behavior.

Add it all up, and perhaps we can build a profile of the monster to find out

once and for all if the legend could possibly be true.

With that goal in mind, let's start with a man who says he's actually seen

the beast.

Retired engineer Gordon Holmes is one of the few people who claims to have

captured the Loch Ness Monster on camera.

He's taking us the exact spot at the water's edge where his life changed

forever.

I saw the monster at 10 minutes to 10 on the 26th of May 2007.

During the morning I'd been doing hydrophonic research on the Loch.

At the evening, I decided to go up to the lay -by, which had a good commanding

view of the lock, about 70 foot above the surface.

This was my fourth visit up to the lock, and I hadn't actually got anything

concrete, evidence of something mysterious.

Despite years spent waiting, Gordon remained determined to see the Loch Ness

Monster.

And on this day, his persistence finally paid off.

I'd been there for a few hours and then suddenly I saw something coming towards

me.

I immediately reached over the back seat and grabbed my camcorder.

I dashed out, slammed the door, and then suddenly I realised that's not what

you're supposed to do. I've read that if you see a potential monster...

Don't slam the door, because that'll frighten it. So I then ran down to the

of the lay -by and realised it disappeared. Where's it gone?

And then suddenly I saw it over to the right and immediately I got the

and zoomed into its position.

For the next two and a half minutes, I was privileged to one of the most

sights I've ever seen.

As you can see from Gordon's footage, there is most definitely some type of

large animal swimming across the loch.

But what could it be?

This thing was like bubbling along the waves. At no point did it break through

the surface of the streamlined water flow.

The creature appears to be moving in a serpentine fashion.

almost slithering through the water.

Based on the species known to inhabit Loch Ness, one might conclude that this

an eel.

But when you analyze the video more carefully, the eel theory seems

I read somewhere that if you ever get a sighting of something like this, you

should zoom in and out.

so that the people that analyze the footage can always then estimate the

whatever the creature was.

And at the same time, you can prove it's not like a fake because she's seen it

in context.

In context, the animal appears to be at least 15 feet long, much larger than any

freshwater eel species, and therefore potentially something completely

It was certainly going at speed into the waves. It wasn't some sort of log.

This was a creature that had energy, it had power. It was thrusting through the

waves.

In addition to the creature's length, experts were able to determine that it

moving at a top speed of six miles per hour.

This is probably the best footage up to this time of the so -called Loch Ness

Monster.

I realised this was a turning point in the history of the Loch Ness Monster.

But Gordon is still unsatisfied.

He hopes to eventually have another encounter with the creature.

And this time, he plans to be ready with even better equipment.

If money was no object, I'd have my own research boat with underwater robotic

vehicles.

Meanwhile, Gordon has purchased a hydrophone to pick up sound signatures

water, a sky camera carried by helium balloons as a makeshift drone, and a

magnetometer.

In order to understand Nessie's environment, should she exist, you need

to delve into all the parameters possible, the variables and the

But science alone may not be enough to catch a second glimpse.

Gordon believes it will take some luck as well.

I've witnessed several times tourists that come to the side of the lock and

can tell they're praying to see something, to see the monster.

And I, by chance, being in the right place at the right time, just happened

capture on film something remarkable.

But of course Gordon Holmes' sighting is only a small part of a much longer

history for this unknown species.

If we want to solve the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster, we'll have to go back

a whole lot further.

The Loch Ness Monster was first written about in 565 A .D. in the story of St.

Columba, an Irish monk who was traveling along the banks of the River Ness.

when he happened upon a man's funeral.

The townspeople explained that the man had been swimming when he was attacked

and killed by a water beast.

At that time, people most likely believed this water beast was a dragon.

But as the centuries passed, people stopped believing in dragons.

Yet the sightings continued.

All in the same area, and all eerily similar.

A massive unidentified animal churning up the water as it swims across the

This was no mythical creature.

This was no dragon.

Witnesses confirmed that whatever it was, it was very real.

Local pubs were full of stories of the mysterious beast.

But the legend of the Loch Ness Monster wasn't taken seriously until 1933, when

a reputable law enforcement officer, Loch Ness water bailiff Alex Campbell,

spotted the monster multiple times.

What's the most you've ever seen of it at any one sighting? The best view I

had was the very first thing. I saw the head, the neck, and the huge body, which

I'd say was about 30 feet long.

And the skin was exactly like that of an elephant.

Wrinkly, tough -looking.

Is it not possible, Mr. Campbell, that you're mistaken in this? Not at all.

When all of this evidence is combined, it seems that there actually might be a

large, unidentified species in Loch Ness.

Monster or not, we can start to use this information to build a profile and find

out for ourselves.

Campbell described a beast 30 feet from end to end, with a four -foot -high body

and a wavy, narrow neck stretching 12 feet long.

After years of vague descriptions and tall tales, this was the first highly

detailed account of the alleged creature that would soon be dubbed the Loch Ness

Monster.

And just a few months later, an even more spectacular bombshell fueled Nessie

fever around the world.

On April 21st, 1934, London's Daily Mail published what it claimed

was the first photograph ever taken of the Loch Ness Monster.

Sightings of Scotland's famed Loch Ness Monster have been reported since the 6th

century.

But it wasn't until April 21st, 1934, that the search for the creature truly

took off.

And it was all thanks to this.

Known as the Surgeon's Photograph, the picture was snapped by London

gynecologist Robert Kenneth Wilson while out for a lakeside walk and published

in London's Daily Mail newspaper.

The image appears to show a silhouetted figure with a long, slender neck, a

small head, and a large body that's obscured by the waterline.

Immediately after the photo was published, the British public began

on the nature of this mysterious beast.

What could this photo possibly depict?

Some suggested it was the dorsal fin of a dolphin or whale.

Others thought it might be a submerged elephant raising its trunk to breathe.

A circus had recently visited the area, giving more strength to this theory.

But the most popular belief may also have been the most far -fetched.

Many thought this was a creature that had been extinct for millions of years.

It's a theory that continued for decades after the photo was first published.

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 plesiosaur.

Could it be possible that the plesiosaur, thought to have died out

dinosaurs, had actually survived, only to end up here in Scotland?

Before you decide for yourself, there's one thing you should know.

This first iconic image was a Hulk.

In 1994, 60 years after it was first published in the Daily Mail, the true

of the photograph came to light.

The newspaper hired big game hunter Marmaduke Wetherall to find evidence of

monster. Instead, he created a model of a beast with a long neck and attached it

to a toy submarine.

He then chose a trustworthy physician, Dr. R. Kenneth Wilson, to deliver the

photograph of his creation.

And the rest is history.

But that one hoax doesn't explain countless other sightings and more

photo and video evidence that has yet to be disproven.

In 1955, Peter McNabb captured this image.

In the 1970s, an American scientist shot this underwater photograph depicting a

30 -foot -long flipper.

And of course, we have the 2007 footage from Gordon Holmes.

None of these sightings provide definitive proof of the Loch Ness

existence.

But they do suggest the possibility that some large species might be lurking

there.

The question is, what species could it be?

Can we build a profile to potentially identify it?

First of all, Gordon Holmes described an eel -like aspect to the front of the

creature.

His video shows that it can hold itself up near the surface for an extended

period, with a cruising speed of 6 miles per hour.

Therefore, Something below the water is propelling it upwards as well as

forwards.

Most likely the flippers seen in this image.

Unfortunately, this small amount of visual evidence can't tell us much else.

But we do know one more key piece of information that's crucial to our

We know that if this species exists,

It has managed to elude capture for more than 1 ,400 years in these Scottish

waterways.

Local water bailiff Chris Conroy thinks he knows how an animal could manage to

stay undetected for so long in these unique conditions.

Loch Ness contains as much water as all the rivers and lakes in England and

Wales combined.

It's the largest water body in the whole of the UK. It's absolutely massive.

It's really hard to comprehend just how big this loch is.

It runs from east to west. It's a total of about 23 miles long.

It averages about a mile wide and it's about 750 feet deep.

If you look at the shape of the loch, you've got these really steep sides.

The tops of the hills here are about the same height up as the depth of the

loch, and they go straight down on the edges, very, very steep, and as you hit

the bottom of the loch, it becomes very flat, very full of sediment, and you get

this sort of bathtub shape.

In other words, there's plenty of room in Loch Ness to hide.

And even if someone were to search beneath the water, they wouldn't survive

long.

Loch Ness features a phenomenon called a thermocline, which causes deadly

conditions as you dive down.

It's a stratification of temperature.

So as you go down into the water column, a relatively short distance, you

suddenly hit a temperature barrier and there'll be a significant change in

temperature up to maybe around 10 degrees.

This affects the chemistry underneath. So if you are to go underneath...

that barrier, you'll suddenly become very, very cold.

Even at the locked surface, the average water temperature is 42 degrees

Fahrenheit.

Beneath the thermocline, without the protection of a modern dry suit, a diver

could drown in under six minutes.

And those freezing temperatures are paired with near blackout conditions.

it's an absolutely perfect place for something to hide it's it's very

to see anything the water is very peaty as we call it now the peat is basically

organic matter that's breaking down it's washed into the rivers and that comes

flows into the loch and you end up with this really dark tea colored water okay

let's do a little bit of a test here just to show you what the water's like

here so i've got a standard whiskey glass we just pop it in the water here

in the top you can see how clear it is but don't let that fool you because

as you get deeper down you'll see the color change if you were to go just a

little bit further down or towards the bottom it would start to look more like

this you can see it's much more tea -like in color and it's all the organic

matter that's broken down leaves and other plant material that's washed down

rivers and creates this really dark color

While that unique watercolor makes the alleged monster hard to find, it also

gives us a significant clue to its possible appearance.

If it can stay undetected in these conditions, it must have a natural

camouflage.

Nessie's skin has often been portrayed as flat gray or bright green.

But in fact...

it much more likely matches the tea -like appearance of the surrounding

mottled brownish color.

But if we hope to identify the Loch Ness Monster, knowing its color won't be

enough.

At 750 feet deep and 23 miles long, near blackout conditions

below the water,

and average surface temperatures of 42 degrees,

Loch Ness is an incredibly challenging place to track down an unknown species.

But if we hope to identify the Loch Ness monster, at some point, we'll have to

dive in.

Fortunately, before we do, footage from several underwater cameras can give us a

preview of what lives beneath the surface.

A surprising number of species thrive in the loch, even at its maximum depth of

750 feet.

We've got trout, brown trout, we've got arctic char, we've got eels, we've got

lamprey species, and then we've got other species which have been seen here,

which include the records of sturgeon, northern pike, and perch.

In addition to the fish, mammals follow the fish into the river, and we

regularly get seals.

living in Loch Ness, particularly the common or harbour seal, and it's an easy

food source for them.

And could it also be a food source for something else?

Could the loch's population of trout, arctic char, pike, eels and lamprey

possibly be enough to feed a large predator all year round?

Sounds like there's a lot, but actually...

Given the depth and the size of it, there isn't as much as a density of food

you might think. The fish are generally focused in key areas. There are quite a

few fish in here, but there's also a lot of nothing as well.

But two times a year, the situation drastically changes, and Loch Ness

veritable all -you -can -eat buffet.

All thanks to the Atlantic salmon that return to these waters in large numbers

annually to spawn.

The salmon migrate up from the sea and they use the loch as a refuge for them.

It's nice because it's so deep and dark, they can hide in here.

And they generally need a nice flow of fresh water, so you'll quite often find

them at the mouths of rivers where they're waiting to migrate upstream to

They're packing on these nutrients and by the time they return to the river,

they're really fit, healthy, fat fish.

Would this be enough food for a large predator like Nessie?

Chris hasn't seen the monster yet, but thinks it is within the realm of

possibility.

I've been here six years, so I've still got time for us to see something.

But I'll say my colleagues don't rule anything out. You do tend to see some

strange things at strange times of the day and night.

It does show you that things can turn up and things can appear that you don't

expect.

If Nessie exists, then clearly it needs to eat in incredibly large quantities.

The spring and summer salmon migrations would go a long way towards sustaining

the creature, assuming it could somehow live off that feeding frenzy through the

less bountiful fall and winter.

Sightings place Nessie at between 30 and 50 feet in length.

For comparison, consider the great white shark.

which is half as long and averages 5 ,000 pounds in weight.

Nessie, therefore, could tip the scales at upwards of 10 ,000 pounds.

Based on a great white's diet, to maintain that weight, the Loch Ness

would need to eat around 250 pounds of fish per day during its feeding season

sustain it through the year.

The creature's diet, size, and weight are crucial additions to our profile.

especially when added to our previous theories on its coloring, its movement

speed, and its partial serpent -like appearance.

Despite thousands of sightings and near constant speculation about the Loch Ness

Monster, there's still very little agreement about its features or where it

might be found.

It's a problem that's been frustrating Nessie hunters for decades.

We're not spending all this time and money trying to prove that there's a

unidentified species in Loch Ness. We know that.

We've seen it. We know it's here.

What we are trying to do now is identify the species.

Today, a brand new profile is emerging, which once complete, could help us

finally find the beast.

But while most researchers have focused their efforts within the Scottish

Highlands, they're ignoring a key data source.

Because as it turns out, this unknown species might have a long -lost twin

outside the loch.

In the 17th century, a similar creature began appearing here, in northern

Sweden's Storsjön Lake.

The Swedes call it the Great Lake Monster.

In the eastern town of Åstersund, archaeologist Anders Hansson has been

the Great Lake Monster for years and believes there is a definite link to

Ness.

We know that people have always been seeing strange things in big waters, and

this is part of the Western and Norwegian tradition, and even up to

that we have these sea serpents.

There have been rumors of an unknown underwater species in Storzjan as far

as the 11th century, not long after rumors of Nessie began.

One early description was even recorded on a Viking relic.

called the Frozo Runestone, that has stood in Östersund since 1050.

And as you can see, it's got this great serpent, this dragon on it.

And this is what is said to be the first, actually first picture and story

the Great Lake Monster.

A similar timeline isn't the only thing these two creatures share.

Both Loch Ness and Storzian are cold freshwater lakes, and both feed directly

into the same common body of water, the North Sea.

In other words, a migratory aquatic species could swim between both

lakes.

Physical accounts of the Swedish monster also line up with alleged Nessie

sightings.

Seeing something in the lake, sometimes it's three meters, sometimes it's 15

meters long.

Almost all the witnesses describe the monster with a long sea serpent -like

and the head of a dog or a horse.

Some of them are quite dramatic, talking about the speed of the monster and how

the mouth of it was so big that you could put down, I mean, your whole head

the mouth of the monster.

Ready to see the archive?

Yeah. We have it in the vault.

Material or what? Anders' colleague, Anna Engman, keeps careful track of

hundreds of written witness statements at the Jamtli Museum.

This way.

Today, she's agreed to let us take a rare look at some of them.

Yeah, here it is. Great lake monster.

Storsjö og djuret.

Okay, it's all this about the monster, really?

Yeah, it's all this is about the monster So this

is a lot of observation from Dating from

1990 until the late 18th century This one

is from around 1930 She's telling this story

about how she She saw the monster when she was doing the laundry by the lake,

and it was huge, and it was grey and ugly.

Grey and ugly?

Yeah, grey and ugly. And she got so scared, she ran away, left the laundry

ran away.

And when she turned around, the monster was gone.

Okay.

Many sightings also describe a back that is covered in pointy, fin -like

protrusions.

A man who's seen the monster.

He's seen something black with three bumps on it.

Oh, yeah. Here we can see.

The museum also keeps records of attempts to trap the monster, like one

1890s, sponsored by the King of Sweden, Oscar II.

We have this huge trap.

And it's said to come from a company that was established 1894.

And the reason for the company was to catch the monster.

And this big trap was supposed to be baited with a pig and sunk down into the

lake. And to guard it and catch the monster, they hired a Norwegian whaler

because he could use his harpoons.

That early capture attempt failed.

But the search for the Swedish monster continues today on the south side of

Storsjön.

Kurt Jansson runs the monster center there that monitors activity in the

The center was opened in 2012.

Here at the center we are searching for the Great Lake Monster.

During the summer with the boats and during the night with cameras.

And hopefully that we're going to find it and have it on picture.

That's the goal.

Kurt and his team set up two surface cameras, two underwater, a night vision

camera, as well as one that's sensitive to temperature.

Despite 24 -hour surveillance, they have yet to pick up an adult specimen of the

creature. But Kurt believes...

He did see a younger one.

Many times we have seen something, but actually we don't know what it is. One

time we saw a little baby from the Great Lake Monster.

And it was posing up like this at the end of the picture, like Loch Ness.

If one is willing to believe in the Loch Ness Monster, there's no reason to

doubt Sweden's accounts of the Great Lake Monster.

Perhaps its features can help add to our profile.

Witnesses in Sweden have managed to spot two more key details.

First, the addition of fin along the creature's back.

No Scottish sighting has been clear enough to make this determination.

Second, the Swedes describe a head that resembles a dog or a horse.

While it's unlikely to be covered in fur, it does change our concept of the

skull's shape.

indicating that Nessie's head could taper into a longer, thinner contour,

unlike a dog's snout.

So what do we have here?

Two similar creatures spotted along similar timelines, both in large, cold,

northern freshwater lakes.

And what's more, these two lakes are directly linked via the North Sea.

If the Swedish and Scottish monsters are related, or even the same species, it

raises a frightening possibility.

Perhaps the Loch Ness Monster isn't trapped in the loch at all.

For over 1 ,400 years, people have struggled to identify the mysterious

creature. known as the Loch Ness Monster.

While definitive proof of the monster's existence has yet to be found, it's

clear that something big has been spotted multiple times.

Could it potentially be a new, still undiscovered species?

In our quest to profile the animal, we've just made a shocking discovery.

Another creature, described as nearly identical to Nessie, allegedly living

miles away in Sweden's Storsjön Lake.

This is a potential game changer in our quest to identify the Loch Ness Monster.

Is it possible that Nessie is part of a migratory species?

If so, what does this mean about its behaviors and appearance?

Believe it or not, the answers may lie 3 ,500 miles from the loch, on the James

River in Virginia, where ecologist Dr. Matt Velazic has been studying another

migratory species for 12 years.

We're at the VCU Rice River Center on the James River in Richmond, Virginia,

we're going to be going after some spring adult Atlantic sturgeon.

Atlantic sturgeon are the perfect species to study to figure out what it

take for an animal to survive in Loch Ness.

Atlantic sturgeon cover a massive range.

While you can find them here in Virginia, they're also one of the top

predators in the North Sea near Scotland.

Just like the alleged descriptions of the Loch Ness monster, they're big, They

thrive in cold water, and they're among the most mysterious and elusive hunters

in our waterways.

You could have a fish that's 12 feet long swimming under you, and you'd never

even know.

Once common in this area, sturgeon hadn't been seen in the James River in

generations.

But then, residents began spotting signs of a mysterious marine creature in

their midst.

People were seeing these things with just quick glances. And you're like,

that was some kind of monster.

And people's imaginations get rolling.

My favorite was, oh, there's mutant sharks.

In 2007, Matt caught the first sturgeon in the area in decades and

finally identified the unknown creature.

It was...

Almost the equivalent of catching a unicorn.

It was an almost six -foot -long fish, covered in armor, and just something

you wouldn't even think existed anymore.

And we had it right there in front of us. There was no ifs, ands, or buts

it. It was right there.

Since then, Matt and his team have caught and tagged more than 700

sturgeons. using acoustic receivers to track their migratory movements.

So that's a fish.

If he can catch one today, it could provide critical new information to help

identify the creature hiding in Loch Ness.

Oh, there's the bubbles. There's the bubbles. He's getting ready to come up.

As we continue to build our profile of the Loch Ness Monster, we've zeroed in

a compelling new theory.

What if the creature is a migratory animal with a range that stretches far

beyond the loch?

If that's the case, another large migratory species, the Atlantic

hold clues to Nessie's behavior.

We're getting ready to pull in the first net.

There's the bubble. There's the bubble. He's getting ready to come up. He's

getting ready to come up. Yeah, he's pulling.

There he is.

Okay, hold on.

Yeah, he's pulling.

All right, we're done.

Despite this fish's impressive length, it's only a medium -sized specimen.

We're just going to measure it down the length of its belly.

Okay.

This fish is just over 7 feet long, but historically there are records of them

twice as big as this, and there's unofficial records of 18 feet long.

These sturgeon also have incredible lifespans.

The biggest ones can live over 100 years.

For our purposes, as we try to identify the Loch Ness Monster, we need only ask

one question.

What does it take for a massive North Sea predator like the sturgeon, and like

Nessie, to survive for so long?

One possible explanation is the sturgeon's natural built -in armor

This is the dorsal line of scoots right here.

These are actually bone. It's a form of calcium phosphate, which is just like

our bones. And it's actually wrapped all around the fish. It's got them on the

side and it has them on the belly. This is pretty much a suit of armor all

around it.

These bony plates, called scutes, have given the sturgeon the ability to

outgrow, outlive, and outsurvive almost every other species in the North Sea.

They are some of the ultimate survivors.

240 million years ago is the upper end of when these fish started to come

around. And these fish have persisted that whole time.

The fact that this fish here was dodging dinosaurs, I think that's pretty

awesome.

According to Matt, armored plates much like the sturgeon's could be a perfect

explanation for one of Nessie's key features as described by alleged

eyewitnesses.

A lot of the sightings in Loch Ness are of, like, humps on the side.

Those could potentially be scoots, especially on a big sturgeon when the

will be really big and the ridge will be really tall.

Is it possible that the Loch Ness monster's famous humps along its back

humps at all, but instead are a series of bony armored plates?

The Atlantic sturgeon may just have provided an important clue in our

And other members of the sturgeon family tree could offer even more useful

information.

Atlantic sturgeon are really just bottom feeders eating bugs, but there's a lot

of other sturgeon species, like the belugas and the white sturgeon, that

actually do actively prey on fish.

And those sturgeon actually get really big.

As you can see in this photo from 1903, beluga sturgeon have been documented at

nearly 30 feet long.

Considering their massive size, body shape, and ability to hide and survive

cold, dark water, the sturgeon is one of the closest species we can study to

determine the behavior and appearance of the Loch Ness Monster.

Despite their 30 -foot length, beluga sturgeon can freely move between

freshwater and saltwater while hunting their prey.

And sturgeon have been found in both Loch Ness and in Sweden.

Is that our answer?

Could the monster simply be an overgrown sturgeon?

As we're about to find out, the mystery is still far from being solved.

Next time, there's a chance we've had physical evidence of the Loch Ness

for centuries.

Go!

And if that's the case, then we may know exactly where to look for our own

encounter with the beast.