Episode 2
The Loch Ness Monster
- Where
- Loch Ness, Scottish Highlands
- When
- 1933 onwards
- Narrator
- Foxley
- Verdict
- Probably explained
- Weirdness
- 7/10
The agency, above Frank's Chippy
Thursday nightThursday night. The rain was coming down like it had a grudge, and downstairs the chip shop was frying its last haddock. Then the door banged open and in walked Hargreaves, editor of the Sunday Lantern, carrying the oldest mystery in the Highlands and no umbrella.
(dripping rainwater onto their carpet, slapping a soggy file down next to the chip papers) Loch Ness. Ninety-odd years of sightings, one confessed toy submarine and a loch with more water in it than every lake in England and Wales put together, and nobody's found so much as a scale. Copy on my desk by Friday, Foxley, and the crisps are not going on the invoice again.
(snatching the file before the red pen lands on it) One toy submarine, guv, and that was a photo from 1934, not the Mackays watching something whale-like roll in the water or the Spicers seeing a long neck cross the road in front of their car. And Danvers, before you start, even Professor Gemmell's DNA survey found loads of eel and admitted it can't show size, so giant eels can't be ruled out. Copy by Friday, crisps on my own tab, and a monster in the headline if I can stand it up.
(unscrewing her flask) I'll grant you the eels, Foxley, because Gemmell genuinely can't rule them out. But that same survey found no reptile DNA at all, so your long-necked thing crossing the Spicers' road isn't an eel, and it isn't a plesiosaur either. Let's start with the boring explanation: both 1933 sightings came after a new road opened up the view of the loch, and a loch that sloshes every thirty-one and a half minutes gives people plenty of whale-like rolling to see.
(scribbling furiously, then jabbing the pencil at her) Fair hit on the road: more people looking means more sightings, I'll give you that. But a seiche is water sloshing, Danvers, so it can roll in the loch all it likes, and it still can't climb out and cross the road in front of the Spicers' car. So whatever they saw, if it wasn't an eel and it wasn't a reptile, what was it?
(setting down her tea) Fair point, Foxley, I'll admit a seiche doesn't go for walks. But deer and otters are already on the usual list of Loch Ness explanations, and both can leave the water, so a deer's neck or an otter would do nicely for your long-necked thing on the road. I'm keeping badgers in reserve.
Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness
Saturday, just after dawnSaturday. One overnight drive, two flasks of tea and an argument about the radio later, we were up on the ruins of Urquhart Castle, with the mist lying on the water like it had something to hide.
(lowering the binoculars, wellies wedged on a crumbling wall of the Grant Tower) Look at it, Danvers: mist on the water, and the very spot where somebody photographed two humps in July 1955. That wake rolling in is a tour boat, before you say it, I can see the boat. Which is exactly why I want to know what was making the humps back in '55.
(pouring tea into the flask lid and nodding at the water) You've just watched a tour boat send a row of humps rolling at a castle wall, Foxley, and in 1955 nobody had to see the boat for its wake to still be arriving. Add the wind slicks and a loch that sloshes every thirty-one and a half minutes, and two humps in a photograph look like ordinary loch water. I'll grant you that I can't prove what was in that particular frame, but the wake we're watching now is the boring explanation, and it has the advantage of being real.
(binoculars snapping up, crisps tumbling over the parapet) Wake my wellies, Danvers, the boat's gone and there's still a dark hump out there in the mist, and it's moving against the ripples! (Squinting harder, voice deflating.) Right, it's a log, which is on your list of explanations, but in my defence it made a very convincing hump.
(screwing the lid back on her flask) It was a very convincing hump, Foxley, and that's my whole point: from the castle, a log in the mist fooled a trained monster-spotter in under a minute. Pick up your crisps and get in the car, because we're going round to Foyers on the east shore, where Hugh Gray took the first photo in 1933. I'm betting on his dog or an otter, and I've packed the tape measure.
Foyers, east shore of Loch Ness
Saturday afternoon, drizzleFoyers, that afternoon. The drizzle had settled in for the day, and somewhere up the glen the falls were roaring like they knew something we didn't.
(squelching across the shingle and waving the tape measure at the grey water) Hugh Gray stood somewhere near here in 1933, Danvers, and you can measure his dog all you like, but in 1987 twenty-four boats swept this loch with echo-sounders and still logged one sonar contact nobody could identify. Somebody guessed a seal, fine, but Gemmell's samples were full of eel DNA and he admitted it can't tell you how big any of those eels are. So how long does this tape go, because I think we may need a longer one.
(holding out her hand for the tape measure) One contact in 1987, Foxley, and since then 600 sonar beams in 2003 found no animal of any real size, and the 2023 search with thermal drones and hydrophones turned up nothing conclusive either. A plesiosaur would have to come up for air so often that half the county would have seen it by now, and a whole breeding family would need more food than this loch may be able to give them. A very large eel I'll leave open, so you can keep the tape for now, and I'll give the case seven out of ten for weirdness, which from me is practically a love letter.
(tucking the tape measure into his corduroy pocket like a trophy) Seven out of ten and a giant eel left open in print, Danvers, I'm framing that love letter. No reptile DNA, so I'll let the plesiosaur go, but a very big eel has now outlasted one toy submarine, twenty-four boats, six hundred sonar beams and a load of thermal drones. Headline for the Sunday Lantern: "Science Can't Rule It Out: The Giant Eel of Loch Ness", and if they cut it I'm filing the crisps as surveillance rations.
The Sunday Lantern
The following TuesdayTuesday. The Sunday Lantern smelled of ink, cold tea and forty years of deadlines. Hargreaves read our copy the way other men defuse bombs.
(not looking up, red pen hovering over the headline) "Science Can't Rule It Out: The Giant Eel of Loch Ness." Forty years in this trade, and that's the first headline I've seen that admits it's about a fish. (Turning to the invoice and stopping dead.) And what's this, Foxley? "Surveillance rations, Urquhart Castle"? You threw them over a parapet at a log.
(drawing himself up to his full lanky height) Those crisps were lost in the line of duty, guv, because a log in the mist fooled me in under a minute and that's in the copy too. And a fish is the most honest thing anyone's put in a Loch Ness headline since 1934, which is more than you can say for a toy submarine.
(unscrewing her flask without looking at either of them) For the record, Mr Hargreaves, my tea isn't on the invoice, because I bring my own. My tape measure will be, though, unless Foxley takes it out of his pocket before he has it framed.
(capping the red pen at last) It runs as Probably explained: a tour boat's wake, a log in the mist and two big sonar searches that came up empty, and the Lantern prints Foxley's eel headline because Gemmell admits he can't rule one out. Point to Danvers for watching a boat make humps at Urquhart and seeing off the plesiosaur with no reptile DNA, and point to Foxley for dropping the plesiosaur, keeping the eel honest and owning up to the log in print. The tape measure goes on the invoice, Danvers. The crisps went over a castle wall, Foxley, so you can pay for them yourself.
The tape measure went on the invoice. The crisps didn't. And the eel, as far as anyone knows, is still down there.
Science Can't Rule It Out: Loch Ness's Giant Eel
No reptile DNA, empty sonar sweeps and a confessed toy submarine: the monster is probably boat wakes, logs and otters. But eel DNA can't show size, so a giant eel stays in the frame.
By Foxley & Danvers, our investigators