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Loch Ness Monster Day
"Sssnnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?
Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.
Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl –
gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm.
Hovoplodok – doplodovok – plovodokot-doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?
Gombl mbl bl –
blm plm,
blm plm,
blm plm,
blp."
~ The Loch Ness Monster's Song, Edwin Morgan, 1973
It was on May 2, 1933, that Scotland's Inverness Courier published a report about a local couple who swore that they saw “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface” of Loch Ness. Apart from outright hoaxes, some of the more studied explanations for sightings of everyone's favorite Scottish cryptid (an animal that has been claimed but never proven to exist) include: lake sturgeons, surfacing trees, indigenous giant eels, mountainous reflections, bird wakes, seismic activity, and even swimming elephants! As one researcher opined, "A lack of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence." Real or not, Nessie deserves her own tartan! 🐉
Although accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland’s Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when a sighting made local news on May 2, 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.”
One year later the famous "surgeon's photograph", a photo of the creature's head and neck, entered the canon of sightings. Supposedly taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London gynaecologist, he was purportedly looking at the loch when he saw the monster, grabbed his camera and snapped four photos. For 60 years the photo was considered evidence of the monster's existence, although sceptics dismissed it as driftwood, an elephant, an otter, or a bird. The photo's scale was controversial; it is often shown cropped (making the creature seem large and the ripples like waves), while the uncropped shot shows the other end of the loch and the monster in the centre. The ripples in the photo were found to fit the size and pattern of small ripples, unlike large waves photographed up close. Analysis of the original image fostered further doubt. In 1993, the makers of the Discovery Communications documentary Loch Ness Discovered analysed the uncropped image and found a white object visible in every version of the photo (implying that it was on the negative). It was believed to be the cause of the ripples, as if the object was being towed, although the possibility of a blemish on the negative could not be ruled out. An analysis of the full photograph indicated that the object was small, about 60 to 90 cm (2 to 3 ft) long.
Google commemorated the 81st anniversary of the "surgeon's photograph" with a Google Doodle, and added a new feature to Google Street View with which users can explore the loch above and below the water. Google reportedly spent a week at Loch Ness collecting imagery with a street-view "trekker" camera, attaching it to a boat to photograph above the surface and collaborating with members of the Catlin Seaview Survey to photograph underwater.
Google has even been accused of covering up the existence of the Loch Ness monster by blurring one of its maps. Several people claim to have found sightings by perusing these maps!
Regardless, this tartan was created for Loch Ness monster lovers all over the world. Colours: dark blue for Loch Ness; green for the hills and glens surrounding Loch Ness; white for the clouds reflecting on the loch; blue for the skies of a sunny highland day and the dark colour of Nessie's skin.
To use the Google views to search for Nessie yourself, click the picture of opening ceremonies for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.