Recently, a young Canadian family photographed the "Loch Ness Monster" in Loch Ness, Scotland, which attracted the attention of the British and Canadian media.
As with all sightings of mysterious objects, these photographs maintain the characteristics of high paste, ghosting, backlighting, distant view, and ambiguity, but they do not hinder people's curiosity.
Earlier this month, Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman were on a tour of Loch Ness with their two small children when they stumbled upon a set of photographs showing a black unidentified creature with a long neck swimming around at a rapid pace.
The family was enjoying the view from the observation deck of Urquhart Castle by the lake when they suddenly noticed something moving on the water.
"We can see its head sticking out of the water," Malm said. Then it went up the river towards the castle, slowly getting closer and closer. Then it sank and disappeared. ”
The sighting of the mysterious "lake monster" has a history of thousands of years
According to the museum of the small town of Nice, the earliest recorded sightings of water monsters date back to 500 AD. However, the most well-known sighting was a black photograph from 1933, which was later confirmed to have been forged by locals with a toy plesiosaur.
At that time, Duke, a photographer at the local tabloids, was in charge of collecting information about the water monster, but there were no clues, and in order to prevent losing this high-paying job, the workers planned to create a water monster themselves.
However, people have been arguing for hundreds of years about whether there are water monsters in Loch Ness. Since all eyewitness accounts from ancient times to the present day are surprisingly consistent - all mention the "long neck", this has attracted the attention of scientists:
The shark hypothesis
The Loch Ness Monster may be a Greenlandic shark that is ugly and slow-moving, growing to more than 6 metres in length and weighing up to 4 tonnes. The most important thing is that they can enter Loch Ness through the river, so they are considered to be Loch Ness Monsters.
Plesiosaur hypothesis
More witnesses believe that the Loch Ness Monster is a plesiosaur, after all, they are too similar in both photos and descriptions. In addition, an elderly Englishman also found four vertebrae of plesiosaurs on the shores of Loch Ness, which seems to confirm that Loch Ness was once home to plesiosaurs.
Of course, this hypothesis is very unlikely, and plesiosaurs were reptiles from the Cretaceous period, which became extinct more than 60 million years ago.
The elephant hypothesis
Some scholars believe that the so-called water monster may be an elephant swimming in the water. Since the circus often camps on the shores of Loch Ness, it is theorized that elephants will run into the lake to play and bathe, and once the elephants penetrate into Loch Ness, people only see the trunk, head and back of the elephants, so people have the impression of a Loch Ness monster with a long neck.
The eel hypothesis
A DNA study of hundreds of water samples from Loch Ness by local scientists found that the sightings, if any, were likely to be a giant eel.
It doesn't matter if it's a water monster or not
For Malm and Wiseman, they submitted their photos to the official Loch Ness Monster sightings website just to keep their two children entertained. The couple only thought that the unidentified creatures were otters and seals, while their children thought it was the legendary "Loch Ness Monster".
The family watched all the movies and books about the Loch Ness Monster before the trip, and the two children were so excited that they even prepared small biscuits, which were said to be the Loch Ness Monster's favorite snack.
After witnessing the "water monster", the family excitedly "told everyone they met, including the postman and people in the shops and cafes".
"Our youngest son will be 3 years old next week," Wiseman said in an interview with the media. "He told everyone that there were two key moments in his life: seeing the world's largest dinosaur at the Natural History Museum in January, and seeing the Loch Ness Monster".