Protecting the Loch Ness Monster
It’s Mother’s Day. So here’s a special shout-out to Nessie, a.k.a. the Loch Ness Monster. May people continue to believe that you don’t exist! After all, what would happen if it were proven that Nessie is alive and well and really living in Loch Ness?
There’s good reason for concern. In the 1930s, there was an international craze in all things Nessie. It began in 1934, with the famous photo of her that sparked new interest. Within months, reports and rumored sightings were growing like plesiosaurs. What happened next? The hunters showed up.
In 1938, for example, a couple arrived with a harpoon, which they intended to use to capture Nessie or one of her family. And this was the final straw for the Chief Constable of Scotland. In an official letter, Chief William Fraser wrote: “That there is some strange creature in Loch Ness now seems beyond doubt, but that the police have any power to protect it is very doubtful.”
Chief Fraser’s letter to the Scottish government is among several documents just released by the National Archive of Scotland. They reveal that, in the late 1930s, local authorities tried to get the government to protect and defend the famous creature of the deep, dark waters of Loch Ness.
Chief Fraser was a hard-nosed policeman who also cared about animals and didn’t want any harm to come to the creature whose safety was threatened by the growing belief in her very existence.
A recent satellite photo suggesting something large swimming in Loch Ness.
Cryptozoologists — people who gather evidence of creatures like Bigfoot and the Yeti — say that Chief Fraser’s letter is important because it validates that the Scottish government, despite its public pronouncements to the contrary, was secretly but seriously concerned that there were real creatures in the loch, and they wanted to protect whatever unknown animals that lived in the lake.
Leading cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has mixed feelings about proving the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. “Any species like this [would certainly be] certainly low in numbers,” he says. “And the last thing we want [is for] people to go out there and hunt these creatures to near extinction.”
So, my Mother’s Day wish for Nessie is that science will continue to debunk and disprove Nessie’s existence. After thousands, maybe millions, of years of peaceful existence in the famous loch that bears her name, heaven help her if it turns out she’s really there.