The Loch Ness monster is one of the most famous mythical beasts, supposedly lurking below the cold waters of Loch Ness in Scotland. But there has been no conclusive proof of its existence yet, despite many people searching for it over the years … Until …
Looking for animals, even very large, in a long and deep fjord like Loch Ness is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. During a visit to the Loch Ness Monster Museum, long ago, I had seen old sonar records purportedly from “something” lurking in the deep, although my sceptical eye interpreted this as long-range noise in the records … Later, more accurate sonar maps of the bottom of the Loch Ness had revealed structures, more or less circular, build of rocks and rubble and placed at regular intervals. Some journalists of course used the occasion to talk of “monster nests”, but the truth was much more prosaic, if as interesting. As I wrote in my 2009 Handbook of Sidescan Sonar, these structures were associated with the building of the road along the shore. Debris from the construction were loaded onto barges, which dumped everything unceremoniously in the deeper parts of the loch. And, like any collection of objects falling in deep water, these rocks arranged themselves in rough circles.
But this time, even the BBC reported it. So it looked much more serious, and I started reading … This Nessie was a lost prop from a movie several decades ago, not a real, live animal. It was found by my colleagues at Kongsberg Maritime, using a combination of the latest technologies now available: high-resolution sonars, capable of mapping both the topography of the loch’s bottom and its acoustic reflectivity, and the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle MUNIN, their latest model. Their website has a very nice (and short) movie of how they found it. It really is a needle in a haystack!
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