The Mystery of Scotland - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Mystery of Scotland

Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster

• Loch Ness is located in the Scottish Highlands.

• Once known as Loch na Beiste or The Lake of the Monster.
• The lake is 24 miles long, one and a half miles wide, average depth of 700 feet.
• The water is very cold, and is an inky black color.

• Has a neck estimated to be six feet long
• It has a serpentine looking head with a large bump behind it.
• Nessie is estimated to be about 30 feet long from head to tail
• Thought to be an air breather
• Appearance of a plesiosaur

• First reported sightings date back to 1933
• Part of the sightings are due to the new road built alongside the lake.
• 1934, Arthur Grant made the first land sighting of Nessie
• Some sightings are thought to be nothing but a hoax

• Most famous photograph, “surgeons photo”, found false in 1993. Photo was of a model of the monster.
• Another photograph shows a vague and fuzzy image of Nessie’s face, but was later proven to be the remains of a tree stump.
• Sonar images show large object in the water, but uncertain if it is a school of fish.

Foot prints were found leading out of the lake, but they were then proven to be that of a hippo, staged to be Nessie’s foot prints

• Explanations can be either a manatee or a zeugloden (also known as a primitive whale).
• Other culprits could be unknown species like a long necked seal, giant otter, or overgrown eel.
• Logs of Scotch Pine trees that decay underwater and create gases that cannot escape, but will eventually break through and propel the log through the water.
• Standing waves that are created by wind piling up a layer of warm water to the end of the loch and forcing the cold water to the opposite side.