In 2005 our family traveled to Scotland, and of course visited Loch Ness while we were there in hopes of catching a glimpse of its elusive sea monster for ourselves.  Sadly, there was no Loch Ness Monster sighting for us.  It's interesting how you tell yourself that you don't believe in such things, but when you're on the lake (loch) you're waiting with bated breath, just hoping beyond reason that you'll see Nessie.

There has always been a fascination with Nessie, right from the first century AD to today.  Here's a little history that I've been able to uncover.

The Picts who inhabited Scotland in the first century AD have stone carvings of an aquatic creature in Loch Ness. St. Columba, an Irish Monk in the 6th century, wrote that he soothed the murdering beast in his biography. The 1933 sighting by a couple brought newspaper famed to "Nessie". People came from all over to see the creature. With more than 4,000 sightings, and some from noted people, Nessie became famous. In 1934, the now-famous picture of the Loch Ness Monster's silhouette in the water was taken by a physician in London. In 1957 a local doctor published a book which was a collection of sightings to vindicate the integrity of the witnesses to this phenomenon. This sparked a flury of interest using new technology such as sonar to find the beast. In 1957 a new technology of underwater photography using strobe lights photographed the flipper of an aquatic creature, which was presented in the House of Commons in London. In 2003 satellite sonar scanned every section of the Loch and found no evidence of a large living aquatic creature. 

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