May 2, 2022 • 9 mins
On this day in 1933, Scottish newspaper The Inverness Courier published an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen the legendary Loch Ness Monster.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that demystifies history one day at a time.
I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking at the birth
of a modern legend that's enthralled tourists and cryptozoologists alike
(00:22):
for nearly a century. The one and only, possibly non
existent Monster of the loch Ness. The day was May second,
nineteen thirty three, Scottish newspaper The Inverness Courier published an
(00:46):
account of a local couple who claimed to have seen
the legendary loch Ness Monster. The story, titled Strange Spectacle
on loch Ness, marked the first reported sighting of the
creature in modern times. The article referred to the mystery
animal as a quote fearsome looking monster, and that was
(01:07):
a first as well. The use of the word monster
is likely why London newspapers picked up the Courier story,
and also why it was eventually reported internationally as well.
The classic film King Kong had premiered just one month earlier,
it was still fresh in everyone's mind, and as a result,
(01:28):
people around the world were captivated by the idea of
a real life monster. The Mackay couple's sighting made Nessie
a global phenomena, but in Scotland, reports of a giant
underwater creature had been part of the country's culture for
at least fifteen hundred years. Lock Ness is a freshwater
(01:49):
lake located in the Scottish Highlands, southwest of the city
of Inverness. It stretches roughly twenty three miles in length
and reaches a depth of nearly eight feet. The earliest
known reference to a strange creature living in the lake
is a carving from the first century around five a d.
(02:09):
At the time, the Scottish Highlands were home to tribes
of heavily tattooed people known as pieds or painted people.
In addition to painting their bodies, they also carved pictures
into a series of standing stones near loch Ness. Animals
were one of their favorite subjects, and although most of
the ones they carved are easily recognizable, there is one exception,
(02:34):
an unknown creature with a long beak or muzzle, a
strange protrusion on the back of its head, and flippers
instead of feet. The earliest written reference to a monster
in loch Ness came a century later in a biography
of St. Columba, the Irish missionary credited with introducing Christianity
(02:55):
to Scotland. As the story goes, Colombo was on his
way to visit the King of the Northern Picts in
the year five sixty five. Along the way, he heard
about a huge beast that had been causing trouble in
lock nests. When he stopped along the lake shore to investigate,
he spotted a massive beast out in the water. It
(03:15):
was getting ready to attack another unsuspecting swimmer, so Columba
raised his hands in the air and commanded the creature
to relent in the name of God. This supposedly did
the trick. The creature backed off and never bothered the
locals again. Prior to the twentieth century, there were about
a dozen other references to large beasts and lock nests.
(03:38):
Some of those accounts borrowed elements from another story from
ancient Scottish folklore, the myth of the kelpies or water horses.
These malevolent steeds were said to lure young children into
the water by inviting them to ride on their backs.
Any kids who took them up on the offer were
then carried deep underwater and drowned. Over time, the line
(04:02):
between mythology and reality gradually began to blur, until the
accounts of a creature in Lochness were more like eyewitness
reports than fairy tales. That was certainly the case with
the sighting in nineteen thirty three. Early that year, a
new road was completed along the shore of Lochness. It
gave drivers a clear view of the northern side of
(04:24):
the loch for the first time, and that's how missus
Aldi Mackay and her husband were able to spot Nessie
while driving home. In the May second edition of the
Inverness Courier, the couple's sighting was described as follows. On
Friday of last week, a well known business man and
his wife, a university graduate, were startled to see a
(04:46):
tremendous upheaval on the loch, which previously had been as
calm as the proverbial mill pond. The lady was the
first to notice the disturbance, which occurred fully three quarters
of a mile from the shore, and it was her
sudden c eyes to stop that drew her husband's attention
to the water. There the creature disported itself, rolling and
(05:07):
plunging for fully a minute, its body resembling that of
a whale, and the water cascading and churning like a
simmering cauldron. Soon, however, it disappeared in a boiling mass
of foam. Both onlookers confessed that there was something uncanny
about the whole thing, for they realized that here was
no ordinary denizen of the depths apart from its enormous size.
(05:31):
The beast, in taking the final plunge, sent out waves
that were big enough to have been caused by a
passing steamer. The watchers waited for almost half an hour
in the hope that the monster, if such it was,
would come to the surface again, but they had seen
the last of it. After the couple's sighting went global,
more reports of the Locknest monster were quickly reported. Another
(05:55):
couple said they saw the creature on land, slithering across
a road of the lock. Not long after, the London
Daily Mail dispatched a big game hunter named Marmaduke weather
Ll to track down the monster. He never bagged his target,
but he did claim to have found Nessie's footprints. This
discovery generated more stories in the press and prompted a
(06:19):
British circus to offer a twenty thousand pound reward for
the animals capture. The announcement sent hundreds of hunters and
fishermen scrambling to lock Ness, along with an even greater
number of tourists. Eventually, though the footprints found by weather
l were proven fake. It turned out that the big
(06:40):
game hunter had fallen prey to someone else's prank. The
tracks he found had been planted, and they belonged to
a stuffed hippopotamus foot, not the Lockness monster. Public interests
sank once the hoax was uncovered, but sightings of the
creature continued to be reported, and in four someone even
claimed to have taken a picture of the beast. This
(07:02):
now infamous photo was submitted to The Daily Mail by
a reputable London surgeon named R. K. Wilson. It showed
a dinosaur like creature with a long, slender neck rising
up out of the water, and for many it was
the first compelling evidence that Nessie actually existed. The murky
photo led many to speculate that Nessie might not be
(07:25):
a monster at all, but the last surviving pleasi asaur,
a species of large marine reptiles believed to have gone
extinct during the Jurassic period. That theory technically still stands,
but the photo that gave rise to it was ultimately debunked.
Sixty years later. It turned out that the surgeon's photo
(07:45):
had been staged using a small toy prop. R. K.
Wilson had been persuaded to sell the photo on his own,
but the man who actually took it is believed to
have been none other than Marmaduke weather L. The Daily
Mail had ridiculed the Hunter following that unpleasant business with
the hippo foot, and whether Ll allegedly got his revenge
(08:07):
on the paper by making them fall for a hoax
just as he had. The plan worked a little too well, though,
and the truth about the photo wasn't uncovered until well
after the deaths of everyone involved. Of course, the revelation
about the nineteen thirty four photo did little to discourage
either tourists or Lockness Monster investigators. Over the last ninety years,
(08:32):
there have been dozens of expeditions to find the legendary creature.
Some have been carried out by amateurs and others by professionals,
including those at several British universities. So far, though there's
still no conclusive evidence of a large aquatic animal living
in Lochness. However, there were still between five and twenty
(08:53):
new sightings of Nessie every year. Are all those people
lying like so many others before them, or do they
really see something that everyone else has missed? For many
true believers now and in the future, the best way
to find out is to head the lock nests and
try to catch a glimpse for yourself. I'm Gabelusier and
(09:16):
hopefully you now know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. You can learn even more about
history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
t d i HC Show, and if you have any
comments or suggestions, you can always send them my way
at this day at i heeart media dot com. Thanks
(09:38):
to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you
for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for
another day in History class
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that demystifies history one day at a time.
I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking at the birth
of a modern legend that's enthralled tourists and cryptozoologists alike
(00:22):
for nearly a century. The one and only, possibly non
existent Monster of the loch Ness. The day was May second,
nineteen thirty three, Scottish newspaper The Inverness Courier published an
(00:46):
account of a local couple who claimed to have seen
the legendary loch Ness Monster. The story, titled Strange Spectacle
on loch Ness, marked the first reported sighting of the
creature in modern times. The article referred to the mystery
animal as a quote fearsome looking monster, and that was
(01:07):
a first as well. The use of the word monster
is likely why London newspapers picked up the Courier story,
and also why it was eventually reported internationally as well.
The classic film King Kong had premiered just one month earlier,
it was still fresh in everyone's mind, and as a result,
(01:28):
people around the world were captivated by the idea of
a real life monster. The Mackay couple's sighting made Nessie
a global phenomena, but in Scotland, reports of a giant
underwater creature had been part of the country's culture for
at least fifteen hundred years. Lock Ness is a freshwater
(01:49):
lake located in the Scottish Highlands, southwest of the city
of Inverness. It stretches roughly twenty three miles in length
and reaches a depth of nearly eight feet. The earliest
known reference to a strange creature living in the lake
is a carving from the first century around five a d.
(02:09):
At the time, the Scottish Highlands were home to tribes
of heavily tattooed people known as pieds or painted people.
In addition to painting their bodies, they also carved pictures
into a series of standing stones near loch Ness. Animals
were one of their favorite subjects, and although most of
the ones they carved are easily recognizable, there is one exception,
(02:34):
an unknown creature with a long beak or muzzle, a
strange protrusion on the back of its head, and flippers
instead of feet. The earliest written reference to a monster
in loch Ness came a century later in a biography
of St. Columba, the Irish missionary credited with introducing Christianity
(02:55):
to Scotland. As the story goes, Colombo was on his
way to visit the King of the Northern Picts in
the year five sixty five. Along the way, he heard
about a huge beast that had been causing trouble in
lock nests. When he stopped along the lake shore to investigate,
he spotted a massive beast out in the water. It
(03:15):
was getting ready to attack another unsuspecting swimmer, so Columba
raised his hands in the air and commanded the creature
to relent in the name of God. This supposedly did
the trick. The creature backed off and never bothered the
locals again. Prior to the twentieth century, there were about
a dozen other references to large beasts and lock nests.
(03:38):
Some of those accounts borrowed elements from another story from
ancient Scottish folklore, the myth of the kelpies or water horses.
These malevolent steeds were said to lure young children into
the water by inviting them to ride on their backs.
Any kids who took them up on the offer were
then carried deep underwater and drowned. Over time, the line
(04:02):
between mythology and reality gradually began to blur, until the
accounts of a creature in Lochness were more like eyewitness
reports than fairy tales. That was certainly the case with
the sighting in nineteen thirty three. Early that year, a
new road was completed along the shore of Lochness. It
gave drivers a clear view of the northern side of
(04:24):
the loch for the first time, and that's how missus
Aldi Mackay and her husband were able to spot Nessie
while driving home. In the May second edition of the
Inverness Courier, the couple's sighting was described as follows. On
Friday of last week, a well known business man and
his wife, a university graduate, were startled to see a
(04:46):
tremendous upheaval on the loch, which previously had been as
calm as the proverbial mill pond. The lady was the
first to notice the disturbance, which occurred fully three quarters
of a mile from the shore, and it was her
sudden c eyes to stop that drew her husband's attention
to the water. There the creature disported itself, rolling and
(05:07):
plunging for fully a minute, its body resembling that of
a whale, and the water cascading and churning like a
simmering cauldron. Soon, however, it disappeared in a boiling mass
of foam. Both onlookers confessed that there was something uncanny
about the whole thing, for they realized that here was
no ordinary denizen of the depths apart from its enormous size.
(05:31):
The beast, in taking the final plunge, sent out waves
that were big enough to have been caused by a
passing steamer. The watchers waited for almost half an hour
in the hope that the monster, if such it was,
would come to the surface again, but they had seen
the last of it. After the couple's sighting went global,
more reports of the Locknest monster were quickly reported. Another
(05:55):
couple said they saw the creature on land, slithering across
a road of the lock. Not long after, the London
Daily Mail dispatched a big game hunter named Marmaduke weather
Ll to track down the monster. He never bagged his target,
but he did claim to have found Nessie's footprints. This
discovery generated more stories in the press and prompted a
(06:19):
British circus to offer a twenty thousand pound reward for
the animals capture. The announcement sent hundreds of hunters and
fishermen scrambling to lock Ness, along with an even greater
number of tourists. Eventually, though the footprints found by weather
l were proven fake. It turned out that the big
(06:40):
game hunter had fallen prey to someone else's prank. The
tracks he found had been planted, and they belonged to
a stuffed hippopotamus foot, not the Lockness monster. Public interests
sank once the hoax was uncovered, but sightings of the
creature continued to be reported, and in four someone even
claimed to have taken a picture of the beast. This
(07:02):
now infamous photo was submitted to The Daily Mail by
a reputable London surgeon named R. K. Wilson. It showed
a dinosaur like creature with a long, slender neck rising
up out of the water, and for many it was
the first compelling evidence that Nessie actually existed. The murky
photo led many to speculate that Nessie might not be
(07:25):
a monster at all, but the last surviving pleasi asaur,
a species of large marine reptiles believed to have gone
extinct during the Jurassic period. That theory technically still stands,
but the photo that gave rise to it was ultimately debunked.
Sixty years later. It turned out that the surgeon's photo
(07:45):
had been staged using a small toy prop. R. K.
Wilson had been persuaded to sell the photo on his own,
but the man who actually took it is believed to
have been none other than Marmaduke weather L. The Daily
Mail had ridiculed the Hunter following that unpleasant business with
the hippo foot, and whether Ll allegedly got his revenge
(08:07):
on the paper by making them fall for a hoax
just as he had. The plan worked a little too well, though,
and the truth about the photo wasn't uncovered until well
after the deaths of everyone involved. Of course, the revelation
about the nineteen thirty four photo did little to discourage
either tourists or Lockness Monster investigators. Over the last ninety years,
(08:32):
there have been dozens of expeditions to find the legendary creature.
Some have been carried out by amateurs and others by professionals,
including those at several British universities. So far, though there's
still no conclusive evidence of a large aquatic animal living
in Lochness. However, there were still between five and twenty
(08:53):
new sightings of Nessie every year. Are all those people
lying like so many others before them, or do they
really see something that everyone else has missed? For many
true believers now and in the future, the best way
to find out is to head the lock nests and
try to catch a glimpse for yourself. I'm Gabelusier and
(09:16):
hopefully you now know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. You can learn even more about
history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
t d i HC Show, and if you have any
comments or suggestions, you can always send them my way
at this day at i heeart media dot com. Thanks
(09:38):
to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you
for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for
another day in History class
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