What is the Loch Ness Monster?

Scientists have calculated that a maximum of 17 to 24 tons of fish live in the Loch Ness. For a lake of its size, it is a small amount, and would be able to keep alive about ten creatures weighing 226 kg each. According to Richard Forrest, an expert on plesiosaurs, ten creatures would not be enough to keep a colony going. �Thirty to forty creatures would be the minimum size of a breeding population,� he says.

In addition, if creatures similar to plesiosaurs lived in the waters of the Loch Ness, they would be seen very frequently as they would have to surface several times a day to breathe. Eye witnesses have often mentioned seeing an animal throwing back its long neck from the water, but Forrest claims that plesiosaurs couldn�t do that. �The simple fact is that a plesiosaur�s neck is too stiff. The bones of the neck interlock and there are tall spines on top of them so the neck can�t go straight out of the water,� he says.

SONAR investigations

But it is not impossible for prehistoric creatures to still be around today. In 1938, South African fishermen caught a gigantic fish that turned out to be a Coelacanth, a prehistoric fish thought to be extinct for the past 80 million years. Because of murky water filled with peat, it has been hard for divers to properly investigate the depths of the Loch Ness and the life that exists there. The advent of SONAR � a measuring instrument that sends sound waves into water and measures distance by calculating the time it takes for an echo to travel back to the source � has proved to be useful for probing the mystery since the waves can detect any objects that come in their way.

In 1987, Operation Deepscan took place - the biggest SONAR exploration of Loch Ness. Boats equipped with SONAR were deployed across the whole width of the lake and they simultaneously sent out acoustic waves. BBC News reported that the scientists had made sonar contact with a large unidentified object of unusual size and strength. The researchers decided to return to the same spot and re-scan the area.