Opinion Express View on Loch Ness monster: The hunt for Nessie

More than once, the Loch Ness monster turned out to be an oddly-shaped rock or a floating log. One time, Nessie — as the cryptid is affectionately known — was proved to be a toy submarine fitted with a model of the monster’s long neck (the infamous “surgeon’s photograph” which, 29 years since its exposure as a hoax, continues to beguile Loch Ness enthusiasts). What, then, makes the volunteers preparing to gather on the shores of a Scottish lake next weekend, to execute the biggest hunt in 50 years, believe that this time will be different? Reason dictates that this time too, they are unlikely to discover what manner of beast — if any — lurks in the waters.

Do monsters — whether the one said to be in Loch Ness, the North American Sasquatch or the Himalayan Yeti — exist? This is a futile question in the face of the indefatigable enthusiasm of committed monster-hunters, or cryptozoologists. So far, no piece of evidence has held up to scrutiny — not the grainy Patterson-Gimlin film which purportedly showed Bigfoot strolling through a forest nor the giant footprints on the shore of Loch Ness (found to have been made with a stuffed hippopotamus leg). In Nessie’s case, hoax busters have also pointed to the suspiciously high number of local hotel proprietors in the list of sightings over the years, leading them to dismiss the myth as a lure for tourists. Yet, the legend endures, and the quest goes on.

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At the root of the obsession, perhaps, is the human instinct for wonder and mystery, for miracles that defy the stone-cold logic of reality and science. It is at the heart of both prayer and superstition. Nessie’s alleged hometown in the Scottish Highlands may be making $1 million a year off her fame, and that may be a fair price for the joys of speculation and myth-making that she provides.