THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 6, 1995 TAG: 9505060013
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
In Scotland's Loch Ness, there have been about 4,000 sightings of something huge and serpentine since 1868 - the renowned mystery creature often referred to affectionately as Nessie.
Over that period, at least two forces have been at work - the debunkers, including some serious scientific investigators who have found various nonmonster explanations, and the feeders of the legend, people like Scotland's tourism promoters as well as hordes of the world's excitables, those who yearn to believe anything that seems unbelievable.
And these outwardly conflicting forces have not always worked in opposition to each other. The scientific projects, like the $1.6 million electronic expedition of 1987, though it found no monster, no water-inhabiting plesiosaur left over from the prehistoric age of reptiles, have actually helped sustain the Loch Ness mystery industry.
Last year, the leader of that expedition, Adrian Shine, made the research case against ``Nessie'' even stronger. He had concluded - going beyond the negative results of the high-tech search of deep waters Nessie was supposed to inhabit - that the source of Scotland's monster fever could have been an outsize sturgeon, a long-snouted fish that may have worked its way from the sea up river to the loch. And, in fact, the very first theory in 1868 was that a large fish had caused all the public commotion.
One of Shine's reasons for rejecting the idea of a monster is the finding that the ordinary fish population of Loch Ness - only about 20 to 30 tons - isn't enough to feed such a marine giant.
As to what witnesses have reported, he thinks most of the snakelike heads and humps that have excited observers have been shapes and shadows in the wakes of boats. (My wife and I saw neither serpent nor wakes when we had our own look, several years ago, over the serene gray surface of the loch from the vantage point tourists often use in shore-side Urquhart Castle.)
But the monster notion continues to intrigue. Consider such recent spinoffs as the story of a gigantic beaver chewing up wooden structures along a section of the Mississippi River near Moline, Ill. Consider also the use of the depths of Loch Ness for the popular virtual-reality program at our own Nauticus (participants are supposed to find and retrieve some of the monster's eggs in an underwater labyrinth).
Oddly enough, the more elusive the hard evidence gets, the more stubbornly the legend of the loch persists and the easier some people's imaginations seem fired up by new twists and titillations.
UFOs, Bigfoot and Nessie forever! I guess. MEMO: Mr. Hebert is a former editor of The Ledger-Star. by CNB