Lakhasly

"Dad! Dad! What's that in the loch? shouted Jim Ayton. It was a calm summer's evening in 1963. Jim was working on his father's farm on Loch Ness, a lake in Scotland, when he looked up to see a strange creature moving silently down the lake. It was huge! Jim had never seen anything like it before. Two men nearby heard Jim's shouts and rushed to join him and his father. The excited group wanted a closer look. They ran to the lake, climbed into a boat, and headed straight toward the creature. The creature's head looked a bit like a horse's head, only bigger. Its neck stretched nearly 6 feet (2 meters), as tall as a full-grown man. Its snakelike body was as long as a bus. Could it be the legendary Loch Ness monster that people had talked about for years? Suddenly the creature rose out of the water. Then it dived. An enormous wave hit the small boat. It rocked and swirled around. Had the creature seen the men? Was it about to attack? A few seconds later the creature's head reappeared. It was farther away now. The monster seemed more frightened than ferocious! Then it was gone. The men searched and searched for it, but they never saw it again. It was 20 years before anyone heard the story about what had happened that day. Jim and his father didn't think many people would believe them. But the Aytons and their friends are not the only people who claim to have seen this mysterious monster. One of the earliest known sightings was made more than 1,400 years ago by Saint Columba, a traveling Irish holy man. Legends tell how, in 565 A.D.,

the saint saw a "water monster" attack a swimmer in Loch Ness.A line of 19 boats, each fitted with a sonar scanner, moved up the loch.Cryptoclsidus (krip-toe-KLIE-duss) was a plesiosaur: a huge fish-eating reptile that lived in the sea.Fortune seekers, scientists, and monster enthusiasts swarmed around the loch, all wanting to take the best monster picture ever.Is the Loch Ness monster a survivor from the dinosaur age?What they discovered amazed them.

"Dad! Dad! What's that in the loch? shouted Jim Ayton. It was a calm summer's evening in 1963. Jim was working on his father's farm on Loch Ness, a lake in Scotland, when he looked up to see a strange creature moving silently down the lake. It was huge! Jim had never seen anything like it before.

Two men nearby heard Jim's shouts and rushed to join him and his father. The excited group wanted a closer look. They ran to the lake, climbed into a boat, and headed straight toward the creature.

The creature's head looked a bit like a horse's head, only bigger. Its neck stretched nearly 6 feet (2 meters), as tall as a full-grown man. Its snakelike body was as long as a bus. Could it be the legendary Loch Ness monster that people had talked about for years?

Suddenly the creature rose out of the water. Then it dived. An enormous wave hit the small boat. It rocked and swirled around. Had the creature seen the men? Was it about to attack?

A few seconds later the creature's head reappeared. It was farther away now. The monster seemed more frightened than ferocious! Then it was gone. The men searched and searched for it, but they never saw it again.

It was 20 years before anyone heard the story about what had happened that day. Jim and his father didn't think many people would believe them. But the Aytons and their friends are not the only people who claim to have seen this mysterious monster.

One of the earliest known sightings was made more than 1,400 years ago by Saint Columba, a traveling Irish holy man. Legends tell how, in 565 A.D.,

the saint saw a "water monster" attack a swimmer in Loch Ness. When the saint ordered it to leave the swimmer alone, the monster retreated immediately.

The Loch Ness monster first became famous in 1933, after a road was built around the steep sides of the Loch Ness valley. Tourists could now explore this remote area for the first time. It was not long before reports of monster sightings began appearing in newspapers all around the world.

Spotting the monster soon brought rewards. Newspapers would pay a lot of money for a photograph of the monster-even if it was blurred! Fortune seekers, scientists, and monster enthusiasts swarmed around the loch, all wanting to take the best monster picture ever.

Over the years, the searchers used more and more modern equipment.

In 1972, an underwater camera produced a close-up of a strange object in the loch. When scientists used a special computer to sharpen up the image, this is what they saw. Could it be one of the monster's flippers?

11 The underwater photograph seems to show a flipper, but no one can be sure because the image is so grainy. It is hard to see or to take a photograph in the lake water because it is full of tiny pieces of peat, or dead plant material.

12 In 1987, a team of scientists searched the loch with high-tech equipment for a project called Operation Deepscan. A line of 19 boats, each fitted with a sonar scanner, moved up the loch. What they discovered amazed them.

Some scans showed huge objects moving deep in the lake. The objects were bigger than sharks but smaller than whales. Were they huge fish? Or was it a family of Loch Ness monsters? Again the murky water kept the scientists from knowing the answer.

Without clear pictures, scientists must rely on people's descriptions to know what the monster looks like. It seems that the creature has a long, thin neck, a bulky body with four flippers, and a long, powerful tail.

No animal living today fits this description. However, one prehistoric creature does.

Cryptoclsidus (krip-toe-KLIE-duss) was a plesiosaur: a huge fish-eating reptile that lived in the sea. Some people think it looked a lot like the Loch Ness monster. However, Cryptoclridus is thought to have disappeared from the Earth 70 million years ago! Could it have lived on unnoticed?
Is the Loch Ness monster a survivor from the dinosaur age? Or were the people who saw it simply fooled by boats, logs, shadows, or giant eels? Could some of the sightings be the result of practical jokes? No one knows the truth-yet.