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- [00:00]
Walmart Announcer
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- [00:16]
eBay Announcer
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- [00:21]
Narrator
That hologram trading card. One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set.
- [00:26]
MacLeod Andrews
Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams.
- [00:29]
Walmart Announcer
One of a kind.
- [00:29]
MacLeod Andrews
Ebay had it.
- [00:30]
Michael Dunford
And.
- [00:30]
MacLeod Andrews
And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you.
- [00:33]
Michael Dunford
Get your windshield wipers? Ebay has all the parts that fit my car. No more annoying, just beautiful.
- [00:41]
eBay Announcer
Whatever you love, find it on eBay.
- [00:43]
Michael Dunford
EBay.
- [00:44]
eBay Announcer
Things people love.
- [00:52]
Michael Dunford
The world's greatest mysteries often lie hidden beneath the surface. And in one place in particular, the lore runs deeper than most. Much deeper. Because in this remote lake, the glassy water hides more than just secrets. It hides a monster. Welcome to Sightings, the series that takes you inside the world's most mysterious supernatural events. I'm MacLeod.
- [01:20]
Brian Sigley
And I'm Brian. And today we're heading into the heart of the Scottish Highlands, to a place steeped in mystery.
- [01:27]
Michael Dunford
You know its infamous name, of course. Loch Ness. So join us as an esteemed scientist travels into the unknown unknown and comes face to face with its legendary inhabitant. Is it a relic of the past? A terrifying predator? Or something else entirely? Find out on this episode of Sightings. My name is Michael Dunford. I'm a professor of paleontology at the University of Chicago, where I specialize in Mesozoic marine reptiles. Things like nothosaurs, placodonts, mosasaurs, or plesiosaurs. In layman's terms, dinosaurs with flippers. They've captivated me for decades. So much so that I'd often dream of them, waking most nights to find myself in the Jurassic era, surrounded by the most incredible creatures imaginable. And after all that time, all that study, all that devotion, I thought I understood them. Then I learned how wrong I was. It was autumn, and my phone Woke me at 1:30am an unlisted number. And at that hour, I dreaded an emergency. So I held my breath and answered. Just to stop the ringing. A breathless British man I'd never met in my life was on the other end. I swear, he was on a helicopter. And he said I was needed in Edinburgh immediately and that Her Majesty's government would handsomely compensate me for my time. Then he hung up. I should say that as a rule, paleontologists don't get calls like this, but with my grant running low, I didn't think I had much of a choice. So I packed a bag, kissed my wife, and locked the door. On the way out, a black sedan was already sitting in my driveway. I didn't get a good look at the plates in the dark, but it sure as hell wasn't an Uber. The driver was some burly guy in a crisp black suit and said nothing during our entire drive to a private airfield. Even when I asked what this was all about, he just glared at me through the rearview mirror. There were no other passengers on the unmarked Learjet. The flight attendant kept the coffee flowing and took her best shot at small talk, asking if I'd ever been to Scotland. In truth, I'd never even been to Europe. There was more than enough fieldwork in North America to keep me occupied, so I spent the flight trying to guess why the British government needed to ship an American paleontologist halfway around the world. Perhaps there was some new discovery, a fossil find that was somehow more profound than most.
- [04:31]
Narrator
But it's not like the bones were.
- [04:32]
Michael Dunford
Going to get up and walk away. So why the urgency? And why me?
- [04:42]
Brian Sigley
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- [05:58]
MacLeod Andrews
Off.
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Brian Sigley
Again, that's trimiracle.com sightings because while you're hiding under your sheets, there's no reason you shouldn't be as comfortable as Possible.
- [06:13]
Michael Dunford
I'd be lying if I said I was some kind of rock star of paleontology. I was published, of course, and my students seemed to like me. But marine reptiles weren't on the cutting edge, especially my specialized focus on the plesiosaur, though this huge creature's remains had been found all over the world, and everything about them fascinated me endlessly. Let's face it, they just weren't as sexy as T. Rexes. So I bowed my time, wrote my papers, taught my classes, and prayed for tenure. Which never seemed to come. At some point, I must have fallen asleep in my seat as I suddenly found myself alive and breathing in the Jurassic era. I should say that when I dream, I dream. The thick humidity felt like I was there. In the distance, something roared. To anyone else, it would have been terrifying. But I wasn't scared. No, I knew that this was exactly where I was supposed to be. So I waded deep into the dense foliage until I found an endless sprawl of turquoise sea. The view was so breathtaking that I didn't even notice that everything around me had gone completely silent. Then I saw why. Distant ripples disturbed the waterline. Something was approaching, something huge. But I held my ground, dug my feet deep into the sand as a shadow grew below the surface. I knew, instinctually knew in my bones, that this was a plesiosaur. But I didn't dare move. I wanted to see it. Had to see it. And just as the water began to part, revealing a brilliant flash of green skin, I woke up. The flight attendant was tapping my shoulder. We'd arrived in Scotland. Two armed soldiers flanked a man waiting on the tarmac. This, I soon learned, was Admiral Marcus Wilson, the same guy who'd woken me up some nine hours before. He ushered me to a military helicopter, and only after I managed to get the bulky headset on could I ask where we were going. In reply, the pilot's voice blared in my ear. 20 minutes to Loch Ness. Of course, I was familiar with the place, mainly because whenever something popped up in the tabloids about a prehistoric giant lurking in the deep, we'd pass it around the office and get a good laugh. But Wilson and the soldiers weren't laughing, not one bit. And look, we never meant to discount the fun in imagining the unknown hell. That mysterious allure even led me down a drunken rabbit hole. One night in grad school, where I read everything I possibly could about Loch Ness, I found the graphic account of a water beast that was written in the 6th century and the news article that first declared the creature a monster in 1933. I even stared for far too long at the famous surgeon's photograph that looked remarkably like a brontosaurus head protruding from the waves. But that brontosaurus turned out to be less than 2ft tall and the photo was debunked as a fake. Same for the dozens of copycats that followed over the decades. An endless parade of suspicious looking boat wakes, overactive imaginations, and even a large catfish or two. But I could have guaranteed you that Loch Ness held no dinosaur sized monster. That is, until Wilson finally spoke. We captured it 10 hours ago. I thought I'd misheard him. Surely he'd meant they found it, or discovered or even recovered. Of course he was referring to a fossil, or even a remarkably preserved specimen trapped in some one in a million Scottish peat bog. But Wilson continued. Two days earlier, a research vessel discovered an anomaly at the bottom of the lock. An inexplicably powerful source of energy, he said. Almost like some kind of volcanic fissure had opened up in the lakebed. I barely even registered what he was telling me. All I could focus on was what he meant by captured. But Wilson just pointed out at the vast sprawl of water coming into view. It was the lock, all right. An endless line of black flanked by rugged hills. I suppose that any other day I would have called it scenic, but today, with the military vehicles blocking the surrounding roads below, it struck me as deeply unsettling. And that was before the camp came into view. A makeshift city of military tents sprawled along the loch's western shore, flanked by ships of all shape and size. As we descended, I began to make out more detail. The barbed wire fencing, the sophisticated comms equipment. And those boats, I realized, included armored gunships surrounding a barge with a huge metallic cage on its deck. Even closer, I realized that something moved inside that cage. Something completely shrouded in shadow. Something impossible. As soon as the chopper door opened, I realized I'd gravely underpacked. Wilson didn't seem to notice the cold and led me through a maze of commotion to a hermetically sealed tent at the center of the camp. Before we entered, he handed me latex gloves and a bulky respirator. Just in case, he said. The tent was colder than the air. Outside, scientists surrounded exam tables, each of which seemed to hold an unusually large specimen of fish. I stepped closer to one and found a savage looking thing with massive teeth. As my gloved hand brushed across its scaly body, I realized that I'd seen this fish before. Then it hit me this fish had appeared in a textbook I'd read in grad school. Its topic, extinct species from the Cretaceous period. Some hundred million years ago, Wilson finally decided to do some explaining. Apparently, after that energy source was detected beneath Loch Ness, strange things began washing up on its shores. Weird lizards, huge fish, four full tents of things Britain's best scientists had never seen before. I asked about the barge with the giant cage. That, he replied, is why you're here. As Wilson led me towards the water, he told me about what he called the big one. It was first spotted 36 hours ago by fishermen on the south end of the loch, and it created a wake so powerful that it allegedly capsized their trawler. A few hours later, another ship pinged something on its sonar, something far too big to be any known species. Finally, when a military vessel was attacked by some kind of dinosaur, everyone realized Loch Ness had a problem on its hands. But none of this made any sense to me. Not the specimens in the tent, not these stories, none of it. I tried to hold on to some semblance of rationality, but it felt like my whole worldview, my entire sense of being, was crumbling around me. Suddenly lightheaded, I saw my vision blurring around the edges, and Wilson reached to steady me. That's when the sirens began to wail. The camp instantly descended into chaos. Soldiers ran everywhere. Gunfire erupted in the distance. Someone slammed into me from behind, nearly knocking me over. And Wilson pulled me to cover as a shout rose above the sirens. It's loose. Wilson cursed under his breath and pulled me around the corner. From here, I could see that one of the ships in the lock had nearly capsized. It didn't take long for me to realize that it was the barge with the giant cage on its deck, and that cage was now empty. I immediately scanned the water's surface. And that's when I saw it. An enormous tail slipping beneath the waves, scaly and indescribably huge. It belonged to no species alive on Earth today. In fact, I knew it belonged to no creature that had graced this earth in over 65 million years, contradicting every fiber of logic left in my being. I had just seen a plesiosaur live and in the flesh. And that absolutely scared the hell out of me. Within minutes, we were out on the water. I counted 40 ships of every shape and size speeding across the lock, all searching. My boat, it seemed, held all the military's sophisticated tracking equipment. But when we couldn't find anything, Wilson worried that the creature had damaged its tracking device. During Its escape. Honestly, I'm not sure it was the technology's fault. Loch Ness was not only the second deepest lake in the UK at some 745ft, but also its largest, holding more than all the lakes in England and Wales combined. Plus, the area's peat made the water darker and murkier than any I'd ever seen. So locating the creature amounted to finding a needle in a 22 mile long haystack. We could have searched for hours, days even, and never seen a thing. After a few more minutes, with no sign of our target, Wilson asked me to tell him everything he needed to know about the plesiosaur. I was too distracted to really think, but my mouth rattled off the facts from rote memory. 50ft long and £100,000, the plesiosaur was among the largest animals to ever live on Earth. It had sharp teeth, a long neck and four extremely powerful flippers. It breathed air, bore live young, and was one of the most fearsome apex predators in history. But I still couldn't rationalize how Aplysiosaur was in Loch Ness. For starters, this Lake was only 10,000 years old, which missed the Cretaceous period by well tens of millions of years. And even if something had miraculously survived since then and found its way into these waters, the loch itself, large as it was, simply wasn't big enough to host a breeding population. Wilson reminded me of the countless sightings of unusual creatures in the loch over the years. The inexplicable energy source discovered in these waters. The living, breathing plesiosaur I'd seen with my own eyes. He was right. Something impossible was happening here. And I don't think a single soul on earth could properly explain it. Soon the hills began to cast ominous shadows across the water. And with no new sign of the plesiosaur, all large vessels, including ours, were ordered to drop huge swathes of high tensile netting into the loch. Given the quick work the creature made of the cage atop the barge, I was skeptical of this plan. But before I knew it, nearly a mile of buoys trailed behind us. Signal lights blinking in the shadows. Traps dipping hundreds of feet into the abyss. Soon the sun disappeared altogether and fog began to roll in over the water. Within minutes, visibility dropped to only a few hundred yards. That's when the shooting began. It sounded like a full on war had broken out across the lake. Wilson screamed into the radio to cease fire and use tranquilizers only, but it was useless. The shooting kept on echoed by distant screams, until suddenly everything went eerily silent. Soon a roar echoed across the water. Deep. Animal. Terrifying. Wilson radioed for all ships to confirm their status. Every vessel replied, except one. A small rescue craft that had been located a mile away from us. Wilson tried to hail them, but received only empty static in reply. We were about to move to intercept when our sonar pinged something in the deep. It was half a mile away and moving fast. Each new sonar sweep revealed a more and more frightening trajectory. It was coming right at us. Wilson ordered nearby vessels to converge on our location as soldiers rushed to their stations, and Wilson urged me to take cover on the bridge. But I couldn't budge. I had to see it. Needed to see it. The soldiers aimed their tranquilizer rifles blindly into the fog. As the sonar pings grew closer and closer in the distance, I saw bubbles break the water's surface near the fog line. Wilson cursed. This was just out of range of the rifles. But his men held fast, hoping, fearing the creature would close the gap. Suddenly, it breached the surface. Soldiers fired their tranquilizers, but the darts fell short. Gulping air, the creature arched its muscular flank and tail above the. Meanwhile, all I could do was stare, amazed at the sheer size of the thing. At least 100ft long, it was double the size we described to plesiosaurs. Clearly, our fossil record was woefully incomplete. As soon as it dipped back below the waves, the sonar went silent. The nets, Wilson whispered. It's behind them. All eyes turned to the buoys trailing behind us. Though my rational brain fought it, my feet pulled me towards the ship's railing. I was desperate for a closer view and was terrified I'd get it. As we stared out into the dark, Wilson told me he had a little girl at home, six years old. Her favorite toy was a stuffed dinosaur, some kind of long necked thing. She took everywhere, he said, but her favorite place to bring it, much to his consternation, was the bathtub, because she claimed dinosaurs like to swim. We shared a nervous laugh, and I realized he was sweating. Suddenly, a buoy vanished from view. I thought it had been lost to the fog, but when a second buoy disappeared as well, I realized the creature was caught in the nets. Wilson shouted to the bridge, come about. Trap the bastard. Our engines roared to life, and the steel line that connected us to the buoys began to loop back, aiming to entrap whatever lurked beneath. Meanwhile, the soldiers prepared to fire on anything that broke the surface. But our ship suddenly jolted, knocking me clear of my feet. Pulled from below, the entire vessel tilted at a perilous angle before springing back to level. I gripped the railing and held my breath as another jolt hit, this time pulling the stern of the ship so low that water flooded the deck. As one hapless soldier fell overboard, I realized with horror what was happening. The creature was pulling us under using our own nets. Then the world flipped upside down. The frigid water assaulted my limbs and lungs. I gasped for breath, tried to get my bearings, but chaos was everywhere. Our ship had capsized. Soldiers flailed wildly, their tranquilizer rifles soaked and useless. Fifteen feet away, I saw Wilson Bl bloodied and struggling to stay afloat. I swam towards him until something blocked my way. The plesiosaur. Its gleaming flank glided past me, so close I could smell it. Something thick and rancid, something I'll never forget as long as I live. Once it disappeared below the water again, I told Wilson to hang on until I could reach him. I was nearly an arm's length away when Wilson jerked below the surface. He struggled to stay afloat, but it was futile. No human, no creature alive was powerful enough to fight this attack from below. Wilson locked eyes with me for a split second, then was gone before I could fully comprehend the terror around me. I was pulled up from the water and onto the hull of a fishing trawler. I told the sailors to speed away, to get as far far as possible from this thing, this monster. But they reassured me that someone had hit the beast with the tranquilizer. We would be okay. I wish I could have believed them. The jolt came out of nowhere, shattering the trawler's wooden hull and knocking the sailors into the water. I slid across the deck as the rest of the boat exploded in splinters all around me. And just as I shielded my eyes for protection, I felt a burst of hot, sickening breath across my face. The plesiosaur's head was resting on the sinking deck of the trawler, it snout inches from my body, too shocked to move. All I could do was stare at the razor sharp teeth, the sorrowful, glassy eyes. The eyes of a hopelessly confused and frightened creature. It was beautiful and horrible and terrifying and mesmerizing all at once. The tranquilizer dart had hit just above the neck. I knew that soon the creature would slip back below the waves. But for now, I just stared at it, face to face, its ragged breath heaving in sync with mine. I wanted to reach out and touch it, if I could just find the courage to touch it. But my arms were frozen. It blinked once, let out a soft Tragic moan, then slid away into the deep. They searched the loch up and down for 18 more hours, but never found it again. At some point, the strange energy source in the lakebed disappeared without a trace. I'd like to think the plesiosaur vanished with it taken back to wherever or whenever it came from. I was handsomely rewarded for my time, though I insisted I never did anything more than gawk at what was happening around me. Nevertheless, the money appeared in my checking account, and I was told firmly that I could never discuss what happened on Loch Ness that day with anyone ever again. So our textbooks still assert that the plesiosaur reaches maximum lengths of 50ft. And though I've finally made tenure, I spend less time in the classroom and more in the field searching for fossil evidence of what I know now is true. Sometimes, late at night, I still see it. The glistening skin, the unforgettable arc of its flank above the waterline. But now those dreams are always nightmares.
- [25:30]
MacLeod Andrews
Sightings will be back just after this.
- [25:33]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my hundredth mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited to Premium Wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming. Here, give it a try@mintmobile.com save whenever you're ready.
- [25:56]
eBay Announcer
$45 upfront payment, equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees, extra Speed slower above 40 gigabytes. Details. This episode is brought to you by United Airlines. When you want to make the most of your vacation, book with United. They're an airline that cares about your travels as much as you do. United is transforming the flying experience with Bluetooth, connectivity screens, power at every seat, and bigger overhead bins to help fit everyone's bag. And with their app, you can skip the bag check line, get live updates and more. Change the way you fly. Book your next trip today@united.com.
- [26:43]
Narrator
Welcome back to Sightings. I had to towel off after that episode that was absolutely bananas. Brian, I hate to ask because I think I already know the answer, but there's no way this actually happened, right?
- [26:58]
MacLeod Andrews
Well, you do know I love a good government cover up. And the moment I heard this story.
- [27:02]
Narrator
Wait, what? No, what are you saying this might be true?
- [27:06]
MacLeod Andrews
I can neither confirm nor deny, but I will say that I amped up a whole lot of the action. And Hollywoodized it because. Well, I mean, the story's awesome.
- [27:13]
Narrator
It is awesome.
- [27:15]
MacLeod Andrews
But did the UK government actually capture something in that lake? That's up for you to decide. And I guess it all depends on how deep beneath the surface you are willing to go.
- [27:26]
Michael Dunford
Oh, I see what you did there.
- [27:28]
Narrator
A lake joke. And I also would like to think that as your trusty co host, I'd get clearer answers to my questions.
- [27:38]
MacLeod Andrews
Brian, I'm not telling you to believe it or not. This is sightings, after all.
- [27:41]
Narrator
I know, I know. And I'm thinking back to our Koyame incident episode where the government cover up was. That was wild enough. But this, I mean, I've been to Loch Ness.
- [27:54]
MacLeod Andrews
Well, you clearly weren't there when this allegedly happened.
- [27:57]
Narrator
Obviously not.
- [27:58]
MacLeod Andrews
Well, but even if you have been to Loch Ness, in all, you know, seriousness here, you know, I bet there are a lot of secrets and lore that you and most people are not familiar with. So maybe we should recap the kind of surprising history of this body of water, because there's a whole lot to dive into here. See what I did? I did it again.
- [28:18]
Narrator
This must be why you're the writer. I'm here for it. I love a good pun.
- [28:22]
Michael Dunford
Okay.
- [28:24]
Narrator
I am suppressing every urge I have to unleash my skeptical gecko fangs. Every facet of this story is ringing alarm bells, so hit me with some knowledge.
- [28:34]
MacLeod Andrews
Okay, so Loch Ness, it is the largest lake by volume in the British Isles, mainly because it's 755ft deep. And to put that in perspective, it holds more water than all the other lakes in England and Wales combined. Okay, so it's a lot. You know, it's a lot of water to be hiding something. Theoretically. And maybe it is, because according to the New York Times, there have been over 1,100 sightings of a large creature.
- [28:59]
Brian Sigley
In or around that lake recently.
- [29:02]
Narrator
Wow. I mean.
- [29:03]
Michael Dunford
Or.
- [29:03]
Narrator
I don't know. That's actually a lot more sightings than I expected. I've seen that one famous photograph of the dinosaur head sticking up out of the water. Was that one of the first sightings?
- [29:13]
MacLeod Andrews
It's the most famous by far, but there are actual, actually reports of something in the lock going back as far as the 6th century, when this abbot wrote about this man who was allegedly attacked and killed by a water beast. But after that, there was a whole lot of nothing. Until around 1933, when I guess, just a bunch of sightings kind of popped.
- [29:35]
Narrator
Up out of nowhere, which raises an eyebrow for me. I mean, if there Was something in the loch. Where was it all that time?
- [29:43]
MacLeod Andrews
Well, as with a lot of the stories I think we do on here, you know, I wonder if this was the case of a sudden kind of snowballing interest that kind of got out of control. So in 1933, a police officer claimed that he saw something in the lock, and then there was an article about that in the local paper, and that, I guess, quote, unquote, opened the floodgates.
- [30:04]
Narrator
You really need to stop at the water puns.
- [30:06]
MacLeod Andrews
I'm sorry, but the point is, a few months after that first sighting, then a couple saw a giant creature across the road in front of them, and they said it looked like a dragon or something prehistoric. And that got newspaper coverage too. And then several months later, in 1934, we had that famous photograph you mentioned. And we're going to put this on socials for you to see. Everyone but here it is. McLeod.
- [30:28]
Narrator
That's the one. Yeah.
- [30:29]
MacLeod Andrews
Yeah. It's called the Surgeon's Photograph, and it was supposedly taken by a respected London gynecologist, but because he refused to have his name associated with this dinosaur in the lake, they just took to calling it the Surgeon's Photograph.
- [30:43]
Michael Dunford
Yeah.
- [30:43]
Narrator
Okay. All right. So it's black and white and it looks like what you would think it would maybe look like. Like a brontosaurus with a shorter neck poking up out of the water. It's backlit, so you only see it in shadow, kind of.
- [30:59]
Michael Dunford
It doesn't.
- [31:00]
Narrator
Something about it's off, though. Something. You know, it actually kind of looks like somebody with a sock over their hand lifting it up out of the water, like, meh, meh, meh. Like a little puppet, now that I look at it a little bit more closely. And the ripples. Something about the ripples and the water look kind of the size doesn't seem right or something.
- [31:20]
MacLeod Andrews
Yeah, well, those things you mentioned make sense because this is a verified hoax.
- [31:25]
Narrator
Got it?
- [31:25]
MacLeod Andrews
Yep. So this was allegedly the brainchild of a guy named Marmaduke Wetherell, which great name. And he used a 12 inch model of this head made from plastic wood and a toy submarine to create this particular effect.
- [31:42]
Narrator
Which makes sense because now that I look at it more, I know it was weird about the ripples and the water around it, they'd look huge in proportion to the beast. You know, at least if that actually was dinosaur sized.
- [31:54]
Brian Sigley
Yeah.
- [31:55]
MacLeod Andrews
But back in 1934, this did the trick and it went viral, at least as viral as something can go in the 1930s. But it convinced enough people that There was something in Loch Ness that the legend just kind of started to take on a life of its own.
- [32:10]
Narrator
Okay, so I understand that there's been a ton of sightings, but have there been actual organized searches for this thing?
- [32:17]
MacLeod Andrews
Oh, yeah, absolutely. There was one in 1934, presumably after this photograph happened, and that turned up nothing. Of course. In 2003, the BBC, of all groups sponsored this sonar search with satellite tracking for a show that they did, and they found nothing then either. In 2018, an international team did a DNA survey of the lake and found a whole bunch of DNA, but nothing from anything that shouldn't have been in the lake. No large, particularly large fish, no otter, no seals, nothing reptilian, just a lot of eel DNA.
- [32:51]
Narrator
So none of that sounds promising in the least.
- [32:54]
MacLeod Andrews
But still, people are seeing something, I guess. And if you believe the story you just heard, I guess people are catching something, you know, in this water. So for everyone to not be able to find it, what gives?
- [33:08]
Narrator
Well, I still don't think I buy into this whole catching the monster thing. But as for sightings, people seeing it, I have to wonder if people are just seeing something pedestrian and misinterpreting it.
- [33:20]
Michael Dunford
As a creature in the water.
- [33:21]
Narrator
Like trees, wakes, eels, plastic models.
- [33:25]
MacLeod Andrews
I'm inclined to agree. Water is this weird, fluid thing. It can be reflective, it can mess with light. It seems kind of like the perfect place to see something that isn't actually there. And yet there are those that believe that, just like in today's story, there's a lot more than shadows in that water. There is a living, breathing plesiosaur in those waters.
- [33:50]
Narrator
Right? Our extinct dinosaur.
- [33:52]
MacLeod Andrews
Yep.
- [33:52]
Narrator
That came up a lot in this story. But I have to be the one in the corner raising my hand, asking, how could something be in that loch that's been extinct for, what, millions of years?
- [34:04]
MacLeod Andrews
66 million years.
- [34:06]
Narrator
A lot of millions of years. Right. How could a breeding population survive in this loch that long?
- [34:12]
MacLeod Andrews
Well, I think complicating matters is the fact that the Loch Ness only formed at the end of the last ice age, and that was only 10,000 years ago.
- [34:19]
Michael Dunford
See?
- [34:19]
Narrator
Yeah, there you go. That makes it even more impossible. Not to mention that plesiosaurs need air to breathe. Right?
- [34:26]
MacLeod Andrews
They breathe air, according to scientists. Yes.
- [34:29]
Narrator
So we'd be seeing them all the time.
- [34:30]
Michael Dunford
Right.
- [34:31]
Narrator
They have to come up for air.
- [34:32]
MacLeod Andrews
You're right. I guess I have to play devil's advocate here, though, and note that in the story, something seemed to be happening at the bottom of the lake, and it Made me think about maybe there was a time rift or some kind of weird phenomenon going on that is totally implausible, but would give a plesiosaur the opportunity to visit Loch Ness in the present day.
- [34:55]
Narrator
Time rift? Really, Brian?
- [34:57]
MacLeod Andrews
Yeah. I don't believe any for that for a minute, obviously, because it seems like a massive stretch.
- [35:02]
Michael Dunford
Ginormous.
- [35:02]
MacLeod Andrews
But are you a physicist, McCloud? Can you definitively say that there isn't a portal to an ancient world down there?
- [35:09]
Narrator
I can.
- [35:09]
MacLeod Andrews
Okay. Yes.
- [35:11]
Narrator
I am a physicist.
- [35:12]
Michael Dunford
Right now.
- [35:12]
Narrator
I am. I at least know enough to know that it's not real. Just like I can say that the UK government didn't catch and then lose a giant dinosaur in an epic naval battle. But it's a wonderful story and I really enjoyed performing it. A.
- [35:30]
MacLeod Andrews
You're no fun.
- [35:32]
Narrator
I'm tons of fun.
- [35:33]
MacLeod Andrews
But don't ditch the story entirely quite yet, because let's just put on our imagination caps for a moment, okay, and think about what would actually happen if Loch Ness was confirmed to be in that lake. Do you think that, you know, the UK government or the Scottish government or whoever would just be like, oh, great, that's nice, and just let it slide and just, like, leave the thing alone forever, really?
- [35:58]
Michael Dunford
Well, no, of course not.
- [35:59]
Narrator
But here's my. There wouldn't be a cover up. I don't understand the upside of covering it up in the first place. Like, we found Nessie. Come to Scotland. It's in a cage now. Visit it. The tourism would go bananas.
- [36:13]
MacLeod Andrews
True, Absolutely. But I think the problem, and I guess what happened in the story, was that they caught it, but then they lost it again.
- [36:20]
Narrator
Oh, right, right, right. And then it slithered into its time warp at the bottom of the lake. I will say this. I will say this. Okay, so not a time warp. What if there's a cave, an underground grotto that's down at the bottom of the lake, and they swim through a tunnel, a tube, a cave, and then they come out in just like a nice cavernous cave under the lake where hundreds.
- [36:45]
MacLeod Andrews
Yeah, there's a bunch of. I guess there's a breeding population.
- [36:47]
Narrator
And they're like, charles, you're back.
- [36:50]
MacLeod Andrews
They keep calling me Nessie, and I don't know why, I don't know why.
- [36:54]
Narrator
Takes off his tie.
- [36:55]
MacLeod Andrews
There are people who have theorized that. Is it possible that during the ice age or something, something ended up being frozen underwater, underground thing and then thawing out? Or could there have been water underneath and a situation like that? Is it possible? I suppose so.
- [37:13]
Narrator
Oh, like an under the ice ocean.
- [37:16]
MacLeod Andrews
Something like that, I guess, where, you know, we didn't realize that these things were alive for 66 million years. Just kind of hanging out, having their, you know, fun old time in their, you know, underground place. But I have trouble with that. Just like I have trouble with a lot of elements of the story. But there's just something so raw and exciting about the prospect of actually coming.
- [37:44]
Brian Sigley
Face to face with these things.
- [37:45]
MacLeod Andrews
You know, I think back to like the Bigfoot story we did a few episodes ago where we have this kid who came face to face with the impossible, allegedly. And in this one, even though it seems like a much more far fetched story, there's still this certain amount of wonder and thrill in the whole experience, even if the thing hadn't gone crazy and started attacking people and stuff like that.
- [38:07]
Narrator
Yeah, and that was what actually I was going to say that I don't for a second believe that this insanity occurred. But I can't rule out, I still can't rule out Nessie altogether. I can't rule out the possibility maybe it's smaller than we think it is.
- [38:24]
MacLeod Andrews
So when you went to Loch Ness yourself, you saw nothing, I presume?
- [38:28]
Michael Dunford
No, no, it's beautiful.
- [38:29]
Narrator
Beautiful lake, beautiful castles. Did part of me wish that I would see a dinosaur poking out of the water? No, because I'm terrified of the water. But yes, your imagination can't help but wonder and be thrilled at it.
- [38:47]
Michael Dunford
Yeah, I'd be freaked out to go on a boat on Loch Ness because my imagination's pretty powerful.
- [38:51]
MacLeod Andrews
Exactly. And I guess that I'll wrap things up here with a quote from the research I did from this guy who was a skipper on a Loch Ness tourist boat for years and years and years. And I guess he was asked why he kept doing it and he said, the world is full of mysteries. Anything is possible. And that's something I can get behind. That's something I want to believe in. And that's why I love doing the show every week, you know?
- [39:17]
Narrator
Yeah, I can get behind that vibe for sure. But listeners, we want to hear what you believe. Do you have any more knowledge of this mysterious event at Loch Ness or do you have some other theory of what's going on up there or down there under the waves? Hit us up@theoriesightingspodcast.com or find us on.
- [39:36]
MacLeod Andrews
Our socials at sightingspod.
- [39:38]
Narrator
And Brian, I dearly hope we're exploring something a bit less fantastical next time. Where are we heading?
- [39:45]
MacLeod Andrews
Well, it's winter at least in the northern hemisphere. So we are heading into the mountains.
- [39:50]
Narrator
A ski trip. I need a vacation.
- [39:52]
MacLeod Andrews
Not this one, probably.
- [39:54]
Narrator
Okay.
- [39:55]
MacLeod Andrews
We are heading to the remote mountains of the former ussr.
- [39:59]
Narrator
Oh, yeah, Break my sunscreen.
- [40:01]
MacLeod Andrews
All I will say for now to keep you on your toes is that it involves a lot of snow and a whole lot of bodies.
- [40:07]
Narrator
Oh, great. I'll bring my skis and a bayonet.
- [40:10]
MacLeod Andrews
There you go. See you all next time. Next week, same time, same place, here on Sightings.
- [40:15]
Michael Dunford
Woohoo.
- [40:19]
MacLeod Andrews
Sightings is hosted by McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley. Produced by Brian Sigma, chase Kinzer and McLeod Andrews. Written by Brian Sigley.
- [40:27]
Brian Sigley
Music by Mitch Bain.
- [40:29]
MacLeod Andrews
Mixing and mastering by Pat Kickliter of Sundial Media.
- [40:32]
Brian Sigley
Artwork by Nuno Sarnatus.
- [40:34]
MacLeod Andrews
For a list of this episode's sources, check out our website@sightingspodcast.com Sightings is presented by Reverb and Qcode. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
- [40:46]
Brian Sigley
So you're first to hear new episodes every week.
- [40:49]
MacLeod Andrews
And if you know other Supernatural fans, tell them about us. We'd really appreciate it.