Myth or Monster?

The legend dates back to the 6th century A.D., when St. Columba began converting Scotland to Christianity. While visiting the Loch Ness area one day, Columba saw a giant animal rear out of the water and lunge at one of his monks. Only when the good saint made the sign of the cross did the beast back off. Since that frightening debut, Nessie, as the beast has become known, has appeared countless times to villagers and visitors alike; there are even murky photos of the famed Loch Ness monster. Despite such "evidence," scientists remain highly skeptical. Nessie's "proper habitat," the erudite journal Nature once scoffed, is not one of Britain's largest lakes but "the underworld of fables."

Now the skeptics may have to reexamine their doubts. The latest observations of the Loch Ness monster come not from bibulous tourists or imaginative locals but from a group with apparently impeccable credentials: the Boston-based Academy of Applied Science. An organization of inventors, engineers and other science buffs, the academy was founded by a well-to-do patent attorney and M.I.T. physics graduate named Robert H. Rines. For the past three summers, in collaboration with Britain's own Loch Ness Investigation Bureau, academy investigators have kept patient nightly watch on the waters of the loch, using the latest underwater cameras and sonar gear.

Common Trick. In the wee hours of the morning of Aug. 8, the sonar suddenly indicated that something was lurking near by in some 45 ft. of water. After a time, whatever was there disappeared, only to reappear a few minutes later and then vanish again. Rines had his men play a strong spotlight on the waters, a common trick used to attract fish. To Rines' delight, the light apparently had an effect on whatever was in the loch; the sonar resumed its odd tracings. The evidence, which was examined by experts in sonar at M.I.T., Raytheon Co. and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, tended to back Rines' own theory: that the sonar had picked up not one but two Nessies, that they were at least 20 or 30 ft. long, had several humps, fins and long tails. Indeed, one shot taken by the academy's underwater camera shows what seems to be a long triangular appendage.

The existence of such beasts in Loch Ness would not entirely strain credibility. Believers argue that large saltwater creatures could have been trapped in Scotland's lakes when they were cut off from the sea at the end of the last ice age. Doubters reply that it is by no means sure that Loch Ness was ever linked to the sea, that there is hardly enough food in the loch to support such leviathans and that in any case, there would have to be at least 20 animals in a breeding herd--too many for the imaginations of even the most avid monster theorists.

Still, a question remains: If they were not echoes from a living thing, what did cause the strange traces on Rines' sonar?

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