The largest search for the Loch Ness monster in the last 50 years has begun

For the search expedition, which continues on Saturday and Sunday, organized by the staff of the Loch Ness Center in the lakeside town of Drumnedrochit together with the volunteer research group Loch Ness Exploration, the BBC reports.

They will use surveying equipment that has not been used before to study Loch Ness. These are drones that will create thermal images of water from the air using infrared cameras, and a hydrophone – to detect acoustic signals underwater.

Two hundred volunteers have volunteered to take part in the fieldwork: they help record natural and any unusual things they see in the Loch Ness area from vantage points on land. Almost three hundred more volunteers signed up for the live broadcast of the search.

The legend of the Loch Ness monster, fondly called Nessie, dates back to the Middle Ages. According to legend, the Irish monk St. Columba met the monster in the River Ness, which flows out of Loch Ness.

The modern impetus of the story was given by a publication in the local newspaper Inverness Courier in April 1933. In an interview, hotel manager Aldie McKay said that she saw a whale-like creature in the lake. And the editor of the publication at the time, Evan Barron, suggested calling her a “monster”.

The last large-scale attempt to verify the rumors took place in 1972: the then-defunct Loch Ness Bureau of Investigation conducted an investigation and ultimately could neither confirm nor deny the existence of the creature.

The search is complicated by the huge size of Loch Ness, which stretches for 36 kilometers and in places reaches more than 200 meters in depth. It holds more water – almost 7.5 billion cubic meters, – than all the lakes of England and Wales combined.

Prepared by: Nina Petrovych