Scientific Evidence Makes Existence of Loch Ness Monster More Unlikely

April 01, 2022

In the sixth chapter of my book Legends & Lore of Sea Monsters I wrote of the similarity of sea serpents and prehistoric marine animals such as the plesiosaurus, "that curious compound reptile, which has been compared with "a snake threaded through the body of a turtle," is described by Dean Buckland, in his Bridgewater Treatise, as having "the head of a lizard, the teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous length resembling the body of a serpent, the ribs of a chameleon, and the paddles of a whale." In the number of its cervical vertebrae (about thirty-three) it surpasses that of the longest-necked bird, the swan."[1]

I even talked about the theory that perhaps sea serpents were living-fossils such as plesiosaurs, "sea-serpents certainly do bare a strong likeness to the plesiosaur, as many others have noticed, including Frederic A. Lucas, "the sea-serpent flourishes perennially in the newspapers and, despite the fact that he is now mainly regarded as a joke, there have been many attempts to habilitate this mythical monster and place him on a foundation of firm fact."[2]

In favor of the theory I wrote about the coelacanth, "it may seem impossible that a creature could survive that long, but consider the case of so-called "living fossils" such as the coelacanth fish. Scientists thought it was long extinct but in the 1930's village fisherman in South Africa. So in the enormous depths of the ocean it isn't so far fetched to imagine a saurian creature still roaming."[3]

Traditionally, the Loch Ness Monster, or "Nessie", is depicted with an upright neck, looking more like a sauropod such as brontosaurus than a real plesiosaur or elasmosaurus as it is typically theorized to be. But scientifically, this is likely wrong, as Doctor Scofield explains, "the idea of it lifting its head up like a sock puppet is extremely unlikely." He and "his colleagues made their findings conducting a CT scan on the elasmosaurus remains and it is thought the prehistoric creature held its head down this way to feed from the seabed."[4]

This is good evidence and in my humble opinion makes the Loch Ness Monster's existence highly unlikely. Sea serpents are more probable but if they do exist they are more than likely just large snakes rather than plesiosaurs.