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Checked 15 November 2026

Fact-check log

Every sourced sentence on this site was written in our own words and checked against a cached excerpt of the named source on 15 November 2026. The regex used for each check is in the builder; if a source page changes, the check fails and the sentence is not published.

1. The Gazetteer for Scotland says Loch Ness runs for 23 miles (37 km) south-west to north-east along the Great Glen from Fort Augustus.

   Source: Gazetteer for Scotland, Loch Ness.

2. The Gazetteer for Scotland records that the maximum depth, just to the south-west of Urquhart Castle, is at least 230 m (754 feet).

   Source: Gazetteer for Scotland, Loch Ness.

3. The Gazetteer for Scotland also says Loch Ness holds the greatest volume of water of any loch in Scotland, and “contains more water than in all of the lakes of England and Wales put together.”

   Source: Gazetteer for Scotland, Loch Ness.

4. The loch lies on the route of the Caledonian Canal. During the canal’s construction, the Gazetteer says, the level of the loch was raised by 3 m (9 feet) to ease navigation.

   Source: Gazetteer for Scotland, Loch Ness.

5. The Gazetteer notes a much earlier story: St Columba (521–597) is said to have subdued a mysterious “water beast.” The site treats that as a reported tradition, not as a zoological record.

   Source: Gazetteer for Scotland, Loch Ness.

6. The Gazetteer says it was not until 1932 that a plethora of sightings began.

   Source: Gazetteer for Scotland, Loch Ness.

7. English racing driver John Cobb died on the loch in 1952, the Gazetteer records, while trying to break the water-speed record.

   Source: Gazetteer for Scotland, Loch Ness.

8. The UK Lakes Portal lists the surface area of Loch Ness as 5,533 hectares.

   Source: UK Lakes Portal, Loch Ness (water body 18767).

9. The UK Lakes Portal gives a mean depth of 132.0 m and a maximum depth of 229.8 m.

   Source: UK Lakes Portal, Loch Ness (water body 18767).

10. The UK Lakes Portal gives a fetch distance of 36.32 km, a perimeter of 80 km, and a water-body volume of 7,304,034,672 cubic metres.

    Source: UK Lakes Portal, Loch Ness (water body 18767).

11. The UK Lakes Portal places the loch at an elevation of 17 m above Ordnance Datum.

    Source: UK Lakes Portal, Loch Ness (water body 18767).

12. Ian Young and Adrian Shine, writing up a 1991 bathymetric and seismic survey, say that although Loch Morar is deeper (310 m), Loch Ness — with a Murray and Pullar maximum of 230 m — has the greatest mean depth (132 m) and hence the greatest volume, 7.452 billion cubic metres, of all British lakes.

    Source: Young and Shine, Loch Ness bathymetric and seismic survey, 1991.

13. Their 1991 survey found a maximum depth in the North Basin of 745 feet (226.96 m), a little less than the Murray and Pullar maximum of 754 feet (230 m), and about a kilometre south of Urquhart Castle.

    Source: Young and Shine, Loch Ness bathymetric and seismic survey, 1991.

14. The Loch Ness Project’s own account of Operation Deepscan, in 1987, says twenty vessels from Caley Cruisers of Inverness were equipped with Lowrance echo sounders and formed a slow-moving front line.

    Source: Loch Ness Project, Operation Deepscan.

15. When interesting contacts were revisited, most proved to be fixed, but three had disappeared. The Project says they were “certainly not 10 metre monsters,” yet were stronger than fish echoes and lay far deeper. “The contacts remain unexplained.”

    Source: Loch Ness Project, Operation Deepscan.

16. Later work by the Project completed the first quantitative acoustic estimates of the open-water fish population and found only about 20 tonnes.

    Source: Loch Ness Project, Operation Deepscan.

17. BBC On This Day, reporting the end of the 1987 search, called Deepscan “a flotilla of 24 boats” that picked up three sonar “contacts,” shown as crescent-shaped marks, in the waters below Urquhart Castle — possibly a seal or a group of salmon.

    Source: BBC On This Day, 11 October 1987, “Search ends for Loch Ness monster”.

18. The same BBC page records that in 1933 Mr and Mrs George Spicer told newspapers they saw a monster, measuring 40 to 50 ft (12 to 15 m) long, crossing the road near the loch.

    Source: BBC On This Day, 11 October 1987, “Search ends for Loch Ness monster”.

19. It also records that in the 1970s a photograph taken by Dr Robert Rhines — the BBC’s spelling — attracted worldwide attention and seemed to show a flipper or fin. The creature was given the scientific name Nessiteras rhombopteryx by Sir Peter Scott. The BBC notes that the name is also an anagram of “Monster hoax by Sir Peter S,” and that the image was later revealed to have been computer enhanced.

    Source: BBC On This Day, 11 October 1987, “Search ends for Loch Ness monster”.

20. In 1994, the BBC records, the most famous of the published photographs — taken by Colonel Robert Wilson on 19 April 1934 — was revealed to be a hoax.

    Source: BBC On This Day, 11 October 1987, “Search ends for Loch Ness monster”.

21. In July 2003, the BBC says, programme-makers carried out what it calls the most extensive search yet, using 600 separate sonar beams and satellite navigation technology, but found nothing.

    Source: BBC On This Day, 11 October 1987, “Search ends for Loch Ness monster”.

22. In 2019, BBC News reported work led by Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago, which tried to catalogue living species in the loch from environmental DNA in water samples. No evidence of a prehistoric marine reptile called a plesiosaur, or of a large fish such as a sturgeon, was found. Catfish, and the idea of a wandering Greenland shark, were also discounted.

    Source: BBC News, 5 September 2019, “Loch Ness Monster may be a giant eel, say scientists”.

23. Professor Gemmell said the data contained no shark DNA, no catfish DNA and no evidence of sturgeon, and that he did not think the plesiosaur idea held up. There was, he said, “a very significant amount of eel DNA,” found at pretty much every location sampled. The data do not reveal the eels’ size, and he did not discount the possibility that some might be giant, or that what people see might be a giant eel.

    Source: BBC News, 5 September 2019, “Loch Ness Monster may be a giant eel, say scientists”.

24. BBC News says the modern story gathered pace when, in 1933, the Inverness Courier’s Fort Augustus correspondent, Alec Campbell, reported a sighting by Aldie Mackay of what she believed to be Nessie. Campbell described a whale-like creature and the loch’s water “cascading and churning.” The editor, Evan Barron, suggested the beast be described as a “monster.”

    Source: BBC News, 5 September 2019, “Loch Ness Monster may be a giant eel, say scientists”.

25. The same report says the 1934 “Surgeon’s Photograph” was, sixty years later, confirmed as a hoax hatched in revenge after a newspaper ridiculed journalist Marmaduke Wetherell for finding “Nessie footprints” on the shore. The “monster” caught on camera was apparently a toy submarine bought from Woolworths, with a head fashioned from wood putty, and the hoaxers then gave the photograph to Wilson.

    Source: BBC News, 5 September 2019, “Loch Ness Monster may be a giant eel, say scientists”.

26. BBC News traces the story back 1,500 years, when the Irish missionary St Columba is said to have encountered a beast in the River Ness in 565 AD. That is a reported tradition about a river encounter, given here with the later newspaper history, not as proof of an unknown animal in the loch.

    Source: BBC News, 5 September 2019, “Loch Ness Monster may be a giant eel, say scientists”.