It turns out that Nessie, also known as the Loch Ness Monster, may be so difficult to find because we were looking in the wrong place. 43-year-old Keith Stewart operates a sightseeing cruise on Loch Ness. He was not a firm believer in the Loch Ness Monster’s existence – until his boat’s sonar targeted a large, uniquely-shaped object at the bottom of a newly-discovered trench in the Loch.
“I wasn’t really a believer of the monster beforehand. But two weeks ago, I got a sonar image of what looked like a long object with a hump lying on the bottom. It wasn’t there when I scanned the loch bed later. It intrigued me and then I found this dark shape about half way between the Clansman Hotel and Drumnadrochit which transpired to be a crevice or trench.”
Loch Ness is the second deepest lake in the United Kingdom. Previously, all searches for Nessie took place in the center of the Loch where trenches measuring 800 feet deep run down the middle of the mile-wide lake. Stewart, however, discovered the new trench only a few hundred yards offshore – and it was far deeper than anyone imagined. Measuring almost 900 feet deep, twice the depth of the North Sea, it smashes the previous depth record held by Edwards’ Deep.
According to Stewart, he has travelled back to the trench several times and using the ship’s state of the art 3D equipment, has double-checked his measurements to ensure they are accurate. He now feels the legend of the Loch Ness Monster bears merit and believes the timid creature could be hiding in his trench (which has been unofficially dubbed Stewart’s Trench) or some other undiscovered crevice in Loch Ness.
“There could be more trenches which make it deeper. This looks like where Nessie and her whole family could really hide out and explain why they are rarely seen.”
Nessie seemingly disappeared in 2013 and was unseen for about a year. It was the first time since 1925 that no sightings were reported leading some to believe she may have perished. It was in that year that a 2.4 magnitude earthquake hit the region. Given that Loch Ness is part of a huge fault line that runs from Norway to Canada, some believe the quake could have opened the depths of the Loch giving Nessie a new place to hunker down and hide.
