# Nessie and friends **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [September 20, 2000, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nessie-and-friends/33915 "2000-09-20T22:06:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nessie-and-friends/33915/1 "2000-09-20T22:06:24Z")
About the mailbag arcticle on [Nessie](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mnessie.html) which also mentions a Selma in Norway. There’s several relatives of Nessie in North America. Besides Chessie in Chessapeake Bay, there’s several [lake monsters](http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/nlake.htm). Ogopogo even has a [cheesy statue](http://www.vtours.com/kelowna/ogopogo.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Silvio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Silvio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silvio)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nessie-and-friends/33915/2 "2000-09-21T04:35:48Z")
It would seem that the only way that Nessie could be a living creature is if where something that lives at the very bottem of the loch, breathes through gills and very rarely comes up. A plesiousourus (sp?) would stay on the surface at least as much as an alligator. There’s no way it could be an airbreathing creature and not be far more visible. An interesting, if odd, theory I’ve heard is that it is a giant sea slug. Slugs aren’t supposed to be more than a few inches long, but then again, they used to say that about squids as well. A giant sea slug would normally stay at the bottem of the loch and would leave no bones when it died. It would have a squishy, flexible, variable shape and could even move with jet power by squirting water out its body. I think that’s really kind of a cool theory, but unfortunately, the more likely theory is that there really isn’t a Nessie at all. By the way, I don’t believe the debunking of the London Surgeon’s photo. Just because one man makes an unsupported allegation that it was a sub doesn’t mean it was. There is another, rarely seen photo from the same sequence. It shows the Nessie image going back into the water. It looks like the “neck” is bent, which would not be possible for a submarine model. Does that mean it is Nessie? Actually, it looks like the ass end of an otter going down to me. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nessie-and-friends/33915/3 "2000-09-21T04:48:10Z")
And while we’re reconstructing Nessie’s family tree, there’s a legend of a creature in Africa called Mokele-Mbembe which is said to resemble a sauropod. One wonders just how specific the traditional description is, and whether it predates caontact with Europeans and/or discovery of actual sauropod bones elsewhere inthe world. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2000, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nessie-and-friends/33915/4 "2000-09-21T06:00:24Z")
Geez, next you’re going to try and tell me that Santa doesn’t exist … like I’d fall for that one. ---
**Author:** ![Montfort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Montfort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montfort)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nessie-and-friends/33915/5 "2000-09-22T03:24:58Z")
Didn’t I read a few years ago that the person who took that famous picture of Nessie confessed having faked it on his deathbed? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nessie-and-friends/33915/6 "2000-09-22T07:31:34Z")
From the mailbag article: > [@](#): > > The best-known photo, taken in 1934 by Dr. Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London physician, was revealed as a fake in a 1993 deathbed confession by a relative of the hoaxer. (Wilson had not actually taken the photo himself, it turns out.) ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2000, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nessie-and-friends/33915/7 "2000-09-22T13:55:01Z")
According to Staffer Dave “the monster only seems to come out when the scientists aren’t around.” - that’s also true for parties and attractive women, and I’m fairly sure they exist.