Monster on Trial

With all the stately majesty of British justice, a panoplied court assembled before the television cameras of the British Broadcasting Corp. in London. A bewigged judge sat in full regalia. Two learned advocates marshaled a whole parade of witnesses. Standing before the bench, the clerk solemnly intoned: "Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! The Loch Ness monster is now on trial." The point at issue: Does or does not the Loch Ness monster exist?

As thorough as a Royal Commission, the BBC went back to the beginning. The first mention of a Loch Ness monster was in the 7th Century account of St. Columba's visit to the province of the Picts. He came to the river Nesa (the Ness) and found that an aquatic monster had just bitten and killed a Pict. So the saint ordered another Pict to dive into the water. The monster rose to take him as a salmon takes a fly, but the saint made the sign of the Cross "and the monster was terrified and fled away more quickly than if it had been dragged by ropes."

"Horrible Great Beastie." After this defeat, the monster lay doggo for more than 1,000 years. At any rate, the people who lived near the loch did not think it worth reporting. Since most Scottish lochs, they believed, had water kelpies, why shouldn't Loch Ness have one? His Grace the Duke of Portland noted in 1885 that his ghillies were quite familiar with a "horrible great beastie" in Loch Ness.

Having set the historical background straight, the BBC jumped to 1933, when a new motor road was built along the loch. Almost at once the monster hit the world's headlines. Alex Campbell, the reporter who wrote the first story in the Inverness Courier, was summoned before the BBC court.

"I have seen it myself," said Witness Campbell. He had also, he said, talked with hundreds of people, both Scots and strangers, who had seen it too. Witness after witness followed, both in person and in written testimony, all swearing that they had seen the monster.

A Whale or a Hoax? During World War II, the monster became a military secret. It was reportedly seen by many servicemen, but the region around Loch Ness was a Commando training ground, and to quote the soldiers would have betrayed the secret of their station. Both German and Italian airmen claimed to have killed the monster, but this, said the BBC, was quite untrue. Right after the war, the witnesses testified, the monster reappeared undamaged.

The BBC went over the theories that have tried to explain the monster as a small whale, a mass hallucination, some sort of seal, ripples on the water. Many witnesses said it looks like an overturned boat. Others saw it as a series of humps. Some saw a small head held high on a long thin neck. Most of them agreed that it leaves a churning wake and move's with great speed.

The last witness was a zoologist from London's Natural History Museum. With scientific objectivity, he knocked down all the theories: that the monster might be a seal, a giant eel, or anything else known to science. But he did not say categorically that the monster cannot exist. The earth, he admitted, may contain many things undreamed of by zoologists.

At the end of the broadcast the judge gave his decision: "Not proven." So the canny Highlanders may still amass tourist shillings, and Britons may still believe, if they want to, that their crowded island has a fresh-water monster.

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