Nessie - 8 Facts About Loch Ness' Most Elusive Resident

With the unusual depth of the Loch and the majority of the sub-surface area remaining unseen and not properly explored, there were a number of searches conducted using various forms of sonar and underwater detection.

The most famous of these is arguably Operation Deepscan in 1987 which towed (at the time) state-of-the-art sonar detectors and hydrophones behind a fleet of vessels, essentially performing a sweep of the body of water beneath the surface. While the heavily silted water hampered any efforts to view things via normal cameras for the most part (see the flipper photo for an exception to this), sonar was believed to be infallible, and if something the size of Nessie was lurking, then it would be spotted.

Despite a few "pings" of unknown objects, there was nothing of note turned up during this massive effort. Believers in the monster have offered many explanations for this. Only around 60% of the area could be covered due to sloping walls at the Loch's edges and some suggest that there is a large underwater cave which Nessie uses as a lair and that is why she was not found.

A later effort in 2016 found a large Nessie shaped object at a huge depth, but hope was dashed when this was assessed to be a prop from a film in the 1970s that had been lost and sunk to the bottom of the Loch. The failure of this most recent and high-tech effort has essentially disproved the existence of the monster in the minds of the sceptics.