Saint Columbia himself saw the beast that was trying to maul one of his companions and is reported to have ordered the monster, 'Go no further. Do not touch the man. Go back at once.' The beast seemed to obey and went back into the water. Today, the story is repeated by enthusiasts of the 'Loch Ness monster' referred to as 'Nessie', who insist that the monster is very real and has a long history.

The legend though got people really interested in the early 1930's when sightings and even some photographic evidence were reported. The most famous of the photographs taken of the so-called monster is referred to as the 'Surgeon's photo'. The image shows a head and neck rising above the water seemingly of a very large creature. And since then, public interest and the media have kept many researchers and visitors to try to either photograph the monster or make efforts scientifically to prove or disprove the existence of any such creature.

The Loch Ness monster is scientifically known as a 'cryptid'. The term comes from 'Crypto zoology', which is the study of monsters whose existence has not been established. Which basically means very large creatures that have been witnessed by people and have been written about, but the exact evidence of them is lacking.

Loch Ness is a freshwater loch in the Scottish Highlands, 24 miles long and 700 feet deep in some places. The water is murky and dark, giving more intrigue to the story. Though scientists refuse to believe that any such monster exists, recent theories point to a creature belonging to a long line of plesiosaurs.

On August 4th, 1933, the paper, Inverness Courier, published a news item saying that, George Spicer, a man from London had seen the monster while he and his wife were going in their car.

He said the creature was 'the nearest approach to a dragon or prehistoric animal that I have ever seen in my life' and added that the creature had some sort of animal in its mouth. This account gave rise to other reports of sightings and stories by people claiming to have seen the monster also.

Then, during the early 1970's a group of researchers set about the Loch with underwater sonar readings and cameras and came up with photographs of something interestingly large and moving. But then again experts think that all these findings are inconclusive and the photographs might have been retouched. On the other hand, the team does claim that these do show a large creature resembling a plesiosaur. Some say that there were two creatures instead of one. In 2008, Robert Rhines of the Academy of Applied Sciences, another researcher of the project, stated that the monster may have existed but has now become extinct due to global warming or being unable to adjust to temperature changes. These are just some of the investigations into the mystery of the Loch Ness monster, but there have been many other sightings, photographs and sonar readings carried out by researchers.

The Loch Ness monster remains as elusive as ever. While some believe strongly that there is a strange and mysterious large creature in Loch Ness, others argue that it is just a myth and a fairytale like so many others. The truth is as murky and dark, just like the waters under which it is supposed to reside.