Never Say Nessie Again?
90 Years of The Surgeon’s Photograph
On an early April morning in 1934, at around 7 or 7:30am, Robert K. Wilson, a London surgeon, saw something strange moving on the surface of Loch Ness. Wilson, an established gynaecologist, had driven up from London for a duck-shooting holiday on the Beauly Firth. With a borrowed quarter-plate camera at hand, Wilson focused on the peculiar sight and snapped away at the camera. In 1955, he recalled the incident:
“…I noticed a considerable commotion on the surface, perhaps two or three hundred yards out. When I had watched it for perhaps a minute or so, something broke surface and I saw the head of some strange animal rising out of the water…” (1)
Over the past year, a slew of stories concerning the so-called ‘Loch Ness Monster’ had struck the news. Suddenly, Inverness had became a hub for journalists sniffing a sensational headline and game-hunters eyeing up the possibility of a very big catch. Since the reporting of a “strange spectacle” seen by two local hoteliers in the following April, 1933 had been the year of the monster. At its end, the Daily Mail triumphantly declared “MONSTER OF LOCH NESS IS NOT A LEGEND BUT A FACT” on 21st December following the discovery by their very own big game-hunter, Marmaduke Wetherhall, of a set of suspicious footprints on the shore of Loch Ness.
Yet, as 1934 dawned, it all went abruptly quiet. Wetherhall’s monstrous footprints were confirmed by experts at the British Museum to be simply those of a hippopotamus. Without hesitation, the Daily Mail dropped the disgraced former silent film star. And, just as quickly, the furore over the Loch Ness Monster came to a halt. Many had never been persuaded by the dubious legend anyway. Now, it seemed that they had been right all along. Incredibly, four months later, the Mail bounced back. The headline this time? “LONDON SURGEON’S PHOTO OF THE MONSTER”.
Immediately following his loch-side encounter at Invermoriston, Wilson had his photos developed at a chemist shop in Inverness. Very shortly after, on 21st April 1934, the Daily Mail produced the print from Wilson’s third plate. Unlike the exceptionally blurry first picture of the monster, published by the Daily Sketch the previous December, this one showed an unmistakable image. The silhouetted head and neck of what appeared to be an immense prehistoric creature gracefully gliding through the water. Later, Wilson remembered being curiously blasé about what was happening at the time:
“I made four exposures by which time the object had completely disappeared. I had no idea at the time whether I had anything on the plates or not, but thought I might have”. (2)
At least, that was how Wilson told the story. In 1994, sixty years on from the explosion of the phenomenon, something else emerged to stun the world again over the controversy of Loch Ness. Not from its deep, dark waters, but from the meticulous investigations of researchers David Martin and Alistair Boyd. The world-famous ‘Surgeon’s Photograph’ was a fake.
To some, this wasn’t a surprise. From the very beginning, a range of alternative explantations were postulated for what the object in the photograph could actually be. Driftwood? The trunk of a swimming elephant? A diving otter? Of course, the somewhat unexpected answer was a toy submarine, with an attached plesiosaur-like head and neck made from plastic wood. From the moment of its publication though, the Surgeon’s Photograph had become the virtual signature of the Loch Ness Monster. Some have even gone so far to hail it as the most famous photograph of the 20th century. Even for Nessie, that is a bit of a stretch perhaps. But it certainly became a contender.
As well being as one of the century’s most recognisable photos, and the quintessential image of the Loch Ness Monster in the global consciousness, the Surgeon’s Photograph also became the bedrock of the Nessie phenomenon as it swam through the twists and turns of the 20th century. Prior to the 21st April 1934, the Loch Ness Monster had no definable appearance. Now, monster-hunters – and the growing band of tourists – knew what to look for. And, as well as being clearly pictured for the first time, it became something else. Brand-able.
To this day, thirty years on from the exposé, the Surgeon’s Photograph profile of the right-facing, upraised head and neck remains the marketing template for logos of countless businesses, old and new, around Loch Ness (most notably, the recently refurbished Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit). Just as the monster legend has lived on long after countless expeditions have failed to provide any conclusive evidence for the creature’s existence, so too has the Surgeon’s Photograph — it has become symbiotic not only of the monster, but of the power of Loch Ness itself where the tantalising prospect of a large, unidentified beast swimming through its murky, peat-stained waters somehow remains, despite the continued lack of supporting evidence.
There are also many ironies around the story of the Surgeon’s Photograph. The obscurity of the second, much lesser-known published picture showing the head and neck of the object descending back down into the water. An alternative “hoaxing of the hoax” theory, counter-arguing that Wilson’s testimony may have been genuine after all. And, perhaps most fascinatingly, the fact that co-author and researcher Alistair Boyd himself was firmly convinced that he saw a large animal swimming around Urquhart Bay in Loch Ness in 1979:
“I know that the thing I saw was not a log or an otter or a wave or anything like that. It was a large animal, it came heaving out of the water, something like a whale. I mean the part that was actually on the surface when it stopped rolling through was at least 20 feet long. It was totally extraordinary. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life”. (3)
References
- Whyte C. More Than a Legend, revised 3rd impression. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961, pp. 6–7
- Whyte C. More Than a Legend, revised 3rd impression. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961, pp. 6–7
- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lochness/legend3.html
