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There was a beast in Loch Ness. Aldie Mackay delivered this shocking bit of information on April 14, 1933, her lilting Scottish accent wrapping around each strange detail.
Earlier that day, she and her husband John had been taking a drive along the loch’s northerncoast. It was a pleasant day. Clouds speckled the blue sky. The loch’s surface looked perfectly still. Suddenly, a violent commotion in the water caught her attention. Some kind of animal was thrashing on the surface. Foam and spray shot into the air. The creature soon stopped splashing, but it didn’t disappear. Two glistening humps appeared above the surface. They had the deep blue-black coloring of a whale, and were large and widely spaced, hinting at a giant creature below. The humps undulated across the water, rising and falling in a snakelike manner. And then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the creature dove back beneath the surface. The water stilled. Mackay turned to her husband, who had only just brought their vehicle to a stop. He hadn’t seen the creature at all.
Stunned, the pair sat in their car for thirty minutes. They stared at the water, hoping that the animal might make a second appearance. When it didn’t, they made their way to the Drumnadrochit Hotel, a stately establishment they managed together. There, Mackay shared her story. Listeners must have been baffled, shocked. At the time, Loch Ness had no uniquely frightening reputation. It was simply one of many quiet, picturesque lakes in the Scottish Highlands. Ferries regularly chugged along its twenty-three-mile length, while small boats zipped back and forth across its narrow one-and-a-half-mile width. Its shorelines were mostly undeveloped, save for the occasional country home, castle, or medieval ruin. Other than its impressive depth, which dropped down to 788 feet at its deepest point, the most remarkable thing about the loch was the color of its water. Loch Ness was as black as night. Scotland’s frequent rains had washed eons of peat down the surrounding hillsides and into the loch, causing it to be nearly opaque. Mackay’s claim about a huge, humped beast in Loch Ness was the first of its kind.
In addition to shock, some listeners may have also felt a twinge of doubt hearing Mackay’s tale. She was the sole witness to this unusual event. Neither her husband nor any other locals could verify her account. She also appeared to be ignoring a simple explanation for the commotion: a pair of seals may have just gotten themselves into the loch. But perhaps most importantly, Mackay had a personal motive for sharing such an intriguing tale. She had a loch side hotel to keep afloat.
In truth, the most frightening thing locals had witnessed in recent years was a general decline in tourism. Loch Ness had previously enjoyed nearly two centuries as a favorite destination for wealthy British travelers. They came to the peaceful, dark loch to enjoy a break from the hubbub of aristocratic life. After the royal family made their way to Loch Ness, with Prince Albert visiting in 1847 and Queen Victoria following in 1873, the loch’s status as a high-end getaway was sealed. At one point, extra ferries even had to be added to accommodate the water traffic, and a special train line was built to help usher visitors to the place advertised as “a most interesting and romantic part of the Highlands.” But eventually the loch’s sparkling appeal dulled. The train line closed. The ferries slowed. By 1933, the area had settled into a quiet rhythm. Making things worse, that season’s fishing output had been less productive than usual. A newspaper called the area’s herring haul “very poor and practically disastrous.” Another observer labeled it “lamentably” bad. The area needed a boost.
Under normal circumstances, Mackay’s claim might have been shared, lightly debated, and then forgotten. She may have even laughed and shrugged the whole thing off, chalking it up to a trick of the light or an overactive imagination. But circumstances weren’t normal. Mackay happened to tell her story in a time and place uniquely primed for an extraordinary event. Science, art, and culture were changing so rapidly that anything seemed possible. The stars were aligned for a strange little tale to grow in size and importance. Then something happened that launched Mackay’s story into the stratosphere. The press got involved.
Alex Campbell was a freelance writer for a local paper called the Inverness Courier. When he heard of Mackay’s odd sighting, he recognized its appeal and made quick work of writing it up for publication. In the tradition of so many journalists at the time, Campbell made little effort to stick to the facts. Rather, he took an already odd tale and embellished it. He included fictional details and emotionally provocative language, declined to name Mackay in the story, and also remained anonymous himself, identifying only as “a correspondent.” His misinformation-filled column hit newsstands on May 2, 1933, both setting a standard for the way future journalists would handle Loch Ness Monster reporting, and shocking the public at the same time. “Strange Spectacle on Loch Ness: What Was It?” informed readers that a monster lived in Loch Ness. And not just any monster, but a large, “fearsome-looking,” whale-like beast. Campbell declared that Mackay’s sighting wasn’t some shocking new revelation, but confirmation of a generations-old belief. His column made it seem as though locals had always been on the lookout for such an aquatic creature. The stage was set for the drama of the century. Loch Ness had itself a monster.
