What is the Loch Ness Monster?

0:00 Welcome to History's Not Boring by kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. Before we dive in, a huge eighth birthday hello to Viola in Western New York.

0:12 Happy birthday, Viola! We hear you're listening with your sister Margot and brother Wesley.

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0:28 And to Tori, who is ten, and Theodore, six, who are moving to Germany.

0:33 You all asked for an episode about Bigfoot, Yetis, and the Loch Ness Monster, so this one is for all of you.

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0:46 Okay Finn, imagine a lake so massive, it holds 263 billion cubic feet of water. Whoa! Higgins? It's enough to hold all the water from every single lake in England and Wales combined. That's humongous! What's hiding in there? For nearly a hundred years, people have claimed a gigantic, dinosaur-like monster lives in those dark, freezing waters.

1:16 A dinosaur? Alive today? Exactly! And it's not just under the water. High in the snowy Himalayas, mountaineers have found giant footprints of the Yeti. And what about in the forests? People always talk about Bigfoot. Yep, today we are hunting down the facts behind the world's most famous mystery creatures.

1:37 These mystery animals are called cryptids, creatures that people claim to see, but science hasn't proven they exist. So, where do we start our monster hunt? Let's go to Scotland, to a giant lake called Loch Ness. It is 23 miles long, over a mile wide, and a staggering 754 feet deep.

2:00 That is way too deep. The water must be freezing and pitch black.

2:05 It is, because it's filled with dark peat washed in from the hills. You can barely see anything underwater. That makes it the perfect hiding spot. When did people first start seeing this monster? The very first story goes all the way back to the year 565. An Irish missionary named Saint Columba supposedly chased a water beast away to save a swimmer.

2:30 Whoa, so it's a super ancient legend.

2:33 Yes, but the modern craze really kicked off in 1933. A hotel manager named Aldi Mackay was driving near the lake on April 15th. What did she see? She saw something massive, dark, and rolling in the water. She called it a whale-like beast. Her story was printed in the Inverness Korea newspaper, and suddenly everyone flocked to Scotland looking for Nessie.

2:59 I bet the Yeti has a cool origin story too. It does. In the Himalayas, local Sherpa people had told legends about the Yeti, a wild man there, for centuries. But the world went crazy for it in 1951. What happened then? A famous British explorer named Eric Shipton was exploring the Menlung Glacier near Mount Everest, scouting routes to the top.

3:24 Mount Everest is huge.

3:26 Exactly. He was hiking at a freezing altitude of 19,000 feet when he spotted a line of strange bare footprints stamped into the hard snow. How big were they? He photographed them next to an ice axe. The prints were 13 inches long and nearly twice as broad as a normal human boot.

3:47 13 inches? That is bigger than a standard ruler.

3:50 So Eric Shipton's photograph made the Yeti world famous. But Loch Ness had an even more famous picture taken in 1934. Wait, who took it? A London doctor named Robert Kenneth Wilson. He claimed he saw a monster, grabbed his camera, and snapped four photos. It became known as the Surgeon's Photograph. What did it look like?

4:15 Let me guess.

4:16 Giant teeth?

4:18 Not quite. It showed a long snake-like neck and a tiny head rising out of the dark, rippling water. People thought it looked exactly like an extinct marine dinosaur called a plesiosaur.

4:32 No way. Did scientists actually believe a dinosaur survived for 65 million years?

4:38 Many people believed it for 60 years. It was printed in newspapers around the globe. It was considered the best proof of the Loch Ness monster.

4:48 Wait, you said they believed it for 60 years. What happened next?

4:54 Well, in the 1990s, the truth finally came out. One of the men involved confessed on his deathbed that it was a total hoax. A hoax?

5:05 Oh man, how did they trick everyone?

5:08 The monster in the photo wasn't giant at all. It was only about eight inches tall. They built it using a toy submarine and moulded a head out of plastic wood.

5:19unknown Hahaha!

5:20 A toy submarine? That's hilarious! They fooled the whole world with a toy.

5:26 Exactly! But even though that was fake, the search for cryptids didn't stop. Let's jump to October 20th, 1967, in Bluff Creek, California. California? Is that where Bigfoot lives? Yep. Two men, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin, were obsessed with Bigfoot. They rented a special 16mm movie camera and rode their horses deep into the remote Six Rivers National Forest.

5:54 Were they just waiting around for a monster? They were actively tracking one, and suddenly, by a sandy creek bed, their horses reared up in panic. Walking away from them was a massive, hairy, two-legged creature. Did they get it on camera? Yes. Roger got knocked off his horse, but he scrambled up, grabbed the camera, and captured exactly 59.5 seconds of footage.

6:20 Is that the famous video where the big hairy thing turns around and stares right at the camera?

6:25 Exactly. Frame number 352 of that film is the single most famous picture of Bigfoot ever taken.

6:33 So, if they got a whole minute of Bigfoot on video, did scientists finally say it was real?

6:39 Well, a video isn't enough for modern science. They needed hard biological evidence, like DNA.

6:46 Oh right. DNA is like the genetic instruction manual inside every living thing, right?

6:52 Exactly. Every animal leaves behind traces of DNA in hair, skin cells, saliva, or scat. If scientists can test it, they can prove exactly what creature left it. Did they ever test Yeti hair? They did. In 2017, a huge study was led by Dr. Charlotte Lindquist from the University at Buffalo. She tested nine different samples that people had collected and claimed were from Yetis.

7:21 What kind of samples were they? A mix of old hair, bone fragments, and teeth found in caves and monasteries high up in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau.

7:31 And what were the results? Was it a giant undiscovered ape?

7:35 Not exactly. Out of the nine Yeti samples, eight of them matched the DNA of local bears. Specifically, Asian black bears and Tibetan brown bears. Just regular bears? What about the ninth sample? The ninth one was a tooth taken from a stuffed yeti display in a museum. The DNA showed it actually belonged to a dog.

7:58 A dog? Someone put a dog's tooth in a fake Yeti. That's ridiculous. But what about Loch Ness? Did they find a way to test the water there?

8:08 Yes. In 2019, a team led by a New Zealand scientist named Neil Gammel did a massive environmental DNA study at Loch Ness.

8:18 Wait, how do you test a lake that holds 263 billion cubic feet of water?

8:24 They collected 250 water samples from different locations and depths. Then they sequenced the DNA and found genetic traces from 3,000 different species. 3,000? Did they find a prehistoric plesiosaur? Nope. They found DNA from humans, dogs, sheep, and lots of fish, but absolutely zero reptile or dinosaur DNA.

8:50 Then what have people been seeing all these years? Well, they did find massive, overwhelming amounts of eel DNA. Professor Gemmel suggested that the Loch Ness monster might actually be sightings of incredibly giant European eels swimming near the surface.

9:08 So if science proved the Yeti is just bears, and Nessie is probably just giant eels, why do people still care so much?

9:16 Because the stories are fun, and everyone loves the mystery. Plus, these legends are a huge deal for the local towns. The Loch Ness monster alone brings in millions of tourist dollars to Scotland every single year.

9:31 Wow. I guess people just want to believe in a little bit of magic in the world.

9:35 Exactly! Time for some weird facts. Did you know the famous name Bigfoot actually started because of a gigantic prank? A prank? Who pulled it off? In 1958, a man named Ray Wallace secretly carved two giant 16-inch wooden feet. Wooden feet? What did he do? Wear them like shoes? Yes, he strapped them to the bottom of his boots and stomped around in the mud at his logging site in Humboldt County, California, just to mess with his workers.

10:07 No way! Did the workers actually fall for it?

10:10unknown Ha!

10:11 They completely fell for it. A reporter named Andrew Genzoli wrote a story about the giant tracks for the Humboldt Times, and he gave the mysterious creature the nickname Bigfoot. The name stuck forever.

10:24 That is so funny. Are there any weird facts about the Yeti?

10:28 Definitely. Some Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas have sacred relics they claim are Yeti scalps. Ew, they keep an actual hairy scalp in a monastery. They did, but when scientists finally got permission to test a small piece of the most famous one from the Kumjung Monastery. Let me guess. It wasn't a Yeti.

10:49 Nope. It turned out to be shaped from the hide of a local animal called a Sorrow, which is kind of like a goat antelope.

10:57 A goat antelope? So the abominable snowman is just a mix of bears, dogs, and goats?

11:03 Yep, but they're still some of the best campfire stories ever told. Alright, Finn, it's quiz time! Let's see how much you remember.

11:11 Okay, I'm ready.

11:12 Hit me with the facts. First question. What year did the famous surgeon's photograph of the Loch Ness monster come out? Next one. What kind of animal did the eight Yeti DNA samples turn out to be? Question three. Who were the two men that filmed Bigfoot in California? Here's number four. What tall mountain was Eric Shipton exploring when he found the Yeti tracks?

11:54 Last question. What kind of animal DNA was found all over Loch Ness in 2019? Great job! Let's see how you did. The first answer is, it was taken in 1934. And it fooled people for 60 years. For question two, the Yeti DNA turned out to be from bears. Ha, brown and black bears to be exact. The answer to number three Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin filmed Bigfoot.

12:25 In that famous 59-second video.

12:28 For question four, Eric Shipton was exploring near Mount Everest. At 19,000 feet. And the final answer: scientists found massive amounts of eel DNA in Loch Ness.

12:41 A giant slimy eel monster. No thank you.

12:45 Even if science explains most of these sightings, I think it's still amazing that people want to explore the unknown.

12:52 Yeah, it makes the world feel like a big adventure, just waiting for us to find new things.

12:58 If you loved hunting for monsters with us today, please leave us a five-star review. Just scroll down and tap the stars.

13:05 And tell us which mystery creature is your favourite. Also, tap follow so you never miss an episode.

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13:26 Thanks for listening, everyone. See you next time on History is not boring. Bye.