For years, people have claimed that there is a strange creature in the water of Scotland's Loch Ness. In fact, the first written account of the Loch Ness Monster was recorded in the year 565, but the mystery didn't really take off until 1960, when an aeronautical engineer filmed a strange hump making its way through the water and leaving a wake behind it. The sightings continued from there and this year alone there were a dozen reports of people spotting "Nessie," including one where a boat's sonar picked up an object 33 feet long that was some 550 feet down in the lake.
Now, a scientist claims to have solved what exactly has been swimming in Loch Ness all these years. Henry Bauer, professor emeritus of science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, has been researching "Nessie" and concluded that she is actually a type of undiscovered sea turtle that got trapped in the loch during the end of the last Ice Age.
According to The Sun, Bauer doesn't agree with theories that "Nessie" is a form of dinosaur, stating in a very scientific fashion, "The most popular attribution of identity for Loch Ness Monsters is a relationship with the extinct plesiosaurs, but this is difficult to square with the rarity of surface sightings let alone occasional sightings on land." Instead, Bauer surmises that she is more likely a "yet-to-be-properly discovered and described variety of large sea turtle that is most likely also still extant in some niches in the oceans."
He explained his discovery saying, "Everything described for Loch Ness Monsters is known among the many species of living as well as thought-to-be extinct turtles such as air-breathing but spending very long periods in deep water, ventures onto land, very fast movement in water, ability to be active in very cold water and relatively long necks."
Bauer's theory is being taken very seriously and has already been published in a respected science journal. The professor said that it is not a question of if "Nessie" is real, it is just a question of what she is, and he is pretty certain to have figured that out.
You can read more about "Nessie" sightings at the Official Loch Ness Sightings Register.
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