Like it or like it not, Loch Ness has a long history of high-strangeness attached to it. Very high-strangeness. Within the folklore of Loch Ness and much of Scotland, there are centuries-old legends and myths concerning supernatural, violent, shape-shifting creatures known as kelpies. Or, in English, water-horses. Roland Watson is one of the most respected figures in the fields of Nessie and kelpie lore and history. He is someone who has spent an enormous amount of time tracking down just about each and every legend and tale of the kelpie. Watson’s sterling work has led to the discovery of accounts that suggest, at one time or another, no less than fifty Scottish lochs had kelpie traditions attached to them. One might find that too incredible for words, until one realizes there are numerous lochs and smaller lochans, as they are known, in Scotland. Far more revealing, Watson’s study of pre-1933 publications, books and manuscripts that mention kelpies in Scottish lochs, shows that a full 43.6 percent of all the reports cited came from none other than Loch Ness – 1933 being the year in which the controversy exploded big time.

On the matter of supernatural shape-shifting, not everyone describes the Nessies as long-necked animals with flippers, a long tail and large back. In 1880, Duncan MacDonald had a terrifying, eye-to-eye, encounter with something that resembled a giant, goat-sized frog. There is also the matter of a certain tusked beast seen in the waters of the River Ness, in 1932. Lieutenant McP Fordyce described seeing an animal on land that walked like an elephant, that looked like a combination of a “very large horse and a camel,” and which was shaggy in appearance. Arthur Grant’s 1933 land-based sighting was of something more akin to a plesiosaur. Mr. and Mrs. George Spicer encountered – also on land – a creature that had a jerky, wormy gait. Hugh Gray – in the 1930s, too – photographed an animal with a beak-like, turtle-style head. It had absolutely no neck of any significance whatsoever.

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