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Animals
Loch Ness Monster
 nessie photo hoax 1




From: andrewst@u.washington.edu (Andrew Steinberg)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Nessie: The Article
Date: 16 Mar 1994 03:08:45 GMT

                Copyright 1994 The Sunday Telegraph Limited  
                                Sunday Telegraph

                             March 13, 1994, Sunday

SECTION: Pg. 1

LENGTH: 557 words

HEADLINE: Revealed: the Loch Ness picture hoax Monster was a toy submarine

BYLINE: by James Langton

BODY:
THE most famous picture of the Loch Ness monster - its long neck rising from the depths - is today revealed as one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century. The celebrated monster is a toy submarine bought for a few shillings inthe London suburb of Richmond and fitted with a classic sea serpent head and neck made from plastic wood.

For 60 years the picture - known as the Surgeon's Photograph - has been attributed to Colonel Robert Wilson, a respectable Harley Street gynaecologist who claimed to have seen "something in the water" on April 19, 1934. In fact, Wilson was the front man for a conspiracy to hoodwink Fleet Street by Marmaduke
Wetherell, a film-maker and self-styled "big game hunter" and his two sons. The five men involved are Wetherell, sent by the Daily Mail to Loch Ness to track down the monster in 1933, his son Ian, stepson Christian Spurling, Colonel Wilson and Maurice Chambers, a London insurance broker.

Chambers has always been reported as being with Wilson in Loch Ness. What has remained concealed is that he was also a friend of Wetherell. All those involved are now dead, the last being Christian Spurling at the age of 90 last November. Before his death, Spurling revealed how he had made the "monster" to two Loch Ness researchers, David Martin and Alastair Boyd, who have subsequently unravelled the whole story. Spurling told Martin and Boyd that he got a message from his stepfather in January 1933 saying: "Christian, can you make me a monster?" Ian Wetherell bought the basic materials, and his step-brother, a skilled model-maker, built the creature in eight days. "It was modelled on the idea of a sea serpent," Christian recalled. The finished monster was a foot highand about 18 inches long with a lead keel added to give it extra stability. It was taken to Loch Ness to be photographed and four plates were then given to Wilson, who had already worked out his story. The famous picture was then sold to the Daily Mail as a world exclusive. Wetherell was already well-known to the public after footprints of the "monster" he found on a beach in Loch Ness in December 1933 were revealed by the Natural History Museum to have been made by a dried hippo foot - perhaps part of an umbrella stand. Mocked by the rest of Fleet Street, his motive may well have been revenge. He told his son Ian: "We'll give them their monster." Wilson, the surgeon, gave only one interview, in 1956, after taking the photograph, and was always wary of saying he believed the picture showed the monster. He was also warned by the medical authorities that the publicity was bringing his profession into disrepute.

All those involved were certainly unprepared for the worldwide interest which their little joke provoked. Until now, the Surgeon's Photograph has been regarded as genuine.Even those who never accepted that it showed the monster itself believe it to besome other creature such as a fish or an otter. The silhouette of the neck and head has always been used as a crucial piece of evidence for those who believe the Loch Ness monster is real




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