New World Explorers Society: Loch Hourn Monster

The Loch Hourn Monster

By Cole Herrold

Loch Hourn is one of the most bizarre lochs, I think I've come across in my research of Cryptozoology. When originally working on my article on The Beast of Barrisdale, I was under the impression that this particular monstrosity was the Loch's only resident. The tri-legged fiend even is known as the Loch Hourn Monster, indicating some aquatic nature even though reports of it seem to indicate a terrestrial or flying creature as opposed to something aquatic. Yet upon digging deeper into the history of this particular Loch, I came across a few reports of something slithering beneath the water of the Loch, meaning the Beast of Barrisdale is not the only Loch Hourn Monster.

The true Loch Hourn Monster was first reported to of been seen on August 20^th and August 21^st, 1872, and the encounter is extremely interesting not necessarily for what was seen but for the number of witnesses that had seen the monstrosity at the time. The encounter occurred one day when the cutter ship known as the Leda when at least six witnesses saw a large black creature with a line of large black humps about 45-60ft in length that ended in a long neck and head. Their account would be reported in a monthly natural history magazine called The Zoologist and would later also be elaborated on in both The Mythical Monsters by Charles Gould as well as the 1934 book the Loch Ness Monster and Others by R. T. Gould.

It was August 20^th when Rev. David Twopeny, Vicar of Stockbury, from Kent and Rev. John McRae, Minister of Glenelg, from Inverness-shire, as well as two ladies known only as F and K, Mr. G. Bogle, and a highland “lad” were aboard the Leda and had just left Glenelg on a trip to Loch Hourn. The weather that day was calm and bright, and the surface of the water was as smooth as a mirror. The only exit to the northern point of the waterway was the Strait of Kylerhea which divides the Skye from the Mainland. It was around this area when they noticed a large shape approximately 200 yards to the north of them on the surface of the water. The group was confused about this object as they initially thought it was a log, but the object seemed to be moving on its own accord. It was around that time the boat goers proceeded in grabbing the three sets of glasses which were much akin to spyglasses or binoculars. Looking through the lenses, they noticed that this object was not something inanimate but a gigantic black-colored creature. The form had a head which was followed by several large dark-colored humps, each which had an interval space in between. The witnesses were certain that it was a single creature. The witnesses watched as the creature seemed to appear near the Leda, which moved slowly across the Leda's wake, and after it made it across the wake, it dipped down and disappeared. Yet this would not be for long as the creature’s head resurfaced as well as each coil. The lumps or coils would pop up sometimes in rows of three, other times four, five, or six, the most being seven, with the eighth being the head. The creature continued to submerge and reemerge to the surface, rising headfirst with the coils following, and when submerging it following the same way only occasionally there were some moments where only the head appeared. It was in this bizarre motion that the witnesses felt that the creature was "crooking up its back to sun itself." The witnesses, however, did not believe that this creature was serpentine as there appeared to be no undulation as it moved and as the humps or coils sank and rose, they did not enter in the area where the interval space had been implying that the creature had many large humps on its back. These humps appeared to be separated in the interval space as the creature rose about the same length of one standard hump on the creature, this measurement which they later used to estimate the total length of the creature, was six feet. The head was smaller and flatter than the creature's assumed humps, and the creature appeared to have a nose that was slightly visible above the water. The creatures head, as they would describe it, while noticeably different from the humps, never rose out of the water in the same manner of what we would expect in a lake monster or sea serpent encounter; instead, it seemed to just rise the top of its head up above the water its nose, and assumedly eyes being the only things breaching the surface, but the witnesses would not describe seeing the eyes. The creature would only move this way yet would sink almost as one would imagine a whale would. As they watched the creature on this day, while they admitted they could not estimate the creature with any true accuracy, they felt that the space between each hump was approximately six feet and that the total length of the creature, therefore, would have to be approximately 45ft in length. The creature seemingly returned as the boaters looked out on the ever still waters of the Loch that they noticed that once more, the colossal black form had risen from the Loch to sun itself or enjoy the warm weather. As the ship's passengers watched in awe of this frolicking giant, their awe soon turned to fear as the colossal creature proceeded in turning from its current course and head towards the Leda rather rapidly. This motion caused the waters of the Loch to froth and foam and appeared as though a great maelstrom had touched down. As the creature seemed to get nearer and nearer to the ship, it soon seemed to apparently notice the vessel and began to disappear into the water; while doing this, the head began to shoot a fine mist-like spray which was raised simply from the quick change in motion and not in the whale-like act of spouting. The woman known only as F was so disturbed by this that she proceeded in retreating to her room on the ship, "crying out that the creature was coming down upon us". The creature was only 100 yards when it made this turn and, in doing so, then changed course and began heading towards the direction of Skye. They could see the creature just under the waves as a dark black log form, and in so the observers could trace the course of the creature by the way it moved and the waves it would, in turn, bring up this continued for approximately a mile or so. While it moved, it began to raise itself up as it had before, only showing its head and back, almost never any other features. The only other feature that seemed to appear was a strange fin that seemed to pop up near the portion of the head, and this was seen by the two women and Mr. G. Bogle.

This, however, would not be the last time the creature was seen by these water-sent voyagers. The following day of the 21^st, the creature reappeared, yet unlike the previous day, it was much farther away. The Leda was on the north side of the opening of Loch Hourn, where the total space is only 3 miles wide. The weather, much like the previous day, was bright and warm, and the water once again had a mirror-like quality to it. As the ship was slowly putting along, the creature seemingly arose from the south side of their position and this time appeared as 3-4 long lines as opposed to several humps and an assumed head. The group, however, as they looked, noticed something that frightened them more than the previous day; while this creature was further away, they seemed to notice that the creature was even longer than the day before, reaching an even more absurd length of at least 60ft. The creature, however, seemed to be unconcerned with the ships on the water and began heading deeper into the waters of Loch Hourn and away from the entrance to the other waterways. Yet this would not be for long, for as the ship began to use the oars heading towards the island of Sandburg, the creature seemed to return this time, picking up speed and heading towards the mouth of the Loch. It was about 150 yards from the ship and went with great speed, its black head being the only thing seeable above the water as the rest of it caused a tremendous wake followed by the sound of throshing water. No flippers or fins were visible that could explain how this creature seemed to pick up speed that to the witnesses seemed twice as fast as a steamship which they had seen the previous day, implying it faster than the technology of the day, they had clocked the steamship as moving approximately 5 or 6mph so the creature would have to been going at least 10 to 12 mph. The creature also, as it moved, did not recreate the spraying effect as it had the previous day. The creature's movements were smooth, like something made for swimming in the water, which they would describe being similar to a log towed rapidly. The watchers continued to travel on the Loch as they headed toward the Sound of Sleat and were occasionally in sight until it started to get dark out. The creature’s body appearing only slightly at the surface. The two clergymen and the rest of the voyagers watched this aquatic anomaly for some time on the 21^st before it seemingly disappeared, stating later in the Zoologist, “we left our boat, wondering whether this strange creature had gone that way or turned back again to the south. We have only to add to this narrative of what we saw ourselves, the following instances of its being seen by other people, of the correctness of which we have no doubt”. Mr. G. Bogle, later on, did sketches of the object he saw, which would later appear in Gould's book The Loch Ness Monster and Others. The group, in reflection, felt that the creature might have been attracted to the sound of the boat's oars as it always seemed to be near their ship and specifically when the oars were in use.

Also, on the day of the 21st, the strange animal was seen once more when two ferrymen sailing in the evening on each side of Kylerhea, a village on the Isle of Skye, heard the heavy splashing and thrashing of some large object going through the dark waters. Both ferrymen were surprised and instinctively thought it might be a shoal of porpoises since occasionally they have made their way into the Loch, but the pair could not comprehend their going so quickly, yet as they discussed this strange event, they concluded that the speed and general bulk of the commotion on the water seemed to be of something altogether different.

Also, on the 21^st, Finlay McRae, of Bundaloch, in the parish of Kintail, would claim to of had an encounter with the creature. McRae was within the mouth of Loch Hourn with other men in his boat when much like in the other sightings, he noticed a strange wake upon the water that seemed to come from nowhere. As he and his men watched, they noticed that a dark serpentine creature seemingly rose up from the depths and saw that the creature appeared to be swimming at approximately four hundred and fifty feet away.

Another sighting that was reported by an unnamed lady from Duisdale, in Skye, which is opposite the opening of Loch Hourn, said that she was looking out with a glass when she saw a strange object on the Loch, which she described as appearing like eight seals in a row. The time of her sighting was noted that it was around the same time as the reverends on the 20^th. Around the same time of this sighting, the same or a similar creature was reported by two unnamed witnesses near the island of Eigg, specifically between Eigg and the Mainland, and about twenty miles to the southwest of the opening of Loch Hourn. Further details on this account, however, are currently unreported.

While the Loch Hourn was quiet on the 22^nd, the nearby and interconnected Loch Duich was far from it. Alexander Macmillan, a boat-builder from Dornie and his brother Farquhar, were fishing in a boat in the entrance of Loch Duich, halfway between Druidag and Castledonan, when he saw a strange rippling in the water near his boat. As he watched, he noticed a long dark animal rise from the water. Macmillan was near enough to hear a strange noise that either seemed to be coming from the creature or the water and saw the ripples on the water as it moved around in the Loch. The Zoologist would describe Macmillan’s description in the following “He says that what seemed its head was followed by four or more lumps, or "half-rounds," as he calls them, and that they sometimes rose and sometimes sank altogether. He estimated its length at not less than between sixty and eighty feet. He saw it also on two subsequent days in Loch Duich”. The pair were promptly terrified, and each time managed to row towards the shore as fast as they could.

A similar creature had been seen in Loch Duich in the Summer of 1871, about a year before the rash of Loch Hourn sightings. It was said that a well-known gentleman of the area was crossing the Sound of Mull from Mull to the Mainland when he would have an encounter with the creature. The account in the Zoologist would go into details of this account, stating the following: "On a very calm afternoon when our attention was attracted to a monster which had come to the surface, not more than 50 yards from our boat. It rose without causing the slightest disturbance of the sea, or making the slightest noise, and floated for some time on the surface, but without exhibiting its head or tail, showing only the ridge of the back, which was not that of a whale or any other sea animal that I have ever seen. The back appeared sharp and ridge-like, and in color very dark, indeed black, or almost so. It rested quietly for a few minutes then dropped quietly down into the deep, without causing the slightest agitation. I should say that about 40ft of it, certainly not less appeared on the surface”.

Sightings of the creature seemed to have been nonexistent during the timespan after the 1870s, but sightings in other Lochs and in the surrounding seas were rather constant; however, in 1934, the Duke of Marlborough would add to this enduring mystery by telling of an encounter with a mysterious giant creature in Loch Hourn to the Scottish Inspector of Fisheries. The Duke and three other witnesses observed a 96ft long black swimming beast in the water whose body formed humps as it moved. The creature had a flat and eyeless head and a long black body; as it traversed through the murky depths, it would raise its back, generating ridges that curved in form when the body would flatten. The creature seemed to of returned and would continue to be reported sporadically from time to time.

In the 1950s 9yr old Willie McKenzie and Rob Foster would both report seeing a strange object rising from the Loch at around the same time. Willie was sitting on a grassy knoll looking out over the Loch. He was searching the water of the Loch, searching for his father to return from work delivering mail on his boat. The boy would watch until he saw a strange churning and disturbance on the surface of the water and would go on to report seeing a creature’s head that would pop up ten feet out of the water. He said that the creature, whose head looked like a big eel's and was moved its head side to side. The creature was about 250 yards in front of him, and while the boy's response to seeing such a bizarre beast is unrecounted, it is safe to say he either watched the creature until it submerged, or he ran away, not seeing the final course that the creature went.

Around the same time, Rob Foster, a fisherman from Corran, potentially had seen the creature. While details about his account are very scant, there are some behavioral elements that seem to indicate that he had seen some sort of creature. That particular day Rob refused to go out to the boat and would get nowhere near the water, only getting to the shore of the Loch. Yet still, even without his detailed report, rumors also said that the monster was seen in Sandaig by the MacDiarmid's. Yet, their report is also practically nonexistent and only briefly mentioned in almost all sources.

This is currently all the information we have on the Loch Hourn Monster, as the creature apparently has not been seen or at least recorded since the 50s. While we today have no idea what kind of creature this could be biologically speaking since it does not seem to match the appearance of any known whale or large marine life form, researchers during the time of the sightings definitely seem to of had an inkling of what kind of creature this was. The researchers during this time felt that the Loch Hourn Monster was an example of the Norwegian Sea Serpent, a kind of large black creature that frequented the oceans and other waterways that connected to the ocean. The Norwegian Sea Serpent had frequently had several harrowing encounters that included several which involved attacks from humans towards the beasts. The creatures had many similarities to the Loch Hourn Monster; one feature that the Zoologist focused on is that both creatures seem to prefer still waters and warm weather to appear and that they have been seen in several of the same areas around the United Kingdom. The idea was since Loch Hourn, and several of the other lochs in the area are sea lochs (a kind of inlet that may be partially landlocked) that these creatures enter them from time to time either accidentally or to utilize some of the resources in the area.

While the researchers of the time felt that the Loch Hourn Monster was, in fact, a sea serpent that made its way inland, there are some alternative ideas. Skeptically speaking, it could have been a variety of things from a phantom wake to some alternative aquatic natural phenomenon that could superficially make that there might be some large creature in the water. Another possibility is that perhaps it was a group of marine animals that, when lined up, made it appear that there was one large creature when really there were several smaller creatures helping create the illusion of a larger one.

Loch, Lough, and Lake Monsters have literally countless hypotheses as to what they may be some ranging from surviving or descended Basilosauruses to giant eels and catfish to surviving or descended plesiosaurs to giant long-necked seals. All of these possibilities have been written about, speculated, and recounted more than I care to. They are all interesting and do deserve some respect when analyzing this phenomenon, but the truth is that much like the Gigantopithecus hypothesis for Bigfoot, it's all speculation. While I am certain these sightings do occur without some conclusive DNA evidence or a specimen that we can run tests on, it is impossible to accurately state which is correct and which is not. Yet I have a feeling that we may never come to a true conclusion, the lochs, and oceans of our world are incredibly deep, and because of this, there are all kinds of creatures that could remain hidden from our watchful gaze simply because we were not on the same depth as they were. That being said, I'm a big supporter of not having an encounter with one of these colossal creatures, for while a ship might seem like a safe place if the creature was strong enough to capsize the boat, anyone on deck is simply just so much fish food.

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Sunday, August 29, 2021

Loch Hourn Monster

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