Monster hurdles face latest Nessie hunters

Nessie or not? R. Kenneth Wilson's famous frame that London's Daily Mail newspaper first published in 1934

LOCH NESS, Scotland -- An international team of monster hunters has began a new search for the most famous and elusive resident of Loch Ness using an underwater microphone designed to detect Soviet nuclear subs.

The latest effort in the increasingly high-tech race to find evidence of the famed creature began late on Tuesday with perennial monster chaser Jan Sundberg in charge.

In August, the Swedish hunter trawled a Norwegian lake with a giant trap in an attempt to net "Selma," a fabled serpent reputed to be a distant cousin of Nessie.

The world's media looked on avidly, only for Sundberg and his crew to return to shore monsterless.

A veteran of 25 years scouring murky waters across the world, Sundberg has banned the word "monster" -- he favours "unknown animal" -- and scaled back his ambitions.

Even though the Loch Ness Monster has the biggest reputation of them all, he is in the market merely for noises from the depths of Britain's largest lake.

"We're not here for photos. Nobody trusts them any more -- they are too easy to fake," Sundberg said, shortly before donning the headphones of the adapted submarine listening device lent to him by the Norwegian Navy.

"We heard a large swooshing sound on the hydrophone last time we were here. It sounded like a big animal with large flippers moving through the water. We are looking to get more of that," he said.

His five-man Anglo-Swedish amateur team can then check the sounds against library recordings of large eels, fish and seals to see if they have hit on something new.

Jan Sundberg's last mission: Searching for Norway's fabled serpert "Selma"

"That way we have more scientific integrity, because we have only claimed it is the sound of a new animal," he said. "Maybe if we get any good results we'll come back next year with the trap."

Sundberg hunts with the blessing of the handful of locals who live along the shores of Loch Ness, a freshwater lake that 55 km (35-mile) long, 230 metres (750 feet) deep.

The monster is one of Scotland's most celebrated offspring and lures thousands of visitors from Tokyo to Tel Aviv to the Scottish Highlands, a remote area whose economy is highly dependent on tourism.

For all the goodwill -- Sundberg was lent a boat for his week long search -- local scepticism runs high.

Adrian Shine, director of the Official Loch Ness Visitor Centre, has spent 26 years explaining away all the 1,000 or so documented "Nessie" sightings and does not expect any revelations.

St Columba, the holy man attributed with first bringing Christianity to Scotland, is said to be the first to clash with a fearsome lake beast in 565 AD.

Since then Nessie has appeared variously in hoaxed photos as a multi-coiled sea-serpent or a long necked aquatic dinosaur.

A great legend for a great lake: Scotland's popular Loch Ness

The building of a new road along the loch shore in the 1930s led to a huge jump in the number of monster sightings -- mostly logs, seals or waves, Shine said.

He led a huge search in 1987 when more than 30 boats scanned every nook and cranny of the loch with sonar radar, but this too failed to reveal any unexpected inhabitants.

Even if an unknown creature did lurk undetected beneath the waves -- as the thousands of eager camera-brandishing tourists hope -- it is bound to be very hungry by now.

"There are only 20 tonnes of fish in the loch, which can support a monster population of only two tonnes -- which is patently not big enough," Shine said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Expedition sets out to trap Norwegian 'sea monster'
August 7, 2000
Monster mysteries continue to baffle Europe
August 2, 2000
Fossils of seagoing dinosaur show creatures roamed area 93 million years ago
July 28, 2000

Loch Ness Monster Research Society
The Loch Ness Internet Exhibition
Ness-Scape, Nessies Highland Web Site
X-Project: Traping Selma, the Seljord Sea Serpent

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