
Nessie: The most famous photo of the Loch Ness monster, from 1933.

Swimming elephant: An elephant swimming.
Dr. Neil Clark, Scotland's top dinosaur expert, has come to the conclusion that the famous Loch Ness monster was really a circus elephant.
Dr. Clark noted that the famous photo of Nessie looks very much like an elephant swimming, with its head and body mostly submurged and its trunk sticking up out of the water. He also found that sightings of the "monster" had been very rare until 1933 -- when a circus came to the area. It's possible that the circus master allowed his elephants to swim in the Loch, and then got the idea for a publicity stunt. We do know that one such impresario, Bertram Mills, offered a reward for anyone who could capture Nessie for his circus -- and that sightings of the "monster" immediately surged.
Bertram died in 1938, and Nessie sightings dropped sharply thereafter. However, the elephant theory does not explain away other, incontrovertible evidence.
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