10 Great Hoaxes - The Loch Ness Photo

Throughout history, there have been some hilarious, controversial, and confusing hoaxes that have been created. Hoaxes are different from urban legends, rumors, pseudoscience, or even jokes since a hoax is a deliberate and intentional attempt to create something that is false but present it as the truth. We will look at ten of the most interesting hoaxes that fooled a lot of people.

9. The Loch Ness Monster Photo

We've all seen the photo of the Loch Ness Monster taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson in 1934. But what's the story? Many people have thought of it as being real for a very long time, and many people have thought it to be a hoax. Well, if it's on this list, then it is a hoax... and what's been called "The Surgeon's Photo" (because Wilson was a physician) is indeed a hoax.

"The Surgeon's Photo" of the Loch Ness Monster

This hoax (once again) involves revenge. The story begins with a man named Duke Wetherell, who was a movie maker and big game hunter. He was hired by "The London Daily Mail" to track down the Loch Ness Monster in 1933. He went to the loch and found some strange tracks that he made a cast of. He submitted the casts, but they were determined to be hippo tracks; someone had pulled a fast one on Wetherell. The newspaper was very upset at him and humiliated him. He decided to get revenge.

Wetherell's stepson (named Christian Spurling) was a model-maker, so Spurling was asked to make a model of a monster for Wetherell. Spurling made the "monster" out of a toy submarine and some plastic. It was somewhere between 8-12 inches high (as opposed to the 3 foot high that most people think when they see the photo). Wetherell took his son Ian with him to the loch where they took photos of the "monster", then buried it. Wetherell gave the undeveloped photos to a friend, who gave them to Wilson. Wilson was the one who actually had the photos developed. The photos were then sold to "The London Daily Mail". The result was unplanned as news spread everywhere and the popularity of the photos were unstoppable. Since the hoax was too big at that point, none of the men involved chose to let the secret out.

Fast forward to 1993. Two Nessie hunters (David Martin and Alistair Boyd) were investigating the photo. They came across an article from 1975 with Ian Wetherell who claimed that his father had faked one of the Nessie photos. Ian was dead by 1993, but Spurling was still alive. Martin and Boyd talked to Spurling (age 93 at that point) who admitted that Wetherell had come to him and asked him to build a fake monster. Spurling went on to explain why the hoax was created, including that when Wetherell took the fake to the loch, he said "We'll give them their monster."

There are many that still don't believe that the photo was a hoax. Martin and Boyd are still believers in the Loch Ness Monster, even if the photo turned out to be a hoax. Boyd has claimed to have seen the monster, so he remains committed to it. But the photo has indeed fooled a lot of people in the nearly 80 years since it was created.

Bet you didn't know that!