Ex-Detective Hunts the Loch Ness Monster

(Dec. 16) -- A former U.K. detective is out to prove that a film shot 50 years ago by his father, allegedly showing the legendary Loch Ness Monster, is the real deal.

Simon Dinsdale, of Essex, England, spent his professional law enforcement career tracking down criminals. And the Loch Ness Monster is a case he especially wants to solve, reports the BBC.

Fifty years ago, his father, Tim Dinsdale, a respected aeronautical engineer, became a celebrated "Nessie" hunter after filming a mysterious animal swimming in the fabled 23-mile-long Scottish lake.

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This 1934 photo of the Loch Ness Monster taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson was later exposed as a hoax. Despite that, over many decades, thousands of people have reported seeing a large, unknown animal in the 23-mile-long Scottish lake.

After the Royal Air Force, or RAF, determined his footage was not a boat or submarine, they concluded it might have been an unknown animate object.

For centuries, thousands of people have reported seeing unusual creatures in the lake. Photgraphs and films have been offered up as proof of the animals' existence, but most haven't held up to skeptical scrutiny.

Simon Dinsdale says he's seen the "monster" twice and is on a personal mission to prove to the world that his father's original film represents legitimate evidence.

"You should never discount eyewitnesses," Dinsdale said. "After all, I'm an eyewitness, myself. More than 1,000 people, I think, are recorded as having seen something large in the loch ... seen pretty much the same thing -- we've described the same thing.

"But I've spent 30 years in the police service. You can't just take eyewitness testimony -- it's not sufficient."

In 1960, Dinsdale's father's description of what he saw echoes the many eyewitness accounts that followed for decades.

"I saw this immense, extraordinary object, it looked like the back of a huge animal," he said. "Reddish brown, it stood 2 to 3 feet out of the water, 4 or 5 feet across, probably nearly as long as this boat, quite motionless ... and a blotch on the left flank which I could see very clearly, and then it started to move. A most electrifying moment."

Half a century after his father's encounter, Simon Dinsdale returned to Loch Ness this summer after 25 years, and he's looking for clues to prove that Nessie is real.

"I can look at all the body of evidence, and I'm experienced at looking at evidence, and I can tell you that ... on the balance of probabilities, there is something large and unknown living in this loch."

Read more at the BBC.

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