Ear: Nessie

Local sea monster Colossal Claude may still be in hiding, but there has been a bit of an uproar in Loch (Scottish for lake) Ness, Scotland, home of Nessie, a perhaps-plesiosaur who, according to legend, has been roaming the loch for centuries.

The Loch Ness Exploration group, formed in 1933, an independent and voluntary research group based in Scotland, frequently conducts investigations at the loch. Their purpose is to observe, record and study the natural behavior of Loch Ness, and rare phenomena. The group has worked with Scotland’s Aberdeen University, several media outlets, including the BBC and Discovery Channel, and other organizations, worldwide.

Recently they decided to use a hydrophone to pick up underwater sounds in the loch. Alan McKenna, a representative of the group, noted to Coast to Coast AM that at a depth of about 100 feet, “we started to pick up a strange sound … a rhythmic pulse or heartbeat.” He backed off a bit, though, saying he was just using those words “as a description” of the sound, and was not proclaiming it was Nessie’s heartbeat. “We’ve no idea what was causing this sound, but it’s very interesting,” he noted.

Sound is the latest, perhaps best way to try to find Nessie, since visibility in the loch is awful. So, the next plan is to keep deploying the hydrophone at the site of the sound, get a catalog of noises, and see what happens.