A celebration is underway to mark the 85th Anniversary of Aldie MacKay’s sighting of “something strange” in Loch Ness. That sighting is very significant as it was the trigger of the worldwide Loch Ness Monster phenomenon and a multi-million pound tourist industry.
Throughout the ages in local myth and legend, there had always been tales of something strange in Loch Ness. In fact, tales of the “Water Horse” in Loch Ness go back to Pictish times.
But it was this particular sighting that gained greatest attention. Our regular blogger Willie Cameron has a theory why. He said: “Firstly, the new road along the loch side was opened in 1933. Prior to that, all traffic came by boat down the loch from Inverness to the east or Fort William to the west through the Caledonian Canal.
“Secondly, we had come out of the Great War 100 years ago and people had a little more leisure time to read and go to the movies which was the big thing of the day particularly in the USA.”
The movie which took America by storm the month before Aldie Mackay's sighting on Loch Ness was “King Kong”, released in March 1933. It was the story of a giant gorilla pounding the streets of New York after being taken from its habitat on a Skull Island, where numerous pre-historic creatures were living.
Willie continued: “This film captured the public’s imagination and caused them to question if there could be areas in the world where these creatures existed.”
A little earlier, two relevant books had also been published. One, published in 1912, was called “The Lost World”. Written by Arthur Conan Doyle, it was made into a silent film in 1925, eight years before the Loch Ness sighting, and also before King Kong. This introduced dinosaurs to both the reader and the filmgoer.
Creatures unknown to man
The other book was a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land that Time Forgot”. It was the first part of a trilogy combined in book form in 1924 after appearing in Blue Book Magazine in 1918.
And the story featured the crew of a U-boat that arrived on a tropical island inhabited by primitive creatures to all intents extinct elsewhere in the world.
So, the public had their minds fueled with the possibility that there were creatures unknown to man existing in the far flung corners of the earth.
Then, as Willie continues: “On May 2nd 1933, the Inverness Courier published an article under the headline ‘Strange Spectacle on Loch Ness. What was it?’ Penned by Alex Campbell, it revealed Aldie Mackay’s experience on Loch Ness on 14th April.
“The story spread around the world, into the melting pot of the public's imagination and, as they say, the rest is history.”
And that is why we are celebrating Aldie MacKay’s sighting. Of course, you could also make history and become a global celebrity with a new sighting. But you have to be here – perhaps on one of our Loch Ness cruises – to spot it!