00:00Scientists have finally elucidated the mystery of the Loch Ness monster.
00:05Ready for a scoop, it is not a real monster.
00:08Maybe a dinosaur that has crossed the ages,
00:11or simply a pile of debris floating on the water.
00:14Thanks to the many discoveries about this enigmatic being,
00:18we have evidence to tell you a whole other story.
00:22In 1933, George Spicer and his wife were driving along the shores of Loch Ness
00:29when they saw an imposing silhouette with a long neck crossing the road.
00:34The appearance evoked a creature straight out of prehistory,
00:38a reptilian-like beast, different from anything they had seen before.
00:43This event marked the beginning of the brilliant propagation of theories
00:47about the existence of the Loch Ness monster.
00:50One of the most famous observations of the Loch Ness monster took place a year later,
00:55in 1934, when a man seized a cliché that had become emblematic of Nessie,
01:01the nickname given to it.
01:03A female monster.
01:05In any case, this photo, called Surgeon's Photograph,
01:09showed a silhouette with a raised neck emerging from the water.
01:12For decades, it served as evidence to those who believed
01:15the reality of the monster to be hard as iron.
01:18But many years later, the deception was revealed.
01:21One of the protagonists involved in the taking of the cliché
01:24admitted that it was a carefully orchestrated hoax.
01:27The image had been staged and, during its publication, severely reshaped.
01:32This manipulation gave the illusion that the creature was much more imposing than in reality,
01:37thus fueling speculations about the existence of the monster.
01:42In the 1960s, one of the first major scientific studies devoted to the mystery of Loch Ness was carried out.
01:48A team of researchers, armed with a sonar, methodically explored the depths of the lake,
01:53devoting long hours to the search for evidence attesting the presence of a large creature.
01:58What they discovered was disconcerting.
02:00Several moving objects have been detected in the depths of the lake,
02:04without any clear explanation being able to be advanced as to their nature.
02:08Although the team was unable to obtain irrefutable evidence,
02:11this discovery reinforced the idea that an imposing creature
02:14may be living in the waters of Loch Ness.
02:17Subsequently, research on the mystery of the Loch Ness monster never ceased to resurface.
02:22In 1972, thanks to underwater photography,
02:25researchers managed to capture disturbing images, briefly reviving the public's hope.
02:31However, despite the arousal, these first studies turned out to be far from conclusive.
02:38Of course, not everyone adhered to the fantasy theories surrounding the Loch Ness monster.
02:43A professor of zoology at the University of Oxford
02:46has thus affirmed that the existence of this creature was a biological impossibility.
02:51Here, my pediatrician said the same thing about me.
02:54In any case, he emphasizes that no skeletal remains have ever been discovered in the region.
02:59In addition, no fisherman has ever captured in his nets
03:03an animal that could correspond to the description of the monster.
03:07To his eyes, all this shows that the legend is not based on anything tangible.
03:11As for the famous photographs supposed to prove the existence of the monster,
03:15their explanation is, in his opinion, the most prosaic.
03:19He advances that these clichés show nothing other than floating debris or birds,
03:23such as cormorants, whose long neck and low position on the water can easily lead to confusion.
03:29Faced with objections, he invokes human psychological biases
03:32and underlines our tendency to overestimate the size of objects,
03:36especially when we only see them for a brief moment.
03:39This phenomenon still amplifies when the observer is animated by the desire to see what he is hoping for.
03:45A large number of these alleged clichés show an animal with a long neck and a small head,
03:50which led some to think that they were in the presence of a plesiosaur,
03:54a giant marine reptile that lived 215 million years ago,
03:58before disappearing at the same time as the dinosaurs.
04:01The hypothesis that a plesiosaur would have survived to this day
04:05has been circulating since the first observations of the monster.
04:08However, this researcher categorically rejects this idea.
04:11He recalls that no fossil of a plesiosaur after 66 million years has been discovered in the region.
04:17In short, the existence of a prehistoric creature buried in the waters of Loch Ness
04:22rests on no scientific basis.
04:26Another theory, this time defended by a British naturalist
04:30who devoted more than 50 years to the study of the phenomenon,
04:33adopts a less spectacular approach.
04:36According to him, most of the testimonies reporting the presence of a creature with a long neck
04:40would only be simple errors in identifying much more ordinary animals.
04:44He suggests that the witnesses think they see a sea snake.
04:48Stories mentioning the appearance of the Loch Ness monster have existed since the 6th century,
04:53long before the invention of Scottish whiskey and many other explanations.
04:57The first stories describe a group of large creatures with elongated bodies,
05:01resembling those of snakes and harboring several bones.
05:05Some even claim that they reached the size of a boat,
05:08while others swear to have seen a silhouette swimming in the waters.
05:12Many of these observations of sea snakes could actually be misunderstandings
05:17or exaggerations related to the common fauna of the loch,
05:20such as big fish or even birds.
05:23It could be large eels, a well-known species to populate the waters of Loch Ness.
05:27In motion, these elongated and sinuous creatures
05:31could easily give the illusion of a wavy silhouette.
05:34Observed from afar, especially in low-light conditions or misty weather,
05:39they could be confused with something much more enigmatic.
05:44The third theory goes a step further.
05:47Nessie would be nothing more than a series of stationary waves.
05:50These phenomena appear when the crevices of two boats meet,
05:54forming a prominence on the surface of the water which, seen from afar, could evoke the creature.
05:59The enthusiasts of Loch Ness even demonstrated this phenomenon
06:02thanks to images filmed in Fort Augustus, where a river spills into the lake.
06:07These enthusiasts also had great projects.
06:10They intended to use drones equipped with infrared cameras and underwater microphones
06:15to explore the depths of the loch.
06:17With its 37 km long and more than 200 m deep, the Loch Ness is truly immense.
06:23They were not convinced that these technologies would put an end to the debate.
06:26However, despite all their efforts, Nessie remains untraceable.
06:30But the Loch Ness monster is not the only creature to challenge scientific explanations.
06:35Many testimonies report the existence of Yeti and Sasquatches,
06:39without any tangible evidence confirming them.
06:42Some even made films in the hope of unraveling their mystery.
06:46However, according to the most recent research,
06:48it is unlikely that tangible evidence of their existence has ever been discovered.
06:53Science claims to be able to explain Sasquatch observations.
06:57And here is how.
06:58Biologists specializing in the study of wild fauna
07:01have been using photographic traps installed in remote areas for a long time
07:05to capture images of stealthy animals.
07:08These cameras detect movements and take clichés,
07:11thus offering valuable data on the biodiversity of ecosystems.
07:15As photographic traps accumulate clichés,
07:18the diversity of species is widening.
07:21However, after a while, this figure reaches the ceiling,
07:25indicating that no new species are detected.
07:28Although it is impossible to have absolute certainty,
07:31researchers estimate that after a massive deployment of cameras,
07:34the probability of discovering new species,
07:37in particular large ones like Bigfoot or Yeti,
07:40becomes extremely low.
07:42Studies based on these photographic traps
07:45have been conducted for years in the regions where these creatures are supposed to live.
07:50But no tangible evidence has ever been found.
07:53Instead, the only traces of Bigfoot or Yeti
07:57come from blurry photographs or shaky videos
08:01taken by witnesses claiming to have seen them.
08:04In addition, our knowledge of biology
08:07makes the existence of Bigfoot highly improbable.
08:10Often described as a great monkey,
08:12it should have evolved in North America.
08:14However, the great monkeys appeared in Africa,
08:17and the only one to have reached the Americas is Homo sapiens,
08:20whose ancestors crossed the Bering Strait
08:23only 16,000 years ago.
08:25A very short period of time
08:27to allow the emergence of a new species like Bigfoot.
08:30As disappointing as it may be for cryptozoologists,
08:34the scientific evidence converges to an undisputed conclusion.
08:37Beings such as Bigfoot or Yeti
08:40are much more related to myth than to reality.
08:43After decades of in-depth research,
08:45it can now be said without reserve
08:47that science has uncovered the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster.
08:50It belongs to the realm of fiction.
08:52And you, what do you think?
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