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  • 7 weeks ago
River.Monsters.S05E06.Legend.of.Loch.Ness
Transcript
00:00:00My name is Jeremy Wade.
00:00:03For 30 years, I've traveled the world in search of legendary river monsters.
00:00:09I think that he would have drowned me.
00:00:12It's the most brutal thing you'll ever witness.
00:00:15This fish can take a small person in one mouthful.
00:00:20I've uncovered creatures that people didn't believe were out there.
00:00:24They do exist. They do exist.
00:00:27But all the time, there's been something lurking in my own backyard.
00:00:33Unmentioned, ignored, but whose legend looms larger than any other.
00:00:37The mother of all freshwater monster myths.
00:00:41Loch Ness.
00:00:44I had drawn a line at this challenge,
00:00:46but I've learned over the years that there's no smoke without fire.
00:00:52And now, I can't ignore the legend any longer.
00:00:55But can I get any closer to the creature at its heart?
00:01:01On an epic journey that turns into a personal obsession,
00:01:04I travel from the depths of Loch Ness
00:01:08to remote highlands
00:01:11and beyond.
00:01:13In my quest to reveal what's behind the legend of Loch Ness.
00:01:18The legend of the Loch Ness monster is known all around the world.
00:01:37And whether you believe there is a creature in there or not,
00:01:39no one can doubt the story's grip on the imagination.
00:01:43Often in my investigations, I only have one vague report to go on.
00:01:49But at Loch Ness, there may have been more than a thousand sightings.
00:01:52This mystery is swamped with alleged evidence that I have to wade through.
00:01:58Many of the reports have conflicting descriptions,
00:02:01so it's virtually impossible to pick out the shreds of truth.
00:02:06And we now know that some of the most iconic monster photos are fakes.
00:02:12Separating the fact from the fantasy that surrounds this legendary river monster
00:02:19is going to be a monumental challenge.
00:02:21This Loch is more than deep enough to hide a monstrous secret.
00:02:27But what is it?
00:02:31The Loch cuts through the heart of the Scottish Highlands.
00:02:35But before heading there, I start my investigation in Scotland's oldest museum.
00:02:41The Hunterian in Glasgow.
00:02:46I'm here to examine a very special exhibit.
00:02:51This is the fossilised skeleton of a prehistoric aquatic reptile called a plesiosaur.
00:03:07For many people, this is what they've come to believe the Loch Ness monster is.
00:03:13But it's hard for me to fully embrace that idea.
00:03:16And not because this creature is prehistoric.
00:03:20Many of the monsters I've caught in my investigations
00:03:23swam in rivers and seas at the same time as the plesiosaur.
00:03:27This is a true dinosaur of the deep.
00:03:33And not because of space.
00:03:35The Loch is big enough and deep enough to hide a creature this large.
00:03:40For me, the major issue with this theory is the fact that the plesiosaur is a reptile.
00:03:46Now, all reptiles, even those that live in water, are air breathers.
00:03:51This animal would have to come to the surface several times every day to breathe.
00:03:58And surfacing makes you visible.
00:04:00Now, I find it very hard to believe that a lake as highly scrutinised as Loch Ness could hide an air breather for so long.
00:04:15So if this monster isn't hiding in the vast Scottish Loch, what is?
00:04:21Loch Ness is the largest freshwater lake in Great Britain.
00:04:28More than 700 feet deep and 22 miles long, it fills a channel carved by glaciers along a fault line created when the landmass carrying Scotland crashed into Scandinavia 400 million years ago.
00:04:48Ancient, dark and very cold, what secrets hide in its lightless waters?
00:04:55Most of the mysteries that I investigate are fairly obscure, known only to a few local people, but this case is very different.
00:05:04Loch Ness is a place that is known about worldwide.
00:05:07But does that mean that looking under the surface here is too much to take on?
00:05:11I have to believe it isn't.
00:05:15People have always said there's something sinister in the water here, but it took until the early 20th century for the monster to finally surface.
00:05:25Before the 1930s, this road that I'm driving on didn't exist, so there wasn't really access for people to get to the side of the Loch here.
00:05:33But as soon as the road was in place, well, that was when the famous sightings happened.
00:05:37And that's when the Loch Ness monster acquired its international fame.
00:05:41The most famous sighting happened in 1933 when a local couple, Mr. and Mrs. Mackay, were driving along the newly improved Inverness Road.
00:05:54Suddenly, Mrs. Mackay caught sight of a giant creature in the water with a whale-like back.
00:06:00But by the time her husband had stopped the car, it had gone.
00:06:09The local paper published a report using the word monster in connection with the Loch for the very first time.
00:06:18And a legend was born.
00:06:23Around a million people a year visit this part of Scotland, many hoping to get a glimpse of the monster.
00:06:30Some search for a lifetime in vain.
00:06:34But Val Moffat had only been living on the Loch for a year, when, just like the Mackays, she spotted something from the road.
00:06:42I was driving up the hill. I'd come back from Inverness.
00:06:46I looked across the bay.
00:06:48I saw this dark lump in the water.
00:06:52Sort of slate, grey colours.
00:06:55Shiny from the water that was all over it.
00:06:58It looked like a boat that had turned upside down.
00:07:02And I thought, oh, what's that?
00:07:07Crikey, it's got to be the monster.
00:07:09I would have loved to have pulled in and watched it, but there was traffic close behind me. It was impossible to stop.
00:07:21I had Lancet maybe three, four times.
00:07:24And the final time it was gone.
00:07:29So how did you know that this thing was alive?
00:07:32It was a completely different size to the waves and it was still, it wasn't moving like the waves do. I've never seen a wave as big as it.
00:07:42There was a lady who lived around the corner and she had seen it 13 times and she saw exactly the same as I did.
00:07:49Right, that's interesting. So the sort of stereotypical picture that we all have of many loops or a body and then a neck.
00:08:00The actual people who live here and who've seen something, it's all, it's not like that. It's more like an upturned boat hull.
00:08:06Yes, definitely. I think it's just something with a solid body.
00:08:16Val is very clear that what she saw was the monster and she also knows other people who've seen it.
00:08:23And what they saw was the same thing, which very definitely wasn't this multi-humped sea serpent that is the common depiction of the monster.
00:08:30It's time to start applying my monster hunting skills to get to the bottom of this mystery.
00:08:43The word Loch is the Scottish Gaelic name for a lake or sea inlet.
00:08:48And this one is so fast that it could almost swallow Manhattan.
00:08:52Although it's in my backyard, this will be the first time I've cast a line into its dark, unfathomable waters.
00:09:01Clearly, I'm not expecting to pull out a monster right away.
00:09:05My first step is to find out what fish it could be feeding on.
00:09:09This is really fishing at its simplest. This is the classic thing the little boy does when he first goes fishing.
00:09:17It's just a worm, or a night crawler as it's sometimes called, on a hook, cast it out.
00:09:24It's got movement, it's got smell. What could resist that?
00:09:28I've no clue what might be lurking beneath us, but if something is tempted by my wriggling bait, then it will give me my first insight into the dark depths of the world's most mysterious body of water.
00:09:47Here we go, here we go, here we go.
00:09:56I think so.
00:09:58It looks like I've hooked the slimiest creature in the loch.
00:10:09One of the stereotypical pictures of the Loch Ness Monster is something that's quite snake-like.
00:10:14It's a long animal with humps which poke out of the water.
00:10:19And here we go. This is a snake-like fish that lives in the water. This is a freshwater eel.
00:10:24This slippery predator is a native fish once caught here for food, but now critically endangered.
00:10:30If anything is, this one's probably three-quarters of a pound, something like that.
00:10:37But at the very biggest, you're going to get one here, four or five pounds maybe, so what, three, four feet long.
00:10:43The world's biggest freshwater eels, called longfins, live in New Zealand.
00:10:50Ah, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that!
00:10:54But as massive as they are, possibly reaching eight foot, even they wouldn't measure up to the legend of this loch.
00:11:02The question is, could the European eel be food for a much larger creature, one that somehow remains hidden?
00:11:12I carry on fishing, but the only creatures biting are more eels.
00:11:18Lots of fish, but all the same species and all small as well.
00:11:23But I think just looking around, it just has the feel of a lake that's not very productive.
00:11:27If you follow the line of the hillside, this is just going to plunge down into the depths.
00:11:32So you haven't really got the sunlit shallows that give that nice, weedy base to the food pyramid here.
00:11:38So compared to a lot of places I've been to before, this has a somewhat lifeless feel to it.
00:11:45So I'm beginning to wonder whether these extremely deep, dark waters are able to support much life at all.
00:11:53When I come across a scientist who does believe that a very large creature could be patrolling the depths of the loch.
00:12:00Something primitive, reptilian, very monstrous looking.
00:12:06I'm fishing Loch Ness, on the trail of the world's most famous river monster.
00:12:25So far the loch has held on to its secrets, and I've only managed to bring up eels from its extraordinarily deep waters.
00:12:33I need some inside information.
00:12:38Fisherman Alex Sutherland caught his first salmon from the loch 50 years ago,
00:12:44and knows much of the centuries old folklore that surrounds this mysterious lake.
00:12:48There's something different about the place. There's something more than just a natural phenomena. There's a presence.
00:12:52And of course, going back further in legend, the water kelpie, the fabled water horse that would come out of a body of water and run away with your children and submerge again, was a very real fear in the minds of early settlers.
00:13:07Have you ever seen anything unusual out on the loch?
00:13:11Well, you're not the first person to ask me that. I've got an open mind, and it may well be there's something I've yet to see out there.
00:13:18Alex told me another story of an ancient written account of a monster savagely attacking and killing a man here around 1500 years ago.
00:13:31If true, this could be a game changer. It's the first indication that the beast I'm trying to hunt down may not be an elusive gentle giant spotted from afar, but instead, a manhunter.
00:13:47This loch doesn't look as murky as most of the fresh water I fish in, so I can't pass up the opportunity to see for myself what lives below the surface of the world's most mysterious lake.
00:14:05The water is translucent, but stained dark the colour of tea by peat washed down from the bogs that smother the surrounding mountains.
00:14:17The deeper I go, the darker it becomes, until it is literally pitch black.
00:14:36This water, very, very interesting. Close in, you can see the bottom. There's this illusion of clarity.
00:14:43But if you follow the bottom out, there's a sudden shoulder and it just plunges down into deep water.
00:14:50And you look out there and it's just black. And it's not silt, it's this staining that the water's got. It just eats up the light.
00:14:58It's impossible to see if there is a monster in here or not.
00:15:03Often my quest for monsters takes me to the other side of the world.
00:15:10Loch Ness is virtually on my doorstep.
00:15:14But has that made me underestimate what could be stalking its vast, dark waters?
00:15:19Out in the depths, there could be something the size of a submarine. You just wouldn't see it.
00:15:22It's really, really quite spooky. And it's also pretty cold. And I'm looking forward to getting out.
00:15:29If there is a giant creature in this water, then it has to be capable of hunting in the inky darkness.
00:15:41Maybe more than 700 feet down. Maybe its prey is hiding down there too. I just can't tell.
00:15:49But from what I've seen, I'm starting to have my doubts. Are there enough fish in this loch to support a monster?
00:15:56If there is something out there, something that could have inspired even one of these reports, then what am I looking for?
00:16:02A giant freshwater predator that hunts in the cold and the dark and can stay hidden for years on end.
00:16:11The question is, is this even possible?
00:16:16I'm hoping one man might have some answers.
00:16:21Scientist Adrian Shine has scrutinised these obscure waters for more than 40 years.
00:16:27He's responsible for the most audacious survey ever undertaken on the loch, Operation Deep Scan.
00:16:37At the time, in the 1980s, it cost more than a million dollars and employed 20 vessels travelling the entire length of the loch, scanning its depths with a curtain of sonar.
00:16:49They didn't find a monster, and Adrian believes that the surface action of the 700 foot deep loch can be deceiving, creating illusions in the waves.
00:17:02You've only got to look at boat wakes on a calm day, and you will see lots and lots of multi-humped sea serpents.
00:17:10And this was recognised by the early investigators of the subject.
00:17:13For more than a century, large boats have sailed the 22-mile long loch, parallel to shore, sending out rolling wakes behind them.
00:17:23These can still be disturbing the surface half an hour after the boat has gone, and they are clearly visible from the road.
00:17:31A bit more difficult to explain the plesiosaur, that marine reptile contemporary with the dinosaurs, with the long neck, the single hump.
00:17:39Water birds might account for that.
00:17:43There are a host of things that can account for it.
00:17:46Logs can be seen floating on Loch Ness.
00:17:50Logs can be seen, apparently, swimming against the wind.
00:17:53The stereotypes, and certainly the classic pictures, may have nothing to do with what is actually living, maybe, or be seen in Loch Ness.
00:18:06But it doesn't mean that monstrous things cannot be seen there.
00:18:10But is it possible, though, that if you discount the boat wakes and things like floating logs, that there still could be something animate in here?
00:18:21The fish that we have in here, salmon, the brown trout, the sea trout, the Arctic char, all those fish have come up from the sea, up the seven miles of the river Ness.
00:18:34Does that leave room for possibly a large creature coming up the river from the sea?
00:18:41We've become aware over the last 20 years that seals enter the loch quite often.
00:18:47They follow the salmon up and they leave again because they wouldn't be sustained by the loch.
00:18:53Male grey seals can grow to almost eight feet and 700 pounds.
00:18:58Could an even larger creature make its way in here from the sea?
00:19:03There is another candidate that I'm guilty of suggesting, which could conceivably be involved, the sturgeon.
00:19:13The sturgeon is a very primitive reptilian-looking fish.
00:19:17It's very large, very monstrous-looking.
00:19:19It is conceivable that the occasional navigationally challenged sturgeon might come up the river Ness into Loch Ness seeking a mate.
00:19:33Be disappointed.
00:19:35And go away again.
00:19:37So, Adrian believes it is possible that a monster could enter the loch and then head back out.
00:19:43The river Ness, which connects the loch to the sea, opens up an ocean of possibilities.
00:19:50This could explain how a very large creature could be seen in the loch when there don't seem to be enough fish here to support a resident population of large predators.
00:20:00But does that mean the sturgeon is the top candidate?
00:20:03Oh!
00:20:05I don't think so.
00:20:06Sturgeon don't have any teeth.
00:20:08And Alex told me that the beast in the ancient texts had enough bite to kill a man.
00:20:14Is there another more toothy and ultimately lethal candidate out there?
00:20:20I'm heading down the river Ness to find out.
00:20:24My journey is about to take a dangerous turn.
00:20:34Loch Ness is famous for its monster, but what other disturbing secret lurks on the bottom of the loch?
00:20:42Find out right after this.
00:20:46Loch Ness is famous for its monster, but what other disturbing secret lurks on the bottom of the loch?
00:20:52There's a layer of radioactive sediment from the fallout of the Chernobyl disaster.
00:21:03I'm in Scotland trying to discover if there's a real creature behind the legend of the Loch Ness monster.
00:21:10But so far I've been unable to penetrate the loch's dark secrets.
00:21:14Out in the depths there could be something the size of a submarine and you just wouldn't see it.
00:21:19For tens of thousands of years the loch was buried under an immense ice sheet three quarters of a mile thick.
00:21:26It was only when the ice melted that fish from the sea, like salmon, could swim back in up the seven mile long river Ness.
00:21:37Recently the fish have been pursued by grey seals, easily identifiable when they come up for air.
00:21:43But is anything more sinister coming in with them?
00:21:50I've taken to the river to find out.
00:21:54But this gateway to the sea can be a little tough to negotiate.
00:22:13The route between the loch and the sea is not totally straightforward.
00:22:30To my mind that represents quite a significant obstacle.
00:22:34Low water, fast, and even though my head was above the water I could feel those rocks on the bottom.
00:22:39The water's too shallow here for a giant to pass through at this time of year.
00:22:44But in times of flood the river can rise above this level by as much as seven feet.
00:22:50The river Ness is a prized and protected wild salmon river.
00:22:55And it's only with special permission that I can test these waters without fear of prosecution.
00:23:03I'm eager to investigate.
00:23:04As well as catching fish, a fishing line will also reveal something of the underwater topography.
00:23:11Apparently that slack on the other side there, although the river's low, was about 15 foot of water.
00:23:17So that's just the kind of place where anything coming up the river on its way to the loch might just rest out.
00:23:24So I'm trying to drop it in there, let it sink, and then I'm keeping the rod up because if I drop the rod we've got this very fast water between me and the slack and that would just whip it out of that zone.
00:23:42I want the lure to be in there for as long as possible.
00:23:45A bright, flashy lure should attract attention in these peat-stained waters.
00:24:03If there is something lurking in the deep pools, it doesn't want to make itself known.
00:24:09As is so often the case with monster hunting, I have to feel my way, trying to build up a mental picture of the river as I journey downstream to where it meets the sea.
00:24:23Well, this is it. This is the mouth of the river nest where it opens out into the Murray first.
00:24:28So this is actually a threshold for anything coming into the river from out there.
00:24:33But out there is a whole new world of marine creatures. This isn't my domain. So where do I go from here?
00:24:44Since my arrival at Loch Ness, I've discovered that despite its vast size, there are very few animals living in it.
00:24:52Scientist Adrian Shine has studied the loch for more than 40 years, and he's only ever recorded six species of freshwater fish that live there permanently.
00:25:03None more than four foot long.
00:25:12I think it's clear that no known freshwater creature could account for the sightings I've been hearing about.
00:25:18But there is this connection, the river Ness, between Loch Ness and the sea.
00:25:22And from past experience, I know that sometimes large saltwater creatures can make their way inland.
00:25:28The most notorious is the deadly bull shark.
00:25:31But these top predators are warm water hunters. They need temperatures in the 60s and above.
00:25:39They couldn't survive here in the frigid 40s of the loch.
00:25:44But perhaps another predator can.
00:25:47Something that's following prey from the sea, up the river and into the loch.
00:25:51Feeding on migratory salmon or even seals.
00:25:56So what I want to do now is find out what lives here in Scotland's coastal waters.
00:26:01I've found someone who's out on the water here every day.
00:26:06Guintana is the harbour master at Avogh, a small port on the Murray Firth, close to the mouth of the river Ness.
00:26:13He regularly spots large marine creatures here close to land.
00:26:19Straight over. Look at that.
00:26:21I'm hoping to track down something much bigger than what I've seen so far in the loch.
00:26:26There, there, there, there, there, there, there. This could be all I'm after.
00:26:30I'm in the Scottish Highlands investigating the mystery of the Loch Ness monster.
00:26:49I'm after a predator that can survive the cold depths of the dark loch.
00:26:54One that I now suspect travels here up the short river that connects the loch with the sea.
00:27:01I'm travelling out into a vast inlet of the North Sea called the Murray Firth to find out which large marine creatures come close to the river's mouth.
00:27:13There, there, there, there, there, there.
00:27:21Some large animals straight away, but these are very recognisable. These are dolphins.
00:27:26This is the most northerly resident population of bottlenose dolphins in the world.
00:27:32The dark grey adults can reach 13 feet.
00:27:35Judging the size of objects in open water is notoriously tricky, so they could account for some of the sightings.
00:27:41But there's the same flaw with this theory as with the plesiosaur or grey seals.
00:27:49They're air breathers. They come to the surface regularly. You can't miss them and you know what they are.
00:27:54It's not these that they're talking about in the loch.
00:27:56But seeing them here shows me that the waters right on Loch Ness's doorstep can support populations of large predators.
00:28:07One pod of dolphins is ambushing prey in the shadow of an 18th century fort built to defend the Firth from attack.
00:28:13Right, there's a pod of dolphins in this eddy here. Now that's actually a classic place for predators to hang out because the tide is pushing out.
00:28:23You've got slack water there. That's where fish are going to rest. Salmon, particularly coming up, they're going to tuck in there.
00:28:28So the dolphins, they know where the food is and they're hunting there.
00:28:35They're chasing migrating salmon, which are on their way into the loch to breed.
00:28:40But Gwyn's seen plenty of other predators taking advantage of the abundance of these waters.
00:28:47We had a minky whale there, surfaced maybe about 40, 50 metres to one side of us.
00:28:53And swam, dived and went right under the boat and came back up the other side.
00:28:59This thing was about 30 foot long.
00:29:04A minky whale is the right size for many of the monster sightings.
00:29:08But it's yet another air breather that would be easily identified.
00:29:14Gwyn tells me, though, that fishermen have encountered another large beast that lives in the depths of the Firth.
00:29:20Out here, you fish through the night.
00:29:25The net came aboard. The bag was swung in.
00:29:29And this bit of tail came out and then the whole thing came out.
00:29:34The crew were confronted with a thrashing serpent-like creature that Gwyn says was more than ten feet long.
00:29:42Just a massive thing. And of course it was snapping at everything.
00:29:46Eventually, one of the fishermen grabbed its tail and slid it over the side.
00:29:57I don't think anybody's ever seen the likes of that before or since, you know.
00:30:01The thrashing beast was a European conga eel, a permanent resident of salt water and the biggest eel of them all.
00:30:10Capable of tipping the scales at more than 300 pounds.
00:30:14But I've never heard of a conga swimming into fresh water.
00:30:17My trip into the Murray Firth has opened my eyes to a whole host of heavyweight contenders.
00:30:24So quite a contrast to the lock. The water actually shallower but full of life, including some large predators and some rare visitors.
00:30:34But so far, none of the potential candidates I've come across can explain the monster sightings I'm investigating.
00:30:45People here have believed in the monster myth for centuries.
00:30:48There has to be some grain of truth within it.
00:30:52I have one last lead to follow up.
00:30:58The ancient story that fisherman Alex Sutherland told me about the man killed by a water beast in the river Ness.
00:31:05This might be my last chance to find a clue to the monster's identity.
00:31:16This land was once inhabited by a mysterious early pagan people known as the Picts.
00:31:24In the sixth century AD, an Irish monk called Saint Columba came here to convert the Picts to Christianity.
00:31:30He's said to have performed numerous miracles, including the banishment of a water beast from the river Ness.
00:31:40I've arranged to meet an archaeologist who's an expert on the history and legends of the area.
00:31:45I'm hoping Kate McCulloch can give me an idea of what kind of creature it was.
00:31:50Columba comes upon a scene where a man has been brought out of the water.
00:31:56He's completely brutalized by some sort of water beast, a river monster.
00:32:02The people of the area around the river Ness are terrified.
00:32:08But Columba isn't afraid.
00:32:11He sends one of his followers out into the river.
00:32:14And the monster rises from the depths again.
00:32:21Columba demonstrates the power of his god by banishing this beast.
00:32:26He's telling it to go from the river.
00:32:33And presumably sending it down the river towards the loch.
00:32:37Is there any description of the creature in here?
00:32:41There's nothing to suggest anything about the actual physicality of the monster.
00:32:45Just a disturbance of the water.
00:32:46The Picts didn't leave any written records of their own, but Kate has unearthed stone carvings, which might give me an insight into the identity of this savage creature.
00:32:59This is known as the Pictish beast and is generally recognized to be some sort of river or loch monster.
00:33:07It's a folklore that is not exclusive to the north of Scotland.
00:33:11There's certainly a connection to Norse Scandinavian sources with this particular sea or river or loch monster.
00:33:18My quest for the truth behind the legend has taken a turn in a new direction.
00:33:29Kate has offered clues that send my investigation much further back in history.
00:33:35So a monstrous water creature isn't just something that originated in newspaper reports in the 1930s.
00:33:43There's actually a written account of an encounter, a human death in the river Ness, 1500 years ago.
00:33:49And at the same time, people were leaving enigmatic carvings of what appears to be a strange water creature.
00:33:56And I wonder if those two things are possibly connected.
00:34:04What's even more intriguing is the discovery that these centuries old Scottish monster myths may have connections with the Vikings.
00:34:15I need to take a long, hard look at the evidence to figure out where to go next.
00:34:26So far, I haven't found a single creature that I believe could be responsible for monster sightings in the loch.
00:34:37Perhaps I need to take a closer look at the legend's ancient origins.
00:34:42Could that get me any closer to the truth?
00:34:45Could the inspiration for the loch monster come from across the cold northern seas?
00:34:51The Viking longships sailed thousands of miles over the northern Atlantic.
00:35:00Raiding parties from Scandinavia stormed and colonised Scotland.
00:35:05And they established a remote outpost on Iceland.
00:35:10These incredibly tough warriors were convinced that these cold seas were home to monsters.
00:35:16Stories of some of these beasts still survive in Norse mythology.
00:35:22And they might harbour the clues I need.
00:35:25The Vikings wrote down their legends around 800 years ago, up here in Iceland,
00:35:31where some ancient texts have survived to this day.
00:35:35To pursue this hunch that the Vikings may hold the key to the legend of Loch Ness,
00:35:40I now have to head to the edge of the Arctic Circle.
00:35:43Iceland is a land of fire and ice, a frozen island literally ripped apart by volcanic activity.
00:36:02Unlike Scotland's ancient rocks, Iceland is constantly forged anew.
00:36:09Top pilot and rally champion Omar Ranesan, now in his 70s, takes me on a white-knuckle ride to show me where most of the island's fresh water is locked up.
00:36:20The processes that form this island normally take place out of sight beneath the ocean.
00:36:36But here, that molten rock pushes up into the air.
00:36:40But then what happens, because it's so far north, is that that is then ground down by ice.
00:36:45So what you've got here is just naked geology, a totally unique landscape.
00:36:49Iceland sits right on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
00:36:56Eleven percent of the island's surface is permanently buried under ice and glaciers.
00:37:02Meltwaters feed into hundreds of lakes and rivers, flowing endlessly out to sea.
00:37:07Since Viking times, Icelanders have told countless stories of dangerous water monsters.
00:37:16My travels have shown me that the origins of so many myths lie in real flesh and blood creatures.
00:37:22And I won't give up until I get a real flesh and blood creature in my hands.
00:37:25The people of this remote, frozen island have always fed themselves from the sea.
00:37:34Fishing is in the Icelanders' DNA.
00:37:38It doesn't take me long to get my first lead.
00:37:41About an aggressive hunter of the deep.
00:37:44From a sea fisherman called Bergthor.
00:37:47It's just a pure mussel kind of fish with a big head, big teeth.
00:37:52He also gives me some grisly remains.
00:37:56This is the Stainbitur.
00:37:59Which apparently means stone biter.
00:38:02And you've got these very sharp teeth here.
00:38:05Clearly very powerful jaws.
00:38:07I don't think you want your hand too near a live one of these.
00:38:13I've only got the creature's head to go on.
00:38:17So I've no idea what the rest of this fearsome predator looks like.
00:38:22The only way to find out about it, and whatever else lives in these waters,
00:38:26is to get a line in.
00:38:51I'm on the hunt for a creature that could have inspired the legend of Loch Ness.
00:38:58An ancient attack story has launched me from Scotland to an island on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
00:39:04Iceland.
00:39:06Once the remote stronghold of the Vikings, this land is still riddled with monster stories and sightings.
00:39:10This is an island that's always relied on fishing.
00:39:11So I'm back in my element once again.
00:39:12I've started my investigation on a rocky outcrop, which plunges for a hundred feet below the surface.
00:39:13On the hunt for a toothy predator.
00:39:14On the hunt for a toothy predator.
00:39:15Known as the stone biter.
00:39:16The stone biter.
00:39:17The stone biter.
00:39:18The stone biter.
00:39:19The stone biter.
00:39:20The stone biter.
00:39:21Something like that.
00:39:22Something down there.
00:39:23riddled with monster stories and sightings.
00:39:27This is an island that's always relied on fishing,
00:39:30so I'm back in my element once again.
00:39:34I've started my investigation on a rocky outcrop,
00:39:37which plunges for 100 feet below the surface,
00:39:40on the hunt for a toothy predator known as the stone biter.
00:39:44There's something down there.
00:39:59There we go, famous cod.
00:40:01Classic three dorsal fins, and that's the beard,
00:40:05the barbell in the middle of the chin.
00:40:08It shows there's fish down here anyway,
00:40:10but it's still not what I'm after.
00:40:14I'm going to bring a second rod into play
00:40:18to try and tempt a toothy predator out of hiding.
00:40:25The fish I'm bringing in...
00:40:27Coalfish, small flatfish.
00:40:29...would be as familiar to the ancient Vikings...
00:40:31Oh, there's something on there.
00:40:33...as they are to their Icelandic descendants today.
00:40:37That's a nice-sized havoc, really nice-looking fish.
00:40:40But the abundance of smaller fish has muddied the waters.
00:40:45Well, if there's nothing else, I've seen how rich these waters are,
00:40:49but that's really part of the problem.
00:40:52This promising lead that I had from the fisherman, the stone biter,
00:40:55well, what's happening is the smaller fish are just reaching the bait,
00:40:58tearing it apart before this toothy, powerful fish can even get a look in.
00:41:03The fisherman Bergthor told me of one other fearsome creature found in the island's waters,
00:41:11a pumped-up predator patrolling a freshwater lake.
00:41:14Maybe I'll have a better chance of getting my hands on a monstrous beast there.
00:41:18This lake was central to Viking life.
00:41:33On its shores, they held their parliament, the first in the world.
00:41:42This water is renowned for its clarity, but there's a darker side to this place.
00:41:46For centuries, this lake was used to drown sinful women,
00:41:50and apparently theirs weren't the only bodies to be disposed of here.
00:41:57Did this unusual supply of fresh food allow some fish here to grow into the giants I've heard of?
00:42:04There's only one way to find out.
00:42:16The problem I've got here is I can see fish, I can see movement in the water, shapes, they're not very clear,
00:42:27but the water is very transparent, so I've got to keep low, but also I'm having to contain with this wind,
00:42:33which is making it all rather challenging, and I'm getting hung up on rocks as well down there.
00:42:38But with the water so unusually clear, there's another way I might see one close up.
00:42:46The visibility is so much better than in Loch Ness, but the water is much colder.
00:43:04The fish I could see from the surface turn out to be Arctic char, and there's a lot of them.
00:43:09I'm just standing here, flapping my fins very gently, and it's disturbing the sediment on the bottom,
00:43:20and there are a big Arctic char coming in. They're taking mouthfuls of the stuff I'm disturbing.
00:43:25There might be insect eggs or whatever down there, but they're right in here, really, really close.
00:43:31Arctic char are the most numerous fish to live in the comparatively barren Loch Ness,
00:43:37but there they are virtually invisible in its deep peat-stained waters.
00:43:42I suspect that these fish might be prey for the elusive predator I've heard about,
00:43:46but which so far is nowhere to be seen. I find out that there's a man on the other side of the lake
00:43:52who has a knack for catching aquatic predators.
00:43:56Johan Stålaxson introduces me to Iceland's legendary Øreli, a supersized predatory trout.
00:44:06Now, compared to brown trout in, say, England or North America, this is an absolute monster.
00:44:13This one's about 15 pounds, but apparently they're taken out here, sometimes 25 pounds, even 30 pounds.
00:44:21Now, there's something really special about this lake.
00:44:25They're so strong, they have to be bathed in anaesthetic before handling.
00:44:29Johans has dedicated years of his life to catching and tagging these elusive predators
00:44:34to understand how and why they grow so large.
00:44:37The lake itself is very productive. We have here endless tons of char, the main thing on their menu.
00:44:48So these fish, they're not feeding on sort of insect larvae, these are laying into smaller fish?
00:44:54Yeah. They are massively growing more than three kilos per year.
00:44:58So in pounds, about six pounds a year?
00:45:01Yeah.
00:45:02Yeah. Wow, that's impressive.
00:45:04The biggest one, the jaws are that massive that you can take it and put it around your head.
00:45:11Quite scary. These are tough guys.
00:45:13But not so tough they could strike terror into the Vikings and give rise to a water monster legend.
00:45:23But Johans tells me about another lake in the east that many Icelanders believe is home to an immense and ancient water monster.
00:45:31And this monster has actually been captured on video.
00:45:43I'm on the edge of the Arctic in Iceland, the far-flung outpost of the Viking seafaring kingdom.
00:45:55I'm hunting for a cold water predator that could have inspired the legend of the Loch Ness monster.
00:46:04I've already encountered giant trout gorging themselves on arctic char and growing to three times their normal size.
00:46:12Now I've had a tip-off about a centuries-old water monster that was filmed in a glacial lake last spring.
00:46:22The thing that really strikes me about this lake is just how similar it looks to Loch Ness.
00:46:27It's very long but comparatively quite narrow and clearly in places it's very deep.
00:46:32The big difference though is the water.
00:46:34This lake is fed by water that flows down directly from a glacier which is still grinding rocks to dust.
00:46:42These waters are permanently clouded by sediment.
00:46:47Loch Ness the visibility is pretty poor but here it's almost non-existent.
00:46:51You wouldn't see anything at all in this water unless it was breaking the surface.
00:46:55But that's exactly what happened last spring.
00:47:03A stunned farmer saw ancient legend turn into living reality when he looked out of his kitchen window.
00:47:09I meet Icelander Hyrta Kjerov to find out exactly what emerged from these murky waters.
00:47:16So he's in the kitchen right here making his morning cup of coffee looking out the window
00:47:28and saw something at first didn't really register it but then
00:47:33noticed that there was something strange in the water and went to get his camera.
00:47:43Hyrta captured the first video footage of a creature long described as the Leijerflöt worm
00:47:49in the melting lake ice of spring.
00:47:53And this was just outside here.
00:47:54The position of it was literally just a matter of yards 10 or 15 yards away from the bank down here.
00:48:06He said it was moving like a snake. It appears to be going slightly against the current.
00:48:13So how long was it there for? How long did you watch it for?
00:48:18It was there for a long time. He watched it for several minutes. He started here and then he went outside
00:48:24and eventually he just went off because he had work to do. When eventually he got back it was dark.
00:48:31The next day it had gone.
00:48:32There's no question that Hyrta believes what he filmed is real and it fits the description of a
00:48:44creature reported here for hundreds of years.
00:48:46I'm sure his video is genuine, not a malicious fake like some of the footage or images from Loch Ness.
00:48:55The most famous photograph there was later revealed to be of a sculpted model mounted on a toy submarine.
00:49:01Some believe that Hyrta's footage shows surface ice flowing around a fishing net that's snagged on a submerged branch.
00:49:10But others are convinced it is the beast of legend.
00:49:13It's remarkably reptilian head is exactly what you might expect from an aquatic predator.
00:49:21The only way I can come to any conclusions is to find out for myself.
00:49:25But the cloudy waters here don't give anything away.
00:49:33Just looking at the water up close, it's really thick.
00:49:36You can hardly see into it at all.
00:49:37So it's hard to imagine anything here operating as a sight predator.
00:49:42So it's not just what's in the water, but also me that's operating blind here.
00:49:55It seems like this monster may have melted away with the ice.
00:50:04But like Loch Ness, the Leierfleur legend has endured for centuries.
00:50:09Given the Vikings' intimate relationship with everything aquatic,
00:50:14I wonder whether some of their tales of mythical beasts are not imaginary,
00:50:18but actual accounts of what's in the water.
00:50:21I need to take a look at the origins of Hyrta's lake monster.
00:50:28I've heard of a man who might be able to help me.
00:50:31A priest and historian who's made it his mission to uncover and catalogue all of Iceland's water monsters.
00:50:39I'm not sure what I'm talking about.
00:50:42Segodor Ayersen shows me a national treasure, a 400-year-old map, literally covered in water beasts.
00:50:53Are there stories about some of these creatures?
00:50:56Yes, there are stories about them.
00:50:57For example, we have this one here.
00:51:00It's called Stöckut.
00:51:02It means the jumper.
00:51:04It was a dangerous whale.
00:51:07This is most certainly the lingback.
00:51:11It was supposed to be the largest of all whales.
00:51:15Lingback means trees on its back, like on an island.
00:51:20It was supposed to be very big.
00:51:24Very big.
00:51:25Are there any drawings or records of large fish in Icelandic waters?
00:51:33We have a story from the 10th century in the sagas about a boy who was asked to carry
00:51:42a big fish from a boat.
00:51:43If he could do it, then he was to keep it.
00:51:47He succeeded in doing this.
00:51:49Some say this is one of the shark species he was carrying.
00:51:57So even though we're talking cold northern water here, you've got sharks swimming off Iceland?
00:52:03Yes, we have.
00:52:06I'd never considered that a shark could be a contender for a Viking terror.
00:52:11It's clearly no species I've caught before.
00:52:14I don't know of any predatory giants coming this far north.
00:52:17So what's this huge shark called?
00:52:21It also means the one and has been eaten through the ages in Iceland.
00:52:27It's a delicacy.
00:52:29So they eat it to this day?
00:52:30Yeah, it's very nice.
00:52:34This is an extraordinary piece of information.
00:52:38I came here to find out more about Hjöter's lake monster,
00:52:41but I ended up hearing about a whole menagerie of water beasts.
00:52:45One of which, the hawkuttle, the Vikings battled with as they attempted to bring it in to eat.
00:52:53Could a cold water, predatory shark have a place in the legend of Loch Ness?
00:52:59If it has the iconic dorsal fin of most sharks, surely that would give it away.
00:53:05I need to find out more.
00:53:14Segadur has told me that there's a remote farm in a desert of hardened lava,
00:53:27where they still prepare these giant sharks to eat.
00:53:33The hanging chunks of flesh don't give away any clues
00:53:36as to what the whole animal might look like.
00:53:39Gwythian Hildebrandsen's family has prepared Haukartl meat
00:53:42at their isolated farm since his grandfather's day.
00:53:47This is the Kastur Haukartl.
00:53:50Here it is in his final stage of the process.
00:53:53So I can see it dripping, so this is what is just in the air?
00:53:56Yeah, it's drying here to get a better texture.
00:54:00When the meat is fresh, it's toxic.
00:54:03So that's why we do this fermentation process.
00:54:06And after the fermentation, we hang the pieces up, up here.
00:54:10This process is over 400 years old in Iceland,
00:54:13so it's a very old process.
00:54:16Learning that its flesh is laced with poison
00:54:18only adds to the sinister aura surrounding this mysterious shark.
00:54:22Apparently, fermentation breaks down the toxin,
00:54:25but releases a pungent smell of ammonia.
00:54:29The flesh I'm about to taste smells of urine.
00:54:33It's got a really strong aftertaste. It really kicks in.
00:54:37It really kicks in in the back of the throat after you've taken the first bit.
00:54:40It's not like anything I've tasted before.
00:54:43Yeah, it's unique.
00:54:45But I can imagine, though, you know, in the old days,
00:54:47I mean, you've got a big fish, you can't eat it all in one go.
00:54:50It's wasteful just to throw it away.
00:54:51You've got to do something with it.
00:54:52So this is a traditional method.
00:54:54It's strong when it hits the back of your throat.
00:54:59Mm. Mm.
00:55:01There's fumes coming out.
00:55:02It's like very, very strong cheese in some ways,
00:55:05but there's also a very definite fish element there.
00:55:09How big is the whole animal?
00:55:12They are from maybe 10 till 20 feet,
00:55:16and from then they are maybe 1,000 till 2,500 pounds.
00:55:22Wow.
00:55:23So, yeah, they are quite big.
00:55:25You don't happen to have a whole one here, by any chance to have a look at?
00:55:29No. No.
00:55:30But give me a second.
00:55:31Right.
00:55:37Oh, right, OK.
00:55:39This is his mouth. This is a jaw.
00:55:41These jaws are peculiar.
00:55:44This shark has two quite distinct types of teeth.
00:55:48So these ones will grip the food, whatever it is,
00:55:51and then they shake the head, is it?
00:55:53Yeah.
00:55:54So these ones will then cut...
00:55:55Oh, I just almost cut myself there.
00:55:56Yeah.
00:55:57Yeah, right.
00:55:59These jaws belong to a potent predator.
00:56:02Seal, whale, and even polar bear meat and body parts
00:56:05have turned up in its stomach.
00:56:07It comes from big boats, big trawlers...
00:56:12Right.
00:56:13...who catch them accidentally.
00:56:14My grandfather used to do it.
00:56:16He used to catch them.
00:56:17So how would your grandfather catch these?
00:56:19They used an ankle with a chain on it,
00:56:22and they put maybe a seal meat on it,
00:56:24or meat from a horse.
00:56:25Right.
00:56:26So a big hook on a chain and a big bait.
00:56:29Yeah.
00:56:30Wow.
00:56:31If I want to see a live one of these,
00:56:33I need to go and talk to somebody while one of the big boats.
00:56:37Yeah.
00:56:41Things have taken a very dramatic and strange turn.
00:56:44Who would have thought that in these waters there is a massive shark
00:56:48that grows to well in excess of a thousand pounds.
00:56:52The only predatory sharks I know of that grow that big
00:56:55can't survive in these near Arctic seas.
00:56:58And just from those teeth alone,
00:57:00I can tell that it's not like any shark I've encountered before,
00:57:04but these people here have been catching it and eating it for centuries.
00:57:08Now I only have one course of action,
00:57:16to get onto a fishing vessel
00:57:18and hope it will bring in one of these giant sharks.
00:57:23But there's a problem.
00:57:25It turns out a lot of these boats have already caught their quotas,
00:57:28so they're not actually putting out to sea again.
00:57:30And those that are,
00:57:31are staying out for weeks if not months at a time,
00:57:33so I can't do that.
00:57:35It really looks as if I've run into something of a death.
00:57:37I've come so far, I won't give up now.
00:57:48Eventually, I get the name of a fisherman who can catch them,
00:57:52but not here in Iceland.
00:57:54He's a thousand miles away in Norway.
00:58:02This next stage of my mission is going to test me to the limit.
00:58:07As I hunt for a creature that's truly the stuff of legend.
00:58:14Legend! Legend!
00:58:15My mission that started in Scotland took a surprising turn to Iceland,
00:58:20hunting for the creature at the heart of the legend of Loch Ness.
00:58:27Now I'm retracing the voyages of the Vikings back to their original homeland in Norway,
00:58:33to the former capital of their seafaring kingdom, Trondheim.
00:58:46When the Vikings set out from here to raid and colonize new lands,
00:58:50they spread tales of terrible water monsters across their expanding empire.
00:59:03From the fjords of Norway to the lakes of Iceland,
00:59:05and the islands and highlands of Scotland.
00:59:09One tale tells of a giant shark.
00:59:14Did encounters with this mysterious cold water predator sow the seeds for a massive monster myth
00:59:21that spread to the shores of Loch Ness?
00:59:24Only by hunting down the mysterious shark they call the Haukatl will I find out.
00:59:37Norway's harsh mountains are gouged out with glacier-carved fjords,
00:59:41which plummet thousands of feet below the surface.
00:59:45The ultimate labyrinth for a monster.
00:59:48But where to begin?
00:59:51I've been given the name of a professional fisherman
00:59:53who works in the 80-mile-long fjord that connects Trondheim to the sea.
01:00:00I'm told he's one of the few who can help me catch this mysterious giant shark on rod and line.
01:00:08I hear that Frederick Cullen even has photographs of this strange beast.
01:00:15They don't have this huge dorsal fin, very little dorsal fin,
01:00:23and they're grey or almost black.
01:00:27This creature is unlike any other shark,
01:00:30with its long, dark body and small dorsal fin.
01:00:36Without the signature shark fin,
01:00:38it makes me hopeful it's the predator I'm looking for.
01:00:41I don't remember the measures of that one, but she was...
01:00:44Although I've never seen one in the flesh, I recognise this animal.
01:00:48In Iceland, it's called the Haukatl.
01:00:50But I know it as the Greenland shark,
01:00:52a creature all but unknown to modern science,
01:00:56and first filmed in the wild only ten years ago.
01:01:04Greenland sharks live further north than any other shark,
01:01:07and they're the only shark to hunt under Arctic ice.
01:01:10Their range exactly coincides with the Vikings' kingdom,
01:01:15from Greenland to Iceland to Norway and most significantly Scotland.
01:01:19We know that the Vikings ate its flesh,
01:01:22so this monstrous creature is one they must have been very familiar with.
01:01:30But ironically, we know almost nothing about these animals.
01:01:34So the only way I'll be able to tell if they're capable of inspiring the legend,
01:01:38is to catch one.
01:01:40But this is going to be a monumental challenge.
01:01:44Here, these monsters live at the bottom of a 2,000-foot deep fjord.
01:01:50Trying to get some perspective on this,
01:01:52I picture them as a handful of rice grains
01:01:54randomly scattered on the bottom of a swimming pool,
01:01:57and have to fight the urge to give up now.
01:02:00This will be the first time I've ever tried to fish at such staggering depths,
01:02:09and I don't have much time to learn a whole new methodology.
01:02:16It's the end of autumn.
01:02:17As soon as winter closes in,
01:02:19shark fishing in this fjord will be impossible.
01:02:25We tried to hit the borderline between the rock and the quay.
01:02:28It seems like they're cruising around along these edges here,
01:02:32searching for food.
01:02:36The logistics of working at these depths
01:02:38involve a great deal of precision, effort and care.
01:02:44Get caught in this rope,
01:02:45and you'll be on a one-way trip to the bottom of the fjord.
01:02:51We're going to be using somewhere between
01:02:53800,000 metres of ankle line here.
01:02:56Right, so that's a good half a mile of...
01:02:58Yeah.
01:02:59You have to get enough angle of the rope
01:03:02so the anchor can get hold of the clay.
01:03:07I'll be using the longest lines I've ever fished with,
01:03:10so thick nylon monofilament is out.
01:03:12It would create too much drag in the current,
01:03:14and the reel would have to be enormous.
01:03:17Instead, I'm using woven braid.
01:03:19It's very fine and very strong,
01:03:21but it does have a fatal flaw.
01:03:25We use these long mono traces for protection of the braid.
01:03:30Yeah.
01:03:31And the skin is like very rough sun paper.
01:03:33So if the skin touches that, then it just goes...
01:03:36Yeah, immediately.
01:03:37In the old days when they were fishing them,
01:03:41they used really rotten bait.
01:03:43I don't really like that.
01:03:44No.
01:03:45More lying like 24 hours without ice,
01:03:49so they get a bit smelly.
01:03:55I get to work on the other three lines
01:03:57while Frederick checks our position with first mate Willem.
01:04:00But already there's a problem.
01:04:04We've actually drifted out of position.
01:04:06The anchor has dragged.
01:04:07So we're going through the whole process again.
01:04:13It's taken an hour of manoeuvring,
01:04:15but half a mile of anchor line now has to come in
01:04:20before the boat's repositioned and it's thrown out again.
01:04:23We've baited up the lines and what we're going to do now
01:04:35is just check that we're not drifting
01:04:38and then we'll just put them all down.
01:04:41If we're lucky, we'll stay here.
01:04:43We won't have to re-anchor.
01:04:53This is the deepest I've ever fished a bait.
01:04:56There will be between a quarter and half a mile of line-out
01:05:00when this hits the bottom.
01:05:02And then, well, bringing the bait up to check it
01:05:06is going to be fairly physical
01:05:07and then bringing a large fish up from this kind of depth as well.
01:05:10It's not something I've experienced before.
01:05:15My lines are descending into a vast hidden landscape
01:05:18like a submerged Grand Canyon.
01:05:21But Frederick's sonar can't reveal any sharks prowling down there.
01:05:25They're too deep
01:05:26and their bodies are too dense to be distinguished
01:05:28from the bottom of the abyss in which they're hunting.
01:05:36So we've got all the lines out now.
01:05:39It's just a question of waiting and keeping an eye on the rods.
01:05:43And what they're doing is they're moving
01:05:45but that movement is fitting the movement of the boat
01:05:49and what we're looking for is a movement that is somehow wrong.
01:05:53It doesn't fit the movement of the boat.
01:05:54Either it bends at the wrong time or maybe even straightens
01:05:57or possibly if something picks up the bait
01:05:59and really steams off with it, we're going to hear it.
01:06:02It's going to actually take line off the reel
01:06:04and the clicker's on here so that will alert us audibly.
01:06:07But it's basically just watching the rod tops now.
01:06:10The sun might be shining but the temperature's near zero as we wait for a sign.
01:06:25After two hours, we bring all the lines up to check the baits.
01:06:29Between the four rods, that's almost a mile and a half of line
01:06:33carrying 20 pounds of metal weights reeled in by hand.
01:06:38My whole arm is burning.
01:06:41I've now been winding this for 20 minutes.
01:06:43No fish on the end here.
01:06:44This is just the lead and what's left of the bait.
01:06:48So that's a harder fight with this than with many live fish that I've caught.
01:07:05Right, that's why we have to check the baits periodically
01:07:08because they just get chewed by smaller fish.
01:07:11There's a possibility a shark could take that
01:07:13but I mean that's not a very effective appetizing bait.
01:07:16So that's why I spend 25 minutes bringing them up to have a look.
01:07:27All the hooks have to be re-baited.
01:07:30And the lines reset, 2,000 feet below.
01:07:39Despite the extraordinary distance between rod tip and bait,
01:07:42the line is surprisingly sensitive.
01:07:46That is now on the bottom.
01:07:47I can actually feel when that line tightens to the lead.
01:07:52I'll just take up a tiny bit of slack.
01:07:58That's ready.
01:08:02With every line finely tuned,
01:08:06the wait begins again.
01:08:08Hmm, that's interesting.
01:08:22Oh, wait a minute.
01:08:23See that?
01:08:24Is there a movement?
01:08:25Yeah, that's sort of pulling down.
01:08:26Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:08:27Put on the harness.
01:08:29The harness should stop the rod being wrenched from my hands by a heavyweight giant.
01:08:41There's definitely something there.
01:08:42Yeah, there is.
01:08:43And it feels like it weighs a ton.
01:08:57On a freezing fjord in Norway, I'm trying to haul up a giant from 2,000 feet below.
01:09:02Come on.
01:09:03Yeah.
01:09:06Could this creature have inspired the legend of Loch Ness?
01:09:10Start to reel in the other one.
01:09:12The other lines have to come up before I can bring in the beast on the end of mine.
01:09:16If they don't, the fish could become tangled and trapped beneath the boat.
01:09:22Feels like it's being pulled around that way quite a bit.
01:09:32I think it might.
01:09:37That is.
01:09:38That's a very big skate, isn't it?
01:09:39That is a Norwegian skate.
01:09:40It's a Norwegian skate.
01:09:41This bizarre creature of the fjord floor was supposed to be a big one.
01:09:45The fjord floor was first described here in Trondheim.
01:09:48It's an extremely rare sight at the surface.
01:09:52The fantastical imagination of the Nordic map makers now seems quite tame compared with the reality of what's down there.
01:10:01It's a very impressive looking animal.
01:10:02Very strange looking animal.
01:10:03Very rare as well.
01:10:04Apparently Frederick is saying only four of these caught on rod and lion before.
01:10:07So we've got to remember we've got to take a tissue sample.
01:10:10These things don't come to the light very often at all.
01:10:15Frederick works with a scientist at Tromso University who collects all the data from his catches of sharks and skates.
01:10:24It's the right colour for the fish that I want.
01:10:27The skin underneath certainly has got that rough feel, but it's completely the wrong shape.
01:10:32The skates are flattened sharks and this is a very strange looking skate, but it's still not the fish I'm looking for.
01:10:40This fish was born in darkness and may never have seen daylight before.
01:10:45Those eyes are very, very luminous.
01:10:48There can't be a lot of light down where this thing lives, but this thing presumably manages to see something.
01:10:54We don't want to overly stress this rare visitor to our world.
01:10:59We have to tag it and measure it as quickly as possible.
01:11:02125 across.
01:11:03Four foot across by nearly six foot nose to tail.
01:11:07Sharks and skates are among the few fish that can survive being brought up from such depths.
01:11:12They haven't evolved the gas-filled swim bladders of other fish that can rupture on the way up.
01:11:17That thing is a bit like an alien, a real weird looking thing, living in a weird environment.
01:11:24Some people spend their lives waiting for such a chance encounter with a monster, both here and at Loch Ness.
01:11:32The big Greenland shark still eludes me. That thing is actually rarer.
01:11:36Where's the shark?
01:11:38The baits have to be changed, the lines reset, and the hunt goes on.
01:11:48Trondheim's fjord is the perfect hideout, sheltered in land, but strategically located for access to the open sea.
01:11:56During the Second World War, this fjord was home to a Nazi submarine base, and the bodies of several giant squid have washed up on its shores.
01:12:08Clearly, this extraordinary abyss is the perfect hiding place for giants.
01:12:13From my point of view now, I'm going into night time, the temperature's going to dip.
01:12:18But from the point of view of the shark, it's probably not going to notice.
01:12:21It's just perpetually dark, perpetually cold down there.
01:12:25But we're going to carry on fishing.
01:12:27I don't know, possibly to midnight, beyond even.
01:12:30But that's going to bring added challenges.
01:12:32Actually, if we get a fish, dealing with that at night time is going to be a bit more complicated than during daylight.
01:12:42I can only guess at what else lives in the eternally dark depths beneath us.
01:12:48But as the baits laboriously come up, one by one to be checked, it turns out that Greenland sharks are far from alone.
01:12:57There we go. This is a dogfish.
01:13:00It wasn't even hooked. This had its mouth round the tail end of a piece of mackerel.
01:13:06And it hung on all the way up.
01:13:09It's called a black-mouthed dogfish, this, because it's got that very characteristic black inside of the mouth.
01:13:14The denizens of the deep targeting my bait are getting increasingly gruesome.
01:13:27Well, there's definitely something feeding down there.
01:13:31These things. Lice.
01:13:33There are hundreds of species of sea lice, and they feed on the mucus, skin and blood of marine fish.
01:13:40As well as being disgusting, the baits just don't last.
01:13:44You have to keep bringing them up, checking them, putting them down.
01:13:52But after 14 hours on the icy fjord, it seems only the sea lice are biting.
01:13:57Hours are turning into days. And with winter looming ever closer, my time here is running out.
01:14:12Strong northerly winds start to play with the weather in the fjord, and the temperature now drops below zero.
01:14:20But I must go on.
01:14:23I've eliminated every other creature that could be the inspiration behind the Loch Ness monster.
01:14:28All that's left is the Greenland shark.
01:14:30Fishing is all about belief, isn't it? And they're definitely down there.
01:14:35But it's just getting a bait in front of one.
01:14:39That is what we're waiting for.
01:14:44We're mooring further down the fjord to see if our luck improves.
01:14:48I'm hoping the rainbow is a sign.
01:14:51But it feels like the chance of catching the mother of all monsters is slipping through my fingers.
01:15:00We're fishing on the edge of a strictly no-go area, which for decades was used as a munitions dump.
01:15:06Frederick has brought up hand grenades here before.
01:15:10But now, gale force winds and waves are dragging the anchor, and us, towards the danger zone.
01:15:15We have to get all the lines up before we can lift the anchor and get out of the grenade territory.
01:15:23But they're tangling under the boat.
01:15:26The wind has built to 45 miles an hour.
01:15:29Choppers are scrambling to assist boats in distress.
01:15:34And we've just lost the daylight.
01:15:45Right, we're now running for shore, because it's just impossible to fish in this water.
01:15:52But on top of that, the anchor was dragging.
01:15:55It was taking us on top of this dumping area, where there's old fishing boats, ammunition, all sorts of stuff down there.
01:16:03Imagine if I had a fish halfway up, and the weather kicked off like this, and we've just got to go, maybe just cut the line.
01:16:08But I'm just hoping that this blows itself out tonight, because at the moment, it's just impossible.
01:16:16I've come almost 4,000 miles in search of the truth behind the monster of Loch Ness.
01:16:22I've fished depths of 2,000 feet in sub-zero temperatures and gale force winds.
01:16:29I can't give up now.
01:16:38The next day, the water is calm.
01:16:59But Fredericks heard disturbing news on the shipping forecast overnight.
01:17:03This is pretty definitely my last day on the field.
01:17:07The weather is changing.
01:17:09Wind coming in from the Arctic bringing sub-zero temperatures, possible force-nine gale.
01:17:14This kind of fishing, sensitive fishing, just isn't possible in that kind of rough weather.
01:17:19So, stakes are very, very high today.
01:17:27I'm so near, yet so far.
01:17:29I can almost feel the shark's presence beneath me, but still 2,000 feet away.
01:17:36Like Captain Ahab hunting the great white whale, I've become a man obsessed.
01:17:48Thinking of all those people on the shores of Loch Ness over the years, staring at the water, looking for a sign, some kind of evidence of life under the surface.
01:17:55Well, that's exactly what I'm doing here, except what I'm staring at is the tips of these rods, waiting for some tell-tale movement, some clue as to what's living underneath.
01:18:05But, as yet, not much more success than they had.
01:18:08As my final hours melt away, I begin to lose myself in the eerie whistling of the lines.
01:18:25After fishing 400 rod hours and reeling in 50 miles of line, is my luck about to change?
01:18:33Was it a good nod, or...?
01:18:36Oh yeah, oh yeah!
01:18:37Oh yeah!
01:18:51Do you feel some real weight now?
01:18:52Yes.
01:18:53Yes.
01:18:54Yes.
01:18:55That is not the lead.
01:18:56That is...
01:18:57That's a fish.
01:18:59It's my last chance.
01:19:01But is it the monster I've come so far to find?
01:19:05Something monstrous has seized my bait.
01:19:19That's a fish.
01:19:21At the bottom of a freezing 2,000 foot deep Norwegian fjord.
01:19:25It could be another 50 yards, it could be another 100.
01:19:28I've never had to haul any fish up such an extraordinary distance, way higher than the Empire State Building.
01:19:35There's a pulsing, there's a very, very sort of slow pulsing.
01:19:39It's rolling, it's rolling.
01:19:41That's what you feel.
01:19:43If this is a Greenland shark and its rough skin touches the braid, the line will sever and I'll lose my last chance.
01:19:50It's very important the other lines come in to make sure that we don't get tangled.
01:19:57I think it's getting near the boat, it's probably aware of the boat now.
01:20:03Ah, leave that, leave that, leave that in sight.
01:20:05OK.
01:20:11There she is, there she is.
01:20:15The Greenland shark.
01:20:16It's just too big to bring on board.
01:20:20We'd only injure it trying.
01:20:22We'll have to tie it alongside.
01:20:24It's a monstrous thing to find this far inland and to bring up from such a depth as well.
01:20:29But we're just trying to get the tail rope on it now.
01:20:31Only then will we be able to get a good idea of its length and dimensions.
01:20:36I mean, by the standards of what normally lives inland, this is, this is huge, this is monstrous.
01:20:41Willem's reckoning possibly 400 pounds.
01:20:43Despite their enormous size, they're a mystery to science.
01:20:48We know virtually nothing about how they live, breed or hunt.
01:20:52It's very hard to actually see this creature well.
01:20:55It's night time.
01:20:57But this is a long, solid-bodied animal.
01:21:01Small dorsal fin, that's not your normal erect, sharp dorsal fin.
01:21:05If this was actually at the surface, you wouldn't see that characteristic triangle cutting the surface.
01:21:11It would be just more of a smooth hump.
01:21:14But if I want to get a closer look, and if the fish can't come to me in the boat, I have to go to the fish.
01:21:21I've no choice but to get into the freezing water with the world's largest predatory shark after the Great White.
01:21:31I took this water even through the dry suit and about five layers of undergarments.
01:21:37It's cold, it's cold, and this thing lives in it all the time.
01:21:42If I'm not up here, nearly half a mile down.
01:21:46Dark brown in colour.
01:21:48If this came up and did break the surface, you wouldn't actually think it was a shark, you wouldn't know what it was.
01:21:53It has got this sort of upturned boat hull appearance. What a beast this is.
01:21:59It's believed they'll eat almost anything they come across down in the abyssal depths.
01:22:04No one yet knows what potential threat they pose to humans.
01:22:08I've lost the part of the shark. I'm a bit too close to the abyssal, so am I going to come back a little bit?
01:22:13I think it's probably getting close to the time when we should actually set the hook out and let it go back to the depths.
01:22:19OK.
01:22:20As I clamber out of the freezing fjord, Frederick tags the shark in case it ever surfaces again.
01:22:29Hooks out, tail rope to go.
01:22:36It's gone already, and it just seems very unreal now that it was here.
01:22:40I almost need to pinch myself that this is inland. This is a fish that is huge by inland standards.
01:22:45Not just a large creature, but a very, very extraordinary creature and something that very, very little is known about.
01:22:52A lot of people even living around here have no idea that creatures like that are almost right under their noses.
01:22:59But could this mysterious giant be the creature behind the legend of Loch Ness?
01:23:09I've considered the contenders, from whales and dolphins, to seals and sturgeon, and even plesiosaurs.
01:23:18But one by one, I've had to dismiss them all. But in Iceland, the home of the Vikings' monster myths, I came across a real contender.
01:23:29How cut. It also means the one.
01:23:33That ultimately led me to the one. The Greenland shark in this abyssal fjord in Norway.
01:23:38But what I'm realising now is just how special that encounter was, to see that creature rise from the depths on the end of my line.
01:23:48I've seen this thing myself. I know it exists.
01:23:52And I believe it could have inspired some of the monster stories that the Vikings passed between generations, and across the lands they conquered.
01:24:00From experience, I've learned that many legends hold a grain of truth.
01:24:08And I'm now wondering whether not just the myth, but the animal itself, ever surfaced in Loch Ness.
01:24:16My journey has led me to a remarkable, immense predator that is so secretive that we know almost nothing about it.
01:24:24But what we do know is that it lives in exactly the right part of the world, where it hunts in almost unimaginably deep, dark and cold water.
01:24:34But on rare occasions, it's also known to rise up near the surface.
01:24:39And if you were one of the very few people to witness this creature in the flesh, you'd have no doubt that you'd seen a monster.
01:24:47Perhaps even the ultimate river monster, the legend of legends.
01:24:52But who would believe you?
01:24:58Watch How to Catch a River Monster, my short-form fishing series, on AnimalPlanet.com.