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| "It wasn't this big!" Intrepid Lloyd emerges from the Loch, not carrying the monster Picture by James Fraser |
In October 2003, a diver called Lloyd Scott walked along the bottom of Loch Ness, Scotland, for two days in search of a legend. The 23 mile slog, in full Tin Tin style outfit, was to search for Nessie, the fabled Loch Ness monster, but after a valiant, end-to-end effort, Lloyd came up empty handed. Not a prehistoric aquatic behemoth in sight. Not a glimpse of a flipper. Not even a tadpole with attitude.
The support boats had echo sounders and fish finders, to no avail. But brave Lloyd was looking for the wrong thing. If you want to find a mythical creature, don't look for a live one. They have an annoying habit of doing a runner, or a swimmer, in this case. Given man's predilection for blasting most living things with a shooter, you can't blame them. What Lloyd, and all those like him, should have been looking for was a dead one. Imagine the trouble an Elizabethan scientist would have proving that Tyrannosaurus Rex stalked the earth. Find those bones, and hey presto!
So it is with The Yeti. Breathless scientific reports from the Himalayas today point to DNA from hair samples. The BBC's Today programme carries an interview with a boffin. Serious newspapers use a picture of a mysterious Yeti-like figure in silhouette, with, equally mysteriously, no caption. The mountain ape/bear/humanoid/missing link/B-movie-actor-in-gorilla-suit has evaded capture thus far.
Don't bother looking for that guy. Look for his grandad.
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