“The Loch Ness monster! He’s the creature that lives in the depths of Loch Ness, Scotland. Uh, we think we saw him when we were young. Um, and it’s really and it’s in a loch, and it’s really deep, and it’s um, hazy and fuzzy and stuff, so it seems like there’s creatures all around, and they saw that her name is Nessie.”

The informant is an American woman, born in California. She grew up there for the first 10 years of her life, then moved to Belgium when her father was stationed there, and stayed there for 6th through 8th grade. She stayed in an American neighborhood, but there was still interactions with European culture, and her family would take frequent trips to the nearby countries.

The story was provided after asking after urban legends that the informant believed in, or has perhaps even encountered at some point in her life.

The Loch Ness monster is one of the more infamous legends known internationally, comparable to the Chupacabra or the Yeti. Most people know at least of the monster, that some serpent, dinosaur-like creature who lives in a very deep, very murky lake in Scotland. Commonly referred to as “Nessie,” she is Scotland’s national urban legend. There are festivals related to the monster, t-shirts and knickknacks for the tourists who come trying to see the monster. The Scottish are very defensive of Nessie and a large percentage of the population believes that she exists.

There are also those who kind of believe in the legend, but with a twist. She is a common source of conspiracy theories. mostly that the government is testing submarines in the lake or something similar. For them, this is a more believable explanation than a primordial monster. Regardless of what the creature actually is, many people believe that something exists beneath the waters of Loch Ness.

The informant is one such person. She likely had heard stories about the monster when she was growing up, and when she went to the lake in Scotland, she was looking for the creature. So, whenever she saw something even vaguely resembling the monster, she was convinced that that is what she was seeing. Or she did see the creature. That’s the thing about urban legends—they might very well be true. As the informant says, the lake is very murky. It is located deep within the mountains of Scotland, a place that seems magical, where everything could be possible. There could be all sorts of wonderful creatures hidden in that lake. It is certainly possible that Nessie exists.

For another version of this story, please see: “Legend of Nessie.” The Ultimate Loch Ness Monster Site. Web. 30 April 2015. <http://www.nessie.co.uk.>