April 14

The Lady and the Loch

Mrs. Aldie Mackay via BBC News

It was a beautiful day, April 14, 1933. The afternoon was clear, cool and calm along the newly constructed A82 motorway near Abriachan. John and Aldie Mackay were on the road from Inverness heading toward their home in Drumnadrochit, where they ran the hotel. It was a very scenic route, since the road followed the rustic shore of Loch Ness. 

At 3:00 o'clock John was driving and Aldie was gazing out over the waters of the Loch. She soon noticed something big rolling and plunging in the water, and yelled for her husband to stop the car, which he did, but not soon enough to see anything but ripples.

As the couple watched, however, a large wake began to cross the Loch toward the Aldourie Pier on the opposite shore. They soon spotted two humps of something Mrs. Mackay described as "having a body like a whale…black, wet, with the water rolling off  it." It appeared to be about 12 to 15 feet in size. After observing the two humps moving along in an undulating manner for about a minute, it abruptly turned left until it had described a half-circle, and, with considerable churning of the water, sank from sight. The Mackays waited a half-hour in hopes of seeing the thing again, but the Loch remained calm, nothing disturbing the surface.

The Hugh Gray photo via Loch Ness Monster

Upon returning home they told their story to Alex Campbell, who was the water bailiff for the Loch Ness Fisheries Board and a part-time reporter. Since he had also seen the thing and the Mackay sighting details supported his own observations, he passed the story on to the Inverness Courier in May. It was the first well publicized sighting of the Loch Ness Monster in modern times, but certainly not the last.

As it turned out, 1933 was a banner year for Nessie since, just seven months later, the first photo appeared. It was taken by Mr. Hugh Gray, who was taking his usual walk after church when he spotted something rising out of the water. It only appeared for a few moments, then sank out of sight.