The Nessies Are on Vacation

Nine sightings, one family vacation, and two precocious twins who really want a pet human.

I recently read that there have already been nine reported Loch Ness Monster sightings in 2026. Nine! All by tourists.

Naturally, this made me wonder what on earth is going on in Loch Ness this year.

I know the sensible explanations. More tourists mean more eyes on the water. Waves can look like humps. Logs float. Seals visit. People see what they expect to see.

But where's the fun in that? What if Nessie is real?

Not necessarily the classic long-necked plesiosaur we've been drawing for nearly a century. Maybe we've got that completely wrong. After all, we're generally working from whatever small portion of the creature happens to stick out of the water. That's a bit like trying to reconstruct an elephant after seeing only one ear.

And we know that not everything from the age of dinosaurs died out. Birds are dinosaurs. Other creatures survived mass extinctions too. Scientists occasionally discover living animals that were thought to have disappeared thousands—or even millions—of years ago.

So what if some small aquatic creature survived the great extinction 66 million years ago?

Not a thirty-foot monster. Something little. Something inconspicuous enough to survive when the big guys didn't. Then give it 66 million years. Conditions change. Food changes. Competition changes. Bodies change. Maybe, over the eons, this little survivor became considerably less little.

And perhaps we've made another assumption that isn't true. What if Nessies don't actually live in Loch Ness?

There are waterways connecting the loch to the sea. Salmon travel through them. Seals travel through them. So perhaps the Nessies spend most of the year happily living somewhere out in the ocean and come to Loch Ness for the season.

Like the tourists.

Which would mean we're not looking at nine sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. We're looking at sightings of the Nessie family on vacation.

I can imagine it now.

Mr. and Mrs. Nessie have been coming to the loch for years. They know the rules. Stay deep. Avoid the boats. If you absolutely must surface, give the humans one indistinct hump at a distance and disappear immediately.

Grandma and Grandpa Nessie are even more traditional.

“In my day,” Grandpa undoubtedly says, “a respectable Nessie could go an entire summer without appearing in focus.”

But this year is different. This is the twins' first trip to the loch. And the twins have discovered humans. They are fascinated.

“Look! There's another one!”

“Where?”

“On that boat! The little one with the camera!”

“Do you think it'll take our picture?”

“Let's find out!”

Suddenly a head pops above the surface. A fin appears. Someone circles a cruise boat. One of them gets overexcited and surfaces head, humps, tail and all.

Underwater, Mrs. Nessie is furious.

“I told you two to stop posing for photographs!”

“But Mum, they LOVE it!”

“They're screaming!”

“See?”

Worse, the twins have now decided they want a human. As a pet. Because apparently the desire to take completely inappropriate wildlife home is not limited to human children.

“Can we keep one?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Humans don't swim very well.”

“We could teach it.”

“No.”

“We'd take care of it!”

Mrs. Nessie has heard this before.

“You said that about the starfish.”

Dad has additional concerns.

“There are predators out there. Do you know how much time I'd spend defending a human? Sharks. Orcas. Who knows what else? I'm not following your pet around all day making sure nothing eats it.”

“We'd watch it!”

“You won't even clean up after yourselves.”

Then Grandma discovers the final problem.

“What do they eat?”

“Lots of things.”

“Raw?”

There is a pause.

“Mostly cooked.”

Grandma stares at them.

“Cooked how?”

“Fire.”

And that settles it.

“I am absolutely NOT having fire in my ocean.”

“But Grandma—”

“No. You may watch the humans. You may take your little selfies. You may even swim past the boats if your mother says it's all right. But we are not taking one home.”

Somewhere above them, another tourist raises a camera. A dark head appears briefly beside the boat. Nine sightings and counting.

Maybe Loch Ness doesn't have a monster problem at all. Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Nessie simply made the mistake every parent eventually makes:

They took the kids on vacation.