Investigation of Nessie's existence–or non-existence–began in earnest in the 1960s and has continued ever since. A photograph taken in 1951 by Lachlan Stuart, a Forestry Commission employee, shows three humps appearing on the surface of the turbulent loch. This was hailed as 'positive evidence' by one researcher and a hoax by another. A photograph taken in 1955 by P.A. McNab , a bank manager, reveals a long object or objects travelling near the ruins of Urquhart Castle's tower. The height of the tower–46 feet–conveys an idea of the length of the creature swimming nearby. Many researchers now believe that this photo was, in fact, a fake.

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In 1960, Tim Dinsdale, an aeronautical engineer, filmed what appeared to be a creature swimming across the loch. The film was sent to the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre of the Royal Air Force, which concluded that Dinsdale's creature was probably animate and travelling at 10 miles per hour.

Two years, later, the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau (LNIB) was created with the two-fold purpose of researching the possibility of a large unidentified animate creature in Loch Ness and of collecting and substantiating other people's sightings. Over the course of its 10 years of existence, the LNIB amassed a quantity of evidence indicating Nessie's presence in the loch. One of its most famous photographs–taken during a joint project with the Boston Academy of Applied Science, using both sonar and film–revealed what appears to be the hind quarter, flipper and portion of a tail, of a large aquatic animal.

In 1975, several years after the publication of the 'flipper photo', 200 scientists, journalists and Members of Parliament gathered to consider the evidence. Representatives of the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology, Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum–in fact almost all scientists present–concurred that a large aquatic animal dwelt in loch Ness. The notable exception was the British Museum (Museum of Natural History) which, though it accepted the authenticity of the photographs presented as evidence, felt that they were insufficient to prove the existence of an aquatic animal.

More recently, in October of 1987, a sonar sweep of the loch was undertaken. Dubbed 'Operation Deepscan', it involved 19 cabin cruisers, which travelled abreast across the loch, setting up a sonar curtain. Any target caught in the sound net was tracked. Although Nessie did not surface during Operation Deepscan, several large targets were recorded, which could not be explained. In fact, one of the contacts tracked was larger than anything recorded before at a similar depth.

It would be difficult to deny that there is something unusual in Loch Ness. There have been too many verifiable sightings, photographs and sonar scans, which support the existence of some sort of animate object. Still, the nagging questions arise: If there is something in loch Ness, what sort of creature is it? How did it get there?

Most verifiable sightings, as well as reliable photographs, seem to agree more or less that Nessie has a long neck, small head, large diamond-shaped flippers, and a powerful tail. Most estimates of her length range from 15 to 50 feet. The most frequently espoused hypothesis is that Nessie is a large marine reptile, possibly a plesiosaur, which supposedly became extinct 70 million years ago. The theory is not as fantastic as it may first appear. A coelacanth, a species of fish once thought to have become extinct 70 million years ago, was caught near Madagascar in 1938.

One explanation for the presence of an unusual creature in Loch Ness is that Nessie–or perhaps several Nessies–might have strayed into the loch at the end of the last Ice Age, 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Loch Ness was not then land-locked, but was an arm of the North Sea. When the ice melted, the land rose, creating an enclosed lake, and possibly cutting off the large aquatic creatures from the open sea.

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