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If The Beast of Loch Ness makes anything clear, it's that Scotland is a beautiful land overrun by cryptozoologists. These are researchers who seek to prove the existence of hitherto unclassified species--the stuff of eyewitness testimony, legend, and lively tourist industries. Using an expedition to Loch Ness as a framing device, the video returns obsessively to the adventures of Bob Rines and the late Charlie Wyckoff, much the same way the two enthusiasts, despite the indifference of the scientific community, have returned avidly to this folkloric location--the largest, deepest, coldest body of water in the British Isles, a 25-mile-long peat-obscured lake scooped out of the Great Glen by a glacier of the last ice age. Will Rines and Wyckoff finally capture unambiguous images of the fabled monster? And does Nessie, whose extended-family members apparently live in other lakes as far away as Siberia and the American Northeast, exist at all?

Coming back to the Northern Highlands after a hiatus of a quarter century, Rines and Wyckoff, with help from the devoted and skeptical from both sides of the Atlantic, want the answer. They troll the lake with a combination of high and low(-beam) technology--that is, a global-positioning relay system and sonar in tandem with underwater cameras lit with automotive headlights. Their findings are similarly mixed, and the episode remains tantalizingly suggestive. Rines and Wyckoff may be notorious for producing a series of grainy stroboscopic underwater images in the early '70s, prompting another scientist to claim that they'd found a plesiosaur, thought to be long extinct. But even more notorious, of course, is Lieutenant Colonel R. Kenneth Wilson's 1934 snapshot of a black, curved neck extending from the loch. That was just a hoax--but maybe the story of the hoax was itself a hoax? Painstaking re-creations of the photograph's genesis keep you guessing. Prehistoric cold-blooded reptile? Ancient form of whale? Schools of migrating salmon? Gigantic eels or sturgeon dropping in from the sea? Motorboat wakes? You decide. --Robert Burns Neveldine

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Is the Loch Ness Monster a hoax, an undiscovered species, or a shared illusion born of myth, mirage and wishful thinking? Join NOVA for an all-out investigation of the mystery as MIT-trained investigators scour the loch with sophisticated sonar, biologists and geologists explore whether a new species may still await discovery in Britain's largest lake, and the most famous photo of Nessie is put to the test.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews   6 of 6 people found the following review helpful: Great Documentary on Interesting Topic, June 6, 2001 By  Austin C. Beeman (Waterville, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews    This Nova presentation on the mystery of Loch Ness is more riveting than the average television documentary. It focuses on a modern expedition to discover whether or not there is a creature in Loch Ness. Unlike most others of this kind, this documentary is well produced both in information and enjoyability. It is worth watching for the beautiful images of Loch Ness if nothing else. After visiting Loch Ness myself and speaking with many "monster hunters," I am impressed by the evenhandedness of the program. One of the best Nova episodes. I just wish the VHS was a little less expensive.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   7 of 7 people found the following review helpful: EVEN SKEPTICS SAY THAT "SALMON ARE NOT THE BIGGEST ANIMATE OBJECTS IN LOCH NESS!", April 18, 2006 By  Heather L. Parisi "Heather & Robert Parisi" (Pekin, IN USA) - See all my reviews       FIRST THOUGHTS: Nessie is never a tired subject, but have they found the darn thing yet? ANSWER IN A NUTSHELL: YES AND NO This video's purpose is really a signal to all of us that there is a changing of the guard at Loch Ness. This video is our call to arms to be a new generation of active or passive Loch Ness enthusiasts and in this way, keep the search alive. BUT DID THEY FIND ANYTHING? Okay, Nessie did not come out of the water and sign autographs, but some new images on the more modern sonar did show up. At last, most of the skeptics are at least willing to say that "Salmon are not the biggest creatures in Loch Ness"! Yes, there was an extensive search, a Nessie-hunt, and some things did show up under the Peat saturated water that can't be explained away easily, even by the resident skeptics on hand. Were they sturgeons that snuck into the Loch from the ocean? Plesiosaurs? Or something heretofore unseen and unknown? The video did include believers and non-believers. Witnesses and hoaxes as well as a description of the difference in value between anecdotal and reproducible scientific evidence. Very good stuff, very impartial as it must be. IN THE END?  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)