Loch Ness Monster - Spicers

Driving south from Inverness along the shore of Loch Ness on their way to the little town of Foyers were Mr. and Mrs. George Spicer, a London businessman and his wife. It was the afternoon of July 22, 1933, and the Spicers were enjoying a relaxing Scottish vacation. Suddenly the bracken on the hillside about 200 yards ahead became agitated, and from it emerged an enormous, long-necked animal. Moving jerkily, the hulk crossed the narrow road. Astounded, Spicer stepped on the gas for a closer view, but by the time he and his wife reached the spot, the creature had lumbered through the bushes on the loch side and disappeared.

Describing their encounter to the press shortly after­ward, the Spicers said that the creature was about 6 feet long and stood-or lumbered-4 feet high (in later tellings the animal grew to a length of 25 or 30 feet). They also recalled that its neck undulated "in the manner of a scenic railway." In addition to these oddities, the extraordinary creature was a "terrible, dark elephant grey, of a loathsome texture, reminiscent of a snail." Thus, possibly maligned as to its looks, did the Loch Ness Monster become a public figure. 

The creature had been seen many times before by people frequenting the loch and its environs, including the Irish Saint Columba in a.d. 565, but Mr. Spicer's description of it in a letter to the press publicized what has become the world's most famous monster-Nessie. Many more such sightings were to follow. (Peter Costello, In Search of Lake Monsters , pp.8-19)

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