Morag

Loch Morar in Inverness County is one of a group of lakes in northern Scotland that is frequently reported to be inhabited by creatures similar to those said to be living in Loch Ness. Although sightings at Loch Morar can be traced back to 1887, it was not until 1969 that Nessie's competition came to be named Morag.

The occasion was a nerve-shattering one for Duncan MacDonnell and William Simpson, who were heading home across the loch in their motor cruiser on a hot summer's afternoon on August 19, at the end of a pleasant day of fishing. The two men reckoned it was time for a cup of tea, and Simpson went into the cabin to put the kettle on while MacDonnell steered. As MacDonnell later told author Elizabeth Campbell during her inquiry into Morag: 

I heard a splashing or disturbance in the water astern of us. I looked up and about twenty yards behind us this creature was coming directly after us in our wake. It only took it a matter of seconds to catch up on us. It grazed the side of the boat, I am quite certain this was unintentional. When it struck the boat it seemed to come to a halt or at least slow down. I grabbed the oar and was attempting to fend it off, my one fear being that if it got under the boat it might capsize it. 

Bill Simpson felt the impact and saw the kettle slide and fall, spilling water over the burner and drowning the flames. He turned off the gas and leaped to the deck, where he saw MacDonnell shoving at the creature with his oar. For several moments the two men struggled to keep the monster from overturning the boat. It was an enormous, unprepossessing thing and utterly strange, being 25 to 30 feet long and having a large, snakelike head about a foot wide, a back with three humps raised about 18 inches above the surface of the water, and rough-textured dirty-brown skin.

The oar snapped. One of the men grabbed a rifle, loaded it, and fired. The creature slowly sank. 

The two fishermen went home with all possible speed, as much appalled by their encounter with the impossible as by the beast's appearance. "I don't want to see it again-" Bill Simpson would say. "I was ter­rified." (Janet and Colin Bord, Alien Animals , pp.1-2)

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