Case file · Cryptid
Wetherell's 'Nessie' footprints
In December 1933 big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell, hired by the Daily Mail, announced he had found fresh footprints of a large four-legged animal on the shore of Loch Ness.
1933 CE · 57.38, -4.33 · status: hoax
The account
Casts were sent to the Natural History Museum, which found they were made with a dried hippopotamus foot, probably an umbrella stand. Wetherell was ridiculed. His stepson Christian Spurling later said the 1934 'Surgeon's Photograph' was made by the family as revenge.
The sceptical view
A proven hoax, and linked to the most famous fake Nessie photo.