Loch Ness

The surgeon's photo was a toy. The sonar contacts, decades of them, were not.

The documented file: the 1934 'surgeon's photograph' was confessed a hoax in 1994 (Spurling deathbed account — a toy submarine); the 2018-19 eDNA survey (Gemmell) found no large unknown animal signal but abundant eel DNA, making 'giant eel' the surviving candidate; sonar contacts and the 1972 flipper photos (Rines — enhanced versions controversial, originals ambiguous) remain the argued residue. The node files a mystery in managed decline: each instrument pass shrinks it, and the loch's tourism economy documents why it persists anyway.