What Is The Surgeon's Photograph?

'The Surgeon's Photograph' is the name usually given to a famous image claiming to be a photograph of the Loch Ness Monster. The photo appears to show 'Nessie's' head and long neck emerging from the Loch (or lake); it got its name from the (supposed) photographer, a Harley Street gynaecologist called Colonel Robert Wilson.
Wilson claimed to have seen and snapped the 'monster' early in the morning on April 19, 1934 while passing the Loch. In fact the picture is an elaborate hoax involving a child's toy submarine photographed in a bathtub. The hoax was masterminded by Marmaduke Weatherell, a big-game hunter who had been employed by a national newspaper (the Daily Mail) to look for the monster in 1933. At that time Weatherell had attempted to fake 'monster tracks' near the Loch using an umbrella stand! When the Mail dismissed him, he vowed revenge; with Wilson's help, he achieved it through the 'Surgeon's Photograph', which successfully tricked millions of people including his former bosses at the Mail. The hoax was only completely explained in 1994, when Weatherell's stepson, Christian Spurling, confessed that he had helped Weatherell and Wilson to fake the photograph.