After Area 51, silly people say they'll storm Loch Ness
Dive deeper, Nessie. Internet tricksters are setting their sights on the search for the legendary monster in Scotland.
This is a prop Nessie that appeared in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. It was later found on the lakebed of Loch Ness during a 2016 survey by Kongsberg Maritime.
If the hunt for aliens is too crowded for your liking, perhaps I could interest you in a different kind of futile search: the hunt for Nessie, the famously elusive Loch Ness monster of Scotland.
A Storm Loch Ness Facebook event is following on the heels of the Storm Area 51 phenomenon that (jokingly) suggests people should gather on Sept. 20 to run en masse into the gated US military compound in Nevada to "see them aliens."
The Nessie event details for Sept. 21 are summed up by a single sentence: "The time is now for us to find dat big boi." Nearly 2 million people have signed up to storm Area 51, so it's no wonder a similarly fantastical copycat event has emerged.
The Storm Loch Ness Facebook event now has 19,000 people who say they are going and another 40,000 who say they are interested in attending. The event host, Bryan Richards, appears to be a Californian who is obsessed with hamburgers and pizza on Facebook.
Facebook users are having fun with the concept of storming Scotland's frigid lake. One person suggested we should dive into the water with a UFO stolen from Area 51. Others are warning potential visitors of the dangers of the Scottish midge, a biting fly that is a serious pest around watery areas.
The volunteer-staffed Royal National Lifeboat Institution that provides rescue services at Loch Ness is hoping thousands don't show up on Sept. 21 at the cold, deep lake. "Our Atlantic 85 lifeboat has an impressive survivor-carrying capacity, but even that will be stretched by the 'attendees' of this event," a RNLI representative told the BBC.
There is one Nessie that was found in Loch Ness, but it wasn't a real sea creature. Norwegian company Kongsberg Maritime surveyed the lakebed in 2016 and discovered a Nessie prop that was used in the 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.
The Storm Loch Ness movement may peter out as just an online joke, but any actual attendees are sure to be disappointed when they discover a complete lack of sea monsters at Loch Ness.
