BRITAIN’S MONSTERS OF THE REAL LIFE DEEP

WHEN it comes to mysterious water creatures, Scotland’s own Loch Ness Monster is the world’s best known.

But Nessie isn’t the only colossal creature lurking in Britain’s lakes.

Shadowy leviathans have been spotted all over the UK.

While sceptical scientists have distanced themselves from the age- old dinosaur theory, they do accept that there IS something down there, just waiting to be discovered.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Loch Ness Monster had died a death years ago.

The most famous image of this elusive animal was taken in 1934 by surgeon Robert Wilson, who’d apparently spotted the beast while driving around the loch’s north shore.

The black- and- white snap shows a serpent’s head rising from the waves and for decades was offered as tantalising proof of Nessie’s existence.

Except the photo didn’t actually show an ancient Plesiosaur, as some thought – a dinosaur landlocked millions of years ago while the rest became extinct – it simply showed a toy submarine outfitted with a fake head and neck!

The hoax was revealed in 1994 when Christian Spurling – one of the chaps who helped perpetrate the scam – admitted so on his deathbed, aged 90.

“Well, that’s that, then”, said non- believers.

“Nessie is bunkum”.

But that’s not the whole story because Wilson’s wasn’t the only photo of the monster, and Nessie isn’t even the only monster in the UK.

Sightings of ‘ water horses’ or ‘ kelpies’ date back centuries.

One story from 565 AD even suggests Nessie has KILLED humans.

The account tells how an Irish missionary stumbled upon a group of people who had just buried the victim of a fatal

EVIDENCE: A sonar reading from Lake Windermere showing that something is down there

Nessie attack in the River Ness.

A horrifyingly similar story comes from Loch Morar, another huge body of water on Scotland’s west coast.

In August 1969, Duncan McDonnell and Bill Simpson were fishing on the loch in a little motorboat.

Startled by a loud splashing behind them, they turned around to see a large object underneath the water, which proceeded to ram their vessel.

Simpson was so frightened he reached for his shotgun and

GIANT: ‘ Monsters’ are massive eels, say Freeman ( and Downes ( fired at the beast, which he later described as being 25- 30ft long, with three large, black humps and a snake- like head.

Move south, across the border into England’s Lake District in Cumbria, and ‘ Bownessie’ is said to stalk the murky depths of Windermere.

The most recent run- in there came last year, when respected scientist Matt Benefield saw – and managed to photograph – a disturbance on the eerily- calm water.

The 43- year- old said: “Ripples in the water got me thinking there was possibly something strange in the Lake. I have no idea what it is – I simply can’t explain it.”

And then there’s the sonar evidence.

Over the years, countless monster- hunters have trawled Loch Ness with high- tech echolocation gear and some readings were hard to explain.

In May last year, a luxury cruise- vessel called the Jacobite Queen picked up an unidentified object – something huge and long – in the water during a routine tour.

Go back to 2012 and skipper Martin Atkinson saw a long “serpent- like creature” on the sonar he uses to find shoals of fish.

Atkinson, 46, said: “The object got bigger and bigger and I