The most famous picture of the Loch Ness Monster, a grainy black and white photograph showing a long head and neck emerging from the Lake, turned out to be a hoax. Monster fans had speculated that the pictures showed a plesiosaur, while skeptics said it must have been an otter head or tree trunk.
Nobody seems to have suspected a toy submarine.
Since by then Ian Wetherell was dead, the two men located Ian's stepbrother, Christian Spurling. Spurling, then 90, admitted he'd been approached by Duke Wetherell to build a fake monster. Construction was done with plastic wood over the conning tower of the toy submarine. The neck, estimated by some from the photograph to be over three feet high, measured 8 inches. Duke Wetherell apparently concocted the plan as revenge upon the Daily Mail newspaper.