Largest Search Team in 50 Years Hopes to Hunt Down Loch Ness Monster

The largest search team in over 50 years is planning an expedition with hopes to finally track down the elusive Loch Ness monster in Scotland, and from the sound of it they are dead serious.

The Quest, as the search is being called, is going down on Saturday, August 26 and Sunday, August 27, organized by the Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit and a research group called Loch Ness Exploration. The two groups are staging six surface-watch locations that volunteers can sign up to monitor, with an online form that specifies whether interested parties believe in "Nessie, nonsense, or possibilities."

The hunt is employing technology including drones with infrared cameras and a hydrophone to detect any unusual underwater sounds.

According to the Loch Ness Centre website, the search is being called "the biggest of its kind" since the UK-based Loch Ness Investigation Bureau (LNIB) studied the Loch in 1972.

The first ever Nessie sighting was recorded in 565 A.D., when the Irish monk Saint Columba encountered locals burying a man who had evidently been attacked and mauled by a "water beast" who had dragged him underwater despite rescue attempts. Columbia then sent one of his followers to swim across the loch, who also encountered the beast.

"You will go no further! Do not touch the man! Leave at once!" he ordered monster, which then allegedly fled as if "it had been pulled back with ropes." Twenty-one additional sightings were recorded between the 1500s and 1800s. To date, the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register has recorded total 1,148 sightings, with the most recent being three reported this year and six last year.

The search will be no small feat, as the Loch Ness holds the largest volume of freshwater in the UK.

"It's our hope to inspire a new generation of Loch Ness enthusiasts and by joining this large scale surface watch," Alan McKenna, founder of Loch Ness Exploration told the BBC. "You'll have a real opportunity to personally contribute towards this fascinating mystery that has captivated so many people from around the world."

If the Loch Ness monster exists, or has existed, rumors run the gamut from the beast being a prehistoric marine reptile called a plesiosaur to a large sturgeon-like fish or eel.