Nessie is cited - but not sighted

The legendary Scottish monster Nessie is at the centre of controversy, after it emerged that some Christians believe she disproves evolutionary theory.

Mysterious - Loch Ness is the home of the mythical Monster Nessie - used as proof of Creationism

Pupils attending some privately run faith schools in the USA are to be taught that the Loch Ness monster effectively disproves Darwin’s theory – with educators claiming that she is a living creature.

An education programme which aims to disprove evolution by showing that dinosaurs walked the earth alongside humans, sites Nessie as an example of a still living Plesiosaur.

But the approach has raised eyebrows in the UK, where the monster is generally understood as a much loved myth, rather than an ominous reality.

But publically funded educators in the USA disagree, and in a series of ‘Accelerated Christian Education’ (ACE) textbooks, they set out to prove a Creationist approach.

One ACE textbook reads: “Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.

“Have you heard of the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland? ‘Nessie’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.”

The books also claim that a Japanese whaling boat once caught another dinosaur.

But this isn’t the first time Nessie has made it into Christian literature, famously she came into contact with St Columba in 565 AD.

According to Adamnan's hagiography of the Saint, Columba was travelling on a missionary journey in Northern Scotland, when he arrived at the River Ness, and met a group of people setting out to bury a man killed by the monster.

When the bloodthirsty creature appeared before Columba, he made the sign of the cross and rebuked Nessie, who obeyed the saint’s commands. The story was used as a powerful piece of propaganda at the time.

Numerous attempts have been made to find or capture the beast in the nearly 1500 years since Columba’s encounter, but so far Nessie remains elusive. Various sightings of ‘strange objects’ have been made, but confusingly they tend to be inconsistent.

Some creationists claim that Nessie could be a survivor of the Genesis flood account – dating the flood back to around 4000 years ago, others however suggest that this is fanciful, and that any flood which did take place, would have been much older than that.