A massive bigfoot enthusiast admits that he has been locked in a fierce debate with one of his daughters over the existence of the Loch Ness monster.
Cryptozoology researcher Andy McGrath penned ‘Beasts of Britain’ and ‘Beasts of the World’, a book series on myths, rumours, and reports of unknown and endangered species.
The dad of two says his daughters, ages nine and six, are at odds when it comes to believing in mythical creatures.
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And the youngsters' difference in opinion has left McGrath facing off with his “logical” eldest after she blasted belief in the Scots creature as “Nessie nonsense”.
Speaking to the Daily Star, he revealed: “They're hilarious, the nine-year-old is very grounded and logical and refers to it as ‘Nessie nonsense!’”.
“The six-year-old is convinced that mermaids ‘100% absolutely exist!’”.
McGrath attempted to sway the child by telling her of the 1,100-plus reported sightings of the creature in the last 90 years.
He added: “I usually try to prove my point through correlation. So, we talk a lot about the other lake monster sightings around the world that match Nessie's description and that were reported before Loch Ness.
“Her answer is most logical, ‘faeries and dragons in cultures around the world have similar descriptions too… but that doesn't make them real!’”.
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The dad, however, is a hopeful sceptic but says he is proud of his little girl for wanting hard proof before she is willing to accept the creature's existence.
“I think the cryptozoology genre suffers from an overabundance of credulity/gullibility,” he confessed.
“It's all very well for us to dreamily wish for these mystery animals to be real, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't apply the same conditions to proving that cryptids exist, as we would for other regular animals”.
Andy gives the example of a recent viral TikTok clip which claimed to show the lake monster known as Culebron, located in Ranco Lake, Chile.
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But it was later revealed that the so-called Culebron was nothing more than a “monster imposter”, a sea lion which had entered the lake via the river.
The dad has launched a weekly podcast where he interviews researchers from around the world about their obsessions – from modern-day T. rex sightings and giant spiders to faeries and half-man, half-ape tales.
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