History Main / NotTheNessie

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

[[folder: Arcade Game]]
* Played with in ''VideoGame/DinosaurKing''. It's not a submarine, it's an Amargasaur. As per the trope, the real Nessie shows up at the end.

[[folder: Film]]

* And an inversion of this trope is found in the film ''The Water Horse''. Nessie -- or Crusoe, as she's called here -- gets shelled by the British Army. Well, they thought she ''was'' a submarine!
** Also played straight, to a degree. Two old men keep trying to get a picture of Crusoe, but fail every time. So they fake it by putting a boat upside down in the water to produce the famous picture of the neck sticking out of the water. Interestingly, as they're faking it, the real one was right on the other side of a tree, [[MissedHimByThatMuch in good view if they could've seen it]].
* In a maritime variant, two prank-playing boys in ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' use a cardboard fin to scare everyone out of the water [[spoiler: just before the real shark shows up]].

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Live Action Television]]

* ''Series/{{Stingray 1964}}'', a TV series that had actual sea monsters in it, sent Troy Tempest and his crew to Loch Ness, where they found Nessie was a robot, built in the 1940s and put through its paces to again, encourage tourist travel to the loch.

* Done on ''SeaHunt,'' naturally enough, although it was only supposed to be a generic "sea serpent," and not Nessie herself.

[[folder: Newspaper Comic]]
* ''ComicStrip/AlleyOop'' is about a time traveling cave man named Alley Oop. A few years ago, Alley's pet dinosaur Dinny tagged along for one adventure, and the pair wound up in medieval Scotland. Suffice it that the Scots have remembered Dinny's visit ever since.
** Alley made a second (unintentional) visit to Scotland while bringing back two young plesiosaurs to the present; the two youngsters escape into the nearest lake, which just happens to be...

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Web Original]]
* ''Website/{{Cracked}}'''s [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_581_17-famous-images-as-seen-from-different-angle/?view=article Famous Images, As Seen From a Different Angle]] depicts an elephant swimming and putting its trunk above the water as a snorkel, forming the famous photo of the Loch Ness monster. (Elephants [[http://www.123rf.com/photo_16321656_african-bush-elephant-loxodonta-africana-using-trunk-as-snorkel.html actually do this]].)

[[folder: Western Animation]]

[[folder: Real Life]]

* Comedian Bill Hicks once mused that the Loch Ness Monster was a submarine, driven by Bigfoot.

* In Creator/JulesVerne's ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', many early accounts of the ''Nautilus'''s attacks speculated that it was a giant narwhal. Certainly the UrExample of this trope in fiction, as nobody was writing about submarines before Verne.

* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheLochNessMonster'' gives us ''three'' Nessies: a robotic submarine version, a less sophisticated (but still somehow totally convincing in appearance) "parade float" version, and the real monster. The real one looks very different than the impostors, namely having different skin and a tail fluke.

* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheLochNessMonster'' gives us ''three'' Nessies: a robotic submarine version, a less sophisticated (but still somehow totally convincing in appearance) "parade float" version, and the real monster. The real one looks exactly like the impostors.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' Mr. Burns drains Loch Ness to find the monster, but it turns out it's just the Loch Ness High School float - which is then stomped on by the real Loch Ness monster.

* The WesternAnimation/LOLIrock episode "Legend of Lake Agnes" is an interesting case where the heroines themselves have to perform a ScoobyDooHoax on the civilians they're boating with to cover up the actual monster the villains have sent to attack them, ultimately convincing them that the lake monster "Aggie" is benevolent when "she" helps them out. Despite having to do this, [[TheHero Iris]] says in her narration that she still believes that not everything on Earth has been discovered. [[spoiler: Naturally, [[RealAfterAll we cut back to Lake Agnes...]]]]

* This example takes place in Minnesota rather than Scotland, but on an episode of ''Little House on the Prarie'' the children of Walnut Grove fabricate an Expy of Nessie to frighten Mrs. Oleson into leaving an old woman's lakeside house alone after the former tried to take it from the latter.

* In the WesternAnimation/LOLIrock episode "Legend of Lake Agnes" is an interesting case where the heroines themselves have to perform a ScoobyDooHoax on the civilians they're boating with to cover up the actual monster the villains have sent to attack them, ultimately convincing them that the lake monster "Aggie" is benevolent when "she" helps them out. Despite having to do this, [[TheHero Iris]] says in her narration that she still believes that not everything on Earth has been discovered. [[spoiler: Naturally, [[RealAfterAll we cut back to Lake Agnes...]]]]

So the story takes us to a certain lake in Scotland, and our adventurers/detectives/four meddling kids and an animal find themselves investigating the legendary [[StockNessMonster Loch Ness Monster]]. Frightening, water bound and usually fog-shrouded encounters with that legendary beastie follow, and at the denouement we find the mystery solved!

* Done on ''DenverTheLastDinosaur'', though in that case it was a guy trying to make money rather than keep people away.
* An episode of ''TheMagicSchoolBus'' had an inflatable lake monster, planted by an unscrupulous journalist who wanted to become famous by getting the "scoop" on the monster.

* The NewspaperComic ''AlleyOop'' is about a time traveling cave man named Alley Oop. A few years ago, Alley's pet dinosaur Dinny tagged along for one adventure, and the pair wound up in medieval Scotland. Suffice it that the Scots have remembered Dinny's visit ever since.

* Played straight, then subverted in ''MegaManStarForce 2''. Geo goes to a foreign country where there is a legend of a monster called Messie. it is a submarine, but the director making money off of a 'Search of Messie' show runs into Hyde, who offers him a sea monster EM partner, Plesio, which he uses to become Plesio Surf.

* DoubleSubverted in an episode of ''Series/TheXFiles'' where Mulder & Scully investigate a lake monster which turns out to be an escaped crocodile which was killing campers. Then as they drive off, the real monster comes up out of the lake.

* ''The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes'' is probably the defining version of this trope. In this film, the Great Detective's brother, Mycroft, is directing top-secret development of Britain's first submarine in Loch Ness; an attached prop monster head keeps the local gentry fooled into thinking it's the beastie. Given, of course, that it's just a prop in a studio water tank, the first appearance of this thing still scared the haggis out of this troper when he first saw it.

* Played with in ''DinosaurKing''. It's not a submarine, it's an Amargasaur. As per the trope, the real Nessie shows up at the end.

* ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' uses this one in the fourth case of the first game, with a creature named "Gourdy" being spotted in Gourd Lake. The monster's "head" that was captured on a photo was actually an inflatable Steel Samurai being blown along by the air tank that some idiot (Read: Larry Butz) was using to inflate it.

** This one is ''[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E4 "50 Ways to Leave Your 50-Foot Lover"]], a Anime/LupinIIIRedJacket episode. Fujiko's singing attracts the Loch Ness monster. Later on, when Lupin goes out onto the Loch, a Nessie-shaped submarine draws him in. The reason the sub was built? To catch the ''real'' Nessie - the scientist who built it has an Ahab complex towards the Loch Ness monster, and wants to use Fujiko to attract it so he can capture it.

** In ''Anime/LupinIIIAlcatrazConnections'', the movie opens with a luxury gambling ship under attack by a sea monster that looks like Nessie! (It's an inflatable head Lupin is using to distract everyone while he steals all the money from the vault.)

* This one is used in a very... out-there way in a ''LupinIII'' episode. Fujiko's singing attracts the Loch Ness monster. Later on, when Lupin goes out onto the Loch, a Nessie-shaped submarine draws him in. The reason the sub was built? To catch the ''real'' Nessie - the scientist who built it has an Ahab complex towards the Loch Ness monster, and uses Fujiko to attract it so he can capture it.

* ''Website/{{Cracked}}'''s [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_581_17-famous-images-as-seen-from-different-angle/?view=article Famous Images, As Seen From a Different Angle]] depicts an elephant swimming and putting its trunk above the water as a snorkel, forming the famous photo of the Loch Ness monster.