One of several reported lake monsters similar to the loch ness monster that have been reported in nine of the larger Scottish lakes. Morag is the name given the creature that has been sighted in Loch Morar, which lies approximately 110 kilometers (70 miles) southwest of Loch Ness. It was named for Mhorag, the traditional spirit of the loch, who was, according to local folklore, a mermaid. There have been sightings of a beast in the lake since at least the late 19th century, though little notice was taken of it until 1969. That year, two men reported a beast having hit their boat. Wire services picked up the newspaper accounts of the incident and alerted the investigators at Loch Ness.
The following year, several people from the loch ness investigation bureau formed the Loch Morar Survey. The group had an immediate success when a biologist, Neil Bass, spotted what he described as a “hump-shaped” black object near the northern end of the loch. He called the others to see it, but it quickly disappeared. They did see the disturbance in the water where the object had submerged. In the early 1970s, in the wake of the interest in the Loch Ness monster, Elizabeth Montgomery Camp¬ bell and folklorist E. Macdonald Robertson collected stories of Morag.