Photos That Fooled Us: teacher key

Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, grade 8 edition, written for 8th grade. A doctor's photo, a toy submarine and a 59-second film are the best known pictures of Nessie and Bigfoot. Here is how people checked them, and why honest witnesses can still be wrong.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Why did the Surgeon's Photograph have such an impact?
   • It came from a respected London doctor (answer)
   • It showed a whole monster
   • It was taken by a fisherman
2. What was found at the bottom of Loch Ness in 2016?
   • A plesiosaur skeleton
   • A 33-foot film prop made for a 1970 movie (answer)
   • A toy submarine
3. What did the 2009 study of Bigfoot sightings find?
   • Sightings were farthest from forests
   • Sightings matched where bears live (answer)
   • Sightings stopped in 1958
4. What does expectant attention do?
   • It makes cameras work better
   • It makes people's observations fit what they already expect (answer)
   • It makes monsters easier to find
5. A person who knows Scottish water-creature stories sees a dark shape in the loch. What might happen?
   • The shape can be read as a creature without any lying (answer)
   • The shape must be a monster
   • The person must be wrong about everything

Words

• hoax: a trick
• witness: person who saw
• folklore: old stories
• habitat: where it lives
• verified: shown true