“Incident at Loch Ness” (2004) got me to do some research on the eponymous monster.

Aleister Crowley once made Loch Ness his home. It is my theory that “The Loch Ness Monster” was initially a term used by the small town folks to refer to Crowley. You can see how this might have evolved from “The Beast,” his other nickname.

In 1933, this term got appropriated into a cheap hoax to bring in some paranormal tourism dollars. A small magickal retreat became a city-wide tourist trap as the Thelemites got replaced by Theosophists, and the rest is history.