Google Maps is unveiling its new "underwater street view" feature and what better day to hold its debut than the 81st anniversary of the "Surgeon's Photograph," the iconic image that was said to have shown the Loch Ness Monster.

On April 21, 1934, the Daily Mail published a photo taken that showed the "head and neck" of the legendary monster. Robert Kenneth Wilson is believed to have been the man behind the camera, but he did not want to be associated with it when the newspaper published it, so it came to be known as the "Surgeon's Photo."

Decades later the photo has long been proven a hoax, but that has not discouraged conspiracy theorists and all sorts of researchers from trying to prove "Nessie's" existence. As Loch Ness Project chief Adrian Shine said in Google's video announcing the new feature, "we are rational creatures, but we are also imaginative ones."

Now Google wants to encourage that imaginative spirit.

According to the Atlantic, Shine has analyzed more than 1,000 sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. While technology may eventually leave every last stone literally unturned, Google's Street View team learned why the search for the Loch Ness Monster refuses to die.

"We knew that at Loch Ness, because of the peat content of the water, which makes it more murky than normal, that it would be difficult to see," Deanna Yick, a program manager for Street View, told the Atlantic. "That adds to the experience."

The underwater street view debut would not be complete without, of course, a Nessie sighting. The Telegraph pointed out a photo in Google's gallery that appears to be a log lazily floating along the lake, but that is too much of a coincidence, right?

"We were surprised by this sighting too," a spokesperson for Google told the newspaper. "Is it a log, a bird or... the monster?!"