The Loch Ness Monster has long been the stuff of legend, with countless people claiming that they've seen an almost dinosaur-like creature swimming in Scotland's famed lake. Now, one Italian geologist says he has the answer to just what this creature is.

Earthquakes. Well, tremors, specifically. Italian geologist Luigi Piccardi has attributed the Loch Ness sightings to the fact that there is a fault line that runs directly under the lake. It is his hypothesis that the fault line, known as the Great Glen fault, causes large ripples in the water that look like the Loch Ness Monster.

"There are various effects on the surface of the water that can be related to the activity of the fault," Piccardi said in an interview published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. "We know that this was a period [1920-1930] with increased activity of the fault. In reality, people have seen the effects of the earthquakes on the water."

It is possible that the water could be disturbed enough to make some interesting shapes. Still, there have not been very many quakes in the area that would have generated the force necessary to significantly upend the water. From there, all it would take is a little bit of imagination.

"People don't want an explanation that it's just in their head. They want a geological explanation. But that geological explanation is also just in your head," says Brian Cronk, chair of the psychology department at Missouri Western State University.

For that reason, Cronk proposes that perhaps the Loch Ness Monster is entirely in our heads. Rather than having any explanation in the form of either geological or biological knowledge, the events at Loch Ness have been entirely of the mind's creation.

"Humans are really smart animals. And one of the things are brains are always doing is trying to find the meaning in things," says Cronk. "So if you're at the lake, and you want to see the monster, and then you see a random, unexplained shape, your brain will make it into the Loch Ness monster."