There’s a new photo making the rounds on the web, taken at Loch Ness and supposedly showing the monster that (also supposedly) lives in the lake. I’m not sure what to make of this photo. It looks like something, but to me, it doesn’t look like any sort of monster. The UK’s Daily Express has the story.
Loch Ness Monster? Waves? Reflections? Hoax? You decide...
WITH a dwindling number of sightings in recent years, fears have been raised that Scotland’s famous monster may be dead. But fans of Nessie could be given fresh hope with this picture of a mysterious humped shape in the Highland loch.
The new “sighting” was captured on camera by landscape designer Richard Preston, while he was working at Aldourie Castle Gardens, on the banks of Loch Ness.
Yesterday, he said: “When I looked closer, I could clearly see the four hump-like features.
“I thought I’d take a picture, to see if there was anything in it, to see what others thought.
“I was surprised that it stayed there as long as it did.
“I took various shots before it suddenly disappeared. I literally just turned my back and it was gone.”
Richard, 27, added: “There were no ripples in the water, no boats, nothing around.
“I have no idea what it was, but it undoubtedly looks like Nessie.”
Tales of something lurking in Loch Ness go back to the sixth century, when St Columba was said to have confronted a water beast.
But the myth only took hold in the modern era after a series of photographs appeared in the press during the Thirties. The first grainy “evidence” was taken by Hugh Gray, in November 1933.
A year later, an image taken by respected London surgeon Colonel Robert Wilson, showing a slender head and neck rising out of the water, became an international sensation. But, in 1994, it was finally revealed that the “Surgeon’s Photo” had been faked using a toy submarine.
Earlier this year, newly declassified files showed how even the authorities believed there could be a monster be lurking in the depths of the loch.
In 1938, William Fraser, the new Chief Constable of Inverness-shire, wrote in a letter: “That there is some strange fish creature in Loch Ness seems now beyond doubt, but that the police have any power to protect it is very doubtful.”
With sightings of Nessie becoming increasingly rare in recent years, fears have been raised that the monster could be dead.
In 2009, a documentary examined the theory that her carcass is lying at the bottom of the loch.
No matter what the truth is, the legend of the Loch Ness monster lives on in popular culture, featuring in films, novels, music and cartoons such as The Simpsons and The Family Ness.
At this point, it seems like people who capture anything anomalous in photos tend to claim it’s whatever is relevant. Pictures taken in a haunted house show “orbs.” Pictures taken of the sky with weird contrails are now UFOs. And pictures taken in lakes with reports of lake monsters are all proof of the monster. The truth is, this photo, like so many others, is taken at a distance, and is pretty fuzzy. You can see an amorphous white blob, but that can be anything. As anyone who read this blog regularly knows, I’m not sure what to believe of the Loch Ness Monster, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t a photo of it.
