Fish farmer snaps photo of Nessie

by Sean McLachlan on

Loch Ness has been getting into the news a lot lately. There’s been a rise in sightings this year, Nessie was photographed in July, and a UFO was spotted over Loch Ness last month.

Now a new photo of Nessie has emerged. You’ll have to go to the link to see it because we don’t get a photo budget here at Gadling and Nessie photos don’t come cheap. Instead you get to marvel at this fine Lego Nessie photographed by David R. Tribble. At least it’s exactly what it looks like.

The “real” monster was snapped by commercial fish farmer Jon Rowe when he got out his camera to take a picture of a rainbow over Loch Ness. Rowe says he, “noticed this really large dark shape in the loch with two humps that were barely out of the water. . .Almost as soon as I took the shot the shape disappeared under the water and out of sight.”

Personally I’m skeptical, and so are the experts. The leading cryptozoology website Cryptomundo opines that the image shows a pair of water birds diving for prey. Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness Project says the same thing.

Rowe insists that they weren’t birds, however, so the mystery continues.

At least all this activity is putting to rest the idea that Nessie is extinct.

“Lough Ness Monster” scares locals

by Sean McLachlan on

The Loch Ness monster may have gone extinct, but there are still mysteries in the lakes of the British Isles. Residents near Stonebow Washlands in Loughborough, Leicestershire, have been warned to keep their children away from the water after a mysterious beastie devoured some ducks.

There’s no clear description of the “monster”, but a witness tells a grim tale of seeing ducks get sucked into the water, never to be seen again.

Nobody is sure what it is, but the chairman of the Charnwood Wildlife Protection Group has confirmed that the lake’s duck population has decreased noticeably since the sightings. While most observers believe it to be some sort of locally uncommon fish like a catfish or pike, there’s also the hint of a good old-fashioned mystery.

Considering how much money the residents around Loch Ness have made off of unconfirmed sightings of their own lake monster, even creating a Nessie Museum and the statue pictured here, the folks at Loughborough might just be onto something good.

Pity about the ducks, though.

Has the Loch Ness Monster gone extinct?

by Sean McLachlan on

Things aren’t going well in Scotland. Last year was the worst year on record for sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. A documentary studied the possibility that Nessie has gone extinct, and even the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club is worried.

Only one “dependable” sighting, by a local man back in June, shows there might be life in the old critter yet, but if that’s a false alarm, where does that leave us? Locals around Loch Ness are worried last year’s poor showing may affect tourist numbers. In the United States, liberals are saying Nessie died of shame from being called a “monster” instead of the more politically correct term “evidence-challenged endangered species”. Conservatives claim Nessie was the first victim of the death panels set up by Obama’s America-hating, terrorist-loving national health care.

The number of sightings has been going down for a few years, so the creature or creatures may very well be dying out. Is it gone for good? Unless AOL coughs up a few million to equip me with sonar equipment and a submarine, I really can’t say.

Whatever happened to Nessie, take heart. There are plenty of lake monsters to go around. There’s a Nessie-like creature in Minnesota, one in Lake Champlain, and others scattered around the world. There’s even another Scottish beastie in Loch Morar, which was the subject of a recent investigation by blogger Tom Gates. He took the amazing photo shown here. Believe it or not it’s actually a fake, made with a little Nessie model and some basil, and should serve as a warning to serious cryptozoologists that common household items can be used to construct a photo that can fool even the experts.

I, for one, don’t think Nessie will ever die. Despite having walked on the Moon and plumbed the depths of the ocean, we as a species love a mystery, and will always need creatures like Nessie, Bigfoot, the Mothman, and Raw Head and Bloody Bones until we ourselves go extinct.%Gallery-13474%