DNA test may offer new clue to mystery
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A KIWI scientist is returning to the Highlands to try and put the theory of the Loch Ness monster to bed.
Neil Gemmell, geneticist and professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand, will be in the UK from June 1, 2018 to collect water samples from Loch Ness.
He hatched his plan to solve the mystery of the monster while visiting the Highlands on holiday last August and after a year of raising funds and assembling a team of monster hunting specialists, he hopes to find the answer.
Supported by a team of scientists from labs across the world, Mr Gemmell will lead the Super Natural History team to study DNA samples from the loch and hopefully find out all its secrets.
"I don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster but I am open to the idea of something unusual living in the loch," Mr Gemmell said.
"It is a great opportunity to have an adventure, to explore what is at those depths and hopefully shed some light on the loch’s mysteries."
He will be using a boat and a special, weighted, water-sampling device called a messenger to get samples from the murky depths of Loch Ness.
Each living organism to call the biggest Loch in the country its home will have left some form of DNA evidence behind.
He claims that whether they find the monster or not, their work will be incredibly important for science in the UK.
Earlier in the week it was reported that Nessie or her relatives had been on holiday to Gloucester – with video-footage of a lookalike monster appearing online.
Josh Hawkins (25) filmed what appeared to be a monster lifting its head out of the water, from a flat above the canal while he was watching football.
Mr Hawkins and his friends believe that it could be a relative of Nessie.
