Has Loch Ness Monster returned?
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THE Loch Ness Monster has apparently come out of hiding, according to new footage posted online.
A video taken by Rob Jones, who was travelling around Scotland, appears to show Nessie slowly bobbing past a nearby boat on Loch Ness.
The man on the boat seemed oblivious to the creature however, which had a long neck and popped out close to Urquhart Castle.
The clip, which lasts for more than two minutes, has so far been viewed by at least 70,000 people on YouTube.
For eight months there were no confirmed reports of the world-famous creature, but Mr Jones's sighting was the second in a matter of days.
Earlier this month Hayley Johnson, a tourist from Manchester, also noticed a mysterious dark shape at dusk while in Urquhart Bay, next to Drumnadrochit.
But Gary Campbell, who keeps the official register of Nessie sightings on Loch Ness, is sceptical about the latest sighting.
"There's a number of reasons why I think it may be something inanimate," he said.
"The size of it means that a number of people would have seen something and certainly the people in the boat would have had the best Nessie footage ever recorded.
"There was also a Nessie model, with a head and a neck, being used on Urquhart Bay at the weekend."
However he accepted the earlier sighting and recorded it in the official register.
"We are delighted that Nessie is back," he added. "There were all sorts of theories as to where the Loch Ness Monster had gone."
