Just one report recorded on Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register in first half of 2024
Just one sighting of something unexplained on Loch Ness has been registered in the first half of 2024.
A Canadian visitor was credited with the year’s first “sighting” of Nessie on the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register in April.
But since then the fabled creature has remained elusive with reports of anything unusual on the water having another explanation.
Last year turned out a bumper one for Nessie spotters with 10 sightings being accepted by the official Register.
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The only registered sighting so far this year was on April 4 when Canadian tourist Parry Malm and his family saw something near Urquhart Castle.
He reported: "At first thought was driftwood, but slowly but surely made it's way north towards the castle.
Looked like a head above the waves. Was difficult to determine with naked eye."
Hundreds of monster enthusiasts scoured the 23-mile-long loch for unusual activity, in person and online, a few weeks ago in a “big search” organised by the Loch Ness Centre at Drumnadrochit.
Although it claimed to have found new evidence, it has not appeared on the register.
Registrar Paige Daley - who has taken over the role from her father Gary Campbell who kept the register for 28 years - is urging people to keeping looking.
“The standard for sightings remains the same as previous years and the big search didn't submit any sightings to the register,” she said.
“We continue to get regular submissions but so far the vast majority have been explainable.
“As always, we encourage people to keep looking and submit what they see at Loch Ness.”
Argyll-born Gary Campbell first began the Loch Ness Sightings Register following his own sighting of something unusual in March 1996.
He handed it over to his daughter last year.
Logged sightings range from blurry photographs to strange movements in the water captured on video.
It also includes sketches, verbal accounts and images spotted on a webcam by Nessie spotters worldwide plus historical encounters.
A total of 1157 sightings have been recorded on the register to date while 10 webcam images are registered from 2021 onwards.
The enduring modern-day Nessie phenomenon was sparked following a report in the Inverness Courier of a strange spectacle in April 1933 witnessed by hotel manageress Aldie Mackay and her husband as they drove along the shores of Loch Ness.
Their account of the close encounter with a whale-like beast was picked up by the national and international media.
The mystery of Loch Ness continues to fascinate people worldwide and draws in tourists and Nessie hunters to the area in their millions.
