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'Nessie sceptic' from Inverness believes he spotted Loch Ness Monster


By Andrew Dixon

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A LONG-DISTANCE walker is convinced he captured the shadowy shape of the Loch Ness Monster while hiking between Fort Augustus and Invermoriston.

Pictures taken on part of the Great Glen Way trail show an unexplained long, thin dark object near the loch’s surface, which was moving against the direction of the waves.

The Inverness man, who did not wish to be identified, was walking the new Loch Ness 360 trail – an 85-mile trek around the shores – on Tuesday last week.

Describing himself as a “lifelong Nessie sceptic” who grew up beside the world-famous loch, Britain’s biggest and deepest body of freshwater, he was shocked and baffled by what he saw.

He said: “I was just enjoying the wonderful views, mind elsewhere on a lovely clear breezy day, when I stopped dead in my tracks.

“From where I stood, at a clear vantage point in the hills, there was a very defined dark shape beneath the water.

“It might have been the height I was at that gave me such a good view because those on boats some distance away didn’t seem to react or notice.

“I stood absolutely transfixed – it just didn’t look right.

“I have known the loch very well since my youth and I know how strange shapes can appear in wave patterns on breezy days that fool people and are mistaken for something more fanciful.

“This was nothing like that.

“Whatever was moving beneath the surface seemed pretty large and was moving directly across the line of waves, at right angles, rather than with it.

“It was long with two distinct fin-like shapes either side of it.

“I stood and watched for a good five minutes before it just seemed to disappear into the depths.

“Believe me, all my life I’ve never been anything other than a serious Nessie sceptic.

“As kids growing up, we used to tease the American, German and Japanese tourists by telling them where they could go and feed the monster and other pranks like that.

“We played up to it with the tourists, but in all my years living by the loch or travelling along it, I’d never seen a thing that convinced me or a serious piece of scientific evidence.

“After what I saw last week, I really don’t know.

“I can’t think of any reasonable explanation for it, other than something I really don’t want to publicly admit to.”

The photographs, shown here, were taken on the man’s mobile phone.

He had walked the Great Glen Way “high route” from Fort Augustus northwards towards Invermoriston and was about halfway along the nine-mile section of path.

Related article: Seventh sighting of Loch Ness Monster in 2020


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