Second Nessie sighting of 2022 near Invermoriston logged on Gary Campbell's official Loch Ness Monster sighting register after "unexplained" sonar contact snapped during cruise
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An English tourist is claiming the second officially logged Loch Ness Monster sighting of 2022.
Tom Ingram, from Portsmouth, was exploring the loch by cruiser boat on Monday when the vessel’s sonar picked up an unusual “animate” shape at an unlikely depth.
Having departed Fort Augustus at 1pm on the Spirit of Loch Ness cruiser, run by Cruise Loch Ness, Mr Ingram photographed the sonar contact just as the vessel reached the Invermoriston turning point at 1.26 pm.
Gary Campbell, who runs the The Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register on a voluntary basis, without commercial gain, explained why the sonar sighting was classed as “unexplained”.
“Sonar will always pick up shapes, but whatever was there was sitting at about 120 metres depth, 60 metres above the bottom, it was in a place where you wouldn’t expect any fish - there’s nothing alive,” Mr Campbell said.
“Fish that we know about in Loch Ness are either close to the top, swimming towards the nearest river, or they are Arctic char right down at the bottom.
“There are lots of eels in Loch Ness and normally they’re along the bottom as well.
“If you get something that lights up like that on sonar, within that range, we would consider it isn't something that you can easily identify.
“The brightness of the contact, from my understanding, means it is picking up something that is animate.
“These factors altogether persuade us that there was something there and we don’t know what it is.
“What we always hope is that someone would go over the same spot five or 10 minutes later and if there is nothing there, we know it is something that has moved on.
“Obviously that wasn’t possible for this man who snapped it as part of a cruise which wasn’t going to turn back.
“There is enough here to suggest there was something alive and animate in a place in Loch Ness where you wouldn’t expect anything.”
The first logged sighting of 2022 came from Jamie Huntley, a documentary maker visiting from Tyne and Wear.
He reported that at 11.18 am on March 30, he and his colleague Warren Speed saw a huge dark grey, whale-like object in the water from a vantage point at Boleskine cemetery, near Foyers.
They stopped their car and photographed a large wake in the water.
In a separate incident, veteran Loch Ness Monster spotter Eoin O’Faodhagain (56), from County Donegal in Ireland, claimed to have captured webcam footage of the fabled beast at 3.26 pm on March 23.
However, the 'sighting' was later removed from Mr Campbell's official register after two paddle boarders claimed to have been on the water at the location near Urquhart Castle, Drumnadrochit at that time.
