Did Nessie just poke her head above the water? Monster hunter stunned as black hump emerges from loch

Shocking new images have revealed what a Nessie hunter believes is the Loch Ness Monster.

Eoin O’Faodhagain, 59, has been collecting alleged sightings of the creature via webcam for years, but he thinks his latest is the strangest yet.

He was watching the live cameras on the Visit Inverness website when he saw a black shape breaking through the surface of the lake and moving steadily north against the current.

Mr O’Faodhagain couldn’t believe what he was seeing: ‘I kept zooming in and out of the video clip, which was a good thing because I got one of the strangest images I’ve ever seen in Loch Ness.

‘It’s this image of a semi-circular bump, light gray in color with three uniform black spots.

Defying skeptics, he added: ‘Since no one knows yet what the Loch Ness Monster is, no one can say it isn’t.’

‘If I had looked up at it I would have said it was a UFO, but I was looking at a webcam over part of Loch Ness.

“I have no idea what this strange moving object is, I can only suggest it could be a young Nessie.”

Pushing back against skeptics, he added: ‘Since no one knows yet what the Loch Ness Monster is, no one can say it isn’t.’

The monster hunter believes that whatever it was, most of its body was lurking underwater.

He said: ‘The size of the object coming out of the water was not large – only about half a meter long, but there seemed to be a lot going on underwater.

“As he moved further away from the camera you could see a lot of splashes around it, and this was very strange because he wasn’t moving quickly.”

After doing some research, Mr O’Faodhagain was unable to match the unique spots with any other resident of the lake.

The 59-year-old added: ‘The markings of the three black dot pattern are very unusual.

After doing some research, Mr O’Faodhagain was unable to match the unique spots with any other resident of the lake

He said: ‘The size of the object from the water was not large – only about two feet long, but there seemed to be a lot going on underwater.’

‘No seal or otter has such markings, and – as far as an eel is concerned – neither on them.

‘Either way, it moves too rigidly for all these animals, and at a consistently slow pace.

“Snakes may have markings on their skin, but what snake has a two-foot oval bump?”

An avid Nessie hunter, he often logs in to view Scottish waters from his home in County Donegal, Ireland.

He made his latest sighting using a webcam maintained by Visit Inverness Loch Ness (VILN) at Shoreland Lodges, near Fort Augustus on the southern shore of the loch.

If you want to spot the monster yourself, there are VILN webcams watched live online.

The spotting comes right after an Inverness resident was convinced she had spotted the mythical creature after capturing images of large ripples in the lake.

Large ripples (circled) in the water were noticed by Siobhan Janaway and she thinks they could be from the Loch Ness Monster

Pictured: A shadowy figure on Loch Ness in a separate incident

Siobhan Janaway said she initially thought the disturbance on the water’s surface was from a motorboat, but claimed she could see no ships in the area.

She reported the sighting to the official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register, where six other sightings have been recorded so far this year.

According to the site, Fiona Wade reported seeing what “initially looked like a periscope.”

Adding ‘but then two curved areas followed, it moved and about half way up the Loch, about half way between Foyers and Whitebridge.

‘I’ve seen deer crossing before but this was like nothing I’d seen before and I can only describe it as Nessie.’

Separately, Alastair Gray claimed he saw lumps in the lake and father-of-four Steve Valentine also said he saw a ‘black shape’ with ‘a lump’ on August 17.

What IS the Loch Ness Monster?

Rumors of a strange creature living in the waters of Loch Ness have abounded in recent decades, but little evidence has been found to substantiate these claims.

One of the first sightings, believed to have sparked modern Nessie fever, occurred on May 2, 1933.

On this date the Inverness Courier carried a story about a local couple who claimed to have seen ‘a huge animal rolling and crashing on the surface’.

Another famous sighting is a photograph taken in 1934 by Colonel Robert Kenneth Wilson.

It was later exposed as a hoax by one of the participants, Chris Spurling, who revealed on his deathbed that the photos had been staged.

Other sightings include James Gray’s 2001 photo when he and friend Peter Levings were fishing on the Loch, while namesake Hugh Gray’s blurry photo of what appears to be a large sea creature was published in the Daily Express in 1933.

Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London doctor, captured perhaps the most famous image of the Loch Ness Monster. The surgeon’s photo was published in the Daily Mail on April 21, 1934, but it was later revealed to be a fake.

The first reported sighting of the monster is said to have been made in 565 AD by the Irish missionary St. Columba, when he encountered a gigantic beast in the River Ness.

But no one has ever come up with a satisfactory explanation for the sightings – although ‘Nessie expert’ Steve Feltham, who has watched the Loch for 24 years, said in 2019 that he thought it was actually a giant Welsh catfish, native to waters near the Baltic and Caspian Seas in Europe.

An online register lists a total of more than 1,000 Nessie sightings made by Mr Campbell, the man behind the official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, and is available at www.lochnesssightings.com.

So what could explain these mysterious observations?

Many Nessie witnesses have reported large, crocodile-like scales sitting atop the creature’s spine, leading some to believe that an escaped amphibian could be to blame.

Native fish sturgeons can also weigh hundreds of pounds and have ridged backs, giving them an almost reptilian appearance.

Some believe Nessie is a long-necked plesiosaur – like an elasmosaur – who somehow survived when all other dinosaurs were wiped out.

Others say the sightings are related to Scotch pines dying and flopping into the lake, before quickly becoming submerged and sinking.

While underwater, botanical chemicals begin to trap small air bubbles.

Eventually, enough of these are collected to propel the block upwards, while deep pressure begins to change its shape, making it look like an animal is coming up for air.