Loch Ness Monster Sighting Goes Viral

A photo a man snapped at Loch Ness in September 2019 went viral on Wednesday, after some believed it to be one of the clearest images yet of the Loch Ness Monster.

Steve Challice from Southampton took the shot on the West bank of the lake last year. In it, a large creature can be seen surfacing as it moves across the water.

“In my opinion (and I’m no expert) I think it’s a large fish that got into the Loch from the sea,” he said in an interview with photo agency Cover Images. “As to what it is personally, I think it’s a cat fish or something like that but a big one.”

“Someone suggested it may be a sturgeon. It’s very large as the bit you can see must be at least 8-foot-long and who can tell what amount is below the surface,” he added. “It was gone almost instantly so much so I wasn’t sure if I had got it or not. I guess it was something of a fluke shot. I waited about for a bit and took another image but didn’t see the fish again.”

The image has been trending on Twitter all day, with some believing it’s more evidence that Nessie exists — as others joked about it being just another wild event in a year already marked by so many.

Loch Ness Monster expert Roland Watson agrees with Challice’s assumption that it was, in fact, a catfish.

“The analysis of the photograph’s EXIF data led me to conclude this was not a photograph of the Loch Ness Monster,” he wrote in a blog post. “I continued to talk to Steve, the photographer, but that has come to an end as he could not provide the original SD card image.”

He then shared an image of a giant, Wels catfish, thanking a visitor for suggesting that could be what was really in the water.