Bridie Pearson-jones
Daily Mail
The footage has been described as a feature length film in terms of Nessie sightings
A tourist claims he has spotted the famed Loch Ness monster and even has ten minutes of footage the creature ‘cavorting’ in the water.
Eoin O’Faodhagain said he was left stunned by the sighting of the 20ft ‘monster’ in the Scottish Highlands and has even had his footage accepted by the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register.
The 53-year-old from Donegal, Ireland quickly grabbed his phone when he saw the elusive creature.
The hospital clerical worker took a ten minute video from the Loch Ness webcam.
He said he had watched the ‘Nessie’ webcam for many years.
‘I just click in now and then for 20 minutes – it’s better than watching Coronation Street,’ said Mr O’Faodhagain.
‘I seen a couple of things over the years but they have been explained as a boat or something else.’
But it was on April 30, that Mr O’Faodhagain had ‘a terrific shock.’
‘I couldn’t believe my eyes. I just started recording it on my phone. I just followed it. It was very unusual, it was certainly something big – it dived down and up again and dived and disappeared. It was not a boat and not a log. I would say it was Ne
‘I believe in Nessie but not as a plesiosaur – but as something that has evolved in Loch Ness over thousands of years.’
The creature moves from right to left and as it swam towards Urquhart Bay – a reported favourite haunt of Nessie – and is seen diving and surfacing with water splashes.
The sighting – the second record accepted this year by the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register – comes only days before DNA sampling is to be used to discover previously unrecorded organisms in Loch Ness.
However Prof Neil Gemmell, a New Zealand scientist leading the project, said he did not believe in Nessie, but was confident of finding genetic codes for other creatures.
He said a ‘biological explanation’ might be found to explain some of the stories about the Loch Ness Monster.
The team will collect tiny fragments of skin and scales for two weeks in June.
Mr O’Faodhagain has been to Loch Ness four times as part of Highland holidays and in July 1987 also had a momentary unexplained sighting.
‘But nothing like this – it was just incredible,’ he said.
Gary Campbell, Keeper of the Official Register of Sightings at Loch Ness, said: ‘As far as Nessie footage goes this is a feature film. Normally you only get videos of one of two seconds. It is remarkable in its length and again shows the increased sightings of Nessie from the internet.
‘Clearly it is something that dives in and out of the surface with water splashes and reflections. It is unexplained. The object would be no larger than 20ft. There is something there on the video that is clearly moving.’
Last week, an eight-year-old and her grandmother claimed to have caught the monster on camera while on a boat tit the lake.
Nessie’s 11 accepted sightings in 2017 were the highest this century.
A woman who had a monster surprise on her honeymoon in the Highlands also won £1500 for the experience.
The annual Best Nessie Sighting of the year was won by Rebecca Stewart of Lancashire with a picture she took on her honeymoon last October.
Mrs Stewart from Chadderton, Oldham, photographed and saw the large fin shape for five minutes.
Her husband Paul also saw the creature which was taken while they were with their two year old son Thomas along with the family dog.
Mrs Stewart’s sighting was accepted by the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register and then entered into the competition which has a prize of £1500 given by bookmakers William Hill.
