NESSIE hunters – and Scotland’s tourism industry – can breathe a sigh of relief. After an absence of more than eight months, the Loch Ness Monster has been officially spotted for the first time since August.
An English tourist saw what looked like a neck sticking out of the water in the loch’s Urquhart Bay. The official recorder of Nessie appearances, Gary Campbell, said: “There have been sightings of Nessie there before.
“I was quite worried about the gap since the last sighting – and so was the whole world, it seemed. I fielded calls from around the world – from Moscow, Adelaide and California, everywhere, asking what had happened to Nessie. I am relieved and delighted with this sighting. Last year was a record year for this century with eight, and then she seemed to have disappeared.
“Nessie is seen in the winter but it’s much more common in the summer. There are more people around in the summer, there are much longer daylight hours and the weather tends to be better.”
Campbell said two of last year’s sightings were by webcam, including one from an online watcher in America. He said: “More people than ever before are looking for Nessie – which might explain the rise in last year’s sightings. You have to go back to 2000 when there were 11, for more.”
The visitor who saw Nessie, Hayley Johnson, 28, from Manchester, said: “I couldn’t believe my eyes. I am a really sceptical person.
“I was staying in a backpackers’ hotel and on my last night decided to go for a walk through the woods and ended up on the banks of the loch. It was dusk and it was lovely.
“Then about half a mile away I saw this dark shape sticking up – like a neck. I thought at first it was a tree, but it was very strange. I took a picture. It was there for a couple of seconds, but when I looked back it was gone. I’m so excited – what happened was unbelievable.”
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