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Overcoming his shyNESS? Loch Ness monster ‘sighted 8 times’ in 2017
More people claim to have caught a glimpse of the legendary Loch Ness monster in 2017 than in any other year this century. Up to eight official sightings of the fabled creature were recorded in Scotland’s most famous waterway this year alone.
The most recent sighting came in early November when genetic scientist Dr. Jo Knight, of Lancaster University, spotted something “very dark” while monster hunting with her son in Urquhart Bay, a favourite haunt of Nessie.
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But, after taking hundreds of pictures, she concluded it might not actually have been the legendary leviathan after all.
“There aren’t enough fish available for a large creature to be eating,” Knight told the BBC. “However, there is a possibility there might be some kind of eel or sturgeon which is causing the sightings, that’s maybe grown bigger than they usually do.”
“I think there’s some kind of creature, but possibly not a monster.”
She added: “What is in the photograph is part of the enduring mystery, part of the legend, part of the magic. [My son] Sam would like to come back and have another look.”
Gary Campbell, the recorder and keeper of the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register, told the Daily Express that Knight and her son’s sighting had been considered official, making it the eighth this year – hitting a new record for the 21st century.
“This is the most we have had this century,” he told the Express newspaper this week.
READ MORE: Mysterious new footage of ‘Loch Ness Monster’ breathes life into ‘Nessie’ legend
“In recent years the most sightings in a year we have had is 17 – and that was in 1996.
“Before that, the 1960s and 1930s were the times that had most sightings – sometimes more than 20 in a year.”
There were three official sightings in June, and one in May, April, August and October.
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