Twelfth sighting of Loch Ness monster puts 2019 on track to be a record year

The famed monster in Loch Ness, Scotland has apparently been spotted for a twelfth time this year, putting 2019 on track to become the year with the most sightings this century. The sudden glut of Nessie sightings comes at the same time that a professor leading a major scientific study of Loch Ness has suggested that Nessie ‘might’ just be real.

The record for sightings was set last year with a total of 15 throughout the year as Nessie is increasingly being spotted by the public after a long period of inattention.

The latest sighting occurred just last Thursday when Richard Cobb of Bradford, England claimed he saw something break the surface and cause disturbances in the water for as much as 90 seconds while he was staying at a holiday lodge near the Craigdarroch Inn.

Bradford, who calls himself a Nessie sceptic, told The Daily Mail, “I’ve been coming to Loch Ness since 1992 and I know what a boat wake looks like. But there were no boats around when this thing surfaced…I never believed in Nessie – but now I’m not so sure. What I saw was just weird.”

Bradford’s sighting joins eleven others that have occurred since the start of the year including that of a boat captain Mike Bell whose underwater sonar logged the presence of an 8-metre object swimming near an area known to be one of Nessie’s favourite lairs. The sonar recording has now been accepted by the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register.

Meanwhile, Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago, New Zealand, and his team have taken water samples from the loch from three different depths on their research vessel Deepscan, collecting DNA left by all creatures from their skin, scales, feathers, fur and faeces.

These DNA samples have since been sent to labs in New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, and France to be analysed, and while full results aren’t in yet Gemmell has announced that they are pointing toward something possibly being down there.

The first sighting of Nessie is alleged to have occurred in the River Ness in 565AD when Irish missionary St Columba is first said to have “encountered a beast”. Stories of the Loch Ness Monster are said to be worth R710-million a year in tourism to the region.

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