‘I was in shock – it looked like a big serpent…’

BOWNESSIE: Matt Benefield’s amazing photo thought ‘ bloody hell,’ and took a picture with my mobile phone.

“There’s nothing that big in the loch. I was in shock as it looked like a big serpent.

“You can’t fake a sonar image.” So what IS going on down in the depths of British waters?

Astonishingly, humungous EELS are responsible for most of the ‘ monster’ sightings, according to many top boffins.

Richard Freeman is the Zoological

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Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology and a former headkeeper at Twycross Zoo.

He said: “The idea of a prehistoric reptile in these cold, northern lakes is a non- starter. But the monsters could be some kind of large eel.

“The common eel swims out to the Sargasso Sea to breed, then die. The baby eels follow scent trails back to their ancestral fresh- water homes and the cycle begins again.

“Sometimes a mutation occurs and the eel is sterile. These stay in fresh water and keep on growing.

“Known as ‘ eunuch’ eels, no- one knows how old they get, or how big.”

Freeman’s colleague at the CFZ, Jon Downes, added: “European eels are not supposed to get bigger than four feet, but in a large body of water like Windermere or Loch Ness, a specimen of up to 12ft could be living.”

In February 2004, two Canadian tourists came upon a 25ft eel floating in the shallows of Loch Ness.

At first they thought it was dead but when it began to move they beat a hasty retreat.

In the 1980s, a 20ftt eel was reported in the Birmingham Ship Canal.

Another 20ft eel was reportedly caught in the cooling system in some aluminium works in Dores, a village south of Loch Ness.

One theory suggests that these rare, naturally occurring mutations may now be on the increase due to pollution.

So our water monsters might not be ancient creatures, but they really DO exist…