The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Girl, 12, took snap of Nessie days after ‘most exciting pictures ever’
NEW photographs allegedly showing the Loch Ness Monster were taken in the same week other holidaymakers claimed to have spotted the legendary beast.
Charlotte Robinson, 12, from Leeds, was recorded in the official sightings register as having seen the mythical creature emerge from the loch around 50ft away.
She said that it had “a neck and [its] head was in the shape of a hook” and that it disappeared, before reemerging elsewhere for about a minute.
She took a picture on her mobile phone that appears to show something protruding from the loch’s surface, but is unlikely to settle the decades-long debate over whether a serpent-type creature is living in its waters.
The sighting on Aug 17 2018 happened four days after newly published images were taken that have been hailed as the “most exciting ever” pictures of Nessie. Translator Chie Kelly took the photographs and said she witnessed the creature moving at “steady speed” on the banks of the loch while holidaying there.
However, the images were only published this week as she feared public ridicule. Ms Kelly was eventually persuaded to release them by Steve Feltham, who has spent more than 30 years searching for Nessie.
Ms Kelly, 51, was inspired to go public by the largest search for Nessie in more than 50 years at the weekend, in which hundreds of volunteers took part.
However, their efforts were hampered by bad weather and, although underwater microphones picked up four “strange” sounds, investigators forgot to turn on their recording equipment.
Charlotte’s sighting came on the first day of her holiday at Loch Ness Highland Lodges at Invermoriston with her ‘There was something in the water. I took a photo. It had a neck and its head was in the shape of a hook’ parents. “There was something in the water about 50ft from the shore. I took a photo. It had a neck and [its] head was in the shape of a hook,” she said at the time.
“I just took what I saw. It was black. I just don’t know how far it was out of the water. I’m not good at judging distances. But after about a minute it disappeared and then came back up again in a different place.
“It was up for less than a minute the second time. I kind of believed in Nessie, but I wanted to see the proof. I always imagined her as having a long neck and flippers. I have seen something but I’m not sure what.”
Her mother Kat, a business intelligence data analyst, told reporters at the time: “Charlotte said she had taken a photo of a creature in the loch and I said, ‘Right, sure you have!’ For weeks she’s been going on about seeing the Loch Ness Monster. But when I saw the picture, I couldn’t believe it. Something’s there. With all the sightings over the years, there must be something in the loch.”
Charlotte’s sighting was accepted by the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register, while Ms Kelly’s four days earlier has just been added. Gary Campbell, the keeper of the register, said: “It was some extraordinary week because as well as Charlotte’s sighting there were three others of an unexplained creature.
“It appears that the creature was moving between Dores and Fort Augustus. These pictures by Ms Kelly and Charlotte are the best of Nessie ever taken and are totally baffling. It all adds to the evidence that is definitely something unexplained in Loch Ness.”
Mr Feltham said the photographs taken by Ms Kelly were “the most exciting surface pictures I have seen” and “vindication for all the people who believe there is something unexplained in Loch Ness”.
The first recorded sighting was made in 564 but the legend captured the public imagination in the 1930s. It followed Aldie Mackay reporting seeing a “whale-like fish”, which was featured in the Inverness Courier.